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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by
+Edward William Thomson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old Man Savarin and Other Stories
+
+Author: Edward William Thomson
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2007 [EBook #20345]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MAN SAVARIN AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Diane Monico, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by the Canadian Institute for
+Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org).)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OFF-HAND STORIES
+
+
+OLD MAN SAVARIN
+
+And Other Stories
+
+BY
+
+EDWARD WILLIAM THOMSON
+
+
+TORONTO:
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS.
+
+C. W. COATES, MONTREAL, QUE.      S. F. HUESTIS, HALIFAX, N.S.
+
+1895.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
+one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by WILLIAM BRIGGS,
+Toronto, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, at Ottawa.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                    PAGE
+
+I. OLD MAN SAVARIN                     7
+
+II. THE PRIVILEGE OF THE LIMITS       29
+
+III. MCGRATH'S BAD NIGHT              45
+
+IV. GREAT GODFREY'S LAMENT            67
+
+V. THE RED-HEADED WINDEGO             89
+
+VI. THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD      109
+
+VII. LITTLE BAPTISTE                 125
+
+VIII. THE RIDE BY NIGHT              152
+
+IX. DRAFTED                          174
+
+X. A TURKEY APIECE                   199
+
+XI. GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY           219
+
+XII. THE WATERLOO VETERAN            239
+
+XIII. JOHN BEDELL                    251
+
+XIV. VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM          271
+
+
+
+
+_For liberty to issue these stories in present form the author has to
+thank_ THE YOUTHS' COMPANION, _Boston; the proprietors of "Two Tales,"
+in which "Old Man Savarin" and "Great Godfrey's Lament" first
+appeared; and "Harper's Weekly" and Mr. S. S. McClure's syndicate of
+newspapers, which, respectively, first published "The Privilege of the
+Limits" and "John Bedell"_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OLD MAN SAVARIN.
+
+
+Old Ma'ame Paradis had caught seventeen small dore, four suckers, and
+eleven channel-catfish before she used up all the worms in her
+tomato-can. Therefore she was in a cheerful and loquacious humor when
+I came along and offered her some of my bait.
+
+"Merci; non, M'sieu. Dat's 'nuff fishin' for me. I got too old now for
+fish too much. You like me make you present of six or seven dore? Yes?
+All right. Then you make me present of one quarter dollar."
+
+When this transaction was completed, the old lady got out her short
+black clay pipe, and filled it with _tabac blanc_.
+
+"Ver' good smell for scare mosquitoes," said she. "Sit down, M'sieu.
+For sure I like to be here, me, for see the river when she's like
+this."
+
+Indeed the scene was more than picturesque. Her fishing-platform
+extended twenty feet from the rocky shore of the great Rataplan Rapid
+of the Ottawa, which, beginning to tumble a mile to the westward,
+poured a roaring torrent half a mile wide into the broader, calm brown
+reach below. Noble elms towered on the shores. Between their trunks we
+could see many whitewashed cabins, whose doors of blue or green or red
+scarcely disclosed their colors in that light.
+
+The sinking sun, which already touched the river, seemed somehow the
+source of the vast stream that flowed radiantly from its blaze.
+Through the glamour of the evening mist and the maze of June flies we
+could see a dozen men scooping for fish from platforms like that of
+Ma'ame Paradis.
+
+Each scooper lifted a great hoop-net set on a handle some fifteen feet
+long, threw it easily up stream, and swept it on edge with the
+current to the full length of his reach. Then it was drawn out and at
+once thrown upward again, if no capture had been made. In case he had
+taken fish, he came to the inshore edge of his platform, and upset the
+net's contents into a pool separated from the main rapid by an
+improvised wall of stones.
+
+"I'm too old for scoop some now," said Ma'ame Paradis, with a sigh.
+
+"You were never strong enough to scoop, surely," said I.
+
+"No, eh? All right, M'sieu. Then you hain't nev' hear 'bout the time
+Old Man Savarin was catched up with. No, eh? Well, I'll tol' you 'bout
+that." And this was her story as she told it to me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Der was fun dose time. Nobody ain't nev' catch up with dat old rascal
+ony other time since I'll know him first. Me, I'll be only fifteen
+den. Dat's long time 'go, eh? Well, for sure, I ain't so old like
+what I'll look. But Old Man Savarin was old already. He's old, old,
+old, when he's only thirty; an' _mean--bapteme!_ If de old Nick ain'
+got de hottest place for dat old stingy--yes, for sure!
+
+"You'll see up dere where Frawce Seguin is scoop? Dat's the Laroque
+platform by right. Me, I was a Laroque. My fader was use for scoop
+dere, an' my gran'fader--the Laroques scoop dere all de time since
+ever dere was some Rapid Rataplan. Den Old Man Savarin he's buyed the
+land up dere from Felix Ladoucier, an' he's told my fader, 'You can't
+scoop no more wisout you pay me rent.'
+
+"'Rent!' my fader say. '_Saprie!_ Dat's my fader's platform for scoop
+fish! You ask anybody.'
+
+"'Oh, I'll know all 'bout dat,' Old Man Savarin is say. 'Ladoucier let
+you scoop front of his land, for Ladoucier one big fool. De lan's mine
+now, an' de fishin' right is mine. You can't scoop dere wisout you pay
+me rent.'
+
+"'_Bapteme!_ I'll show you 'bout dat,' my fader say.
+
+"Next mawny he is go for scoop same like always. Den Old Man Savarin
+is fetch my fader up before de magistrate. De magistrate make my fader
+pay nine shillin'!
+
+"'Mebbe dat's learn you one lesson,' Old Man Savarin is say.
+
+"My fader swear pretty good, but my moder say: 'Well, Narcisse, dere
+hain' no use for take it out in _malediction_. De nine shillin' is
+paid. You scoop more fish--dat's the way.'
+
+"So my fader he is go out early, early nex' mawny. He's scoop, he's
+scoop. He's catch plenty fish before Old Man Savarin come.
+
+"'You ain't got 'nuff yet for fishin' on my land, eh? Come out of
+dat,' Old Man Savarin is say.
+
+"'_Saprie!_ Ain' I pay nine shillin' for fish here?' my fader say.
+
+"'_Oui_--you pay nine shillin' for fish here _wisout_ my leave. But
+you ain't pay nothin' for fish here _wis_ my leave. You is goin' up
+before de magistrate some more.'
+
+"So he is fetch my fader up anoder time. An' de magistrate make my
+fader pay twelve shillin' more!
+
+"'Well, I s'pose I can go fish on my fader's platform now,' my fader
+is say.
+
+"Old Man Savarin was laugh. 'Your honor, dis man tink he don't have
+for pay me no rent, because you'll make him pay two fines for trespass
+on my land.'
+
+"So de magistrate told my fader he hain't got no more right for go on
+his own platform than he was at the start. My fader is ver' angry.
+He's cry, he's tear his shirt; but Old Man Savarin only say, 'I guess
+I learn you one good lesson, Narcisse.'
+
+"De whole village ain't told de old rascal how much dey was angry
+'bout dat, for Old Man Savarin is got dem all in debt at his big
+store. He is grin, grin, and told everybody how he learn my fader two
+good lesson. An' he is told my fader: 'You see what I'll be goin' for
+do wis you if ever you go on my land again wisout you pay me rent.'
+
+"'How much you want?' my fader say.
+
+"'Half de fish you catch.'
+
+"'_Monjee!_ Never!'
+
+"'Five dollar a year, den.'
+
+"'_Saprie_, no. Dat's too much.'
+
+"'All right. Keep off my lan', if you hain't want anoder lesson.'
+
+"'You's a tief,' my fader say.
+
+"'Hermidas, make up Narcisse Laroque bill,' de old rascal say to his
+clerk. 'If he hain't pay dat bill to-morrow, I sue him.'
+
+"So my fader is scare mos' to death. Only my moder she's say, '_I'll_
+pay dat bill, me.'
+
+"So she's take the money she's saved up long time for make my weddin'
+when it come. An' she's paid de bill. So den my fader hain't scare no
+more, an' he is shake his fist good under Old Man Savarin's ugly nose.
+But dat old rascal only laugh an' say, 'Narcisse, you like to be fined
+some more, eh?'
+
+"'_Tort Dieu_. You rob me of my place for fish, but I'll take my
+platform anyhow,' my fader is say.
+
+"'Yes, eh? All right--if you can get him wisout go on my land. But you
+go on my land, and see if I don't learn you anoder lesson,' Old
+Savarin is say.
+
+"So my fader is rob of his platform, too. Nex' ting we hear, Frawce
+Seguin has rent dat platform for five dollar a year.
+
+"Den de big fun begin. My fader an Frawce is cousin. All de time
+before den dey was good friend. But my fader he is go to Frawce
+Seguin's place an' he is told him, 'Frawce, I'll goin' lick you so
+hard you can't nev' scoop on my platform.'
+
+"Frawce only laugh. Den Old Man Savarin come up de hill.
+
+"'Fetch him up to de magistrate an' learn him anoder lesson,' he is
+say to Frawce.
+
+"'What for?' Frawce say.
+
+"'For try to scare you.'
+
+"'He hain't hurt me none.'
+
+"'But he's say he will lick you.'
+
+"'Dat's only because he's vex,' Frawce say.
+
+"'_Bapteme! Non!_' my fader say. 'I'll be goin' for lick you good,
+Frawce.'
+
+"'For sure?' Frawce say.
+
+"'_Saprie!_ Yes; for sure.'
+
+"'Well, dat's all right den, Narcisse. When you goin' for lick me?'
+
+"'First time I'll get drunk. I'll be goin' for get drunk dis same
+day.'
+
+"'All right, Narcisse. If you goin' get drunk for lick me, I'll be
+goin' get drunk for lick you'--_Canadien_ hain't nev' fool 'nuff for
+fight, M'sieu, only if dey is got drunk.
+
+"Well, my fader he's go on old Marceau's hotel, an' he's drink all
+day. Frawce Seguin he's go cross de road on Joe Maufraud's hotel, an'
+_he's_ drink all day. When de night come, dey's bose stand out in
+front of de two hotel for fight.
+
+"Dey's bose yell an' yell for make de oder feller scare bad before dey
+begin. Hermidas Laronde an' Jawnny Leroi dey's hold my fader for fear
+he's go 'cross de road for keel Frawce Seguin dead. Pierre Seguin an'
+Magloire Sauve is hold Frawce for fear he's come 'cross de road for
+keel my fader dead. And dose men fight dat way 'cross de road, till
+dey hain't hardly able for stand up no more.
+
+"My fader he's tear his shirt and he's yell, 'Let me at him!' Frawce
+he's tear his shirt and he's yell, 'Let me at him!' But de men hain't
+goin' for let dem loose, for fear one is strike de oder ver' hard. De
+whole village is shiver 'bout dat offle fight--yes, seh, shiver bad!
+
+"Well, dey's fight like dat for more as four hours, till dey hain't
+able for yell no more, an' dey hain't got no money left for buy
+wheeskey for de crowd. Den Marceau and Joe Maufraud tol' dem bose it
+was a shame for two cousins to fight so bad. An' my fader he's say
+he's ver' sorry dat he lick Frawce so hard, and dey's bose sorry. So
+dey's kiss one anoder good--only all their close is tore to pieces.
+
+"An' what you tink 'bout Old Man Savarin? Old Man Savarin is just
+stand in front of his store all de time, an' he's say: 'I'll tink I'll
+fetch him _bose_ hup to de magistrate, an' I'll learn him _bose_ a
+lesson.'
+
+"Me, I'll be only fifteen, but I hain't scare 'bout dat fight same
+like my moder is scare. No more is Alphonsine Seguin scare. She's
+seventeen, an' she wait for de fight to be all over. Den she take her
+fader home, same like I'll take my fader home for bed. Dat's after
+twelve o'clock of night.
+
+"Nex' mawny early my fader he's groaned and he's groaned:
+'Ah--ugh--I'm sick, sick, me. I'll be goin' for die dis time, for
+sure.'
+
+"'You get up an' scoop some fish,' my moder she's say, angry. 'Den you
+hain't be sick no more.'
+
+"'Ach--ugh--I'll hain't be able. Oh, I'll be so sick. An' I hain' got
+no place for scoop fish now no more. Frawce Seguin has rob my
+platform.'
+
+"'Take de nex' one lower down,' my moder she's say.
+
+"'Dat's Jawnny Leroi's.'
+
+"'All right for dat. Jawnny he's hire for run timber to-day.'
+
+"'Ugh--I'll not be able for get up. Send for M'sieu le Cure--I'll be
+goin' for die for sure.'
+
+"'_Mis re_, but dat's no _man_! Dat's a drunk pig,' my moder she's
+say, angry. 'Sick, eh? Lazy, lazy--dat's so. An' dere hain't no fish
+for de little chilluns, an' it's Friday mawny.' So my moder she's
+begin for cry.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, I'll make de rest short; for de sun is all gone now.
+What you tink I do dat mawny? I take de big scoop-net an' I'll come up
+here for see if I'll be able for scoop some fish on Jawnny Leroi's
+platform. Only dere hain't nev' much fish dere.
+
+"Pretty quick I'll look up and I'll see Alphonsine Seguin scoop, scoop
+on my fader's old platform. Alphonsine's fader is sick, sick, same
+like my fader, an' all de Seguin boys is too little for scoop, same
+like my brudders is too little. So dere Alphonsine she's scoop, scoop
+for breakfas'.
+
+"What you tink I'll see some more? I'll see Old Man Savarin. He's
+watchin' from de corner of de cedar bush, an' I'll know ver' good what
+he's watch for. He's watch for catch my fader go on his own platform.
+He's want for learn my fader anoder lesson. _Saprie!_ dat's make me
+ver' angry, M'sieu!
+
+"Alphonsine she's scoop, scoop plenty fish. I'll not be scoop none.
+Dat's make me more angry. I'll look up where Alphonsine is, an' I'll
+talk to myself:--
+
+"'Dat's my fader's platform,' I'll be say. 'Dat's my fader's fish what
+you catch, Alphonsine. You hain't nev' be my cousin no more. It is
+mean, mean for Frawce Seguin to rent my fader's platform for please
+dat old rascal Savarin.' Mebby I'll not be so angry at Alphonsine,
+M'sieu, if I was able for catch some fish; but I hain't able--I don't
+catch none.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, dat's de way for long time--half-hour mebby. Den I'll
+hear Alphonsine yell good. I'll look up de river some more. She's try
+for lift her net. She's try hard, hard, but she hain't able. De net is
+down in de rapid, an' she's only able for hang on to de hannle. Den
+I'll know she's got one big sturgeon, an' he's so big she can't pull
+him up.
+
+"_Monjee!_ what I care 'bout dat! I'll laugh me. Den I'll laugh good
+some more, for I'll want Alphonsine for see how I'll laugh big. And
+I'll talk to myself:--
+
+"'Dat's good for dose Seguins,' I'll say. 'De big sturgeon will pull
+away de net. Den Alphonsine she will lose her fader's scoop wis de
+sturgeon. Dat's good 'nuff for dose Seguins! Take my fader platform,
+eh?'
+
+"For sure, I'll want for go an' help Alphonsine all de same--she's my
+cousin, an' I'll want for see de sturgeon, me. But I'll only just
+laugh, laugh. _Non, M'sieu_; dere was not one man out on any of de
+oder platform dat mawny for to help Alphonsine. Dey was all sleep ver'
+late, for dey was all out ver' late for see de offle fight I told you
+'bout.
+
+"Well, pretty quick, what you tink? I'll see Old Man Savarin goin' to
+my fader's platform. He's take hold for help Alphonsine an' dey's bose
+pull, and pretty quick de big sturgeon is up on de platform. I'll be
+more angry as before.
+
+"Oh, _tort Dieu!_ What you tink come den? Why, dat Old Man Savarin is
+want for take de sturgeon!
+
+"First dey hain't speak so I can hear, for de Rapid is too loud. But
+pretty quick dey's bose angry, and I hear dem talk.
+
+"'Dat's my fish,' Old Man Savarin is say. 'Didn't I save him? Wasn't
+you goin' for lose him, for sure?'
+
+"Me--I'll laugh good. Dass _such_ an old rascal.
+
+"'You get off dis platform, quick!' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"'Give me my sturgeon,' he's say.
+
+"'Dat's a lie--it hain't your sturgeon. It's _my_ sturgeon,' she's
+yell.
+
+"'I'll learn you one lesson 'bout dat,' he's say.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, Alphonsine she's pull back de fish just when Old Man
+Savarin is make one grab. An' when she's pull back, she's step to one
+side, an' de old rascal he is, grab at de fish, an' de heft of de
+sturgeon is make him fall on his face, so he's tumble in de Rapid when
+Alphonsine let go de sturgeon. So dere's Old Man Savarin floating in
+de river--and _me_! I'll don' care eef he's drown one bit!
+
+"One time he is on his back, one time he is on his face, one time he
+is all under de water. For sure he's goin' for be draw into de
+_culbute_ an' get drown' dead, if I'll not be able for scoop him when
+he's go by my platform. I'll want for laugh, but I'll be too much
+scare.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, I'll pick up my fader's scoop and I'll stand out on de
+edge of de platform. De water is run so fast, I'm mos' 'fraid de old
+man is boun' for pull me in when I'll scoop him. But I'll not mind for
+dat, I'll throw de scoop an' catch him; an' for sure, he's hold on
+good.
+
+"So dere's de old rascal in de scoop, but when I'll get him safe, I
+hain't able for pull him in one bit. I'll only be able for hold on an'
+laugh, laugh--he's look _ver_' queer! All I can do is to hold him dere
+so he can't go down de _culbute_. I'll can't pull him up if I'll want
+to.
+
+"De old man is scare ver' bad. But pretty quick he's got hold of de
+cross-bar of de hoop, an' he's got his ugly old head up good.
+
+"'Pull me in,' he say, ver' angry.
+
+"'I'll hain't be able,' I'll say.
+
+"Jus' den Alphonsine she come 'long, an' she's laugh so she can't
+hardly hold on wis me to de hannle. I was laugh good some more. When
+de old villain see us have fun, he's yell: 'I'll learn you bose one
+lesson for this. Pull me ashore!'
+
+"'Oh! you's learn, us bose one lesson, M'sieu Savarin, eh?' Alphonsine
+she's say. 'Well, den, us bose will learn M'sieu Savarin one lesson
+first. Pull him up a little,' she's say to me.
+
+"So we pull him up, an' den Alphonsine she's say to me: 'Let out de
+hannle, quick'--and he's under de water some more. When we stop de
+net, he's got hees head up pretty quick.
+
+"'_Monjee!_ I'll be drown' if you don't pull me out,' he's mos' _cry_.
+
+"'Ver' well--if you's drown, your family be ver' glad,' Alphonsine
+she's say. 'Den they's got all your money for spend quick, quick.'
+
+"M'sieu, dat scare him offle. He's begin for cry like one baby.
+
+"'Save me out,' he's say. 'I'll give you anything I've got.'
+
+"'How much?' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"He's tink, and he's say, 'Quarter dollar.'
+
+"Alphonsine an' me is laugh, laugh.
+
+"'Save me,' he's cry some more. 'I hain't fit for die dis mawny.'
+
+"'You hain' fit for live no mawny,' Alphonsine she's say. 'One quarter
+dollar, eh? Where's my sturgeon?'
+
+"'He's got away when, I fall in,' he's say.
+
+"'How much you goin' give me for lose my big sturgeon?' she's ask.
+
+"'How much you'll want, Alphonsine?'
+
+"'Two dollare.'
+
+"'Dat's too much for one sturgeon,' he's say. For all he was not feel
+fit for die, he was more 'fraid for pay out his money.
+
+"'Let him down some more,' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"'Oh. _misere, misere_! I'll pay de two dollare,' he's say when his
+head come up some more.
+
+"'Ver' well, den,' Alphonsine she's say; 'I'll be willin' for save
+you, _me_. But you hain't scooped by _me_. You's in Marie's net. I'll
+only come for help Marie. You's her sturgeon;' an' Alphonsine she's
+laugh an' laugh.
+
+"'I didn't lose no sturgeon for Marie,' he's say.
+
+"'No, eh?" I'll say mysef. 'But you's steal my fader's platform. You's
+take his fishin' place. You's got him fined two times. You's make my
+moder pay his bill wis _my_ weddin' money. What you goin' pay for all
+dat? You tink I'll be goin' for mos' kill mysef pullin' you out for
+noting? When you ever do someting for anybody for noting, eh, M'sieu
+Savarin?'
+
+"'How much you want?' he's say.
+
+"'Ten dollare for de platform, dat's all.'
+
+"'Never--dat's robbery,' he's say, an' he's begin to cry like _ver_'
+li'll baby.
+
+"'Pull him hup, Marie, an' give him some more,' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"But de old rascal is so scare 'bout dat, dat he's say he's pay right
+off. So we's pull him up near to de platform, only we hain't big 'nuff
+fool for let him out of de net till he's take out his purse an' pay de
+twelve dollare.
+
+"_Monjee_, M'sieu! If ever you see one angry old rascal! He not even
+stop for say: 'T'ank you for save me from be drown' dead in the
+_culbute_!' He's run for his house an' he's put on dry clo'es, an'
+he's go up to de magistrate first ting for learn me an' Alphonsine one
+big lesson.
+
+"But de magistrate hain' ver' bad magistrate. He's only laugh an' he's
+say:--
+
+"'M'sieu Savarin, de whole river will be laugh at you for let two
+young girl take eet out of smart man like you like dat. Hain't you
+tink your life worth twelve dollare? Didn't dey save you from de
+_culbute_? _Monjee!_ I'll tink de whole river not laugh so ver' bad if
+you pay dose young girl one hunder dollare for save you so kind.'
+
+"'One hunder dollare!' he's mos' cry. 'Hain't you goin' to learn dose
+girl one lesson for take advantage of me dat way?'
+
+"'Didn't you pay dose girl yoursef? Didn't you took out your purse
+yoursef? Yes, eh? Well, den, I'll goin' for learn you one lesson
+yoursef, M'sieu Savarin.' de magistrate is say. 'Dose two young girl
+is ver' wicked, eh? Yes, dat's so. But for why? Hain't dey just do to
+you what you been doin' ever since you was in beesness? Don' I know?
+You hain' never yet got advantage of nobody wisout you rob him all you
+can, an' dose wicked young girl only act just like you give dem a
+lesson all your life.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"An' de best fun was de whole river _did_ laugh at M'sieu Savarin. An'
+my fader and Frawce Seguin is laugh most of all, till he's catch hup
+wis bose of dem anoder time. You come for see me some more, an' I'll
+tol' you 'bout dat."
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIVILEGE OF THE LIMITS.
+
+
+"Yes, indeed, my grandfather wass once in jail," said old Mrs.
+McTavish, of the county of Glengarry, in Ontario, Canada; "but that
+wass for debt, and he wass a ferry honest man whateffer, and he would
+not broke his promise--no, not for all the money in Canada. If you
+will listen to me, I will tell chust exactly the true story about that
+debt, to show you what an honest man my grandfather wass.
+
+"One time Tougal Stewart, him that wass the poy's grandfather that
+keeps the same store in Cornwall to this day, sold a plough to my
+grandfather, and my grandfather said he would pay half the plough in
+October, and the other half whateffer time he felt able to pay the
+money. Yes, indeed, that was the very promise my grandfather gave.
+
+"So he was at Tougal Stewart's store on the first of October early in
+the morning pefore the shutters wass taken off, and he paid half chust
+exactly to keep his word. Then the crop wass ferry pad next year, and
+the year after that one of his horses wass killed py lightning, and
+the next year his brother, that wass not rich and had a big family,
+died, and do you think wass my grandfather to let the family be
+disgraced without a good funeral? No, indeed. So my grandfather paid
+for the funeral, and there was at it plenty of meat and drink for
+eferypody, as wass the right Hielan' custom those days; and after the
+funeral my grandfather did not feel chust exactly able to pay the
+other half for the plough that year either.
+
+"So, then, Tougal Stewart met my grandfather in Cornwall next day
+after the funeral, and asked him if he had some money to spare.
+
+"'Wass you in need of help, Mr. Stewart?' says my grandfather, kindly.
+'For if it's in any want you are, Tougal,' says my grandfather, 'I
+will sell the coat off my back, if there is no other way to lend you a
+loan;' for that was always the way of my grandfather with all his
+friends, and a bigger-hearted man there never wass in all Glengarry,
+or in Stormont, or in Dundas, moreofer.
+
+"'In want!' says Tougal--'in want, Mr. McTavish!' says he, very high.
+'Would you wish to insult a gentleman, and him of the name of Stewart,
+that's the name of princes of the world?' he said, so he did.
+
+"Seeing Tougal had his temper up, my grandfather spoke softly, being a
+quiet, peaceable man, and in wonder what he had said to offend Tougal.
+
+"'Mr. Stewart,' says my grandfather, 'it wass not in my mind to anger
+you whatefer. Only I thought, from your asking me if I had some money,
+that you might be looking for a wee bit of a loan, as many a gentleman
+has to do at times, and no shame to him at all,' said my grandfather.
+
+"'A loan?' says Tougal, sneering. 'A loan, is it? Where's your memory,
+Mr. McTavish? Are you not owing me half the price of the plough you've
+had these three years?'
+
+"'And wass you asking me for money for the other half of the plough?'
+says my grandfather, very astonished.
+
+"'Just that,' says Tougal.
+
+"'Have you no shame or honor in you?' says my grandfather, firing up.
+'How could I feel able to pay that now, and me chust yesterday been
+giving my poor brother a funeral fit for the McTavishes' own
+grand-nephew, that wass as good chentleman's plood as any Stewart in
+Glengarry. You saw the expense I wass at, for there you wass, and I
+thank you for the politeness of coming, Mr. Stewart,' says my
+grandfather, ending mild, for the anger would never stay in him more
+than a minute, so kind was the nature he had.
+
+"'If you can spend money on a funeral like that, you can pay me for my
+plough,' says Stewart; for with buying and selling he wass become a
+poor creature, and the heart of a Hielan'man wass half gone out of
+him, for all he wass so proud of his name of monarchs and kings.
+
+"My grandfather had a mind to strike him down on the spot, so he often
+said; but he thought of the time when he hit Hamish Cochrane in anger,
+and he minded the penances the priest put on him for breaking the
+silly man's jaw with that blow, so he smothered the heat that wass in
+him, and turned away in scorn. With that Tougal Stewart went to court,
+and sued my grandfather, puir mean creature.
+
+"You might think that Judge Jones--him that wass judge in Cornwall
+before Judge Jarvis that's dead--would do justice. But no, he made it
+the law that my grandfather must pay at once, though Tougal Stewart
+could not deny what the bargain wass.
+
+"'Your Honor,' says my grandfather, 'I said I'd pay when I felt able.
+And do I feel able now? No, I do not,' says he. 'It's a disgrace to
+Tougal Stewart to ask me, and himself telling you what the bargain
+was,' said my grandfather. But Judge Jones said that he must pay, for
+all that he did not feel able.
+
+"'I will nefer pay one copper till I feel able,' says my grandfather;
+'but I'll keep my Hielan' promise to my dying day, as I always done,'
+says he.
+
+"And with that the old judge laughed, and said he would have to give
+judgment. And so he did; and after that Tougal Stewart got out an
+execution. But not the worth of a handful of oatmeal could the bailiff
+lay hands on, because my grandfather had chust exactly taken the
+precaution to give a bill of sale on his gear to his neighbor,
+Alexander Frazer, that could be trusted to do what was right after the
+law play was over.
+
+"The whole settlement had great contempt for Tougal Stewart's conduct;
+but he was a headstrong body, and once he begun to do wrong against
+my grandfather, he held on, for all that his trade fell away; and
+finally he had my grandfather arrested for debt, though you'll
+understand, sir, that he was owing Stewart nothing that he ought to
+pay when he didn't feel able.
+
+"In those times prisoners for debt was taken to jail in Cornwall, and
+if they had friends to give bail that they would not go beyond the
+posts that was around the sixteen acres nearest the jail walls, the
+prisoners could go where they liked on that ground. This was called
+'the privilege of the limits.' The limits, you'll understand, wass
+marked by cedar posts painted white about the size of hitching-posts.
+
+"The whole settlement was ready to go bail for my grandfather if he
+wanted it, and for the health of him he needed to be in the open air,
+and so he gave Tuncan-Macdonnell of the Greenfields, and AEneas
+Macdonald of the Sandfields, for his bail, and he promised, on his
+Hielan' word of honor, not to go beyond the posts. With that he went
+where he pleased, only taking care that he never put even the toe of
+his foot beyond a post, for all that some prisoners of the limits
+would chump ofer them and back again, or maybe swing round them,
+holding by their hands.
+
+"Efery day the neighbors would go into Cornwall to give my grandfather
+the good word, and they would offer to pay Tougal Stewart for the
+other half of the plough, only that vexed my grandfather, for he was
+too proud to borrow, and, of course, every day he felt less and less
+able to pay on account of him having to hire a man to be doing the
+spring ploughing and seeding and making the kale-yard.
+
+"All this time, you'll mind, Tougal Stewart had to pay five shillings
+a week for my grandfather's keep, the law being so that if the debtor
+swore he had not five pound's worth of property to his name, then the
+creditor had to pay the five shillings, and, of course, my grandfather
+had nothing to his name after he gave the bill of sale to Alexander
+Frazer. A great diversion it was to my grandfather to be reckoning up
+that if he lived as long as his father, that was hale and strong at
+ninety-six, Tougal would need to pay five or six hundred pounds for
+him, and there was only two pound five shillings to be paid on the
+plough.
+
+"So it was like that all summer, my grandfather keeping heartsome,
+with the neighbors coming in so steady to bring him the news of the
+settlement. There he would sit, just inside one of the posts, for to
+pass his jokes, and tell what he wished the family to be doing next.
+This way it might have kept going on for forty years, only it came
+about that my grandfather's youngest child--him that was my
+father--fell sick, and seemed like to die.
+
+"Well, when my grandfather heard that bad news, he wass in a terrible
+way, to be sure, for he would be longing to hold the child in his
+arms, so that his heart was sore and like to break. Eat he could not,
+sleep he could not: all night he would be groaning, and all day he
+would be walking around by the posts, wishing that he had not passed
+his Hielan' word of honor not to go beyond a post; for he thought how
+he could have broken out like a chentleman, and gone to see his sick
+child, if he had stayed inside the jail wall. So it went on three days
+and three nights pefore the wise thought came into my grandfather's
+head to show him how he need not go beyond the posts to see his little
+sick poy. With that he went straight to one of the white cedar posts,
+and pulled it up out of the hole, and started for home, taking great
+care to carry it in his hands pefore him, so he would not be beyond it
+one bit.
+
+"My grandfather wass not half a mile out of Cornwall, which was only a
+little place in those days, when two of the turnkeys came after him.
+
+"'Stop, Mr. McTavish,' says the turnkeys.
+
+"'What for would I stop?' says my grandfather.
+
+"'You have broke your bail,' says they.
+
+"'It's a lie for you,' says my grandfather, for his temper flared up
+for anybody to say he would broke his bail. 'Am I beyond the post?'
+says my grandfather.
+
+"With that they run in on him, only that he knocked the two of them
+over with the post, and went on rejoicing, like an honest man should,
+at keeping his word and overcoming them that would slander his good
+name. The only thing pesides thoughts of the child that troubled him
+was questioning whether he had been strictly right in turning round
+for to use the post to defend himself in such a way that it was nearer
+the jail than what he wass. But when he remembered how the jailer
+never complained of prisoners of the limits chumping ofer the posts,
+if so they chumped back again in a moment, the trouble went out of his
+mind.
+
+"Pretty soon after that he met Tuncan Macdonnell of Greenfields,
+coming into Cornwall with the wagon.
+
+"'And how is this, Glengatchie?' says Tuncan. 'For you were never the
+man to broke your bail.'
+
+"Glengatchie, you'll understand, sir, is the name of my grandfather's
+farm.
+
+"'Never fear, Greenfields,' says my grandfather, 'for I'm not beyond
+the post.'
+
+"So Greenfields looked at the post, and he looked at my grandfather,
+and he scratched his head a wee, and he seen it was so; and then he
+fell into a great admiration entirely.
+
+"'Get in with me, Glengatchie--it's proud I'll be to carry you home;'
+and he turned his team around. My grandfather did so, taking great
+care to keep the post in front of him all the time; and that way he
+reached home. Out comes my grandmother running to embrace him; but she
+had to throw her arms around the post and my grandfather's neck at the
+same time, he was that strict to be within his promise. Pefore going
+ben the house, he went to the back end of the kale-yard which was
+farthest from the jail, and there he stuck the post; and then he went
+back to see his sick child, while all the neighbors that came round
+was glad to see what a wise thought the saints had put into his mind
+to save his bail and his promise.
+
+"So there he stayed a week till my father got well. Of course the
+constables came after my grandfather, but the settlement would not let
+the creatures come within a mile of Glengatchie. You might think, sir,
+that my grandfather would have stayed with his wife and weans, seeing
+the post was all the time in the kale-yard, and him careful not to go
+beyond it; but he was putting the settlement to a great deal of
+trouble day and night to keep the constables off, and he was fearful
+that they might take the post away, if ever they got to Glengatchie,
+and give him the name of false, that no McTavish ever had. So Tuncan
+Greenfields and AEneas Sandfield drove my grandfather back to the jail,
+him with the post behind him in the wagon, so as he would be between
+it and the jail. Of course Tougal Stewart tried his best to have the
+bail declared forfeited; but old Judge Jones only laughed, and said
+my grandfather was a Hielan' gentleman, with a very nice sense of
+honor, and that was chust exactly the truth.
+
+"How did my grandfather get free in the end? Oh, then, that was
+because of Tougal Stewart being careless--him that thought he knew so
+much of the law. The law was, you will mind, that Tougal had to pay
+five shillings a week for keeping my grandfather in the limits. The
+money wass to be paid efery Monday, and it was to be paid in lawful
+money of Canada, too. Well, would you belief that Tougal paid in four
+shillings in silver one Monday, and one shilling in coppers, for he
+took up the collection in church the day pefore, and it wass not till
+Tougal had gone away that the jailer saw that one of the coppers was a
+Brock copper,--a medal, you will understand, made at General Brock's
+death, and not lawful money of Canada at all. With that the jailer
+came out to my grandfather.
+
+"'Mr. McTavish,' says he, taking off his hat, 'you are a free man, and
+I'm glad of it.' Then he told him what Tougal had done.
+
+"'I hope you will not have any hard feelings toward me, Mr. McTavish,'
+said the jailer; and a decent man he wass, for all that there wass not
+a drop of Hielan' blood in him. 'I hope you will not think hard of me
+for not being hospitable to you, sir,' says he; 'but it's against the
+rules and regulations for the jailer to be offering the best he can
+command to the prisoners. Now that you are free, Mr. McTavish,' says
+the jailer, 'I would be a proud man if Mr. McTavish of Glengatchie
+would do me the honor of taking supper with me this night. I will be
+asking your leave to invite some of the gentlemen of the place, if you
+will say the word, Mr. McTavish,' says he.
+
+"Well, my grandfather could never bear malice, the kind man he was,
+and he seen how bad the jailer felt, so he consented, and a great
+company came in, to be sure, to celebrate the occasion.
+
+"Did my grandfather pay the balance on the plough? What for should you
+suspicion, sir, that my grandfather would refuse his honest debt? Of
+course he paid for the plough, for the crop was good that fall.
+
+"'I would be paying you the other half of the plough now, Mr.
+Stewart,' says my grandfather, coming in when the store was full.
+
+"'Hoich, but YOU are the honest McTavish!' says Tougal, sneering.
+
+"But my grandfather made no answer to the creature, for he thought it
+would be unkind to mention how Tougal had paid out six pounds four
+shillings and eleven pence to keep him in on account of a debt of two
+pound five that never was due till it was paid."
+
+
+
+
+McGRATH'S BAD NIGHT.
+
+
+"Come then, childer," said Mrs. McGrath, and took the big iron pot
+off. They crowded around her, nine of them, the eldest not more than
+thirteen, the youngest just big enough to hold out his yellow crockery
+bowl.
+
+"The youngest first," remarked Mrs. McGrath, and ladled out a portion
+of the boiled corn-meal to each of the deplorable boys and girls.
+Before they reached the stools from which they had sprung up, or
+squatted again on the rough floor, they all burned their mouths in
+tasting the mush too eagerly. Then there they sat, blowing into their
+bowls, glaring into them, lifting their loaded iron spoons
+occasionally to taste cautiously, till the mush had somewhat cooled.
+
+Then, _gobble-de-gobble-de-gobble_, it was all gone! Though they had
+neither sugar, nor milk, nor butter to it, they found it a remarkably
+excellent sample of mush, and wished only that, in quantity, it had
+been something more.
+
+Peter McGrath sat close beside the cooking-stove, holding Number Ten,
+a girl-baby, who was asleep, and rocking Number Eleven, who was trying
+to wake up, in the low, unpainted cradle. He never took his eyes off
+Number Eleven; he could not bear to look around and see the nine
+devouring the corn-meal so hungrily. Perhaps McGrath could not, and
+certainly he would not,--he was so obstinate,--have told why he felt
+so reproached by the scene. He had felt very guilty for many weeks.
+
+Twenty, yes, a hundred times a day he looked in a dazed way at his big
+hands, and they reproached him, too, that they had no work.
+
+"Where is our smooth, broad-axe handle?" asked the fingers, "and why
+do not the wide chips fly?"
+
+He was ashamed, too, every time he rose up, so tall and strong, with
+nothing to do, and eleven children and his wife next door to
+starvation; but if he had been asked to describe his feelings, he
+would merely have growled out angrily something against old John
+Pontiac.
+
+"You'll take your sup now, Peter?" asked Mrs. McGrath, offering him
+the biggest of the yellow bowls. He looked up then, first at her
+forlorn face, then at the pot. Number Nine was diligently scraping off
+some streaks of mush that had run down the outside; Numbers Eight,
+Seven, Six, and Five were looking respectfully into the pot; Numbers
+Four, Three, Two, and One were watching the pot, the steaming bowl,
+and their father at the same time. Peter McGrath was very hungry.
+
+"Yourself had better eat, Mary Ann," he said. "I'll be having mine
+after it's cooler."
+
+Mrs. McGrath dipped more than a third of the bowlful back into the
+pot, and ate the rest with much satisfaction. The numerals watched her
+anxiously but resignedly.
+
+"Sure it'll be cold entirely, Peter dear," she said, "and the warmth
+is so comforting. Give me little Norah now, the darlint! and be after
+eating your supper."
+
+She had ladled out the last spoonful of mush, and the pot was being
+scraped inside earnestly by Nine, Eight, Seven, and Six. Peter took
+the bowl, and looked at his children.
+
+The earlier numbers were observing him with peculiar sympathy, putting
+themselves in his place, as it were, possessing the bowl in
+imagination; the others now moved their spoons absent-mindedly around
+in the pot, brought them empty to their mouths, mechanically, now and
+again, sucked them more or less, and still stared steadily at their
+father.
+
+His inner walls felt glued together, yet indescribably hollow; the
+smell of the mush went up into his nostrils, and pungently provoked
+his palate and throat. He was famishing.
+
+"Troth, then, Mary Ann," he said, "there's no hunger in me to-night.
+Sure, I wish the childer wouldn't leave me the trouble of eating it.
+Come, then, all of ye!"
+
+The nine came promptly to his call. There were just twenty-two large
+spoonfuls in the bowl; each child received two; the remaining four
+went to the four youngest. Then the bowl was skilfully scraped by
+Number Nine, after which Number Seven took it, whirled a cup of water
+artfully round its interior, and with this put a fine finish on his
+meal.
+
+Peter McGrath then searched thoughtfully in his trousers pockets,
+turning their corners up, getting pinches of tobacco dust out of their
+remotest recesses; he put his blouse pocket through a similar process.
+He found no pockets in his well-patched overcoat when he took it down,
+but he pursued the dust into its lining, and separated it carefully
+from little dabs of wool. Then he put the collection into an extremely
+old black clay pipe, lifted a coal in with his fingers, and took his
+supper.
+
+It would be absurd to assert that, on this continent, a strong man
+could be so poor as Peter, unless he had done something very wrong or
+very foolish. Peter McGrath was, in truth, out of work because he had
+committed an outrage on economics. He had been guilty of the enormous
+error of misunderstanding, and trying to set at naught in his own
+person, the immutable law of supply and demand.
+
+Fancying that a first-class hewer in a timber shanty had an
+inalienable right to receive at least thirty dollars a month, when the
+demand was only strong enough to yield him twenty-two dollars a month,
+Peter had refused to engage at the beginning of the winter.
+
+"Now, Mr. McGrath, you're making a mistake," said his usual employer,
+old John Pontiac. "I'm offering you the best wages going, mind that.
+There's mighty little squared timber coming out this winter."
+
+"I'm ready and willing to work, boss, but I'm fit to arn thirty
+dollars, surely."
+
+"So you are, so you are, in good times, neighbor, and I'd be glad if
+men's wages were forty. That could only be with trade active, and a
+fine season for all of us; but I couldn't take out a raft this winter,
+and pay what you ask."
+
+"I'd work extra hard. I'm not afeard of work."
+
+"Not you, Peter. There never was a lazy bone in your body. Don't I
+know that well? But look, now: if I was to pay you thirty, I should
+have to pay all the other hewers thirty; and that's not all. Scorers
+and teamsters and road-cutters are used to getting wages in proportion
+to hewers. Why, it would cost me a thousand dollars a month to give
+you thirty! Go along, now, that's a good fellow, and tell your wife
+that you've hired with me."
+
+But Peter did not go back. "I'm bound to have my rights, so I am," he
+said sulkily to Mary Ann when he reached the cabin. "The old boss is
+getting too hard like, and set on money. Twenty-two dollars! No! I'll
+go in to Stambrook and hire."
+
+Mary Ann knew that she might as well try to convince a saw-log that
+its proper course was up-stream, as to protest against Peter's
+obstinacy. Moreover, she did think the offered wages very low, and had
+some hope he might better himself; but when he came back from
+Stambrook, she saw trouble ahead. He did not tell her that there,
+where his merit's were not known, he had been offered only twenty
+dollars, but she surmised his disappointment.
+
+"You'd better be after seeing the boss again, maybe, Peter dear," she
+said timidly.
+
+"Not a step," he answered. "The boss'll be after me in a few days,
+you'll see." But there he was mistaken, for all the gangs were full.
+
+After that Peter McGrath tramped far and wide, to many a backwoods
+hamlet, looking vainly for a job at any wages. The season was the
+worst ever known on the river, and before January the shanties were
+discharging men, so threatening was the outlook for lumbermen, and so
+glutted with timber the markets of the world.
+
+Peter's conscience accused him every hour, but he was too stubborn to
+go back to John Pontiac. Indeed, he soon got it into his stupid head
+that the old boss was responsible for his misfortunes, and he
+consequently came to hate Mr. Pontiac very bitterly.
+
+After supping on his pipeful of tobacco-dust, Peter sat,
+straight-backed, leaning elbows on knees and chin on hands, wondering
+what on earth was to become of them all next day. For a man out of
+work there was not a dollar of credit at the little village store; and
+work! why, there was only one kind of work at which money could be
+earned in that district in the winter.
+
+When his wife took Number Eleven's cradle into the other room, she
+heard him, through the thin partition of upright boards, pasted over
+with newspapers, moving round in the dim red flickering fire-light
+from the stove-grating.
+
+The children were all asleep, or pretending it; Number Ten in the big
+straw bed, where she lay always between her parents; Number Eleven in
+her cradle beside; Nine crosswise at the foot; Eight, Seven, Six,
+Five, and Four in the other bed; One, Two, and Three curled up,
+without taking off their miserable garments, on the "locks" of straw
+beside the kitchen stove.
+
+Mary Ann knew very well what Peter was moving round for. She heard him
+groan, so low that he did not know he groaned, when he lifted off the
+cover of the meal barrel, and could feel nothing whatever therein. She
+had actually beaten the meal out of the cracks to make that last pot
+of mush. He knew that all the fish he had salted down in the summer
+were gone, that the flour was all out, that the last morsel of the pig
+had been eaten up long ago; but he went to each of the barrels as
+though he could not realize that there was really nothing left. There
+were four of those low groans.
+
+"O God, help him! do help him! please do!" she kept saying to
+herself. Somehow, all her sufferings and the children's were light to
+her, in comparison, as she listened to that big, taciturn man groan,
+and him sore with the hunger.
+
+When at last she came out, Peter was not there. He had gone out
+silently, so silently that she wondered, and was scared. She opened
+the door very softly, and there he was, leaning on the rail fence
+between their little rocky plot and the great river. She closed the
+door softly, and sat down.
+
+There was a wide steaming space in the river, where the current ran
+too swiftly for any ice to form. Peter gazed on it for a long while.
+The mist had a friendly look; he was soon reminded of the steam from
+an immense bowl of mush! It vexed him. He looked up at the moon. The
+moon was certainly mocking him; dashing through light clouds, then
+jumping into a wide, clear space, where it soon became motionless, and
+mocked him steadily.
+
+He had never known old John Pontiac to jeer any one, but there was his
+face in that moon,--Peter made it out quite clearly. He looked up the
+road to where he could see, on the hill half a mile distant, the
+shimmer of John Pontiac's big tin-roofed house. He thought he could
+make out the outlines of all the buildings,--he knew them so
+well,--the big barn, the stable, the smoke-house, the store-house for
+shanty supplies.
+
+Pork barrels, flour barrels, herring kegs, syrup kegs, sides of frozen
+beef, hams and flitches of bacon in the smoke-house, bags of beans,
+chests of tea,--he had a vision of them all! Teamsters going off to
+the woods daily with provisions, the supply apparently inexhaustible.
+
+And John Pontiac had refused to pay him fair wages!
+
+Peter in exasperation shook his big fist at the moon; it mocked him
+worse than ever. Then out went his gaze to the space of mist; it was
+still more painfully like mush steam. His pigsty was empty, except of
+snow; it made him think again of the empty barrels in the cabin.
+
+The children empty too, or would be to-morrow,--as empty as he felt
+that minute. How dumbly the elder ones would reproach him! and what
+would comfort the younger ones crying with hunger?
+
+Peter looked again up the hill, through the walls of the store-house.
+He was dreadfully hungry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"John! John!" Mrs. Pontiac jogged her husband. "John, wake up! there's
+somebody trying to get into the smoke-house."
+
+"Eh--ugh--ah! I'm 'sleep--ugh." He relapsed again.
+
+"John! John! wake up! There _is_ somebody!"
+
+"What--ugh--eh--what you say?"
+
+"There's somebody getting into the smoke-house."
+
+"Well, there's not much there."
+
+"There's ever so much bacon and ham. Then there's the store-house
+open."
+
+"Oh, I guess there's nobody."
+
+"But there is, I'm sure. You must get up!"
+
+They both got up and looked out of the window. The snow-drifts, the
+paths through them, the store-house, the smoke-house, and the other
+white-washed out-buildings could be seen as clearly as in broad day.
+The smoke-house door was open!
+
+Old John Pontiac was one of the kindest souls that ever inhabited a
+body, but this was a little too much. Still he was sorry for the man,
+no matter who, in that smoke-house,--some Indian probably. He must be
+caught and dealt with firmly; but he did not want the man to be too
+much hurt.
+
+He put on his clothes and sallied forth. He reached the smoke-house;
+there was no one in it; there was a gap, though, where two long
+flitches of bacon _had_ been!
+
+John Pontiac's wife saw him go over to the store-house, the door of
+which was open too. He looked in, then stopped, and started back as if
+in horror. Two flitches tied together with a rope were on the floor,
+and inside was a man filling a bag with flour from a barrel.
+
+"Well, well! this is a terrible thing," said old John Pontiac to
+himself, shrinking around a corner. "Peter McGrath! Oh, my! oh, my!"
+
+He became hot all over, as if he had done something disgraceful
+himself. There was nobody that he respected more than that pigheaded
+Peter. What to do? He must punish him of course; but how? Jail--for
+him with eleven children! "Oh, my! oh, my!" Old John wished he had not
+been awakened to see this terrible downfall.
+
+"It will never do to let him go off with it," he said to himself after
+a little reflection. "I'll put him so that he'll know better another
+time."
+
+Peter McGrath, as he entered the store-house had felt that bacon
+heavier than the heaviest end of the biggest stick of timber he had
+ever helped to cant. He felt guilty, sneaking, disgraced; he felt that
+the literal Devil had first tempted him near the house, then all
+suddenly--with his own hunger pangs and thoughts of his starving
+family--swept him into the smoke-house to steal. But he had consented
+to do it; he had said he would take flour too,--and he would, he was
+so obstinate! And withal, he hated old John Pontiac worse than ever;
+for now he accused him of being the cause of his coming to this.
+
+Then all of a sudden he met the face of Pontiac looking in at the
+door.
+
+Peter sprang back; he saw Stambrook jail--he saw his eleven children
+and his wife--he felt himself a detected felon, and that was worst of
+all.
+
+"Well, Peter, you'd ought to have come right in," were the words that
+came to his ears, in John Pontiac's heartiest voice. "The missis
+would have been glad to see you. We did go to bed a bit early, but
+there wouldn't have been any harm in an old neighbor like you waking
+us up. Not a word of that--hold on! listen to me. It would be a pity
+if old friends like you and me, Peter, couldn't help one another to a
+trifling loan of provisions without making a fuss over it." And old
+John, taking up the scoop, went on filling the bag as if that were a
+matter of course.
+
+Peter did not speak; he could not.
+
+"I was going round to your place to-morrow," resumed John, cheerfully,
+"to see if I couldn't hire you again. There's a job of hewing for you
+in the Conlonge shanty,--a man gone off sick. But I can't give more 'n
+twenty-two, or say twenty-three, seeing you're an old neighbor. What
+do you say?"
+
+Peter still said nothing; he was choking.
+
+"You had better have a bit of something more than bacon and flour,
+Peter," he went on, "and I'll give you a hand to carry the truck
+home. I guess your wife won't mind seeing me with you; then she'll
+know that you've taken a job with me again, you see. Come along and
+give me a hand to hitch the mare up. I'll drive you down."
+
+"Ah--ah--Boss--Boss!" spoke Peter then, with terrible gasps between.
+"Boss--O my God, Mr. Pontiac--I can't never look you in the face
+again!"
+
+"Peter McGrath--old neighbor,"--and John Pontiac laid his hand on the
+shaking shoulder,--"I guess I know all about it; I guess I do.
+Sometimes a man is driven he don't know how. Now we will say no more
+about it. I'll load up, and you come right along with me. And mind,
+I'll do the talking to your wife."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mary Ann McGrath was in a terrible frame of mind. What had become of
+Peter?
+
+She had gone out to look down the road, and had been recalled by
+Number Eleven's crying. Number Ten then chimed in; Nine, too, awoke,
+and determined to resume his privileges as an infant. One after
+another they got up and huddled around her--craving, craving--all but
+the three eldest, who had been well practised in the stoical
+philosophy by the gradual decrease of their rations. But these bounced
+up suddenly at the sound of a grand jangle of bells.
+
+Could it be? Mr. Pontiac they had no doubt about; but was that real
+bacon that he laid on the kitchen table? Then a side of beef, a can of
+tea; next a bag of flour, and again an actual keg of sirup. Why, this
+was almost incredible! And, last, he came in with an immense round
+loaf of bread! The children gathered about it; old John almost
+sickened with sorrow for them, and hurrying out his jacknife, passed
+big hunks around.
+
+"Well, now, Mrs. McGrath," he said during these operations, "I don't
+hardly take it kindly of you and Peter not to have come up to an old
+neighbor's house before this for a bit of a loan. It's well I met
+Peter to-night. Maybe he'd never have told me your troubles--not but
+what I blame myself for not suspecting how it was a bit sooner. I just
+made him take a little loan for the present. No, no; don't be talking
+like that! Charity! tut! tut! it's just an advance of wages. I've got
+a job for Peter; he'll be on pay to-morrow again."
+
+At that Mary Ann burst out crying again. "Oh, God bless you, Mr.
+Pontiac! it's a kind man you are! May the saints be about your bed!"
+
+With that she ran out to Peter, who still stood by the sleigh; she put
+the baby in his arms, and clinging to her husband's shoulder, cried
+more and more.
+
+And what did obstinate Peter McGrath do? Why, he cried, too, with
+gasps and groans that seemed almost to kill him.
+
+"Go in," he said; "go in, Mary Ann--go in--and kiss--the feet of him.
+Yes--and the boards--he stands on. You don't know what he's done--for
+me. It's broke I am--the bad heart of me--broke entirely--with the
+goodness of him. May the heavens be his bed!"
+
+"Now, Mrs. McGrath," cried old John, "never you mind Peter; he's a bit
+light-headed to-night. Come away in and get a bite for him. I'd like a
+dish of tea myself before I go home." Didn't that touch on her Irish
+hospitality bring her in quickly!
+
+"Mind you this, Peter," said the old man, going out then, "don't you
+be troubling your wife with any little secrets about to-night; that's
+between you and me. That's all I ask of you."
+
+Thus it comes about that to this day, when Peter McGrath's fifteen
+children have helped him to become a very prosperous farmer, his wife
+does not quite understand the depth of worship with which he speaks of
+old John Pontiac.
+
+Mrs. Pontiac never knew the story of the night.
+
+"Never mind who it was, Jane," John said, turning out the light, on
+returning to bed, "except this,--it was a neighbor in sore trouble."
+
+"Stealing--and you helped him! Well, John, such a man as you are!"
+
+"Jane, I don't ever rightly know what kind of a man I might be,
+suppose hunger was cruel on me, and on you, and all of us! Let us
+bless God that he's saved us from the terriblest temptations, and
+thank him most especially when he inclines our hearts--inclines our
+hearts--that's all."
+
+
+
+
+GREAT GODFREY'S LAMENT.
+
+
+"Hark to Angus! Man, his heart will be sore the night! In five years I
+have not heard him playing 'Great Godfrey's Lament,'" said old
+Alexander McTavish, as with him I was sitting of a June evening, at
+sundown, under a wide apple-tree of his orchard-lawn.
+
+When the sweet song-sparrows of the Ottawa valley had ceased their
+plaintive strains, Angus McNeil began on his violin. This night,
+instead of "Tullochgorum" or "Roy's Wife" or "The March of the
+McNeils," or any merry strathspey, he crept into an unusual movement,
+and from a distance came the notes of an exceeding strange strain
+blent with the meditative murmur of the Rataplan Rapids.
+
+I am not well enough acquainted with musical terms to tell the method
+of that composition in which the wail of a Highland coronach seemed
+mingled with such mournful crooning as I had heard often from Indian
+voyageurs north of Lake Superior. Perhaps that fancy sprang from my
+knowledge that Angus McNeil's father had been a younger son of the
+chief of the McNeil clan, and his mother a daughter of the greatest
+man of the Cree nation.
+
+"Ay, but Angus is wae," sighed old McTavish. "What will he be seeing
+the now? It was the night before his wife died that he played yon
+last. Come, we will go up the road. He does be liking to see the
+people gather to listen."
+
+We walked, maybe three hundred yards, and stood leaning against the
+ruined picket-fence that surrounds the great stone house built by
+Hector McNeil, the father of Angus, when he retired from his position
+as one of the "Big Bourgeois" of the famous Northwest Fur Trading
+Company.
+
+The huge square structure of four stories and a basement is divided,
+above the ground floor, into eight suites, some of four, and some of
+five rooms. In these suites the fur-trader, whose ideas were all
+patriarchal, had designed that he and his Indian wife, with his seven
+sons and their future families, should live to the end of his days and
+theirs. That was a dream at the time when his boys were all under nine
+years old, and Godfrey little more than a baby in arms.
+
+The ground-floor is divided by a hall twenty-five feet wide into two
+long chambers, one intended to serve as a dining-hall for the
+multitude of descendants that Hector expected to see round his old
+age, the other as a withdrawing-room for himself and his wife, or for
+festive occasions. In this mansion Angus McNeil now dwelt alone.
+
+He sat out that evening on a balcony at the rear of the hall, whence
+he could overlook the McTavish place and the hamlet that extends a
+quarter of a mile further down the Ottawa's north shore. His right
+side was toward the large group of French-Canadian people who had
+gathered to hear him play. Though he was sitting, I could make out
+that his was a gigantic figure.
+
+"Ay--it will be just exactly 'Great Godfrey's Lament,'" McTavish
+whispered. "Weel do I mind him playing yon many's the night after
+Godfrey was laid in the mools. Then he played it no more till before
+his ain wife died. What is he seeing now? Man, it's weel kenned he has
+the second sight at times. Maybe he sees the pit digging for himself.
+He's the last of them."
+
+"Who was Great Godfrey?" I asked, rather loudly.
+
+Angus McNeil instantly cut short the "Lament," rose from his chair,
+and faced us.
+
+"Aleck McTavish, who have you with you?" he called imperiously.
+
+"My young cousin from the city, Mr. McNeil," said McTavish, with
+deference.
+
+"Bring him in. I wish to spoke with you, Aleck McTavish. The young man
+that is not acquaint with the name of Great Godfrey McNeil can come
+with you. I will be at the great door."
+
+"It's strange-like," said McTavish, as we went to the upper gate. "He
+has not asked me inside for near five years. I'm feared his wits is
+disordered, by his way of speaking. Mind what you say. Great Godfrey
+was most like a god to Angus."
+
+When Angus McNeil met us at the front door I saw he was verily a
+giant. Indeed, he was a wee bit more than six and a half feet tall
+when he stood up straight. Now he was stooped a little, not with age,
+but with consumption,--the disease most fatal to men of mixed white
+and Indian blood. His face was dark brown, his features of the Indian
+cast, but his black hair had not the Indian lankness. It curled
+tightly round his grand head.
+
+Without a word he beckoned us on into the vast withdrawing room.
+Without a word he seated himself beside a large oaken centre-table,
+and motioned us to sit opposite.
+
+Before he broke silence, I saw that the windows of that great chamber
+were hung with faded red damask; that the heads of many a bull moose,
+buck, bear, and wolf grinned among guns and swords and claymores from
+its walls; that charred logs, fully fifteen feet long, remained in the
+fireplace from the last winter's burning; that there were three dim
+portraits in oil over the mantel; that the room contained much frayed
+furniture, once sumptuous of red velvet; and that many skins of wild
+beasts lay strewn over a hard-wood floor whose edges still retained
+their polish and faintly gleamed in rays from the red west.
+
+That light was enough to show that two of the oil paintings must be
+those of Hector McNeil and his Indian wife. Between these hung one of
+a singularly handsome youth with yellow hair.
+
+"Here my father lay dead," cried Angus McNeil, suddenly striking the
+table. He stared at us silently for many seconds, then again struck
+the table with the side of his clenched fist. "He lay here dead on
+this table--yes! It was Godfrey that straked him out all alone on this
+table. You mind Great Godfrey, Aleck McTavish."
+
+"Well I do, Mr. McNeil; and your mother yonder,--a grand lady she
+was." McTavish spoke with curious humility, seeming wishful, I
+thought, to comfort McNeil's sorrow by exciting his pride.
+
+"Ay--they'll tell hereafter that she was just exactly a squaw," cried
+the big man, angrily. "But grand she was, and a great lady, and a
+proud. Oh, man, man! but they were proud, my father and my Indian
+mother. And Godfrey was the pride of the hearts of them both. No
+wonder; but it was sore on the rest of us after they took him apart
+from our ways."
+
+Aleck McTavish spoke not a word, and big Angus, after a long pause,
+went on as if almost unconscious of our presence:--
+
+"White was Godfrey, and rosy of the cheek like my father; and the blue
+eyes of him would match the sky when you'll be seeing it up through a
+blazing maple on a clear day of October. Tall, and straight and grand
+was Godfrey, my brother. What was the thing Godfrey could not do? The
+songs of him hushed the singing-birds on the tree, and the fiddle he
+would play to take the soul out of your body. There was no white one
+among us till he was born.
+
+"The rest of us all were just Indians--ay, Indians, Aleck McTavish.
+Brown we were, and the desire of us was all for the woods and the
+river. Godfrey had white sense like my father, and often we saw the
+same look in his eyes. My God, but we feared our father!"
+
+Angus paused to cough. After the fit he sat silent for some minutes.
+The voice of the great rapid seemed to fill the room. When he spoke
+again, he stared past our seat with fixed, dilated eyes, as if tranced
+by a vision.
+
+"Godfrey, Godfrey--you hear! Godfrey, the six of us would go over the
+falls and not think twice of it, if it would please you, when you were
+little. Oich, the joy we had in the white skin of you, and the fine
+ways, till my father and mother saw we were just making an Indian of
+you, like ourselves! So they took you away; ay, and many's the day the
+six of us went to the woods and the river, missing you sore. It's then
+you began to look on us with that look that we could not see was
+different from the look we feared in the blue eyes of our father. Oh,
+but we feared him, Godfrey! And the time went by, and we feared and we
+hated you that seemed lifted up above your Indian brothers!"
+
+"Oich, the masters they got to teach him!" said Angus, addressing
+himself again to my cousin. "In the Latin and the Greek they trained
+him. History books he read, and stories in song. Ay, and the manners
+of Godfrey! Well might the whole pride of my father and mother be on
+their one white son. A grand young gentleman was Godfrey,--Great
+Godfrey we called him, when he was eighteen.
+
+"The fine, rich people that would come up in bateaux from Montreal to
+visit my father had the smile and the kind word for Godfrey; but they
+looked upon us with the eyes of the white man for the Indian. And that
+look we were more and more sure was growing harder in Godfrey's eyes.
+So we looked back at him with the eyes of the wolf that stares at the
+bull moose, and is fierce to pull him down, but dares not try, for the
+moose is too great and lordly.
+
+"Mind you, Aleck McTavish, for all we hated Godfrey when we thought he
+would be looking at us like strange Indians--for all that, yet we were
+proud of him that he was our own brother. Well, we minded how he was
+all like one with us when he was little; and in the calm looks of
+him, and the white skin, and the yellow hair, and the grandeur of him,
+we had pride, do you understand? Ay, and in the strength of him we
+were glad. Would we not sit still and pleased when it was the talk how
+he could run quicker than the best, and jump higher than his head--ay,
+would we! Man, there was none could compare in strength with Great
+Godfrey, the youngest of us all!
+
+"He and my father and mother more and more lived by themselves in this
+room. Yonder room across the hall was left to us six Indians. No
+manners, no learning had we; we were no fit company for Godfrey. My
+mother was like she was wilder with love of Godfrey the more he grew
+and the grander, and never a word for days and weeks together did she
+give to us. It was Godfrey this, and Godfrey that, and all her thought
+was Godfrey!
+
+"Most of all we hated him when she was lying dead here on this table.
+We six in the other room could hear Godfrey and my father groan and
+sigh. We would step softly to the door and listen to them kissing her
+that was dead,--them white, and she Indian like ourselves,--and us not
+daring to go in for the fear of the eyes of our father. So the
+soreness was in our hearts so cruel hard that we would not go in till
+the last, for all their asking. My God, my God, Aleck McTavish, if you
+saw her! she seemed smiling like at Godfrey, and she looked like him
+then, for all she was brown as November oak-leaves, and he white that
+day as the froth on the rapid.
+
+"That put us farther from Godfrey than before. And farther yet we were
+from him after, when he and my father would be walking up and down, up
+and down, arm in arm, up and down the lawn in the evenings. They would
+be talking about books, and the great McNeils in Scotland. The six of
+us knew we were McNeils, for all we were Indians, and we would listen
+to the talk of the great pride and the great deeds of the McNeils
+that was our own kin. We would be drinking the whiskey if we had it,
+and saying: 'Godfrey to be the only McNeil! Godfrey to take all the
+pride of the name of us!' Oh, man, man! but we hated Godfrey sore."
+
+Big Angus paused long, and I seemed to see clearly the two
+fair-haired, tall men walking arm in arm on the lawn in the twilight,
+as if unconscious or careless of being watched and overheard by six
+sore-hearted kinsmen.
+
+"You'll mind when my father was thrown from his horse and carried into
+this room, Aleck McTavish? Ay, well you do. But you nor no other
+living man but me knows what came about the night that he died.
+
+"Godfrey was alone with him. The six of us were in yon room. Drink we
+had, but cautious we were with it, for there was a deed to be done
+that would need all our senses. We sat in a row on the floor--we were
+Indians--it was our wigwam--we sat on the floor to be against the
+ways of them two. Godfrey was in here across the hall from us; alone
+he was with our white father. He would be chief over us by the will,
+no doubt,--and if Godfrey lived through that night it would be
+strange.
+
+"We were cautious with the whiskey, I told you before. Not a sound
+could we hear of Godfrey or of my father. Only the rapid, calling and
+calling,--I mind it well that night. Ay, and well I mind the striking
+of the great clock,--tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,--I listened and I
+dreamed on it till I doubted but it was the beating of my father's
+heart.
+
+"Ten o'clock was gone by, and eleven was near. How many of us sat
+sleeping I know not; but I woke up with a start, and there was Great
+Godfrey, with a candle in his hand, looking down strange at us, and us
+looking up strange at him.
+
+"'He is dead,' Godfrey said.
+
+"We said nothing.
+
+"'Father died two hours ago,' Godfrey said.
+
+"We said nothing.
+
+"'Our father is white,--he is very white,' Godfrey said, and he
+trembled. 'Our mother was brown when she was dead.'
+
+"Godfrey's voice was wild.
+
+"'Come, brothers, and see how white is our father,' Godfrey said.
+
+"No one of us moved.
+
+"'Won't you come? In God's name, come,' said Godfrey. 'Oich--but it is
+very strange! I have looked in his face so long that now I do not know
+him for my father. He is like no kin to me, lying there. I am alone,
+alone.'
+
+"Godfrey wailed in a manner. It made me ashamed to hear his voice like
+that--him that looked like my father that was always silent as a
+sword--him that was the true McNeil.
+
+"'You look at me, and your eyes are the eyes of my mother,' says
+Godfrey, staring wilder. 'What are you doing here, all so still?
+Drinking the whiskey? I am the same as you. I am your brother. I will
+sit with you, and if you drink the whiskey, I will drink the whiskey,
+too.'
+
+"Aleck McTavish! with that he sat down on the floor in the dirt and
+litter beside Donald, that was oldest of us all.
+
+"'Give me the bottle,' he said. 'I am as much Indian as you, brothers.
+What you do I will do, as I did when I was little, long ago.'
+
+"To see him sit down in his best,--all his learning and his grand
+manners as if forgotten,--man, it was like as if our father himself
+was turned Indian, and was low in the dirt!
+
+"What was in the heart of Donald I don't know, but he lifted the
+bottle and smashed it down on the floor.
+
+"'God in heaven! what's to become of the McNeils! You that was the
+credit of the family, Godfrey!' says Donald with a groan.
+
+"At that Great Godfrey jumped to his feet like he was come awake.
+
+"'You're fitter to be the head of the McNeils than I am, Donald,'
+says he; and with that the tears broke out of his eyes, and he cast
+himself into Donald's arms. Well, with that we all began to cry as if
+our hearts would break. I threw myself down on the floor at Godfrey's
+feet, and put my arms round his knees the same as I'd lift him up when
+he was little. There I cried, and we all cried around him, and after a
+bit I said:--
+
+"'Brothers, this was what was in the mind of Godfrey. He was all alone
+in yonder. We are his brothers, and his heart warmed to us, and he
+said to himself, it was better to be like us than to be alone, and he
+thought if he came and sat down and drank the whiskey with us, he
+would be our brother again, and not be any more alone.'
+
+"'Ay, Angus, Angus, but how did you know that?' says Godfrey, crying;
+and he put his arms round my neck, and lifted me up till we were
+breast to breast. With that we all put our arms some way round one
+another and Godfrey, and there we stood sighing and swaying and
+sobbing a long time, and no man saying a word.
+
+"'Oh, man, Godfrey dear, but our father is gone, and who can talk with
+you now about the Latin, and the history books, and the great
+McNeils--and our mother that's gone?' says Donald; and the thought of
+it was such pity that our hearts seemed like to break.
+
+"But Godfrey said: 'We will talk together like brothers. If it shames
+you for me to be like you, then I will teach you all they taught me,
+and we will all be like our white father.'
+
+"So we all agreed to have it so, if he would tell us what to do. After
+that we came in here with Godfrey, and we stood looking at my father's
+white face. Godfrey all alone had straked him out on this table, with
+the silver-pieces on the eyes that we had feared. But the silver we
+did not fear. Maybe you will not understand it, Aleck McTavish, but
+our father never seemed such close kin to us as when we would look at
+him dead, and at Godfrey, that was the picture of him, living and
+kind.
+
+"After that you know what happened yourself."
+
+"Well I do, Mr. McNeil. It was Great Godfrey that was the father to
+you all," said my cousin.
+
+"Just that, Aleck McTavish. All that he had was ours to use as we
+would,--his land, money, horses, this room, his learning. Some of us
+could learn one thing and some of us could learn another, and some
+could learn nothing, not even how to behave. What I could learn was
+the playing of the fiddle. Many's the hour Godfrey would play with me
+while the rest were all happy around.
+
+"In great content we lived like brothers, and proud to see Godfrey as
+white and fine, and grand as the best gentleman that ever came up to
+visit him out of Montreal. Ay, in great content we lived all together
+till the consumption came on Donald, and he was gone. Then it came
+and came back, and came back again, till Hector was gone, and Ranald
+was gone, and in ten years' time only Godfrey and I were left. Then
+both of us married, as you know. But our children died as fast as they
+were born, almost,--for the curse seemed on us. Then his wife died,
+and Godfrey sighed and sighed ever after that.
+
+"One night I was sleeping with the door of my room open, so I could
+hear if Godfrey needed my help. The cough was on him then. Out of a
+dream of him looking at my father's white face I woke and went to his
+bed. He was not there at all.
+
+"My heart went cold with fear, for I heard the rapid very clear, like
+the nights they all died. Then I heard the music begin down stairs,
+here in this chamber where they were all laid out dead,--right here on
+this table where I will soon lie like the rest. I leave it to you to
+see it done, Aleck McTavish, for you are a Highlandman by blood. It
+was that I wanted to say to you when I called you in. I have seen
+myself in my coffin three nights. Nay, say nothing; you will see.
+
+"Hearing the music that night, down I came softly. Here sat Godfrey,
+and the kindest look was on his face that ever I saw. He had his
+fiddle in his hand, and he played about all our lives.
+
+"He played about how we all came down from the North in the big canoe
+with my father and mother, when we were little children and him a
+baby. He played of the rapids we passed over, and of the rustling of
+the poplar-trees and the purr of the pines. He played till the river
+you hear now was in the fiddle, with the sound of our paddles, and the
+fish jumping for flies. He played about the long winters when we were
+young, so that the snow of those winters seemed falling again. The
+ringing of our skates on the ice I could hear in the fiddle. He played
+through all our lives when we were young and going in the woods yonder
+together--and then it was the sore lament began!
+
+"It was like as if he played how they kept him away from his brothers,
+and him at his books thinking of them in the woods, and him hearing
+the partridges' drumming, and the squirrels' chatter, and all the
+little birds singing and singing. Oich, man, but there's no words for
+the sadness of it!"
+
+Old Angus ceased to speak as he took his violin from the table and
+struck into the middle of "Great Godfrey's Lament." As he played, his
+wide eyes looked past us, and the tears streamed down his brown
+cheeks. When the woful strain ended, he said, staring past us: "Ay,
+Godfrey, you were always our brother."
+
+Then he put his face down in his big brown hands, and we left him
+without another word.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED-HEADED WINDEGO.
+
+
+Big Baptiste Seguin, on snow-shoes nearly six feet long, strode
+mightily out of the forest, and gazed across the treeless valley
+ahead.
+
+"Hooraw! No choppin' for two mile!" he shouted.
+
+"Hooraw! Bully! Hi-yi!" yelled the axemen, Pierre, "Jawnny," and
+"Frawce," two hundred yards behind. Their cries were taken up by the
+two chain-bearers still farther back.
+
+"Is it a lake, Baptiste?" cried Tom Dunscombe, the young surveyor, as
+he hurried forward through balsams that edged the woods and concealed
+the open space from those among the trees.
+
+"No, seh; only a beaver meddy."
+
+"Clean?"
+
+"Clean! Yesseh! Clean 's your face. Hain't no tree for two mile if de
+line is go right."
+
+"Good! We shall make seven miles to-day," said Tom, as he came forward
+with immense strides, carrying a compass and Jacob's-staff. Behind him
+the axemen slashed along, striking white slivers from the pink and
+scaly columns of red pines that shot up a hundred and twenty feet
+without a branch. If any underbrush grew there, it was beneath the
+eight-feet-deep February snow, so that one could see far away down a
+multitude of vaulted, converging aisles.
+
+Our young surveyor took no thought of the beauty and majesty of the
+forest he was leaving. His thoughts and those of his men were set
+solely on getting ahead; for all hands had been promised double pay
+for their whole winter, in case they should succeed in running a line
+round the disputed Moose Lake timber berth before the tenth of April.
+
+Their success would secure the claim of their employer, Old Dan
+McEachran, whereas their failure would submit him perhaps to the loss
+of the limit, and certainly to a costly lawsuit with "Old Rory"
+Carmichael, another potentate of the Upper Ottawa.
+
+At least six weeks more of fair snow-shoeing would be needed to
+"blaze" out the limit, even if the unknown country before them should
+turn out to be less broken by cedar swamps and high precipices than
+they feared. A few days' thaw with rain would make slush of the eight
+feet of snow, and compel the party either to keep in camp, or risk
+_mal de raquette_,--strain of legs by heavy snow-shoeing. So they were
+in great haste to make the best of fine weather.
+
+Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff into the snow, set the compass sights to
+the right bearing, looked through them, and stood by to let Big
+Baptiste get a course along the line ahead. Baptiste's duty was to
+walk straight for some selected object far away on the line. In
+woodland the axemen "blazed" trees on both sides of his snow-shoe
+track.
+
+Baptiste was as expert at his job as any Indian, and indeed he looked
+as if he had a streak of Iroquois in his veins. So did "Frawce,"
+"Jawnny," and all their comrades of the party.
+
+"The three pines will do," said Tom, as Baptiste crouched.
+
+"Good luck to-day for sure!" cried Baptiste, rising with his eyes
+fixed on three pines in the foreground of the distant timbered ridge.
+He saw that the line did indeed run clear of trees for two miles along
+one side of the long, narrow beaver meadow or swale.
+
+Baptiste drew a deep breath, and grinned agreeably at Tom Dunscombe.
+
+"De boys will look like dey's all got de double pay in dey's pocket
+when dey's see _dis_ open," said Baptiste, and started for the three
+pines as straight as a bee.
+
+Tom waited to get from the chainmen the distance to the edge of the
+wood. They came on the heels of the axemen, and all capered on their
+snow-shoes to see so long a space free from cutting.
+
+It was now two o'clock; they had marched with forty pound or "light"
+packs since daylight, lunching on cold pork and hard-tack as they
+worked; they had slept cold for weeks on brush under an open tent
+pitched over a hole in the snow; they must live this life of hardship
+and huge work for six weeks longer, but they hoped to get twice their
+usual eighty-cents-a-day pay, and so their hearts were light and
+jolly.
+
+But Big Baptiste, now two hundred yards in advance, swinging along in
+full view of the party, stopped with a scared cry. They saw him look
+to the left and to the right, and over his shoulder behind, like a man
+who expects mortal attack from a near but unknown quarter.
+
+"What's the matter?" shouted Tom.
+
+Baptiste went forward a few steps, hesitated, stopped, turned, and
+fairly ran back toward the party. As he came he continually turned
+his head from side to side as if expecting to see some dreadful thing
+following.
+
+The men behind Tom stopped. Their faces were blanched. They looked,
+too, from side to side.
+
+"Halt, Mr. Tom, halt! Oh, _monjee_, M'sieu, stop!" said Jawnny.
+
+Tom looked round at his men, amazed at their faces of mysterious
+terror.
+
+"What on earth has happened?" cried he.
+
+Instead of answering, the men simply pointed to Big Baptiste, who was
+soon within twenty yards.
+
+"What is the trouble, Baptiste?" asked Tom.
+
+Baptiste's face was the hue of death. As he spoke he shuddered:--
+
+"_Monjee_, Mr. Tom, we'll got for stop de job!"
+
+"Stop the job! Are you crazy?"
+
+"If you'll not b'lieve what I told, den you go'n' see for you'se'f."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"De track, seh."
+
+"What track? Wolves?"
+
+"If it was only wolfs!"
+
+"Confound you! can't you say what it is?"
+
+"Eet's de--It ain't safe for told its name out loud, for dass de way
+it come--if it's call by its name!"
+
+"Windego, eh?" said Tom, laughing.
+
+"I'll know its track jus' as quick 's I see it."
+
+"Do you mean you have seen a Windego track?"
+
+"_Monjee_, seh, _don't_ say its name! Let us go back," said Jawnny.
+"Baptiste was at Madores' shanty with us when it took Hermidas
+Dubois."
+
+"Yesseh. That's de way I'll come for know de track soon 's I see it,"
+said Baptiste. "Before den I mos' don' b'lieve dere was any of it. But
+ain't it take Hermidas Dubois only last New Year's?"
+
+"That was all nonsense about Dubois. I'll bet it was a joke to scare
+you all."
+
+"Who 's kill a man for a joke?" said Baptiste.
+
+"Did you see Hermidas Dubois killed? Did you see him dead? No! I heard
+all about it. All you know is that he went away on New Year's morning,
+when the rest of the men were too scared to leave the shanty, because
+some one said there was a Windego track outside."
+
+"Hermidas never come back!"
+
+"I'll bet he went away home. You'll find him at Saint Agathe in the
+spring. You can't be such fools as to believe in Windegos."
+
+"Don't you say dat name some more!" yelled Big Baptiste, now fierce
+with fright. "Hain't I just seen de track? I'm go'n' back, me, if I
+don't get a copper of pay for de whole winter!"
+
+"Wait a little now, Baptiste," said Tom, alarmed lest his party should
+desert him and the job. "I'll soon find out what's at the bottom of
+the track."
+
+"Dere's blood at de bottom--I seen it!" said Baptiste.
+
+"Well, you wait till _I_ go and see it."
+
+"No! I go back, me," said Baptiste, and started up the slope with the
+others at his heels.
+
+"Halt! Stop there! Halt, you fools! Don't you understand that if there
+was any such monster it would as easily catch you in one place as
+another?"
+
+The men went on. Tom took another tone.
+
+"Boys, look here! I say, are you going to desert me like cowards?"
+
+"Hain't goin' for desert you, Mr. Tom, no seh!" said Baptiste,
+halting. "Honly I'll hain' go for cross de track." They all faced
+round.
+
+Tom was acquainted with a considerable number of Windego
+superstitions.
+
+"There's no danger unless it's a fresh track," he said. "Perhaps it's
+an old one."
+
+"Fresh made dis mornin'," said Baptiste.
+
+"Well, wait till I go and see it. You're all right, you know, if you
+don't cross it. Isn't that the idea?"
+
+"No, seh. Mr. Humphreys told Madore 'bout dat. Eef somebody cross de
+track and don't never come back, _den_ de magic ain't in de track no
+more. But it's watchin', watchin' all round to catch somebody what
+cross its track; and if nobody don't cross its track and get catched,
+den de--de _Ting_ mebby get crazy mad, and nobody don' know what it's
+goin' for do. Kill every person, mebby."
+
+Tom mused over this information. These men had all been in Madore's
+shanty; Madore was under Red Dick Humphreys; Red Dick was Rory
+Carmichael's head foreman; he had sworn to stop the survey by hook or
+by crook, and this vow had been made after Tom had hired his gang from
+among those scared away from Madore's shanty. Tom thought he began to
+understand the situation.
+
+"Just wait a bit, boys," he said, and started.
+
+"You ain't surely go'n' to cross de track?" cried Baptiste.
+
+"Not now, anyway," said Tom. "But wait till I see it."
+
+When he reached the mysterious track it surprised him so greatly that
+he easily forgave Baptiste's fears.
+
+If a giant having ill-shaped feet as long as Tom's snow-shoes had
+passed by in moccasins, the main features of the indentations might
+have been produced. But the marks were no deeper in the snow than if
+the huge moccasins had been worn by an ordinary man. They were about
+five and a half feet apart from centres, a stride that no human legs
+could take at a walking pace.
+
+Moreover, there were on the snow none of the dragging marks of
+striding; the gigantic feet had apparently been lifted straight up
+clear of the snow, and put straight down.
+
+Strangest of all, at the front of each print were five narrow holes
+which suggested that the mysterious creature had travelled with bare,
+claw-like toes. An irregular drip or squirt of blood went along the
+middle of the indentations! Nevertheless, the whole thing seemed of
+human devising.
+
+This track, Tom reflected, was consistent with the Indian superstition
+that Windegos are monsters who take on or relinquish the human form,
+and vary their size at pleasure. He perceived that he must bring the
+maker of those tracks promptly to book, or suffer his men to desert
+the survey, and cost him his whole winter's work, besides making him a
+laughingstock in the settlements.
+
+The young fellow made his decision instantly. After feeling for his
+match-box and sheath-knife, he took his hatchet from his sash, and
+called to the men.
+
+"Go into camp and wait for me!"
+
+Then he set off alongside of the mysterious track at his best pace. It
+came out of a tangle of alders to the west, and went into such another
+tangle about a quarter of a mile to the east. Tom went east. The men
+watched him with horror.
+
+"He's got crazy, looking at de track," said Big Baptiste, "for that's
+the way,--one is enchanted,--he must follow."
+
+"He was a good boss," said Jawnny, sadly.
+
+As the young fellow disappeared in the alders the men looked at one
+another with a certain shame. Not a sound except the sough of pines
+from the neighboring forest was heard. Though the sun was sinking in
+clear blue, the aspect of the wilderness, gray and white and severe,
+touched the impressionable men with deeper melancholy. They felt
+lonely, masterless, mean.
+
+"He was a good boss," said Jawnny again.
+
+"_Tort Dieu!_" cried Baptiste, leaping to his feet. "It's a shame to
+desert the young boss. I don't care; the Windego can only kill me. I'm
+going to help Mr. Tom."
+
+"Me also," said Jawnny.
+
+Then all wished to go. But after some parley it was agreed that the
+others should wait for the portageurs, who were likely to be two miles
+behind, and make camp for the night.
+
+Soon Baptiste and Jawnny, each with his axe, started diagonally across
+the swale, and entered the alders on Tom's track.
+
+It took them twenty yards through the alders, to the edge of a warm
+spring or marsh about fifty yards wide. This open, shallow water was
+completely encircled by alders that came down to its very edge. Tom's
+snow-shoe track joined the track of the mysterious monster for the
+first time on the edge--and there both vanished!
+
+Baptiste and Jawnny looked at the place with the wildest terror, and
+without even thinking to search the deeply indented opposite edges of
+the little pool for a reappearance of the tracks, fled back to the
+party. It was just as Red Dick Humphreys had said; just as they had
+always heard. Tom, like Hermidas Dubois, appeared to have vanished
+from existence the moment he stepped on the Windego track!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dimness of early evening was in the red-pine forest through which
+Tom's party had passed early in the afternoon, and the belated
+portageurs were tramping along the line. A man with a red head had
+been long crouching in some cedar bushes to the east of the "blazed"
+cutting. When he had watched the portageurs pass out of sight, he
+stepped over upon their track, and followed it a short distance.
+
+A few minutes later a young fellow, over six feet high, who strongly
+resembled Tom Dunscombe, followed the red-headed man.
+
+The stranger, suddenly catching sight of a flame far away ahead on the
+edge of the beaver meadow, stopped and fairly hugged himself.
+
+"Camped, by jiminy! I knowed I'd fetch 'em," was the only remark he
+made.
+
+"I wish Big Baptiste could see that Windego laugh," thought Tom
+Dunscombe, concealed behind a tree.
+
+After reflecting a few moments, the red-headed man, a wiry little
+fellow, went forward till he came to where an old pine had recently
+fallen across the track. There he kicked off his snow-shoes, picked
+them up, ran along the trunk, jumped into the snow from among the
+branches, put on his snow-shoes, and started northwestward. His new
+track could not be seen from the survey line.
+
+But Tom had beheld and understood the purpose of the manoeuvre. He
+made straight for the head of the fallen tree, got on the stranger's
+tracks and cautiously followed them, keeping far enough behind to be
+out of hearing or sight.
+
+The red-headed stranger went toward the wood out of which the
+mysterious track of the morning had come. When he had reached the
+little brush-camp in which he had slept the previous night, he made a
+small fire, put a small tin pot on it, boiled some tea, broiled a
+venison steak, ate his supper, had several good laughs, took a long
+smoke, rolled himself round and round in his blanket, and went to
+sleep.
+
+Hours passed before Tom ventured to crawl forward and peer into the
+brush camp. The red-headed man was lying on his face, as is the custom
+of many woodsmen. His capuchin cap covered his red head.
+
+Tom Dunscombe took off his own long sash. When the red-headed man woke
+up he found that some one was on his back, holding his head firmly
+down.
+
+Unable to extricate his arms or legs from his blankets, the red-headed
+man began to utter fearful threats. Tom said not one word, but
+diligently wound his sash round his prisoner's head, shoulders, and
+arms.
+
+He then rose, took the red-headed man's own "tump-line," a leather
+strap about twelve feet long, which tapered from the middle to both
+ends, tied this firmly round the angry live mummy, and left him lying
+on his face.
+
+Then, collecting his prisoner's axe, snow-shoes, provisions, and tin
+pail, Tom started with them back along the Windego track for camp.
+
+Big Baptiste and his comrades had supped too full of fears to go to
+sleep. They had built an enormous fire, because Windegos are reported,
+in Indian circles, to share with wild beasts the dread of flames and
+brands. Tom stole quietly to within fifty yards of the camp, and
+suddenly shouted in unearthly fashion. The men sprang up, quaking.
+
+"It's the Windego!" screamed Jawnny.
+
+"You silly fools!" said Tom, coming forward. "Don't you know my voice?
+Am I a Windego?"
+
+"It's the Windego, for sure; it's took the shape of Mr. Tom, after
+eatin' him," cried Big Baptiste.
+
+Tom laughed so uproariously at this, that the other men scouted the
+idea, though it was quite in keeping with their information concerning
+Windegos' habits.
+
+Then Tom came in and gave a full and particular account of the
+Windego's pursuit, capture, and present predicament.
+
+"But how'd he make de track?" they asked.
+
+"He had two big old snow-shoes, stuffed with spruce tips underneath,
+and covered with dressed deerskin. He had cut off the back ends of
+them. You shall see them to-morrow. I found them down yonder where he
+had left them after crossing the warm spring. He had five bits of
+sharp round wood going down in front of them. He must have stood on
+them one after the other, and lifted the back one every time with the
+pole he carried. I've got that, too. The blood was from a deer he had
+run down and killed in the snow. He carried the blood in his tin pail,
+and sprinkled it behind him. He must have run out our line long ago
+with a compass, so he knew where it would go. But come, let us go and
+see if it's Red Dick Humphreys."
+
+Red Dick proved to be the prisoner. He had become quite philosophic
+while waiting for his captor to come back. When unbound he grinned
+pleasantly, and remarked:--
+
+"You're Mr. Dunscombe, eh? Well, you're a smart young feller, Mr.
+Dunscombe. There ain't another man on the Ottaway that could 'a' done
+that trick on me. Old Dan McEachran will make your fortun' for this,
+and I don't begrudge it. You're a man--that's so. If ever I hear any
+feller saying to the contrayry he's got to lick Red Dick Humphreys."
+
+And he told them the particulars of his practical joke in making a
+Windego track round Madore's shanty.
+
+"Hermidas Dubois?--oh, he's all right," said Red Dick. "He's at home
+at St. Agathe. Man, he helped me to fix up that Windego track at
+Madore's; but, by criminy! the look of it scared him so he wouldn't
+cross it himself. It was a holy terror!"
+
+
+
+
+THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD.
+
+I.
+
+
+When Mini was a fortnight old his mother wrapped her head and
+shoulders in her ragged shawl, snatched him from the family litter of
+straw, and, with a volley of cautionary objurgations to his ten
+brothers and sisters, strode angrily forth into the raw November
+weather. She went down the hill to the edge of the broad, dark Ottawa,
+where thin slices of ice were swashing together. There sat a
+hopeless-looking little man at the clumsy oars of a flat-bottomed
+boat.
+
+"The little one's feet are out," said the man.
+
+"So much the better! For what was another sent us?" cried Mini's
+mother.
+
+"But the little one must be baptized," said the father, with mild
+expostulation.
+
+"Give him to me, then," and the man took off his own ragged coat.
+Beneath it he had nothing except an equally ragged guernsey, and the
+wind was keen. The woman surrendered the child carelessly, and drawing
+her shawl closer, sat frowning moodily in the stern. Mini's father
+wrapped him in the wretched garment, carefully laid the infant on the
+pea-straw at his feet, and rowed wearily away.
+
+They took him to the gray church on the farther shore, whose tall
+cross glittered coldly in the wintry sun. There Madame Lajeunesse, the
+skilful washerwoman, angry to be taken so long from her tubs, and
+Bonhomme Hamel, who never did anything but fish for _barbotes_, met
+them. These highly respectable connections of Mini's mother had a
+disdain for her inferior social status, and easily made it understood
+that nothing but a Christian duty would have brought them out. Where
+else, indeed, could the friendless infant have found sponsors? It was
+disgraceful, they remarked, that the custom of baptism at three days
+old should have been violated. While they answered for Mini's
+spiritual development he was quiet, neither crying nor smiling till
+the old priest crossed his brow. Then he smiled, and that, Bonhomme
+Hamel remarked, was a blessed sign.
+
+"Now he's sure of heaven when he does die!" cried Mini's mother,
+getting home again, and tossed him down on the straw, for a conclusion
+to her sentence.
+
+But the child lived, as if by miracle. Hunger, cold, dirt, abuse,
+still left him a feeble vitality. At six years old his big dark eyes
+wore so sad a look that mothers of merry children often stopped to
+sigh over him, frightening the child, for he did not understand
+sympathy. So unresponsive and dumb was he that they called him
+half-witted. Three babies younger than he had died by then, and the
+fourth was little Angelique. They said she would be very like Mini,
+and there was reason why in her wretched infancy. Mini's was the only
+love she ever knew. When she saw the sunny sky his weak arms carried
+her, and many a night he drew over her the largest part of his
+deplorable coverings. She, too, was strangely silent. For days long
+they lay together on the straw, quietly suffering what they had known
+from the beginning. It was something near starvation.
+
+When Mini was eight years old his mother sent him one day to beg food
+from Madame Leclaire, whose servant she had been long ago.
+
+"It's Lucile's Mini," said Madame, taking him to the door of the cosey
+sitting-room, where Monsieur sat at _solitaire_.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_, did one ever see such a child!" cried the retired notary.
+"For the love of Heaven, feed him well, Marie, before you let him go!"
+
+But Mini could scarcely eat. He trembled at the sight of so much food,
+and chose a crust as the only thing familiar.
+
+"Eat, my poor child. Have no fear," said Madame.
+
+"But Angelique," said he.
+
+"Angelique? Is it the baby?"
+
+"Yes, Madame, if I might have something for her."
+
+"Poor little loving boy," said Madame, tears in her kind eyes. But
+Mini did not cry; he had known so many things so much sadder.
+
+When Mini reached home his mother seized the basket. Her wretched
+children crowded around. There were broken bread and meat in plenty.
+"Here--here--and here!" She distributed crusts, and chose a
+well-fleshed bone for her own teeth. Angelique could not walk, and did
+not cry, so got nothing. Mini, however, went to her with the tin pail
+before his mother noticed it.
+
+"Bring that back!" she shouted.
+
+"Quick, baby!" cried Mini, holding it that Angelique might drink. But
+the baby was not quick enough. Her mother seized the pail and tasted;
+the milk was still almost warm. "Good," said she, reaching for her
+shawl.
+
+"For the love of God, mother!" cried Mini, "Madame said it was for
+Angelique." He knew too well what new milk would trade for. The woman
+laughed and flung on her shawl.
+
+"Only a little, then; only a cupful," cried Mini, clutching her,
+struggling weakly to restrain her. "Only a little cupful for
+Angelique."
+
+"Give her bread!" She struck him so that he reeled, and left the
+cabin. _Then_ Mini cried, but not for the blow.
+
+He placed a soft piece of bread and a thin shred of meat in
+Angelique's thin little hand, but she could not eat, she was so weak.
+The elder children sat quietly devouring their food, each ravenously
+eying that of the others. But there was so much that when the father
+came he also could eat. He, too, offered Angelique bread. Then Mini
+lifted his hand which held hers and showed beneath the food she had
+refused.
+
+"If she had milk!" said the boy.
+
+"My God, if I could get some," groaned the man, and stopped as a
+shuffling and tumbling was heard at the door.
+
+"She is very drunk," said the man, without amazement. He helped her
+in, and, too far gone to abuse them, she soon lay heavily breathing
+near the child she had murdered.
+
+Mini woke in the pale morning thinking Angelique very cold in his
+arms, and, behold, she was free from all the suffering forever. So he
+_could_ not cry, though the mother wept when she awoke, and shrieked
+at his tearlessness as hardhearted.
+
+Little Angelique had been rowed across the great river for the last
+time; night was come again, and Mini thought he _must_ die; it could
+not be that he should be made to live without Angelique! Then a
+wondrous thing seemed to happen. Little Angelique had come back. He
+could not doubt it next morning, for, with the slowly lessening glow
+from the last brands of fire had not her face appeared?--then her
+form?--and lo! she was closely held in the arms of the mild Mother
+whom Mini knew from her image in the church, only she smiled more
+sweetly now in the hut. Little Angelique had learned to smile, too,
+which was most wonderful of all to Mini. In their heavenly looks was a
+meaning of which he felt almost aware; a mysterious happiness was
+coming close and closer; with the sense of ineffable touches near his
+brow, the boy dreamed. Nothing more did Mini know till his mother's
+voice woke him in the morning. He sprang up with a cry of "Angelique,"
+and gazed round upon the familiar squalor.
+
+
+II.
+
+From the summit of Rigaud Mountain a mighty cross flashes sunlight all
+over the great plain of Vaudreuil. The devout _habitant_, ascending
+from vale to hill-top in the county of Deux Montagnes, bends to the
+sign he sees across the forest leagues away. Far off on the brown
+Ottawa, beyond the Cascades of Carillon and the Chute a Blondeau, the
+keen-eyed _voyageur_ catches its gleam, and, for gladness to be
+nearing the familiar mountain, more cheerily raises the _chanson_ he
+loves. Near St. Placide the early ploughman--while yet mist wreathes
+the fields and before the native Rossignol has fairly begun his
+plaintive flourishes--watches the high cross of Rigaud for the first
+glint that shall tell him of the yet unrisen sun. The wayfarer marks
+his progress by the bearing of that great cross, the hunter looks to
+it for an unfailing landmark, the weatherwise farmer prognosticates
+from its appearances. The old watch it dwindle from sight at evening
+with long thoughts of the well-beloved vanished, who sighed to its
+vanishing through vanished years; the dying turn to its beckoning
+radiance; happy is the maiden for whose bridal it wears brightness;
+blessed is the child thought to be that holds out tiny hands for the
+glittering cross as for a star. Even to the most worldly it often
+seems flinging beams of heaven, and to all who love its shining that
+is a dark day when it yields no reflection of immortal meaning.
+
+To Mini the Cross of Rigaud had as yet been no more than an indistinct
+glimmering, so far from it did he live and so dulled was he by his
+sufferings. It promised him no immortal joys, for how was he to
+conceive of heaven except as a cessation of weariness, starvation, and
+pain? Not till Angelique had come, in the vision did he gain certainty
+that in heaven she would smile on him always from the mild Mother's
+arms. As days and weeks passed without that dream's return, his
+imagination was ever the more possessed by it. Though the boy looked
+frailer than ever, people often remarked with amazement how his eyes
+wore some unspeakable happiness.
+
+Now it happened that one sunny day after rain Mini became aware that
+his eyes were fixed on the Cross of Rigaud. He could not make out its
+form distinctly, but it appeared to thrill toward him. Under his
+intent watching the misty cross seemed gradually to become the centre
+of such a light as had enwrapped the figures of his dream. While he
+gazed, expecting his vision of the night to appear in broad day on the
+far summit, the light extended, changed, rose aloft, assumed clear
+tints, and shifted quickly to a great rainbow encircling the hill.
+
+Mini believed it a token to him. That Angelique had been there by the
+cross the little dreamer doubted not, and the transfiguration to that
+arch of glory had some meaning that his soul yearned to apprehend. The
+cross drew his thoughts miraculously; for days thereafter he dwelt
+with its shining; more and more it was borne in on him that he could
+always see dimly the outline of little Angelique's face there;
+sometimes, staring very steadily for minutes together, he could even
+believe that she beckoned and smiled.
+
+"Is Angelique really there, father?" he asked one day, looking toward
+the hill-top.
+
+"Yes, there," answered his father, thinking the boy meant heaven.
+
+"I will go to her, then," said Mini to his heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Birds were not stirring when Mini stepped from the dark cabin into
+gray dawn, with firm resolve to join Angelique on the summit. The
+Ottawa, with whose flow he went toward Rigaud, was solemnly shrouded
+in motionless mist, which began to roll slowly during the first hour
+of his journey. Lifting, drifting, clinging, ever thinner and more
+pervaded by sunlight, it was drawn away so that the unruffled flood
+reflected a sky all blue when he had been two hours on the road. But
+Mini took no note of the river's beauty. His eyes were fixed on the
+cloudy hill-top, beyond which the sun was climbing. As yet he could
+see nothing of the cross, nor of his vision; yet the world had never
+seemed so glad, nor his heart so light with joy. _Habitants_, in
+their rattling _caleches_, were amazed by the glow in the face of a
+boy so ragged and forlorn. Some told afterward how they had half
+doubted the reality of his rags; for might not one, if very pure at
+heart, have been privileged to see such garments of apparent meanness
+change to raiment of angelic texture? Such things had been, it was
+said, and certainly the boy's face was a marvel.
+
+His look was ever upward to where fibrous clouds shifted slowly, or
+packed to level bands of mist half concealing Rigaud Hill, as the sun
+wheeled higher, till at last, in mid-sky, it flung rays that trembled
+on the cross, and gradually revealed the holy sign outlined in upright
+and arms. Mini shivered with an awe of expectation; but no nimbus was
+disclosed which his imagination could shape to glorious significance.
+Yet he went rapturously onward, firm in the belief that up there he
+must see Angelique face to face.
+
+As he journeyed the cross gradually lessened in height by
+disappearance behind the nearer trees, till only a spot of light was
+left, which suddenly was blotted out too. Mini drew a deep breath, and
+became conscious of the greatness of the hill,--a towering mass of
+brown rock, half hidden by sombre pines and the delicate greenery of
+birch and poplar. But soon, because the cross _was_ hidden, he could
+figure it all the more gloriously, and entertain all the more
+luminously the belief that there were heavenly presences awaiting him.
+He pressed on with all his speed, and began to ascend the mountain
+early in the afternoon.
+
+"Higher," said the women gathering pearly-bloomed blueberries on the
+steep hillside. "Higher," said the path, ever leading the tired boy
+upward from plateau to plateau,--"higher, to the vision and the
+radiant space about the shining cross!"
+
+Faint with hunger, worn with fatigue, in the half-trance of physical
+exhaustion, Mini still dragged himself upward through the afternoon.
+At last he knew he stood on the summit level very near the cross.
+There the child, awed by the imminence of what he had sought, halted
+to control the rapturous, fearful trembling of his heart. Would not
+the heavens surely open? What words would Angelique first say? Then
+again he went swiftly forward through the trees to the edge of the
+little cleared space. There he stood dazed.
+
+The cross was revealed to him at a few yards' distance. With woful
+disillusionment Mini threw himself face downward on the rock, and wept
+hopelessly, sorely; wept and wept, till his sobs became fainter than
+the up-borne long notes of a hermit-thrush far below on the edge of
+the plain.
+
+A tall mast, with a shorter at right angles, both covered by tin
+roofing-plates, held on by nails whence rust had run in streaks,--that
+was the shining Cross of Rigaud! Fragments of newspaper, crusts of
+bread, empty tin cans, broken bottles, the relics of many picnics
+scattered widely about the foot of the cross; rude initial letters cut
+deeply into its butt where the tin had been torn away;--these had Mini
+seen.
+
+The boy ceased to move. Shadows stole slowly lengthening over the
+Vaudreuil champaign; the sun swooned down in a glamour of painted
+clouds; dusk covered from sight the yellows and browns and greens of
+the August fields; birds stilled with the deepening night; Rigaud
+Mountain loomed from the plain, a dark long mass under a flying and
+waning moon; stars came out from the deep spaces overhead, and still
+Mini lay where he had wept.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BAPTISTE.
+
+A STORY OF THE OTTAWA RIVER.
+
+
+Ma'ame Baptiste Larocque peered again into her cupboard and her flour
+barrel, as though she might have been mistaken in her inspection
+twenty minutes earlier.
+
+"No, there is nothing, nothing at all!" said she to her old
+mother-in-law. "And no more trust at the store. Monsieur Conolly was
+too cross when I went for corn-meal yesterday. For sure, Baptiste
+stays very long at the shanty this year."
+
+"Fear nothing, Delima," answered the bright-eyed old woman. "The good
+God will send a breakfast for the little ones, and for us. In seventy
+years I do not know Him to fail once, my daughter. Baptiste may be
+back to-morrow, and with more money for staying so long. No, no; fear
+not, Delima! _Le bon Dieu_ manages all for the best."
+
+"That is true; for so I have heard always," answered Delima, with
+conviction; "but sometimes _le bon Dieu_ requires one's inside to pray
+very loud. Certainly I trust, like you, _Memere_; but it would be
+pleasant if He would send the food the day before."
+
+"Ah, you are too anxious, like little Baptiste here," and the old
+woman glanced at the boy sitting by the cradle. "Young folks did not
+talk so when I was little. Then we did not think there was danger in
+trusting _Monsieur le Cure_ when he told us to take no heed of the
+morrow. But now! to hear them talk, one might think they had never
+heard of _le bon Dieu_. The young people think too much, for sure.
+Trust in the good God, I say. Breakfast and dinner and supper too we
+shall all have to-morrow."
+
+"Yes, _Memere_," replied the boy, who was called little Baptiste to
+distinguish him from his father. "_Le bon Dieu_ will send an excellent
+breakfast, sure enough, if I get up very early, and find some good
+_dore_ (pickerel) and catfish on the night-line. But if I did not bait
+the hooks, what then? Well, I hope there will be more to-morrow than
+this morning, anyway."
+
+"There were enough," said the old woman, severely. "Have we not had
+plenty all day, Delima?"
+
+Delima made no answer. She was in doubt about the plenty which her
+mother-in-law spoke of. She wondered whether small Andre and Odillon
+and 'Toinette, whose heavy breathing she could hear through the thin
+partition, would have been sleeping so peacefully had little Baptiste
+not divided his share among them at supper-time, with the excuse that
+he did not feel very well?
+
+Delima was young yet,--though little Baptiste was such a big boy,--and
+would have rested fully on the positively expressed trust of her
+mother-in-law, in spite of the empty flour barrel, if she had not
+suspected little Baptiste of sitting there hungry.
+
+However, he was such a strange boy, she soon reflected, that perhaps
+going empty did not make him feel bad! Little Baptiste was so decided
+in his ways, made what in others would have been sacrifices so much as
+a matter of course, and was so much disgusted on being offered credit
+or sympathy in consequence, that his mother, not being able to
+understand him, was not a little afraid of him.
+
+He was not very formidable in appearance, however, that clumsy boy of
+fourteen or so, whose big freckled, good face was now bent over the
+cradle where _la petite_ Seraphine lay smiling in her sleep, with soft
+little fingers clutched round his rough one.
+
+"For sure," said Delima, observing the baby's smile, "the good angels
+are very near. I wonder what they are telling her?"
+
+"Something about her father, of course; for so I have always heard it
+is when the infants smile in sleep," answered the old woman.
+
+Little Baptiste rose impatiently and went into the sleeping-room.
+Often the simplicity and sentimentality of his mother and grandmother
+gave him strange pangs at heart; they seemed to be the children, while
+he felt very old. They were always looking for wonderful things to
+happen, and expecting the saints and _le bon Dieu_ to help the family
+out of difficulties that little Baptiste saw no way of overcoming
+without the work which was then so hard to get. His mother's remark
+about the angels talking to little Seraphine pained him so much that
+he would have cried had he not felt compelled to be very much of a man
+during his father's absence.
+
+If he had been asked to name the spirit hovering about, he would have
+mentioned a very wicked one as personified in John Conolly, the
+village storekeeper, the vampire of the little hamlet a quarter of a
+mile distant. Conolly owned the tavern too, and a sawmill up river,
+and altogether was a very rich, powerful, and dreadful person in
+little Baptiste's view. Worst of all, he practically owned the cabin
+and lot of the Larocques, for he had made big Baptiste give him a bill
+of sale of the place as security for groceries to be advanced to the
+family while its head was away in the shanty; and that afternoon
+Conolly had said to little Baptiste that the credit had been
+exhausted, and more.
+
+"No; you can't get any pork," said the storekeeper. "Don't your mother
+know that, after me sending her away when she wanted corn-meal
+yesterday? Tell her she don't get another cent's worth here."
+
+"For why not? My fader always he pay," said the indignant boy, trying
+to talk English.
+
+"Yes, indeed! Well, he ain't paid this time. How do I know what's
+happened to him, as he ain't back from the shanty? Tell you what: I'm
+going to turn you all out if your mother don't pay rent in advance for
+the shanty to-morrow,--four dollars a month."
+
+"What you talkin' so for? We doan' goin pay no rent for our own
+house!"
+
+"You doan' goin' to own no house," answered Conolly, mimicking the
+boy. "The house is mine any time I like to say so. If the store bill
+ain't paid to-night, out you go to-morrow, or else pay rent. Tell your
+mother that for me. Mosey off now. '_Marche, donc!_' There's no other
+way."
+
+Little Baptiste had not told his mother of this terrible threat, for
+what was the use? She had no money. He knew that she would begin
+weeping and wailing, with small Andre and Odillon as a puzzled,
+excited chorus, with 'Toinette and Seraphine adding those baby cries
+that made little Baptiste want to cry himself; with his grandmother
+steadily advising, in the din, that patient trust in _le bon Dieu_
+which he could not always entertain, though he felt very wretched that
+he could not.
+
+Moreover, he desired to spare his mother and grandmother as long as
+possible. "Let them have their good night's sleep," said he to
+himself, with such thoughtfulness and pity as a merchant might feel in
+concealing imminent bankruptcy from his family. He knew there was but
+one chance remaining,--that his father might come home during the
+night or next morning, with his winter's wages.
+
+Big Baptiste had "gone up" for Rewbell the jobber; had gone in
+November, to make logs in the distant Petawawa woods, and now the
+month was May. The "very magnificent" pig he had salted down before
+going away had been eaten long ago. My! what a time it seemed now to
+little Baptiste since that pig-killing! How good the _boudin_ (the
+blood-puddings) had been, and the liver and tender bits, and what a
+joyful time they had had! The barrelful of salted pike and catfish was
+all gone too,--which made the fact that fish were not biting well this
+year very sad indeed.
+
+Now on top of all these troubles this new danger of being turned out
+on the roadside! For where are they to get four dollars, or two, or
+one even, to stave Conolly off? Certainly his father was away too
+long; but surely, surely, thought the boy, he would get back in time
+to save his home! Then he remembered with horror, and a feeling of
+being disloyal to his father for remembering, that terrible day, three
+years before, when big Baptiste had come back from his winter's work
+drunk, and without a dollar, having been robbed while on a spree in
+Ottawa. If that were the reason of his father's delay now, ah, then
+there would be no hope, unless _le bon Dieu_ should indeed work a
+miracle for them!
+
+While the boy thought over the situation with fear, his grandmother
+went to her bed, and soon afterward Delima took the little Seraphine's
+cradle into the sleeping-room. That left little Baptiste so lonely
+that he could not sit still; nor did he see any use of going to lie
+awake in bed by Andre and Odillon.
+
+So he left the cabin softly, and reaching the river with a few steps,
+pushed off his flat-bottomed boat, and was carried smartly up stream
+by the shore eddy. It soon gave him to the current, and then he
+drifted idly down under the bright moon, listening to the roar of the
+long rapid, near the foot of which their cabin stood. Then he took to
+his oars, and rowed to the end of his night-line, tied to the wharf.
+He had an unusual fear that it might be gone, but found it all right,
+stretched taut; a slender rope, four hundred feet long, floated here
+and there far away in the darkness by flat cedar sticks,--a rope
+carrying short bits of line, and forty hooks, all loaded with
+excellent fat, wriggling worms.
+
+That day little Baptiste had taken much trouble with his night-line;
+he was proud of the plentiful bait, and now, as he felt the tightened
+rope with his fingers, he told himself that his well-filled hooks
+_must_ attract plenty of fish,--perhaps a sturgeon! Wouldn't that be
+grand? A big sturgeon of seventy-five pounds!
+
+He pondered the Ottawa statement that "there are seven kinds of meat
+on the head of a sturgeon," and, enumerating the kinds, fell into a
+conviction that one sturgeon at least would surely come to his line.
+Had not three been caught in one night by Pierre Mallette, who had no
+sort of claim, who was too lazy to bait more than half his hooks,
+altogether too wicked to receive any special favors from _le bon
+Dieu_?
+
+Little Baptiste rowed home, entered the cabin softly, and stripped for
+bed, almost happy in guessing what the big fish would probably weigh.
+
+Putting his arms around little Andre, he tried to go to sleep; but the
+threats of Conolly came to him with new force, and he lay awake, with
+a heavy dread in his heart.
+
+How long he had been lying thus he did not know, when a heavy step
+came upon the plank outside the door.
+
+"Father's home!" cried little Baptiste, springing to the floor as the
+door opened.
+
+"Baptiste! my own Baptiste!" cried Delima, putting her arms around her
+husband as he stood over her.
+
+"Did I not say," said the old woman, seizing her son's hand, "that the
+good God would send help in time?"
+
+Little Baptiste lit the lamp. Then they saw something in the father's
+face that startled them all. He had not spoken, and now they perceived
+that he was haggard, pale, wild-eyed.
+
+"The good God!" cried big Baptiste, and knelt by the bed, and bowed
+his head on his arms, and wept so loudly that little Andre and
+Odillon, wakening, joined his cry. "_Le bon Dieu_ has forgotten us!
+For all my winter's work I have not one dollar! The concern is failed.
+Rewbell paid not one cent of wages, but ran away, and the timber has
+been seized."
+
+Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, poor Delima! poor children! and poor little
+Baptiste, with the threats of Conolly rending his heart!
+
+"I have walked all day," said the father, "and eaten not a thing.
+Give me something, Delima."
+
+"O holy angels!" cried the poor woman, breaking into a wild weeping.
+"O Baptiste, Baptiste, my poor man! There is nothing; not a scrap; not
+any flour, not meal, not grease even; not a pinch of tea!" but still
+she searched frantically about the rooms.
+
+"Never mind," said big Baptiste then, holding her in his strong arms.
+"I am not so hungry as tired, Delima, and I can sleep."
+
+The old woman, who had been swaying to and fro in her chair of rushes,
+rose now, and laid her aged hands on the broad shoulders of the man.
+
+"My son Baptiste," she said, "you must not say that God has forgotten
+us, for He has not forgotten us. The hunger is hard to bear, I
+know,--hard, hard to bear; but great plenty will be sent in answer to
+our prayers. And it is hard, hard to lose thy long winter's work; but
+be patient, my son, and thankful, yes, thankful for all thou hast."
+
+"Behold, Delima is well and strong. See the little Baptiste, how much
+a man! Yes, that is right; kiss the little Andre and Odillon; and see!
+how sweetly 'Toinette sleeps! All strong and well, son Baptiste! Were
+one gone, think what thou wouldst have lost! But instead, be thankful,
+for behold, another has been given,--the little Seraphine here, that
+thou hast not before seen!"
+
+Big, rough, soft-hearted Baptiste knelt by the cradle, and kissed the
+babe gently.
+
+"It is true, _Memere_," he answered, "and I thank _le bon Dieu_ for
+his goodness to me."
+
+But little Baptiste, lying wide awake for hours afterwards, was not
+thankful. He could not see that matters could be much worse. A big
+hard lump was in his throat as he thought of his father's hunger, and
+the home-coming so different from what they had fondly counted on.
+Great slow tears came into the boy's eyes, and he wiped them away,
+ashamed even in the dark to have been guilty of such weakness.
+
+In the gray dawn little Baptiste suddenly awoke, with the sensation of
+having slept on his post. How heavy his heart was! Why? He sat dazed
+with indefinite sorrow. Ah, now he remembered! Conolly threatening to
+turn them out! and his father back penniless! No breakfast! Well, we
+must see about that.
+
+Very quietly he rose, put on his patched clothes, and went out. Heavy
+mist covered the face of the river, and somehow the rapid seemed
+stilled to a deep, pervasive murmur. As he pushed his boat off, the
+morning fog was chillier than frost about him; but his heart got
+lighter as he rowed toward his night-line, and he became even eager
+for the pleasure of handling his fish. He made up his mind not to be
+much disappointed if there were no sturgeon, but could not quite
+believe there would be none; surely it was reasonable to expect _one_,
+perhaps two--why not three?--among the catfish and _dore_.
+
+How very taut and heavy the rope felt as he raised it over his
+gunwales, and letting the bow swing up stream, began pulling in the
+line hand over hand! He had heard of cases where every hook had its
+fish; such a thing might happen again surely! Yard after yard of rope
+he passed slowly over the boat, and down into the water it sank on his
+track.
+
+Now a knot on the line told him he was nearing the first hook; he
+watched for the quiver and struggle of the fish,--probably a big one,
+for there he had put a tremendous bait on and spat on it for luck,
+moreover. What? the short line hung down from the rope, and the baited
+hook rose clear of the water!
+
+Baptiste instantly made up his mind that that hook had been placed a
+little too far in-shore; he remembered thinking so before; the next
+hook was in about the right place!
+
+Hand over hand, ah! the second hook, too! Still baited, the big worm
+very livid! It must be thus because that worm was pushed up the shank
+of the hook in such a queer way: he had been rather pleased when he
+gave the bait that particular twist, and now was surprised at himself;
+why, any one could see it was a thing to scare fish!
+
+Hand over hand to the third,--the hook was naked of bait! Well, that
+was more satisfactory; it showed they had been biting, and, after all,
+this was just about the beginning of the right place.
+
+Hand over hand; _now_ the splashing will begin, thought little
+Baptiste, and out came the fourth hook with its livid worm! He held
+the rope in his hand without drawing it in for a few moments, but
+could see no reasonable objection to that last worm. His heart sank a
+little, but pshaw! only four hooks out of forty were up yet! wait till
+the eddy behind the shoal was reached, then great things would be
+seen. Maybe the fish had not been lying in that first bit of current.
+
+Hand over hand again, now! yes, certainly, _there_ is the right swirl!
+What? a _losch_, that unclean semi-lizard! The boy tore it off and
+flung it indignantly into the river. However, there was good luck in a
+_losch_; that was well known.
+
+But the next hook, and the next, and next, and next came up baited and
+fishless. He pulled hand over hand quickly--not a fish! and he must
+have gone over half the line! Little Baptiste stopped, with his heart
+like lead and his arms trembling. It was terrible! Not a fish, and his
+father had no supper, and there was no credit at the store. Poor
+little Baptiste!
+
+Again he hauled hand over hand--one hook, two, three--oh! ho!
+Glorious! What a delightful sheer downward the rope took! Surely the
+big sturgeon at last, trying to stay down on the bottom with the hook!
+But Baptiste would show that fish his mistake. He pulled, pulled,
+stood up to pull; there was a sort of shake, a sudden give of the
+rope, and little Baptiste tumbled over backward as he jerked his line
+up from under the big stone!
+
+Then he heard the shutters clattering as Conolly's clerk took them off
+the store window; at half-past five to the minute that was always
+done. Soon big Baptiste would be up, that was certain. Again the boy
+began hauling in line: baited hook! baited hook! naked hook! baited
+hook!--such was still the tale.
+
+"Surely, surely," implored little Baptiste, silently, "I shall find
+some fish!" Up! up! only four remained! The boy broke down. Could it
+be? Had he not somehow skipped many hooks? Could it be that there was
+to be no breakfast for the children? Naked hook again! Oh, for some
+fish! anything! three, two!
+
+"Oh, send just one for my father!--my poor, hungry father!" cried
+little Baptiste, and drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and
+the line was out of the water clear away to his outer buoy!
+
+He let go the rope and drifted down the river, crying as though his
+heart would break. All the good hooks useless! all the labor thrown
+away! all his self-confidence come to naught!
+
+Up rose the great sun; from around the kneeling boy drifted the last
+of the morning mists; bright beams touched his bowed head tenderly. He
+lifted his face and looked up the rapid. Then he jumped to his feet
+with sudden wonder; a great joy lit up his countenance.
+
+Far up the river a low, broad, white patch appeared on the sharp
+sky-line made by the level dark summit of the long slope of tumbling
+water. On this white patch stood many figures of swaying men black
+against the clear morning sky, and little Baptiste saw instantly that
+an attempt was being made to "run" a "band" of deals, or many cribs
+lashed together, instead of single cribs as had been done the day
+before.
+
+The broad strip of white changed its form slowly, dipped over the
+slope, drew out like a wide ribbon, and soon showed a distinct slant
+across the mighty volume of the deep raft-channel. When little
+Baptiste, acquainted as he was with every current, eddy, and shoal in
+the rapid, saw that slant, he knew that his first impression of what
+was about to happen had been correct. The pilot of the band _had_
+allowed it to drift too far north before reaching the rapid's head.
+
+Now the front cribs, instead of following the curve of the channel,
+had taken slower water, while the rear cribs, impelled by the rush
+under them, swung the band slowly across the current. All along the
+front the standing men swayed back and forth, plying sweeps full forty
+feet long, attempting to swing into channel again, with their strokes
+dashing the dark rollers before the band into wide splashes of white.
+On the rear cribs another crew pulled in the contrary direction; about
+the middle of the band stood the pilot, urging his gangs with gestures
+to greater efforts.
+
+Suddenly he made a new motion; the gang behind drew in their oars and
+ran hastily forward to double the force in front. But they came too
+late! Hardly had the doubled bow crew taken a stroke when all drew in
+their oars and ran back to be out of danger. Next moment the front
+cribs struck the "hog's-back" shoal.
+
+Then the long broad band curved downward in the centre, the rear cribs
+swung into the shallows on the opposite side of the raft-channel,
+there was a great straining and crashing, the men in front huddled
+together, watching the wreck anxiously, and the band went speedily to
+pieces. Soon a fringe of single planks came down stream, then cribs
+and pieces of cribs; half the band was drifting with the currents, and
+half was "hung up" on the rocks among the breakers.
+
+Launching the big red flat-bottomed bow boat, twenty of the raftsmen
+came with wild speed down the river, and as there had been no rush to
+get aboard, little Baptiste knew that the cribs on which the men
+stood were so hard aground that no lives were in danger. It meant much
+to him; it meant that he was instantly at liberty to gather in
+_money_! money, in sums that loomed to gigantic figures before his
+imagination.
+
+He knew that there was an important reason for hurrying the deals to
+Quebec, else the great risk of running a band at that season would not
+have been undertaken; and he knew that hard cash would be paid down as
+salvage for all planks brought ashore, and thus secured from drifting
+far and wide over the lake-like expanse below the rapid's foot. Little
+Baptiste plunged his oars in and made for a clump of deals floating in
+the eddy near his own shore. As he rushed along, the raftsmen's boat
+crossed his bows, going to the main raft below for ropes and material
+to secure the cribs coming down intact.
+
+"Good boy!" shouted the foreman to Baptiste. "Ten cents for every deal
+you fetch ashore above the raft!" Ten cents! he had expected but
+five! What a harvest!
+
+Striking his pike-pole into the clump of deals,--"fifty at least,"
+said joyful Baptiste,--he soon secured them to his boat, and then
+pulled, pulled, pulled, till the blood rushed to his head, and his
+arms ached, before he landed his wealth.
+
+"Father!" cried he, bursting breathlessly into the sleeping household.
+"Come quick! I can't get it up without you."
+
+"Big sturgeon?" cried the shantyman, jumping into his trousers.
+
+"Oh, but we shall have a good fish breakfast!" cried Delima.
+
+"Did I not say the blessed _le bon Dieu_ would send plenty fish?"
+observed _Memere_.
+
+"Not a fish!" cried little Baptiste, with recovered breath. "But look!
+look!" and he flung open the door. The eddy was now white with planks.
+
+"Ten cents for each!" cried the boy. "The foreman told me."
+
+"Ten cents!" shouted his father. "_Bapteme!_ it's my winter's wages!"
+
+And the old grandmother! And Delima? Why, they just put their arms
+round each other and cried for joy.
+
+"And yet there's no breakfast," said Delima, starting up. "And they
+will work hard, hard."
+
+At that instant who should reach the door but Monsieur Conolly! He was
+a man who respected cash wherever he found it, and already the two
+Baptistes had a fine show ashore.
+
+"Ma'ame Larocque," said Conolly, politely, putting in his head, "of
+course you know I was only joking yesterday. You can get anything you
+want at the store."
+
+What a breakfast they did have, to be sure! the Baptistes eating while
+they worked. Back and forward they dashed till late afternoon, driving
+ringed spikes into the deals, running light ropes through the rings,
+and, when a good string had thus been made, going ashore to haul in.
+At that hauling Delima and _Memere_, even little Andre and Odillon
+gave a hand.
+
+Everybody in the little hamlet made money that day, but the Larocques
+twice as much as any other family, because they had an eddy and a low
+shore. With the help of the people "the big _Bourgeois_" who owned the
+broken raft got it away that evening, and saved his fat contract after
+all.
+
+"Did I not say so?" said "_Memere_," at night, for the hundredth time.
+"Did I not say so? Yes, indeed, _le bon Dieu_ watches over us all."
+
+"Yes, indeed, grandmother," echoed little Baptiste, thinking of his
+failure on the night-line. "We may take as much trouble as we like,
+but it's no use unless _le bon Dieu_ helps us. Only--I don' know what
+de big Bourgeois say about that--his raft was all broke up so bad."
+
+"Ah, _oui_," said _Memere_, looking puzzled for but a moment. "But he
+didn't put his trust in _le bon Dieu_; that's it, for sure. Besides,
+maybe _le bon Dieu_ want to teach him a lesson; he'll not try for run
+a whole band of deals next time. You see that was a tempting of
+Providence; and then--the big Bourgeois is a Protestant."
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDE BY NIGHT.
+
+
+Mr. Adam Baines is a little Gray about the temples, but still looks so
+young that few could suppose him to have served in the Civil War.
+Indeed, he was in the army less than a year. How he went out of it he
+told me in some such words as these:--
+
+An orderly from the direction of Meade's headquarters galloped into
+our parade ground, and straight for the man on guard before the
+colonel's tent. That was pretty late in the afternoon of a bright
+March day in 1865, but the parade ground was all red mud with shallow
+pools. I remember well how the hind hoofs of the orderly's galloper
+threw away great chunks of earth as he splashed diagonally across the
+open.
+
+His rider never slowed till he brought his horse to its haunches
+before the sentry. There he flung himself off instantly, caught up his
+sabre, and ran through the middle opening of the high screen of
+sapling pines stuck on end, side by side, all around the acre or so
+occupied by the officers' quarters.
+
+The day, though sunny, was not warm, and nearly all the men of my
+regiment were in their huts when that galloping was heard. Then they
+hurried out like bees from rows of hives, ran up the lanes between the
+lines of huts, and collected, each company separately, on the edge of
+the parade ground opposite the officers' quarters.
+
+You see we had a notion that the orderly had brought the word to break
+camp. For five months the Army of the Potomac had been in winter
+quarters, and for weeks nothing more exciting than vidette duty had
+broken the monotony of our brigade. We understood that Sheridan had
+received command of all Grant's cavalry, but did not know but the
+orderly had rushed from Sheridan himself. Yet we awaited the man's
+re-appearance with intense curiosity.
+
+Soon, instead of the orderly, out ran our first lieutenant, a small,
+wiry, long-haired man named Miller. He was in undress uniform,--just a
+blouse and trousers,--and bare-headed. Though he wore low shoes, he
+dashed through mud and water toward us, plainly in a great hurry.
+
+"Sergeant Kennedy, I want ten men at once--mounted," Miller said.
+"Choose the ten best able for a long ride, and give them the best
+horses in the company. You understand,--no matter whose the ten best
+horses are, give 'em to the ten best riders."
+
+"I understand, sir," said Kennedy.
+
+By this time half the company had started for the stables, for fully
+half considered themselves among the best riders. The lieutenant
+laughed at their eagerness.
+
+"Halt, boys!" he cried. "Sergeant, I'll pick out four myself. Come
+yourself, and bring Corporal Crowfoot, Private Bader, and Private
+Absalom Gray."
+
+Crowfoot, Bader, and Gray had been running for the stables with the
+rest. Now these three old soldiers grinned and walked, as much as to
+say, "We needn't hurry; we're picked anyhow;" while the others hurried
+on. I remained near Kennedy, for I was so young and green a soldier
+that I supposed I had no chance to go.
+
+"Hurry up! parade as soon as possible. One day's rations; light
+marching order--no blankets--fetch over-coats and ponchos," said
+Miller, turning; "and in choosing your men, favor light weights."
+
+That was, no doubt, the remark which brought me in. I was lanky,
+light, bred among horses, and one of the best in the regiment had
+fallen to my lot. Kennedy wheeled, and his eye fell on me.
+
+"Saddle up, Adam, boy," said he; "I guess you'll do."
+
+Lieutenant Miller ran back to his quarters, his long hair flying wide.
+When he reappeared fifteen minutes later, we were trotting across the
+parade ground to meet him. He was mounted, not on his own charger, but
+on the colonel's famous thorough-bred bay. Then we knew a hard ride
+must be in prospect.
+
+"What! one of the boys?" cried Miller, as he saw me. "He's too young."
+
+"He's very light, sir; tough as hickory. I guess he'll do," said
+Kennedy.
+
+"Well, no time to change now. Follow me! But, hang it, you've got your
+carbines! Oh, I forgot! Keep pistols only! throw down your sabres and
+carbines--anywhere--never mind the mud!"
+
+As we still hesitated to throw down our clean guns, he shouted: "Down
+with them--anywhere! Now, boys, after me, by twos! Trot--gallop!"
+
+Away we went, not a man jack of us knew for where or what. The colonel
+and officers, standing grouped before regimental headquarters,
+volleyed a cheer at us. It was taken up by the whole regiment; it was
+taken up by the brigade; it was repeated by regiment after regiment of
+infantry as we galloped through the great camp toward the left front
+of the army. The speed at which Miller led over a rough corduroy road
+was extraordinary, and all the men suspected some desperate enterprise
+afoot.
+
+Red and brazen was the set of the sun. I remember it well, after we
+got clear of the forts, clear of the breastworks, clear of the
+reserves, down the long slope and across the wide ford of Grimthorpe's
+Creek, never drawing rein.
+
+The lieutenant led by ten yards or so. He had ordered each two to take
+as much distance from the other two in advance; but we rode so fast
+that the water from the heels of his horse and from the heels of each
+two splashed into the faces of the following men.
+
+From the ford we loped up a hill, and passed the most advanced
+infantry pickets, who laughed and chaffed us, asking us for locks of
+our hair, and if our mothers knew we were out, and promising to report
+our last words faithfully to the folks at home.
+
+Soon we turned to the left again, swept close by several cavalry
+videttes, and knew then that we were bound for a ride through a
+country that might or might not be within Lee's outer lines, at that
+time extended so thinly in many places that his pickets were far out
+of touch with one another. To this day I do not know precisely where
+we went, nor precisely what for. Soldiers are seldom informed of the
+meaning of their movements.
+
+What I do know is what we did while I was in the ride. As we were
+approaching dense pine woods the lieutenant turned in his saddle,
+slacked pace a little, and shouted, "Boys, bunch up near me!"
+
+He screwed round in his saddle so far that we could all see and hear,
+and said:--
+
+"Boys, the order is to follow this road as fast as we can till our
+horses drop, or else the Johnnies drop us, or else we drop upon three
+brigades of our own infantry. I guess they've got astray somehow; but
+I don't know myself what the trouble is. Our orders are plain. The
+brigades are supposed to be somewhere on this road. I guess we shall
+do a big thing if we reach those men to-night. All we've got to do is
+to ride and deliver this despatch to the general in command. You all
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"
+
+"It's necessary you all should. Hark, now! We are not likely to strike
+the enemy in force, but we are likely to run up against small parties.
+Now, Kennedy, if they down me, you are to stop just long enough to
+grab the despatch from my breast; then away you go,--always on the
+main road. If they down you after you've got the paper, the man who
+can grab it first is to take it and hurry forward. So on right to the
+last man. If they down him, and he's got his senses when he falls,
+he's to tear the paper up, and scatter it as widely as he can. You all
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"
+
+"All right, then. String out again!"
+
+He touched the big bay with the spur, and shot quickly ahead.
+
+With the long rest of the winter our horses were in prime spirits,
+though mostly a little too fleshy for perfect condition. I had cared
+well for my horse; he was fast and sound in wind and limb. I was
+certainly the lightest rider of the eleven.
+
+I was still thinking of the probability that I should get further on
+the way than any comrade except the lieutenant, or perhaps Crowfoot
+and Bader, whose horses were in great shape; I was thinking myself
+likely to win promotion before morning, when a cry came out of the
+darkness ahead. The words of the challenge I was not able to catch,
+but I heard Miller shout, "Forward, boys!"
+
+We shook out more speed just as a rifle spat its long flash at us from
+about a hundred yards ahead. For one moment I plainly saw the
+Southerner's figure. Kennedy reeled beside me, flung up his hands with
+a scream, and fell. His horse stopped at once. In a moment the
+lieutenant had ridden the sentry down.
+
+Then from the right side of the road a party, who must have been lying
+round the camp-fire that we faintly saw in among the pines, let fly at
+us. They had surely been surprised in their sleep. I clearly saw them
+as their guns flashed.
+
+"Forward! Don't shoot! Ride on," shouted Miller. "Bushwhackers! Thank
+God, not mounted! Any of you make out horses with them?"
+
+"No, sir! No, sir!"
+
+"Who yelled? who went down?"
+
+"Kennedy, sir," I cried.
+
+"Too bad! Any one else?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"All safe?"
+
+"I'm touched in my right arm; but it's nothing," I said. The twinge
+was slight, and in the fleshy place in front of my shoulder. I could
+not make out that I was losing blood, and the pain from the hurt was
+scarcely perceptible.
+
+"Good boy! Keep up, Adam!" called the lieutenant with a kind tone. I
+remember my delight that he spoke my front name. On we flew.
+
+Possibly the shots had been heard by the party half a mile further on,
+for they greeted us with a volley. A horse coughed hard and pitched
+down behind me. His rider yelled as he fell. Then two more shots came:
+Crowfoot reeled in front of me, and somehow checked his horse. I saw
+him no more. Next moment we were upon the group with our pistols.
+
+"Forward, men! Don't stop to fight!" roared Miller, as he got clear. A
+rifle was fired so close to my head that the flame burned my back
+hair, and my ears rang for half an hour or more. My bay leaped high
+and dashed down a man. In a few seconds I was fairly out of the
+scrimmage.
+
+How many of my comrades had gone down I knew not, nor beside whom I
+was riding. Suddenly our horses plunged into a hole; his stumbled, the
+man pitched forward, and was left behind. Then I heard a shot, the
+clatter of another falling horse, the angry yell of another thrown
+rider.
+
+On we went,--the relics of us. Now we rushed out of the pine forest
+into broad moonlight, and I saw two riders between me and the
+lieutenant,--one man almost at my shoulder and another galloping ten
+yards behind. Very gradually this man dropped to the rear. We had lost
+five men already, and still the night was young.
+
+Bader and Absalom Gray were nearest me. Neither spoke a word till we
+struck upon a space of sandy road. Then I could hear, far behind the
+rear man, a sound of galloping on the hard highway.
+
+"They're after us, lieutenant!" shouted Bader.
+
+"Many?" He slacked speed, and we listened attentively.
+
+"Only one," cried Miller. "He's coming fast."
+
+The pursuer gained so rapidly that we looked to our pistols again.
+Then Absalom Gray cried:
+
+"It's only a horse!"
+
+In a few moments the great gray of fallen Corporal Crowfoot overtook
+us, went ahead, and slacked speed by the lieutenant.
+
+"Good! He'll be fresh when the rest go down!" shouted Miller. "Let the
+last man mount the gray!"
+
+By this time we had begun to think ourselves clear of the enemy, and
+doomed to race on till the horses should fall.
+
+Suddenly the hoofs of Crowfoot's gray and the lieutenant's bay
+thundered upon a plank road whose hollow noise, when we all reached
+it, should have been heard far. It took us through wide orchard lands
+into a low-lying mist by the banks of a great marsh, till we passed
+through that fog, strode heavily up a slope, and saw the shimmer of
+roofs under the moon. Straight, through the main street we pounded
+along.
+
+Whether it was wholly deserted I know not, but not a human being was
+in the streets, nor any face visible at the black windows. Not even a
+dog barked. I noticed no living thing except some turkeys roosting on
+a fence, and a white cat that sprang upon the pillar of a gateway and
+thence to a tree.
+
+Some of the houses seemed to have been ruined by a cannonade. I
+suppose it was one of the places almost destroyed in Willoughby's
+recent raid. Here we thundered, expecting ambush and conflict every
+moment, while the loneliness of the street imposed on me such a sense
+as might come of galloping through a long cemetery of the dead.
+
+Out of the village we went off the planks again upon sand. I began to
+suspect that I was losing a good deal of blood. My brain was on fire
+with whirling thoughts and wonder where all was to end. Out of this
+daze I came, in amazement to find that we were quickly overtaking our
+lieutenant's thoroughbred.
+
+Had he been hit in the fray, and bled to weakness? I only know that,
+still galloping while we gained, the famous horse lurched forward,
+almost turned a somersault, and fell on his rider.
+
+"Stop--the paper!" shouted Bader.
+
+We drew rein, turned, dismounted, and found Miller's left leg under
+the big bay's shoulder. The horse was quite dead, the rider's long
+hair lay on the sand, his face was white under the moon!
+
+We stopped long enough to extricate him, and he came to his senses
+just as we made out that his left leg was broken.
+
+"Forward!" he groaned. "What in thunder are you stopped for? Oh, the
+despatch! Here! away you go! Good-bye."
+
+In attending to Miller we had forgotten the rider who had been long
+gradually dropping behind. Now as we galloped away,--Bader, Absalom
+Gray, myself, and Crowfoot's riderless horse,--I looked behind for
+that comrade; but he was not to be seen or heard. We three were left
+of the eleven.
+
+From the loss of so many comrades the importance of our mission seemed
+huge. With the speed, the noise, the deaths, the strangeness of the
+gallop through that forsaken village, the wonder how all would end,
+the increasing belief that thousands of lives depended on our success,
+and the longing to win, my brain was wild. A raging desire to be first
+held me, and I galloped as if in a dream.
+
+Bader led; the riderless gray thundered beside him; Absalom rode
+stirrup to stirrup with me. He was a veteran of the whole war. Where
+it was that his sorrel rolled over I do not remember at all, though I
+perfectly remember how Absalom sprang up, staggered, shouted, "My
+foot is sprained!" and fell as I turned to look at him and went racing
+on.
+
+Then I heard above the sound of our hoofs the voice of the veteran of
+the war. Down as he was, his spirit was unbroken. In the favorite song
+of the army his voice rose clear and gay and piercing:--
+
+"Hurrah for the Union!
+Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
+Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!"
+
+We turned our heads and cheered him as we flew, for there was
+something indescribably inspiriting in the gallant and cheerful lilt
+of the fallen man. It was as if he flung us, from the grief of utter
+defeat, a soul unconquerable; and I felt the life in me strengthened
+by the tone.
+
+Old Bader and I for it! He led by a hundred yards, and Crowfoot's gray
+kept his stride. Was I gaining on them? How was it that I could see
+his figure outlined more clearly against the horizon? Surely dawn was
+not coming on!
+
+No; I looked round on a world of naked peach-orchards, and corn-fields
+ragged with last year's stalks, all dimly lit by a moon that showed
+far from midnight; and that faint light on the horizon was not in the
+east, but in the west. The truth flashed on me,--I was looking at such
+an illumination of the sky as would be caused by the camp-fires of an
+army.
+
+"The missing brigade!" I shouted.
+
+"Or a Southern division!" Bader cried. "Come on!"
+
+"Come on!" I was certainly gaining on him, but very slowly. Before the
+nose of my bay was beyond the tail of his roan, the wide illuminations
+had become more distinct; and still not a vidette, not a picket, not a
+sound of the proximity of an army.
+
+Bader and I now rode side by side, and Crowfoot's gray easily kept the
+pace. My horse was in plain distress, but Bader's was nearly done.
+
+"Take the paper, Adam," he said; "my roan won't go much further.
+Good-bye, youngster. Away you go!" and I drew now quickly ahead.
+
+Still Bader rode on behind me. In a few minutes he was considerably
+behind. Perhaps the sense of being alone increased my feeling of
+weakness. Was I going to reel out of the saddle? Had I lost so much
+blood as that? Still I could hear Bader riding on. I turned to look at
+him. Already he was scarcely visible. Soon he dropped out of sight;
+but still I heard the laborious pounding of his desperate horse.
+
+My bay was gasping horribly. How far was that faintly yellow sky
+ahead? It might be two, it might be five miles. Were Union or Southern
+soldiers beneath it? Could it be conceived that no troops of the enemy
+were between me and it?
+
+Never mind; my orders were clear. I rode straight on, and I was still
+riding straight on, marking no increase in the distress of my bay,
+when he stopped as if shot, staggered, fell on his knees, tried to
+rise, rolled to his side, groaned and lay.
+
+I was so weak I could not clear myself. I remember my right spur
+catching in my saddle-cloth as I tried to free my foot; then I pitched
+forward and fell. Not yet senseless, I clutched at my breast for the
+despatch, meaning to tear it to pieces; but there my brain failed, and
+in full view of the goal of the night I lay unconscious.
+
+When I came to, I rose on my left elbow, and looked around. Near my
+feet my poor bay lay, stone dead. Crowfoot's gray!--where was
+Crowfoot's gray? It flashed on me that I might mount the fresh horse
+and ride on. But where was the gray? As I peered round I heard faintly
+the sound of a galloper. Was he coming my way? No; faintly and more
+faintly I heard the hoofs.
+
+Had the gray gone on then, without the despatch? I clutched at my
+breast. My coat was unbuttoned--the paper was gone!
+
+Well, sir, I cheered. My God! but it was comforting to hear those
+far-away hoofs, and know that Bader must have come up, taken the
+papers, and mounted Crowfoot's gray, still good for a ten-mile ride!
+The despatch was gone forward; we had not all fallen in vain; maybe
+the brigades would be saved!
+
+How purely the stars shone! When I stifled my groaning they seemed to
+tell me of a great peace to come. How still was the night! and I
+thought of the silence of the multitudes who had died for the Union.
+
+Now the galloping had quite died away. There was not a sound,--a
+slight breeze blew, but there were no leaves to rustle. I put my head
+down on the neck of my dead horse. Extreme fatigue was benumbing the
+pain of my now swelling arm; perhaps sleep was near, perhaps I was
+swooning.
+
+But a sound came that somewhat revived me. Far, low, joyful, it crept
+on the air. I sat up, wide awake. The sound, at first faint, died as
+the little breeze fell, then grew in the lull, and came ever more
+clearly as the wind arose. It was a sound never to be forgotten,--the
+sound of the distant cheering of thousands of men.
+
+Then I knew that Bader had galloped into the Union lines, delivered
+the despatch, and told a story which had quickly passed through
+wakeful brigades.
+
+Bader I never saw again, nor Lieutenant Miller, nor any man with whom
+I rode that night. When I came to my senses I was in hospital at City
+Point. Thence I went home invalided. No surgeon, no nurse, no soldier
+at the hospital could tell me of my regiment, or how or why I was
+where I was. All they could tell me was that Richmond was taken, the
+army far away in pursuit of Lee, and a rumor flying that the great
+commander of the South had surrendered near Appomattox Court House.
+
+
+
+
+"DRAFTED."
+
+
+Harry Wallbridge, awaking with a sense of some alarming sound,
+listened intently in the darkness, seeing overhead the canvas roof
+faintly outlined, the darker stretch of its ridge-pole, its two thin
+slanting rafters, and the gable ends of the winter hut. He could not
+hear the small, fine drizzle from an atmosphere surcharged with water,
+nor anything but the drip from canvas to trench, the rustling of hay
+bunched beneath his head, the regular breathing of his "buddy,"
+Corporal Bader, and the stamping of horses in stables. But when a
+soldier in a neighboring tent called indistinguishably in the accents
+of nightmare, Bader's breathing quieted, and in the lull Harry fancied
+the soaked air weighted faintly with steady picket-firing. A month
+with the 53d Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Cavalry had not quite
+disabused the young recruit of his schoolboy belief that the men of
+the Army of the Potomac must live constantly within sound of the
+out-posts.
+
+Harry sat up to hearken better, and then concluded that he had
+mistaken for musketry the crackle of haystalks under his poncho sheet.
+Beneath him the round poles of his bed sagged as he drew up his knees
+and gathered about his shoulders the gray blanket damp from the spray
+of heavy rain against the canvas earlier in the night. Soon, with slow
+dawn's approach, he could make out the dull white of his carbine and
+sabre against the mud-plastered chimney. In that drear dimness the boy
+shivered, with a sense of misery rather than from cold, and yearned as
+only sleepy youth can for the ease of a true bed and dry warm swooning
+to slumber. He was sustained by no mature sense that this too would
+pass; it was with a certain bodily despair that he felt chafed and
+compressed by his rough garments, and pitied himself, thinking how his
+mother would cry if she could see him crouched so wretchedly that wet
+March morning, pressed all the more into loneliness by the regular
+breathing of veteran Bader in the indifference of deep sleep.
+
+Harry's vision of his mother coming into his room, shading her candle
+with her hand to see if he were asleep, passed away as a small gust
+came, shaking the canvas, for he was instantly alert with a certainty
+that the breeze had borne a strong rolling of musketry.
+
+"Bader, Bader!" he said. "Bader!"
+
+"Can't you shut up, you Wallbridge?" came Orderly Sergeant Gravely's
+sharp tones from the next tent.
+
+"What's wrong with you, Harry, boy?" asked Bader, turning.
+
+"I thought I heard heavy firing closer than the picket lines; twice
+now I've thought I heard it."
+
+"Oh, I guess not, Harry. The Johnnies won't come out no such night as
+this. Keep quiet, or you'll have the sergeant on top of you. Better
+lie down and try to sleep, buddy; the bugles will call morning soon
+now."
+
+Again Harry fell to his revery of home, and his vision became that of
+the special evening on which his boyish wish to go to the war had, for
+the family's sake, become resolve. He saw his mother's spectacled and
+lamp-lit face as she, leaning to the table, read in the familiar
+Bible; little Fred and Mary, also facing the table's central lamp,
+bent sleepy heads over their school-books; the father sat in the
+rocking-chair, with his right hand on the paper he had laid down, and
+gazed gloomily at the coals fallen below the front doors of the
+wood-burning stove. Harry dreamed himself back in his own chair,
+looking askance, and feeling sure his father was inwardly groaning
+over the absence of Jack, the eldest son. Then nine o'clock struck,
+and Fred and Mary began to put their books away in preparation for
+bed.
+
+"Wait a little, children," Mrs. Wallbridge said, serene in tone from
+her devotional reading. "Father wants that I should tell you
+something. You mustn't feel bad about it. It's that we may soon go out
+West. Your Uncle Ezra is doing well in Minnesota. Aunt Elvira says so
+in her letter that came to-day."
+
+"It's this way, children," said Mr. Wallbridge, ready to explain, now
+that the subject was opened. "Since ever your brother Jack went away
+South, the store expenses have been too heavy. It's near five years
+now he's been gone. There's a sheaf of notes coming due the third of
+next month; twice they've been renewed, and the Philadelphia men say
+they'll close me up this time sure. If I had eight hundred
+dollars--but it's no use talking; we'll just have to let them take
+what we've got. Times have been bad right along around here, anyhow,
+with new competition, and so many farmers gone to the war, and more
+gone West. If Jack had stopped to home--but I've had to pay two
+clerks to do his work, and then they don't take any interest in the
+business. Mind, I'm not blaming Jack, poor fellow,--he'd a right to go
+where he'd get more'n his keep, and be able to lay up something for
+himself,--but what's become of him, God knows; and such a smart, good
+boy as he was! He'd got fond of New Orleans,--I guess some nice girl
+there, maybe, was the reason; and there he'd stay after the war began,
+and now it's two years and more since we've heard from him. Dead,
+maybe, or maybe they'd put him in jail, for he said he'd never join
+the Confederates, nor fight against them either--he felt that
+way--North and South was all the same to him. And so he's gone; and I
+don't see my way now at all. Ma, if it wasn't for my lame leg, I'd
+take the bounty. It'd be _something_ for you and the children after
+the store's gone."
+
+"Sho, pa! don't talk that way! You're too down-hearted. It'll all come
+right, with the Lord's help," said Harry's mother. How clearly he, in
+the damp cold tent, could see her kind looks as she pushed up her
+spectacles and beamed on her husband; how distinctly, in the still dim
+dawn, he heard her soothing tones!
+
+It was that evening's talk which had sent Harry, so young, to the
+front. Three village boys, little older than he, had already contrived
+to enlist. Every time he saw the Flag drooping, he thought shame of
+himself to be absent from the ranks of its upholders; and now, just as
+he was believing himself big and old enough to serve, he conceived
+that duty to his parents distinctly enjoined him to go. So in the
+night, without leave-taking or consent of his parents, he departed.
+The combined Federal, State, and city bounties offered at Philadelphia
+amounted to nine hundred dollars cash that dreadful winter before
+Richmond fell, and Harry sent the money home triumphantly in time to
+pay his father's notes and save the store.
+
+While the young soldier thought it all over, carbine and sabre came
+out more and more distinctly outlined above the mud-plastered
+fireplace. The drizzle had ceased, the drip into the trench was almost
+finished, intense stillness ruled; Harry half expected to hear cocks
+crow from out such silence.
+
+Listening for them, his dreamy mind brooded over both hosts, in a
+vision even as wide as the vast spread of the Republic in which they
+lay as two huddles of miserable men. For what were they all about him
+this woful, wet night? they all fain, as he, for home and industry and
+comfort. What delusion held them? How could it be that they could not
+all march away and separate, and the cruel war be over? Harry caught
+his breath at the idea,--it seemed so natural, simple, easy, and good
+a solution. Becoming absorbed in the fancy, tired of listening, and
+soothed by the silence, he was falling asleep as he sat, when a heavy
+weight seemed to fall, far away. Another--another--the fourth had the
+rumble of distant thunder, and seemed followed by a concussion of the
+air.
+
+"Hey--Big Guns! What's up toward City Point?" cried Bader, sitting up.
+"I tell you they're at it. It can't be so far away as Butler. What? On
+the left too! That was toward Hatcher's Run! Harry, the rebs are out
+in earnest! I guess you did hear the pickets trying to stop 'em. What
+a morning! Ha--Fort Hell! see that!"
+
+The outside world was dimly lighted up for a moment. In the
+intensified darkness that followed Bader's voice was drowned by the
+crash of a great gun from the neighboring fort. _Flash, crash--flash,
+crash--flash, crash_ succeeded rapidly. Then the intervals of Fort
+Hell's fire lengthened to the regular periods for loading, and between
+her roars were heard the sullen boom of more distant guns, while
+through all the tumult ran a fierce undertone,--the infernal hurrying
+of musketry along the immediate front.
+
+"The Johnnies must have got in close somehow," cried Bader. "Hey,
+Sergeant?"
+
+"Yes," shouted Gravely. "Scooped up the pickets and supports too in
+the rain, I guess. Turn out, boys, turn out! there'll be a wild day.
+Kid! Where's the Kid? Kid Sylvester!"
+
+"Here! All right, Barney; I'll be out in two shakes," shouted the
+bugler.
+
+"Hurry, then! I can hear the Colonel shouting already. Man, listen to
+that!"--as four of Fort Hell's guns crashed almost simultaneously.
+"Brownie! Greasy Cook! O Brownie!"
+
+"Here!" shouted the cook.
+
+"Get your fire started right away, and see what salt horse and biscuit
+you can scare up. Maybe we'll have time for a snack."
+
+"Turn out, Company K!" shouted Lieutenant Bradley, running down from
+the officers' quarters. "Where's the commissary sergeant? There?--all
+right--give out feed right away! Get your oats, men, and feed
+instantly! We may have time. Hullo! here's the General's orderly."
+
+As the trooper galloped, in a mud-storm, across the parade ground, a
+group of officers ran out behind the Colonel from the screen of pine
+saplings about Regimental Headquarters. The orderly gave the Colonel
+but a word, and, wheeling, was off again as "Boot and saddle" blared
+from the buglers, who had now assembled on parade.
+
+"But leave the bits out--let your horses feed!" cried the Lieutenant,
+running down again. "We're not to march till further orders."
+
+Beyond the screen of pines Harry could see the tall canvas ridges of
+the officers' cabins lighted up. Now all the tents of the regiment,
+row behind row, were faintly luminous, and the renewed drizzle of the
+dawn was a little lightened in every direction by the canvas-hidden
+candles of infantry regiments, the glare of numerous fires already
+started, and sparks showering up from the cook-houses of company after
+company.
+
+Soon in the cloudy sky the cannonade rolled about in broad day, which
+was still so gray that long wide flashes of flame could be seen to
+spring far out before every report from the guns of Fort Hell, and in
+the haze but few of the rebel shells shrieking along their high curve
+could be clearly seen bursting over Hancock's cheering men.
+Indistinguishably blent were the sounds of hosts on the move,
+field-guns pounding to the front, troops shouting, the clink and
+rattle of metal, officers calling, bugles blaring, drums rolling,
+mules screaming,--all heard as a running accompaniment to the cannon
+heavily punctuating the multitudinous din.
+
+"Fwat sinse in the ould man bodderin' us?" grumbled Corporal Kennedy,
+a tall Fenian dragoon from the British army. "Sure, ain't it as plain
+as the sun--and faith the same's not plain this dirthy mornin'--that
+there's no work for cavalry the day, barrin' it's escortin' the
+doughboys' prisoners, if they take any?--bad 'cess to the job. Sure
+it's an infantry fight, and must be, wid the field-guns helpin', and
+the siege pieces boomin' away over the throops in the mud betwigst
+our own breastworks and the inner line of our forts.
+
+"Oh, by this and by that," the corporal grumbled on, "ould Lee's not
+the gintleman I tuk him for at all, at all,--discomfortin' us in the
+rain,--and yesterday an illigant day for fightin'. Couldn't he wait,
+like the dacint ould boy he's reported, for a dhry mornin', instead av
+turnin' his byes out in the shlush and destroyin' me chanst av
+breakfast? It's spring chickens I'd ordhered."
+
+"You may get up to spring-chicken country soon, now," said Bader. "I'm
+thinking this is near the end; it's the last assault that Lee will
+ever deliver."
+
+"Faith, I dunno," said the corporal; "that's what we've been saying
+sinst last fall, but the shtay of them Johnnies bates Banagher and the
+prophets. Hoo--ow! by the powers! did you hear them yell? Fwat? The
+saints be wid us! who'd 'a' thought it possible? Byes! Bader! Harry!
+luk at the Johnnies swarmin' up the face of Hell!"
+
+Off there Harry could dimly see, rising over the near horizon made by
+tents, a straggling rush of men up the steep slope, while the rebel
+yell came shrill from a multitude behind on the level ground that was
+hidden from the place occupied by the cavalry regiment. In the next
+moment the force mounting Fort Hell's slope fell away, some lying
+where shot down, some rolling, some running and stumbling in heaps;
+then a tremendous musketry and field-gun fire growled to and fro under
+the heavy smoke round and about and out in front of the embrasures,
+which had never ceased their regular discharge over the heads of the
+fort's defenders and immediate assailants.
+
+Suddenly Harry noted a slackening of the battle; it gradually but soon
+dropped away to nothing, and now no sound of small-arms in any
+direction was heard in the lengthening intervals of reports from the
+siege pieces far and near.
+
+"And so that's the end of it," said Kennedy. "Sure it was hot work for
+a while! Faix, I thought onct the doughboys was nappin' too long, and
+ould Hell would be bullyin' away at ourselves. Now, thin, can we have
+a bite in paice? I'll shtart wid a few sausages, Brownie, and you may
+send in the shpring chickens wid some oyshters the second coorse. No!
+Oh, by the powers, 'tis too mane to lose a breakfast like that!" and
+Corporal Kennedy shook his fist at the group of buglers calling the
+regiment to parade.
+
+In ten minutes the Fifty-third had formed in column of companies. "Old
+Jimmy," their Colonel, had galloped down at them and once along their
+front; then the command, forming fours from the right front, moved off
+at a trot through the mud in long procession.
+
+"Didn't I know it?" said Kennedy; "it's escortin' the doughboys'
+prisoners, that's all we're good for this outrageous day. Oh, wirra,
+wirrasthru! Police duty! and this calls itself a cavalry rigiment.
+Mounted Police duty,--escortin' doughboys' prisoners! Faix, I might as
+well be wid Her Majesty's dhragoons, thramplin' down the flesh and
+blood of me in poor ould Oireland. Begor, Harry, me bhy, it's a mane
+job to be setting you at, and this the first day ye're mounted to save
+the Union!"
+
+"Stop coddin' the boy, Corporal," said Bader, angrily. "You can't
+think how an American boy feels about this war."
+
+"An Amerikin!--an Amerikin, is it? Let me insthruct ye thin, Misther
+Bader, that I'm as good an Amerikin as the next man. Och, be jabers,
+me that's been in the color you see ever since the Prisident first
+called for men! It was for a three months' dance he axed us first. Me,
+that's re-enlishted twice, don't know the feelin's of an Amerikin!
+What am I here for? Not poverty! sure I'd enough of that before ever I
+seen Ameriky! What am I wallopin' through the mud for this mornin'?"
+
+"It's your trade, Kennedy," said Bader, with disgust.
+
+"Be damned to you, man!" said the corporal, sternly. "When I touched
+fut in New York, didn't I swear that I'd never dhraw swoord more,
+barrin' it was agin the ould red tyrant and oprissor of me counthry?
+Wasn't I glad to be dhrivin' me own hack next year in Philamedink like
+a gintleman? Oh, the paice and the indipindence of it! But what cud I
+do when the counthry that tuk me and was good to me wanted an ould
+dhragoon? An Amerikin, ye say! Faith, the heart of me is Amerikin, if
+I'm a bog throtter by the tongue. Mind that now, me bould man!"
+
+Harry heard without heeding as the horses spattered on. Still wavered
+in his ears the sounds of the dawn; still he saw the ghostlike forms
+of Americans in gray tumbling back from their rush against the sacred
+flag that had drooped so sadly over the smoke; and still, far away
+beyond all this puddled and cumbered ground the dreamy boy saw
+millions of white American faces, all haggard for news of the
+armies--some looking South, some North, yearning for the Peace that
+had so long ago been the boon of the Nation.
+
+Now the regiment was upon the red clay of the dead fight, and brought
+to halt in open columns. After a little they moved off again in fours,
+and, dropping into single file, surrounded some thousands of disarmed
+men, the remnant of the desperate brigades that Lee had flung through
+the night across three lines of breastworks at the great fort they had
+so nearly stormed. Poor drenched, shivering Johnnies! there they
+stood, not a few of them in blue overcoats, but mostly in butternut,
+generally tattered; some barefoot, some with feet bound in ragged
+sections of blanket, many with toes and skin showing through crazy
+boots lashed on with strips of cotton or with cord; many stoutly on
+foot, streaming blood from head wounds.
+
+Some lay groaning in the mud, while their comrades helped Union
+surgeons to bind or amputate. Here and there groups huddled together
+in earnest talk, or listened to comrades gesticulating and storming as
+they recounted incidents of the long charge. But far the greater
+number faced outward, at gaze upon the cavalry guard, and, silently
+munching thick flat cakes of corn-bread, stared into the faces of the
+horsemen. Harry Wallbridge, brought to the halt, faced half-round in
+the saddle, and looked with quick beatings of pity far and wide over
+the disorderly crowd of weather-worn men.
+
+"It's a Louisiana brigade," said Bader.
+
+"Fifty-three, P. V. V. C.," spoke a prisoner, as if in reply, reading
+the letters about the little crossed brass sabres on the Union hats.
+"Say, you men from Pennsylvany?"
+
+"Yes, Johnny; we come down to wake up Dixie."
+
+"I reckon we got the start at wakin' you this mornin'," drawled the
+Southerner. "But say,--there's one of our boys lyin' dyin' over
+yonder; his folks lives in Pennsylvany. Mebbe some of you 'ud know
+'em."
+
+"What's his name?" asked Bader.
+
+"Wallbridge--Johnny Wallbridge."
+
+"Why, Harry--hold on!--you ain't the only Wallbridges there is. What's
+up?" cried Bader, as the boy half reeled, half clambered from his
+saddle.
+
+"Hold on, Harry!" cried Corporal Kennedy.
+
+"Halt there, Wallbridge!" shouted Sergeant Gravely.
+
+"Stop that man!" roared Lieutenant Bradley.
+
+But, calling, "He's my brother!" Harry, catching up his sabre as he
+ran, followed the Southerner, who had instantly divined the situation.
+The forlorn prisoners made ready way for them, and closing in behind,
+stretched in solid array about the scene.
+
+"It's not Jack," said the boy; but something in the look of the dying
+man drew him on to kneel in the mud. "Is it _you_, Jack? Oh, now I
+know you! Jack, I'm Harry! don't you know me? I'm Harry--your brother
+Harry."
+
+The Southern soldier stared rigidly at the boy, seeming to grow paler
+with the recollections that he struggled for.
+
+"_What's_ your name?" he asked very faintly.
+
+"Harry Wallbridge--I'm your brother."
+
+"Harry Wallbridge! Why, I'm _John_ Wallbridge. Did you say Harry? _Not
+Harry!_" he shrieked hoarsely. "No; Harry's only a little fellow!" He
+paused, and looked meditatively into the boy's eyes. "It's nearly five
+years I've been gone,--he was near twelve then. Boys," lifting his
+head painfully and casting his look slowly round upon his comrades, "I
+know him by the eyes; yes, he's my brother! Let me speak to him
+alone--stand back a bit," and at once the men pushed backward into the
+form of a wide circle.
+
+"Put down your head, Harry. Kiss me! Kiss me again!--how's mother? Ah,
+I was afraid she might be dead--don't tell her I'm dead, Harry." He
+groaned with the pain of the groin wound. "Closer, Harry; I've got to
+tell you this first--maybe it's all I've time to tell. Say,
+Harry,"--he began to gasp,--"they didn't ought to have killed me, the
+Union soldiers didn't. I never fired--high enough--all these years.
+They drafted me, Harry--tell mother that--down in New Orleans--and
+I--couldn't get away. Ai--ai! how it hurts! I must die soon 's I can
+tell you. I wanted to come home--and help father--how's poor father,
+Harry? Doing well now? Oh. I'm glad of that--and the baby? there's a
+new baby! Ah, yes, I'll never see it, Harry."
+
+His eyes closed, the pain seemed to leave him, and he lay almost
+smiling happily as his brother's tears fell on his muddy and
+blood-clotted face. As if from a trance his eyes opened, and he spoke
+anxiously but calmly.
+
+"You'll be sure to tell them I was drafted--conscripted, you
+understand. And I never fired at any of us--of you--tell all the boys
+_that_." Again the flame of life went down, and again flickered up in
+pain.
+
+"Harry--you'll stay by father--and help him, won't you? This cruel
+war--is almost over. Don't cry. Kiss me. Say--do you remember--the old
+times we had--fishing? Kiss me again, Harry--brother in blue--you're
+on--_my_ side. Oh I wish--I had time--to tell you. Come close--put
+your arms around--my neck--it's old times--again." And now the wound
+tortured him for a while beyond speech. "You're with me, aren't you,
+Harry?
+
+"Well, there's this," he gasped on, "about my chums--they've been as
+good and kind--marching, us, all wet and cold together--and it wasn't
+their fault. If they had known--how I wanted--to be shot--for the
+Union! It was so hard--to be--on the wrong side! But--"
+
+He lifted his head and stared wildly at his brother, screamed rapidly,
+as if summoning all his life for the effort to explain, "Drafted,
+_drafted, drafted_--Harry, tell mother and father _that_. I was
+_drafted_. O God, O God, what suffering! Both sides--I was on both
+sides all the time. I loved them all, North and South, all,--but the
+Union most. O God, it was so hard!"
+
+His head fell back, his eyes closed, and Harry thought it was the end.
+But once more Jack opened his blue eyes, and slowly said in a steady,
+clear, anxious voice, "Mind you tell them I never fired high enough!"
+Then he lay still in Harry's arms, breathing fainter and fainter till
+no motion was on his lips, nor in his heart, nor any tremor in the
+hands that lay in the hand of his brother in blue.
+
+"Come, Harry," said Bader, stooping tenderly to the boy, "the order is
+to march. He's past helping now. It's no use; you must leave him here
+to God. Come, boy, the head of the column is moving already."
+
+Mounting his horse, Harry looked across to Jack's form. For the first
+time in two years the famous Louisiana brigade trudged on without
+their unwilling comrade. There he lay, alone, in the Union lines,
+under the rain, his marching done, a figure of eternal peace; while
+Harry, looking backward till he could no longer distinguish his
+brother from the clay of the field, rode dumbly on and on beside the
+downcast procession of men in gray.
+
+
+
+
+A TURKEY APIECE.
+
+
+Not long ago I was searching files of New York papers for 1864, when
+my eye caught the headline, "Thanksgiving Dinner for the Army." I had
+shared that feast. The words brought me a vision of a cavalry brigade
+in winter quarters before Petersburg; of the three-miles-distant and
+dim steeples of the besieged city; of rows and rows of canvas-covered
+huts sheltering the infantry corps that stretched interminably away
+toward the Army of the James. I fancied I could hear again the great
+guns of "Fort Hell" infrequently punctuating the far-away
+picket-firing.
+
+Rain, rain, and rain! How it fell on red Virginia that November of
+'64! How it wore away alertness! The infantry-men--whom we used to
+call "doughboys," for there was always a pretended feud between the
+riders and the trudgers--often seemed going to sleep in the night in
+their rain-filled holes far beyond the breastworks, each with its
+little mound of earth thrown up toward the beleaguered town. Their
+night-firing would slacken almost to cessation for many minutes
+together. But after the b-o-o-oom of a great gun it became brisker
+usually; often so much so as to suggest that some of Lee's ragged
+brigades, their march silenced by the rain, had pierced our fore-front
+again, and were "gobbling up" our boys on picket, and flinging up new
+rifle-pits on the acres reclaimed for a night and a day for the
+tottering Confederacy.
+
+Sometimes the _crack-a-rac-a-rack_ would die down to a slow fire of
+dropping shots, and the forts seemed sleeping; and patter, patter,
+patter on the veteran canvas we heard the rain, rain, rain, not unlike
+the roll of steady musketry very far away.
+
+I think I sit again beside Charley Wilson, my sick "buddy," and hear
+his uneven breathing through all the stamping of the rows of wet
+horses on their corduroy floor roofed with leaky pine brush.
+
+That _squ-ush, squ-ush_ is the sound of the stable-guard's boots as he
+paces slowly through the mud, to and fro, with the rain rattling on
+his glazed poncho and streaming corded hat. Sometimes he stops to
+listen to a frantic brawling of the wagon-train mules, sometimes to
+the reviving picket-firing. It crackles up to animation for causes
+that we can but guess; then dies down, never to silence, but warns,
+warns, as the distant glow of the sky above a volcano warns of the
+huge waiting forces that give it forth.
+
+I think I hear Barney Donahoe pulling our latch-string that November
+night when we first heard of the great Thanksgiving dinner that was
+being collected in New York for the army.
+
+"Byes, did yez hear phwat Sergeant Cunningham was tellin' av the
+Thanksgivin' turkeys that's comin'?"
+
+"Come in out of the rain, Barney," says Charley, feebly.
+
+"Faith, I wish I dar', but it's meself is on shtable-guard. Bedad,
+it's a rale fire ye've got. Divil a better has ould Jimmy himself (our
+colonel). Ye've heard tell of the turkeys, then, and the pois?"
+
+"Yes. Bully for the folks at home!" says Charley. "The notion of
+turkey next Thursday has done me good already. I was thinking I'd go
+to hospital to-morrow, but now I guess I won't."
+
+"Hoshpital! Kape clear av the hoshpital, Char-les, dear. Sure, they'd
+cut a man's leg off behind the ears av him for to cure him av
+indigestion."
+
+"Is it going to rain all night, Barney?"
+
+"It is, bad 'cess to it; and to-morrow and the day afther, I'm
+thinkin'. The blackness av night is outside; be jabers! you could cut
+it like turf with a shpade! If it wasn't for the ould fort flamin' out
+wanst in a whoile, I'd be thinkin' I'd never an oi in my head, barrin'
+the fires in the tints far an' near gives a bit of dimness to the
+dark. Phwat time is it?"
+
+"Quarter to twelve, Barney."
+
+"Troth, then, the relief will be soon coming. I must be thramping the
+mud av Virginia to save the Union. Good-night, byes. I come to give
+yez the good word. Kape your heart light an' aisy, Char-les, dear.
+D'ye moind the turkeys and the pois? Faith, it's meself that has the
+taste for thim dainties!"
+
+"I don't believe I'll be able to eat a mite of the Thanksgiving," says
+Charley, as we hear Barney _squ-ush_ away; "but just to see the brown
+on a real old brown home turkey will do me a heap of good."
+
+"You'll be all right by Thursday, Charley, I guess; won't you? It's
+only Sunday night now."
+
+Of course I cannot remember the very words of that talk in the night,
+so many years ago. But the coming of Barney I recollect well, and the
+general drift of what was said.
+
+Charley turned on his bed of hay-covered poles, and I put my hand
+under his gray blanket to feel if his legs were well covered by the
+long overcoat he lay in. Then I tucked the blanket well in about his
+feet and shoulders, pulled his poncho again to its full length over
+him, and sat on a cracker-box looking at our fire for a long time,
+while the rain spattered through the canvas in spray.
+
+My "buddy" Charley, the most popular boy of Company I, was of my own
+age,--seventeen,--though the rolls gave us a year more each, by way of
+compliance with the law of enlistment. From a Pennsylvania farm in the
+hills he came forth to the field early in that black fall of '64,
+strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's life,--a mighty
+wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade."
+
+We were "the kids" to Company I. To "buddy" with Charley I gave up my
+share of the hut I had helped to build as old Bader's "pard." Then the
+"kids" set about the construction of a new residence, which stood
+farther from the parade ground than any hut in the row except the big
+cabin of "old Brownie," the "greasy cook," who called us to
+"bean--oh!" with so resonant a shout, and majestically served out our
+rations of pork, "salt horse," coffee long-boiled and sickeningly
+sweet, hardtack, and the daily loaf of a singularly despondent-looking
+bread.
+
+My "buddy" and I slept on opposite sides of our winter residence. The
+bedsteads were made of poles laid lengthwise and lifted about two feet
+from the ground. These were covered thinly with hay from the bales
+that were regularly delivered for horse-fodder. There was a space of
+about two feet between bedsteads, and under them we kept our saddles
+and saddlecloths.
+
+Our floor was of earth, with a few flour-barrel staves and cracker-box
+sides laid down for rugs. We had each an easy-chair in the form of a
+cracker-box, besides a stout soap-box for guests. Our carbines and
+sabres hung crossed on pegs over the mantel-piece, above our Bibles
+and the precious daguerreotypes of the dear folks at home. When we
+happened to have enough wood for a bright fire, we felt much snugger
+than you might suppose.
+
+Before ever that dark November began, Charley had been suffering from
+one of those wasting diseases that so often clung to and carried off
+the strongest men of both armies. Sharing the soldiers' inveterate
+prejudice against hospitals attended by young doctors, who, the men
+believed, were addicted to much surgery for the sake of practice, my
+poor "buddy" strove to do his regular duties. He paraded with the sick
+before the regimental doctor as seldom as possible. He was favored by
+the sergeants and helped in every way by the men, and so continued to
+stay with the company at that wet season when drill and parades were
+impracticable.
+
+The idea of a Thanksgiving dinner for half a million men by sea and
+land fascinated Charley's imagination, and cheered him mightily. But I
+could not see that his strength increased, as he often alleged.
+
+"Ned, you bet I'll be on hand when them turkeys are served out," he
+would say. "You won't need to carry my Thanksgiving dinner up from
+Brownie's. Say, ain't it bully for the folks at home to be giving us a
+Thanksgiving like this? Turkeys, sausages, mince-pies! They say
+there's going to be apples and celery for all hands!"
+
+"S'pose you'll be able to eat, Charley?"
+
+"Able! Of course I'll be able! I'll be just as spry as you be on
+Thanksgiving. See if I don't carry my own turkey all right. Yes, by
+gum, if it weighs twenty pounds!"
+
+"There won't be a turkey apiece."
+
+"No, eh? Well, that's what I figure on. Half a turkey, anyhow. Got to
+be; besides chickens, hams, sausages, and all that kind of fixin's.
+You heard what Bill Sylvester's girl wrote from Philamadink-a-daisy-oh?
+No, eh? Well, he come in a-purpose to read me the letter. Says there's
+going to be three or four hundred thousand turkeys, besides them
+fixin's! Sherman's boys can't get any; they're marched too far away,
+out of reach. The Shenandoah boys'll get some, and Butler's crowd, and
+us chaps, and the blockading squadrons. Bill's girl says so. We'll get
+the whole lot between us. Four hundred thousand turkeys! Of course
+there'll be a turkey apiece; there's got to be, if there's any sense
+in arithmetic. Oh, I'll be choosin' between breast-meat and hind-legs
+on Thanksgiving,--you bet your sweet life on that!"
+
+This expectation that there would be a turkey a-piece was not shared
+by Company I; but no one denied it in Charley's hearing. The boy held
+it as sick people often do fantastic notions, and all fell into the
+humor of strengthening the reasoning on which he went.
+
+It was clear that no appetite for turkey moved my poor "buddy," but
+that his brain was busy with the "whole-turkey-a-piece" idea as one
+significant of the immense liberality of the folks at home, and their
+absorbing interest in the army.
+
+"Where's there any nation that ever was that would get to work and fix
+up four hundred thousand turkeys for the boys?" he often remarked,
+with ecstatic patriotism.
+
+I have often wondered why "Bill Sylvester's girl" gave that
+flourishing account of the preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner.
+It was only on searching the newspaper files recently that I surmised
+her sources of information. Newspapers seldom reached our regiment
+until they were several weeks old, and then they were not much read,
+at least by me. Now I know how enthusiastic the papers of November,
+'64, were on the great feast for the army.
+
+For instance, on the morning of that Thanksgiving day, the 24th of
+November, the New York Tribune said editorially:--
+
+     "Forty thousand turkeys, eighty thousand turkeys, one
+     hundred and sixty thousand turkeys, nobody knows how many
+     turkeys have been sent to our soldiers. Such masses of
+     breast-meat and such mountains of stuffing; drumsticks
+     enough to fit out three or four Grand Armies, a perfect
+     promontory of pope's noses, a mighty aggregate of wings. The
+     gifts of their lordships to the supper which Grangousier
+     spread to welcome Gargantua were nothing to those which our
+     good people at home send to their friends in the field; and
+     no doubt every soldier, if his dinner does not set him
+     thinking too intently of that home, will prove himself a
+     valiant trencherman."
+
+Across the vast encampment before Petersburg a biting wind blew that
+Thanksgiving day. It came through every cranny of our hut; it bellied
+the canvas on one side and tightened it on the other; it pressed flat
+down the smoke from a hundred thousand mud chimneys, and swept away so
+quickly the little coals which fell on the canvas that they had not
+time to burn through.
+
+When I went out towards noon, for perhaps the twentieth time that day,
+to learn whether our commissary wagons had returned from City Point
+with the turkeys, the muddy parade ground was dotted with groups of
+shivering men, all looking anxiously for the feast's arrival. Officers
+frequently came out, to exchange a few cheery words with their men,
+from the tall, close hedge of withering pines stuck on end that
+enclosed the officers' quarters on the opposite side of the parade
+ground.
+
+No turkeys at twelve o'clock! None at one! Two, three, four, five
+o'clock passed by, and still nothing had been heard of our absent
+wagons. Charley was too weak to get out that day, but he cheerfully
+scouted the idea that a turkey for each man would not arrive sooner or
+later.
+
+The rest of us dined and supped on "commissary." It was not good
+commissary either, for Brownie, the "greasy cook," had gone on leave
+to visit a "doughboy" cousin of the Sixth Corps.
+
+"You'll have turkey for dinner, boys," he had said, on serving out
+breakfast. "If you're wanting coffee, Tom can make it." Thus we had to
+dine and sup on the amateur productions of the cook's mate.
+
+A multitude of woful rumors concerning the absent turkeys flew round
+that evening. The "Johnnies," we heard, had raided round the army, and
+captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys,
+and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled"
+the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the
+Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible
+for men so bitterly disappointed.
+
+Brownie returned before "lights out" sounded, and reported facetiously
+that the "doughboys" he had visited were feeding full of turkey and
+all manner of fixings. There were so many wagons waiting at City Point
+that the roads round there were blocked for miles. We could not fail
+to get our turkeys to-morrow. With this expectation we went, pretty
+happy, to bed.
+
+"There'll be a turkey apiece, you'll see, Ned," said Charley, in a
+confident, weak voice, as I turned in. "We'll all have a bully
+Thanksgiving to-morrow."
+
+The morrow broke as bleak as the preceding day, and without a sign of
+turkey for our brigade. But about twelve o'clock a great shouting came
+from the parade ground.
+
+"The turkeys have come!" cried Charley, trying to rise. "Never mind
+picking out a big one for me; any one will do. I don't believe I can
+eat a bite, but I want to see it. My! ain't it kind of the folks at
+home!"
+
+I ran out and found his surmise as to the return of the wagons
+correct. They were filing into the enclosure around the
+quartermaster's tent. Nothing but an order that the men should keep
+to company quarters prevented the whole regiment helping to unload the
+delicacies of the season.
+
+Soon foraging parties went from each company to the quartermaster's
+enclosure. Company I sent six men. They returned, grinning, in about
+half an hour, with one box on one man's shoulders.
+
+It was carried to Sergeant Cunningham's cabin, the nearest to the
+parade ground, the most distant from that of "the kids," in which
+Charley lay waiting. We crowded round the hut with some sinking of
+enthusiasm. There was no cover on the box except a bit of cotton in
+which some of the consignment had probably been wrapped. Brownie
+whisked this off, and those nearest Cunningham's door saw
+disclosed--two small turkeys, a chicken, four rather disorganized
+pies, two handsome bologna sausages, and six very red apples.
+
+We were nearly seventy men. The comical side of the case struck the
+boys instantly. Their disappointment was so extreme as to be absurd.
+There might be two ounces of feast to each, if the whole were equally
+shared.
+
+All hands laughed; not a man swore. The idea of an equal distribution
+seemed to have no place in that company. One proposed that all should
+toss up for the lot. Another suggested drawing lots; a third that we
+should set the Thanksgiving dinner at one end of the parade ground and
+run a race for it, "grab who can."
+
+At this Barney Donahoe spoke up.
+
+"Begorra, yez can race for wan turkey av yez loike. But the other wan
+is goin' to Char-les Wilson!"
+
+There was not a dissenting voice. Charley was altogether the most
+popular member of Company I, and every man knew how he had clung to
+the turkey apiece idea.
+
+"Never let on a word," said Sergeant Cunningham. "He'll think there's
+a turkey for every man!"
+
+The biggest bird, the least demoralized pie, a bologna sausage, and
+the whole six apples were placed in the cloth that had covered the
+box. I was told to carry the display to my poor "buddy."
+
+As I marched down the row of tents a tremendous yelling arose from the
+crowd round Cunningham's tent. I turned to look behind. Some man with
+a riotous impulse had seized the box and flung its contents in the air
+over the thickest of the crowd. Next moment the turkey was seized by
+half a dozen hands. As many more helped to tear it to pieces. Barney
+Donahoe ran past me with a leg, and two laughing men after him. Those
+who secured larger portions took a bite as quickly as possible, and
+yielded the rest to clutching hands. The bologna sausage was shared in
+like fashion, but I never heard of any one who got a taste of the
+pies.
+
+"Here's your turkey, Charley," said I, entering with my burden.
+
+"Where's yours, Ned?"
+
+"I've got my turkey all right enough at Cunningham's tent."
+
+"Didn't I tell you there'd be a turkey apiece?" he cried gleefully, as
+I unrolled the lot. "And sausages, apples, a whole pie--oh, _say_,
+ain't they bully folks up home!"
+
+"They are," said I. "I believe we'd have had a bigger Thanksgiving yet
+if it wasn't such a trouble getting it distributed."
+
+"You'd better believe it! They'd do anything in the world for the
+army," he said, lying back.
+
+"Can't you eat a bite, buddy?"
+
+"No; I'm not a mite hungry. But I'll look at it. It won't spoil before
+to-morrow. Then you can share it all out among the boys."
+
+Looking at the turkey, the sick lad fell asleep. Barney Donahoe softly
+opened our door, stooped his head under the lintel, and gazed a few
+moments at the quiet face turned to the Thanksgiving turkey. Man after
+man followed to gaze on the company's favorite, and on the fowl
+which, they knew, tangibly symbolized to him the immense love of the
+nation for the flower of its manhood in the field. Indeed, the people
+had forwarded an enormous Thanksgiving feast; but it was impossible to
+distribute it evenly, and we were one of the regiments that came
+short.
+
+Grotesque, that scene was? Group after group of hungry, dirty
+soldiers, gazing solemnly, lovingly, at a lone brown turkey and a
+pallid sleeping boy! Yes, very grotesque. But Charley had his
+Thanksgiving dinner, and the men of Company I, perhaps, enjoyed a
+profounder satisfaction than if they had feasted more materially.
+
+I never saw Charley after that Thanksgiving day. Before the afternoon
+was half gone the doctor sent an ambulance for him, and insisted that
+he should go to City Point. By Christmas his wasted body had lain for
+three weeks in the red Virginia soil.
+
+
+
+
+GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY.
+
+
+"Tell us a story, grandpapa."
+
+"One that will last all the evening, chickens?"
+
+"Yes, grandpapa, darling," said Jenny, while Jimmy clapped hands.
+
+"What about?" said the old lumber king.
+
+"About when you were a boy."
+
+"When I was a boy," said the old gentleman, taking Jenny on his knee
+and putting his arm round Jimmy, "the boys and girls were as fond of
+stories as they are now. Once when I was a boy I said to my
+grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpa,' and he replied, 'When I was a
+boy the boys were as fond of stories as they are now; for once when I
+was a boy I said to my grandfather, "Tell me a story, grandpa,--"'".
+
+"Why, it seems to go on just the same story, grandpapa," said Jenny.
+
+"That's not the end of it, Jenny, dear," said grandpapa.
+
+"No-o?" said Jenny, dubiously.
+
+Jimmy said nothing. He lived with his grandfather, and knew his ways.
+Jenny came on visits only, and was not well enough acquainted with the
+old gentleman to know that he would soon tire of the old joke, and
+reward patient children by a good story.
+
+"Shall I go on with the story, Jenny?" said grandpapa.
+
+"Oh, yes, grandpapa!"
+
+"Well, then, when _that_ grandpa was a boy, he said to _his_
+grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpapa,' and his grandfather
+replied--"
+
+Jenny soon listened with a demure smile of attention.
+
+"Do you like this story, dear?" said grandpapa, after pursuing the
+repetition for some minutes longer.
+
+"I shall, grandpapa, darling. It must be very good when you come to
+the grandfather that told it. I like to think of all my grandfathers,
+and great, great, great, greater, greatest, great, great-grandpapas
+all telling the same story."
+
+"Yes, it's a genuine family story, Jenny, and you're a little witch."
+The old gentleman kissed her. "Well, where was I? Oh, now I remember!
+And _that_ grandpapa said to his grandfather, 'Tell me a story,
+grandpapa,' and his grandpapa replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
+
+"Now it's beginning!" cried Jimmy, clapping his hands, and shifting to
+an easier attitude by the old man's easy-chair.
+
+Grandpapa looked comically at Jimmy, and said, "His grandfather
+replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
+
+The faces of the children became woful again.
+
+"'One rainy day I took my revolver--'"
+
+"Revolver! Grandpapa!" cried Jenny.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"An American revolver, grandpapa?"
+
+"Certainly, dear."
+
+"And did he tell the story in English?"
+
+"Yes, pet."
+
+"But, grandpapa, _darling_, that grandpapa was seventy-three
+grandpapas back!"
+
+"About that, my dear."
+
+"I kept count, grandpapa."
+
+"And don't you like good old-fashioned stories, Jenny?"
+
+"Oh, yes, grandpapa, but _revolvers_--and _Americans_--and the
+_English_ language! Why, it was more than twenty-two hundred years
+ago, grandpapa, darling!"
+
+"Ha! ha! You never thought of that, Jimmy! Oh, you've been at school,
+Miss Bright-eyes! Kiss me, you little rogue. Now listen!
+
+"When _I_ was a young fellow--"
+
+"You yourself, grandpapa?"
+
+"Yes, Jenny."
+
+"I'm so glad it was you yourself! I like my _own_ grandpapa's stories
+best of all."
+
+"Thank you, my dear. After that I must be _very_ entertaining. Yes,
+I'll tell my best story of all--and Jimmy has never heard it. Well,
+when I was a young fellow of seventeen I was clerk in a lumber shanty
+on the Sheboiobonzhe-gunpashageshickawigamog River."
+
+"How did you _ever_ learn that name, grandpapa, darling?" cried Jenny.
+
+"Oh, I could learn things in those days. Remembering it is the
+difficulty, dear--see if it isn't. I'll give you a nice new ten-dollar
+bill if you tell me that name to-morrow."
+
+Jenny bent her brows and tried so hard to recall the syllables that
+she almost lost part of the story. Grandpapa went steadily on:--
+
+"One day in February, when it was too rainy for the men to work, and
+just rainy enough to go deer-shooting if you hadn't had fresh meat for
+five months, I took to the woods with my gun, revolver, hatchet, and
+dinner. All the fore part of the day I failed to get a shot, though I
+saw many deer on the hemlock ridges of Sheboi--that's the way it
+begins, Jenny, and Sheboi we called it.
+
+"But late in the afternoon I killed a buck. I cut off a haunch, lifted
+the carcass into the low boughs of a spruce, and started for camp, six
+miles away, across snowy hills and frozen lakes. The snow-shoeing was
+heavy, and I feared I should not get in before dark. The Sheboi
+country was infested with wolves--"
+
+"Bully! It's a wolf story!" said Jimmy. Jenny shuddered with delight.
+
+"As I went along you may be sure I never thought my grandchildren
+would be pleased to have me in danger of being eaten up by wolves."
+
+Jenny looked shocked at the imputation. Grandpapa watched her with
+twinkling eyes. When she saw he was joking, she cried: "But you
+weren't eaten, grandpapa. You were too brave."
+
+"Ah, I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps I'd better not tell the story.
+You'll have a worse opinion of my courage, my dear."
+
+"Of course you _had_ to run from _wolves_, grandpapa!" said the little
+girl.
+
+"I'll bet grandpapa didn't run then, miss," said Jimmy. "I'll bet he
+shot them with his gun."
+
+"He couldn't--could you, grandpapa? There were too many. Of course
+grandpapa _had_ to run. That wasn't being cowardly. It was
+just--just--_running_."
+
+"No, Jenny, I didn't run a yard."
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" cried Jimmy. "Grandpapa shot them with his gun."
+
+"You're mistaken, Jimmy."
+
+"Then you must--No, for you're here--you weren't eaten up?" said
+wondering Jenny.
+
+"No, dear, I wasn't eaten up."
+
+"Oh, I know! The wolves didn't come!" cried Jimmy, who remembered one
+of his grandpapa's stories as having ended in that unhappy way.
+
+"Oh, but they did, Jimmy!"
+
+"Why, grandpapa, what _did_ you do?"
+
+"I climbed into a hollow tree."
+
+"_Of course!_" said both children.
+
+"Now I'm going to tell you a true wolf story, and that's what few
+grandpapas can do out of their own experience.
+
+"I was resting on the shore of a lake, with my snow-shoes off to ease
+my sore toes, when I saw a pack of wolves trotting lazily toward me on
+the snow that covered the ice. I was sure they had not seen me. Right
+at my elbow was a big hollow pine. It had an opening down to the
+ground, a good deal like the door of a sentry-box.
+
+"There was a smaller opening about thirty feet higher up. I had looked
+up and seen this before I saw the wolves. Then I rose, stood for a
+moment in the hollow, and climbed up by my feet, knees, hands, and
+elbows till I thought my feet were well above the top of the opening.
+Dead wood and dust fell as I ascended, but I hoped the wolves had not
+heard me."
+
+"Did they, grandpapa?"
+
+"Perhaps not at first, Jenny. But maybe they got a scent of the
+deer-meat I was carrying. At any rate, they were soon snapping and
+snarling over it and my snow-shoes. _Gobble-de-gobble, yip, yap, snap,
+growl, snarl, gobble_--the meat was all gone in a moment, like little
+Red Riding Hood."
+
+"Why, grandpapa! The wolf didn't eat little Red Riding Hood. The boy
+came in time--don't you remember?"
+
+"Perhaps you never read _my_ Red Riding Hood, Jenny," said the old
+gentleman, laughing. "At any rate, the wolves lunched at my expense;
+yet I hoped they wouldn't be polite enough to look round for their
+host. But they did inquire for me--not very politely, I must say. They
+seemed in bad humor--perhaps there hadn't been enough lunch to go
+round."
+
+"The greedy things! A whole haunch of venison!" cried Jenny.
+
+"Ah, but I had provided no currant jelly with it, and of
+course they were vexed. If you ever give a dinner-party to wolves,
+don't forget the currant jelly, Jenny. How they yelled for
+it--_Cur-r-r-rant-jell-yell-yell-elly-yell!_ That's the way they went.
+
+"And they also said,
+_Yow--yow--there's--yow--no--desser-r-rt--either--yow--yow!_ Perhaps
+they wanted me to explain. At any rate, they put their heads into the
+opening--how many at once I don't know, for I could not see down; and
+then they screamed for me. It was an uncomfortably close scream,
+chickens. My feet must have been nearer them than I thought, for one
+fellow's nose touched my moccasin as he jumped."
+
+"O grandpapa! If he had caught your foot!"
+
+"But he didn't, Jenny, dear. He caught something worse. When he
+tumbled back he must have fallen on the other fellows, for there was a
+great snapping and snarling and yelping all at once.
+
+"Meantime I tried to go up out of reach. It was easy enough; but with
+every fresh hold I took with shoulders, elbows, hands, and feet, the
+dead old wood crumbled and broke away, so that thick dust filled the
+hollow tree.
+
+"I was afraid I should be suffocated. But up I worked till at last I
+got to the upper hole and stuck out my head for fresh air. There I
+was, pretty comfortable for a little while, and I easily supported my
+weight by bending my back, thrusting with my feet, and holding on the
+edge of the hole by my hands.
+
+"After getting breath I gave my attention to the wolves. They did not
+catch sight of me for a few moments. Some stood looking much
+interested at the lower opening, as terriers do at the hole where a
+rat has disappeared.
+
+"Dust still came from the hole to the open air. Some wolves sneezed;
+others sat and squealed with annoyance, as Bruno does when you close
+the door on him at dinner-time. They were disgusted at my concealment.
+Of course you have a pretty good idea of what they said, Jenny."
+
+"No, grandpapa. The horrid, cruel things! What did they say?"
+
+"Well, of course wolf talk is rude, even savage, and dreadfully
+profane. As near as I could make out, one fellow screamed, 'Shame,
+boy, taking an unfair advantage of poor starving wolves!' It seemed as
+if another fellow yelled, 'You young coward!' A third cried, 'Oh, yes,
+you think you're safe, do you?' A fourth, '_Yow--yow_--but we can wait
+till you come down!'"
+
+Grandpapa mimicked the wolfish voices and looks so effectively that
+Jenny was rather alarmed.
+
+"One old fellow seemed to suggest that they should go away and look
+for more venison for supper, while he kept watch on me. At that there
+was a general howl of derision. They seemed to me to be telling the
+old fellow that they were just as fond of boy as he, and that they
+understood his little game.
+
+"The old chap evidently tried to explain, but they grinned with all
+their teeth as he turned from one to another. You must not suppose,
+chickens, that wolves have no sense of humor. Yet, poor things--"
+
+"Poor things! Why, grandpapa!"
+
+"Yes, Jenny; so lean and hungry, you know. Then one of them suddenly
+caught sight of my head, and didn't he yell! 'There he is--look up the
+tree!' cried Mr. Wolf.
+
+"For a few moments they were silent. Then they sprang all at once,
+absurdly anxious to get nearer to me, twenty-five feet or so above
+their reach. On falling, they tumbled into several heaps of mouths and
+legs and tails. After scuffling and separating, they gazed up at me
+with silent longing. I should have been very popular for a few minutes
+had I gone down."
+
+Jenny shuddered, and then nestled closer to her grandfather.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Jenny. They didn't eat me--not that time. After a
+few moments' staring I became very impolite. 'Boo-ooh!' said I.
+'Yah-ha-ha!' said I. 'You be shot!' I cried. They resented it. Even
+wolves love to be gently addressed.
+
+"They began yelling, snarling, and howling at me worse than
+politicians at a sarcastic member of the opposite party. I imitated
+them. Nevertheless, I was beginning to be frightened. The weather was
+turning cold, night was coming on, and I didn't like the prospect of
+staying till morning.
+
+"All of a sudden I began laughing. I had till then forgotten my pistol
+and pocketful of cartridges. There were seventeen nice wolves--"
+
+"Nice! Why, grandpa!"
+
+"They seemed _very_ nice wolves when I recollected the county bounty
+of six dollars for a wolf's head. Also, their skins would fetch two
+dollars apiece. 'Why,' said I, 'my dear wolves, you're worth one
+hundred and thirty-six dollars.'
+
+"'Don't you wish you may get it!' said they, sneering.
+
+"'You're worth one hundred and thirty-six dollars,' I repeated, 'and
+yet you want to sponge on a poor boy for a free supper! Shame!'"
+
+"Did you say it out loud, grandpapa?"
+
+"Well--no, Jenny. It's a thing I might have said, you know; but I
+didn't exactly think of it at the time. I was feeling for my pistol.
+Just as I tugged it out of its case at my waist, my knees, arms, and
+all lost their hold, and down I fell."
+
+"Grandpapa, _dear!_" Jenny nervously clutched him.
+
+"I didn't fall far, pet. But the dust! Talk of sweeping floors! The
+whole inside of the tree below me, borne down by my weight, had fallen
+in chunks and dust. There I was, gasping for breath, and the hole
+eight feet above my head. The lower entrance was of course blocked up
+by the rotten wood."
+
+"And they couldn't get at you?"
+
+"No, Jimmy; but I was in a dreadful situation. At first I did not
+fully realize it. Choking for air, my throat filled with particles of
+dry rot, I tried to climb up again. But the hollow had become too
+large. Nothing but a round shell of sound wood, a few inches thick,
+was left around me. With feet, hands, elbows, and back, I strove to
+ascend as before. But I could not. I was stuck fast!
+
+"When I pushed with my feet I could only press my back against the
+other side of the enlarged hole. I was horrified. Indeed, I thought
+the tree would be my coffin. There I stood, breathing with difficulty
+even when I breathed through my capuchin, which I took off of my
+blanket overcoat. And there, I said to myself, I was doomed to stand
+till my knees should give way and my head fall forward, and some day,
+after many years, the old tree would blow down, and out would fall my
+white and r-rattling bo-o-nes."
+
+"Don't--_please_, grandpapa!" Jenny was trying to keep from crying.
+
+"In spite of my vision of my own skull and cross-bones," went on
+grandpapa, solemnly, "I was too young to despair wholly. I was at
+first more annoyed than desperate. To be trapped so, to die in a hole
+when I might have shot a couple of wolves and split the heads of one
+or two more with my hatchet before they could have had boy for
+supper--this thought made me very angry. And that brought me to
+thinking of my hatchet.
+
+"It was, I remembered, beneath my feet at the bottom of the lower
+opening. If I could get hold of it, I might use it to chop a hole
+through my prison wall.
+
+"But to burrow down was clearly impossible. Nevertheless, I knelt to
+feel the punky stuff under my feet. The absurdity of trying to work
+down a hole without having, like a squirrel, any place to throw out
+the material, was plain.
+
+"But something more cheerful occurred to me. As I knelt, an object at
+my back touched my heels. It was the brass point of my hunting-knife
+sheath. Instantly I sprang to my feet, thrust my revolver back into
+its case, drew the stout knife, and drove the blade into the shell of
+pine.
+
+"In two minutes I had scooped the blade through. In five minutes I had
+my face at a small hole that gave me fresh air. In half an hour I had
+hacked out a space big enough to put my shoulders through.
+
+"The wolves, when they saw me again, were delighted. As for me, I was
+much pleased to see them, and said so. At the compliment they licked
+their jaws. They thought I was coming down, but I had something
+important to do first.
+
+"I drew my pistol. It was a big old-fashioned Colt's revolver. With
+the first round of seven shots I killed three, and wounded another
+badly."
+
+"Then the rest jumped on them and ate them all up, didn't they,
+grandpapa?"
+
+"No, Jimmy, I'm glad to say they didn't. Wolves in Russian stories
+do, but American wolves are not cannibalistic; for this is a civilized
+country, you know.
+
+"These wolves didn't even notice their fallen friends. They devoted
+their attention wholly to me, and I assure you, chickens, that I was
+much gratified at that.
+
+"I loaded again. It was a good deal of trouble in those days, when
+revolvers wore caps. I aimed very carefully, and killed four more. The
+other ten then ran away--at least some did; three could drag
+themselves but slowly.
+
+"After loading again I dropped down, and started for camp. Next
+morning we came back and got ten skins, after looking up the three
+wounded."
+
+"And you got only eighty dollars, instead of one hundred and
+thirty-six, grandpapa," said Jimmy, ruefully.
+
+"Well, Jimmy, that was better than furnishing the pack with raw boy
+for supper."
+
+"Is that all, grandpapa?"
+
+"Yes, Jenny, dear."
+
+"Do tell us another story."
+
+"Not to-night, chickens. Not to-night. Grandpapa is old and sleepy.
+Good night, dears; and if you begin to dream of wolves, be sure you
+change the subject."
+
+Grandpapa walked slowly up stairs.
+
+"Can _you_ make different dreams come, Jimmy?" said Jenny.
+
+"You goose! Grandpapa was pretending."
+
+
+
+
+THE WATERLOO VETERAN.
+
+
+Is Waterloo a dead word to you? the name of a plain of battle, no
+more? Or do you see, on a space of rising ground, the little
+long-coated man with marble features, and unquenchable eyes that
+pierce through rolling smoke to where the relics of the old Guard of
+France stagger and rally and reach fiercely again up the hill of St.
+Jean toward the squares, set, torn, red, re-formed, stubborn, mangled,
+victorious beneath the unflinching will of him behind there,--the Iron
+Duke of England?
+
+Or is your interest in the fight literary? and do you see in a pause
+of the conflict Major O'Dowd sitting on the carcass of Pyramus
+refreshing himself from that case-bottle of sound brandy? George
+Osborne lying yonder, all his fopperies ended, with a bullet through
+his heart? Rawdon Crawley riding stolidly behind General Tufto along
+the front of the shattered regiment where Captain Dobbin stands
+heartsick for poor Emily?
+
+Or maybe the struggle arranges itself in your vision around one figure
+not named in history or fiction,--that of your grandfather, or his
+father, or some old dead soldier of the great wars whose blood you
+exult to inherit, or some grim veteran whom you saw tottering to the
+roll-call beyond when the Queen was young and you were a little boy.
+
+For me the shadows of the battle are so grouped round old John Locke
+that the historians, story-tellers, and painters may never quite
+persuade me that he was not the centre and real hero of the action.
+The French cuirassiers in my thought-pictures charge again and again
+vainly against old John; he it is who breaks the New Guard; upon the
+ground that he defends the Emperor's eyes are fixed all day long. It
+is John who occasionally glances at the sky with wonder if Blucher
+has failed them. Upon Shaw the Lifeguardsman, and John, the Duke
+plainly most relies, and the words that Wellington actually speaks
+when the time comes for advance are, "Up, John, and at them!"
+
+How fate drifted the old veteran of Waterloo into our little Canadian
+Lake Erie village I never knew. Drifted him? No; he ever marched as if
+under the orders of his commander. Tall, thin, white-haired,
+close-shaven, and always in knee-breeches and long stockings, his was
+an antique and martial figure. "Fresh white-fish" was his cry, which
+he delivered as if calling all the village to fall in for drill.
+
+So impressive was his demeanor that he dignified his occupation. For
+years after he disappeared, the peddling of white-fish by horse and
+cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle. It was a
+glorious trade when old John Locke held the steelyards and served out
+the glittering fish with an air of distributing ammunition for a long
+day's combat.
+
+I believe I noticed, on the first day I saw him, how he tapped his
+left breast with a proud gesture when he had done with a lot of
+customers and was about to march again at the head of his horse. That
+restored him from trade to his soldiership--he had saluted his
+Waterloo medal! There beneath his threadbare old blue coat it lay,
+always felt by the heart of the hero.
+
+"Why doesn't he wear it outside?" I once asked.
+
+"He used to," said my father, "till Hiram Beaman, the druggist, asked
+him what he'd 'take for the bit of pewter.'"
+
+"What did old John say, sir?"
+
+"'Take for the bit of pewter!' said he, looking hard at Beaman with
+scorn. 'I've took better men's lives nor ever yours was for to get it,
+and I'd sell my own for it as quick as ever I offered it before.'
+
+"'More fool you,' said Beaman.
+
+"'You're nowt,' said old John, very calm and cold, 'you're nowt but
+walking dirt.' From that day forth he would never sell Beaman a fish;
+he wouldn't touch his money."
+
+It must have been late in 1854 or early in 1855 that I first saw the
+famous medal. Going home from school on a bright winter afternoon, I
+met old John walking very erect, without his usual fish-supply. A dull
+round white spot was clasped on the left breast of his coat.
+
+"Mr. Locke," said the small boy, staring with admiration, "is that
+your glorious Waterloo medal?"
+
+"You're a good little lad!" He stooped to let me see the noble pewter.
+"War's declared against Rooshia, and now it's right to show it. The
+old regiment's sailed, and my only son is with the colors."
+
+Then he took me by the hand and led me into the village store, where
+the lawyer read aloud the news from the paper that the veteran gave
+him. In those days there was no railway within fifty miles of us. It
+had chanced that some fisherman brought old John a later paper than
+any previously received in the village.
+
+"Ay, but the Duke is gone," said he, shaking his white head, "and it's
+curious to be fighting on the same side with another Boney."
+
+All that winter and the next, all the long summer between, old John
+displayed his medal. When the report of Alma came, his remarks on the
+French failure to get into the fight were severe. "What was they
+_ever_, at best, without Boney?" he would inquire. But a letter from
+his son after Inkermann changed all that.
+
+"Half of us was killed, and the rest of us clean tired with fighting,"
+wrote Corporal Locke. "What with a bullet through the flesh of my
+right leg, and the fatigue of using the bayonet so long, I was like to
+drop. The Russians was coming on again as if there was no end to them,
+when strange drums came sounding in the mist behind us. With that we
+closed up and faced half-round, thinking they had outflanked us and
+the day was gone, so there was nothing more to do but make out to die
+hard, like the sons of Waterloo men. You would have been pleased to
+see the looks of what was left of the old regiment, father. Then all
+of a sudden a French column came up the rise out of the mist,
+screaming, '_Vive l'Empereur!_' their drums beating the charge. We
+gave them room, for we were too dead tired to go first. On they went
+like mad at the Russians, so that was the end of a hard morning's
+work. I was down,--fainted with loss of blood,--but I will soon be fit
+for duty again. When I came to myself there was a Frenchman pouring
+brandy down my throat, and talking in his gibberish as kind as any
+Christian. Never a word will I say agin them red-legged French again."
+
+"Show me the man that would!" growled old John. "It was never in them
+French to act cowardly. Didn't they beat all the world, and even stand
+up many's the day agen ourselves and the Duke? They didn't beat,--it
+wouldn't be in reason,--but they tried brave enough, and what more'd
+you ask of mortal men?"
+
+With the ending of the Crimean War our village was illuminated. Rows
+of tallow candles in every window, fireworks in a vacant field, and a
+torchlight procession! Old John marched at its head in full
+regimentals, straight as a ramrod, the hero of the night. His son had
+been promoted for bravery on the field. After John came a dozen gray
+militiamen of Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, and Chippewa; next some
+forty volunteers of '37. And we boys of the U. E. Loyalist settlement
+cheered and cheered, thrilled with an intense vague knowledge that the
+old army of Wellington kept ghostly step with John, while aerial
+trumpets and drums pealed and beat with rejoicing at the fresh glory
+of the race and the union of English-speaking men unconsciously
+celebrated and symbolized by the little rustic parade.
+
+After that the old man again wore his medal concealed. The Chinese War
+of 1857 was too contemptible to celebrate by displaying his badge of
+Waterloo.
+
+Then came the dreadful tale of the Sepoy mutiny--Meerut, Delhi,
+Cawnpore! After the tale of Nana Sahib's massacre of women and
+children was read to old John he never smiled, I think. Week after
+week, month after month, as hideous tidings poured steadily in, his
+face became more haggard, gray, and dreadful. The feeling that he was
+too old for use seemed to shame him. He no longer carried his head
+high, as of yore. That his son was not marching behind Havelock with
+the avenging army seemed to cut our veteran sorely. Sergeant Locke had
+sailed with the old regiment to join Outram in Persia before the
+Sepoys broke loose. It was at this time that old John was first heard
+to say, "I'm 'feared something's gone wrong with my heart."
+
+Months went by before we learned that the troops for Persia had been
+stopped on their way and thrown into India against the mutineers. At
+that news old John marched into the village with a prouder air than he
+had worn for many a day. His medal was again on his breast.
+
+It was but the next month, I think, that the village lawyer stood
+reading aloud the account of the capture of a great Sepoy fort. The
+veteran entered the post-office, and all made way for him. The reading
+went on:--
+
+"The blowing open of the Northern Gate was the grandest personal
+exploit of the attack. It was performed by native sappers, covered by
+the fire of two regiments, and headed by Lieutenants Holder and Dacre,
+Sergeants Green, Carmody, Macpherson, and Locke."
+
+The lawyer paused. Every eye turned to the face of the old Waterloo
+soldier. He straightened up to keener attention, threw out his chest,
+and tapped the glorious medal in salute of the names of the brave.
+
+"God be praised, my son was there!" he said. "Read on."
+
+"Sergeant Carmody, while laying the powder, was killed, and the native
+havildar wounded. The powder having been laid, the advance party
+slipped down into the ditch to allow the firing party, under
+Lieutenant Dacre, to do its duty. While trying to fire the charge he
+was shot through one arm and leg. He sank, but handed the match to
+Sergeant Macpherson, who was at once shot dead. Sergeant Locke,
+already wounded severely in the shoulder, then seized the match, and
+succeeded in firing the train. He fell at that moment, literally
+riddled with bullets."
+
+"Read on," said old John, in a deeper voice. All forbore to look twice
+upon his face.
+
+"Others of the party were falling, when the mighty gate was blown to
+fragments, and the waiting regiments of infantry, under Colonel
+Campbell, rushed into the breach."
+
+There was a long silence in the post-office, till old John spoke once
+more.
+
+"The Lord God be thanked for all his dealings with us! My son,
+Sergeant Locke, died well for England, Queen, and Duty."
+
+Nervously fingering the treasure on his breast, the old soldier
+wheeled about, and marched proudly straight down the middle of the
+village street to his lonely cabin.
+
+The villagers never saw him in life again. Next day he did not appear.
+All refrained from intruding on his mourning. But in the evening, when
+the Episcopalian minister heard of his parishioner's loss, he walked
+to old John's home.
+
+There, stretched upon his straw bed, he lay in his antique
+regimentals, stiffer than At Attention, all his medals fastened below
+that of Waterloo above his quiet heart. His right hand lay on an open
+Bible, and his face wore an expression as of looking for ever and ever
+upon Sergeant Locke and the Great Commander who takes back unto Him
+the heroes He fashions to sweeten the world.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN BEDELL, U. E. LOYALIST.[A]
+
+
+"A renegade! A rebel against his king! A black-hearted traitor! You
+dare to tell me that you love George Winthrop! Son of canting, lying
+Ezra Winthrop! By the Eternal, I'll shoot him on sight if he comes
+this side!"
+
+While old John Bedell was speaking, he tore and flung away a letter,
+reached for his long rifle on its pins above the chimney-place, dashed
+its butt angrily to the floor, and poured powder into his palm.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, father! You would not! You could not! The war is
+over. It would be murder!" cried Ruth Bedell, sobbing.
+
+"Wouldn't I?" He poured the powder in. "Yes, by gracious, quicker'n
+I'd kill a rattlesnake!" He placed the round bullet on the little
+square of greased rag at the muzzle of his rifle. "A rank
+traitor--bone and blood of those who drove out loyal men!"--he crowded
+the tight lead home, dashed the ramrod into place, looked to the
+flint. "Rest there,--wake up for George Winthrop!" and the fierce old
+man replaced rifle and powder-horn on their pegs.
+
+Bedell's hatred for the foes who had beaten down King George's cause,
+and imposed the alternative of confiscation or the oath of allegiance
+on the vanquished, was considered intense, even by his brother
+Loyalists of the Niagara frontier.
+
+"The Squire kind o' sees his boys' blood when the sky's red," said
+they in explanation. But Bedell was so much an enthusiast that he
+could almost rejoice because his three stark sons had gained the prize
+of death in battle. He was too brave to hate the fighting-men he had
+so often confronted; but he abhorred the politicians, especially the
+intimate civic enemies on whom he had poured scorn before the armed
+struggle began. More than any he hated Ezra Winthrop, the lawyer,
+arch-revolutionist of their native town, who had never used a weapon
+but his tongue. And now his Ruth, the beloved and only child left to
+his exiled age, had confessed her love for Ezra Winthrop's son! They
+had been boy and girl, pretty maiden and bright stripling together,
+without the Squire suspecting--he could not, even now, conceive
+clearly so wild a thing as their affection! The confession burned in
+his heart like veritable fire,--a raging anguish of mingled loathing
+and love. He stood now gazing at Ruth dumbly, his hands clenched,
+head sometimes mechanically quivering, anger, hate, love, grief,
+tumultuous in his soul.
+
+Ruth glanced up--her father seemed about to speak--she bowed again,
+shuddering as though the coming words might kill. Still there was
+silence,--a long silence. Bedell stood motionless, poised, breathing
+hard--the silence oppressed the girl--each moment her terror
+increased--expectant attention became suffering that demanded his
+voice--and still was silence--save for the dull roar of Niagara that
+more and more pervaded the air. The torture of waiting for the
+words--a curse against her, she feared--overwore Ruth's endurance. She
+looked up suddenly, and John Bedell saw in hers the beloved eyes of
+his dead wife, shrinking with intolerable fear. He groaned heavily,
+flung up his hands despairingly, and strode out toward the river.
+
+How crafty smooth the green Niagara sweeps toward the plunge beneath
+that perpetual white cloud above the Falls! From Bedell's clearing
+below Navy Island, two miles above the Falls, he could see the swaying
+and rolling of the mist, ever rushing up to expand and overhang. The
+terrible stream had a profound fascination for him, with its racing
+eddies eating at the shore; its long weeds, visible through the clear
+water, trailing close down to the bottom; its inexorable, eternal,
+onward pouring. Because it was so mighty and so threatening, he
+rejoiced grimly in the awful river. To float, watching cracks and
+ledges of its flat bottom-rock drift quickly upward; to bend to his
+oars only when white crests of the rapids yelled for his life; to win
+escape by sheer strength from points so low down that he sometimes
+doubted but the greedy forces had been tempted too long; to stake his
+life, watching tree-tops for a sign that he could yet save it, was the
+dreadful pastime by which Bedell often quelled passionate promptings
+to revenge his exile. "The Falls is bound to get the Squire, some
+day," said the banished settlers. But the Squire's skiff was clean
+built as a pickerel, and his old arms iron-strong. Now when he had
+gone forth from the beloved child, who seemed to him so traitorous to
+his love and all loyalty, he went instinctively to spend his rage upon
+the river.
+
+Ruth Bedell, gazing at the loaded rifle, shuddered, not with dread
+only, but a sense of having been treacherous to her father. She had
+not told him all the truth. George Winthrop himself, having made his
+way secretly through the forest from Lake Ontario, had given her his
+own letter asking leave from the Squire to visit his newly made cabin.
+From the moment of arrival her lover had implored her to fly with him.
+But filial love was strong in Ruth to give hope that her father would
+yield to the yet stronger affection freshened in her heart. Believing
+their union might be permitted, she had pledged herself to escape with
+her lover if it were forbidden. Now he waited by the hickory wood for
+a signal to conceal himself or come forward.
+
+When Ruth saw her father far down the river, she stepped to the
+flagstaff he had raised before building the cabin--his first duty
+being to hoist the Union Jack! It was the largest flag he could
+procure; he could see it flying defiantly all day long; at night he
+could hear its glorious folds whipping in the wind; the hot old
+Loyalist loved to fancy his foeman cursing at it from the other side,
+nearly three miles away. Ruth hauled the flag down a little, then ran
+it up to the mast-head again.
+
+At that, a tall young fellow came springing into the clearing, jumping
+exultantly over brush-heaps and tree-trunks, his queue waggling, his
+eyes bright, glad, under his three-cornered hat. Joying that her
+father had yielded, he ran forward till he saw Ruth's tears.
+
+"What, sweetheart!--crying? It was the signal to come on," cried he.
+
+"Yes; to see you sooner, George. Father is out yonder. But no, he
+will never, never consent."
+
+"Then you will come with me, love," he said, taking her hands.
+
+"No, no; I dare not," sobbed Ruth. "Father would overtake us. He
+swears to shoot you on sight! Go, George! Escape while you can! Oh, if
+he should find you here!"
+
+"But, darling love, we need not fear. We can escape easily. I know the
+forest path. But--" Then he thought how weak her pace.
+
+"We might cross here before he could come up!" cried Winthrop, looking
+toward where the Squire's boat was now a distant blotch.
+
+"No, no," wailed Ruth, yet yielding to his embrace. "This is the last
+time I shall see you forever and forever. Go, dear,--good-bye, my
+love, my love."
+
+But he clasped her in his strong arms, kissing, imploring, cheering
+her,--and how should true love choose hopeless renunciation?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tempting, defying, regaining his lost ground, drifting down again,
+trying hard to tire out and subdue his heart-pangs, Bedell dallied
+with death more closely than ever. He had let his skiff drift far down
+toward the Falls. Often he could see the wide smooth curve where the
+green volume first lapses vastly on a lazy slope, to shoulder up below
+as a huge calm billow, before pitching into the madness of waves whose
+confusion of tossing and tortured crests hurries to the abyss. The
+afternoon grew toward evening before he pulled steadily home, crawling
+away from the roarers against the cruel green, watching the ominous
+cloud with some such grim humor as if under observation by an
+overpowering but baffled enemy.
+
+Approaching his landing, a shout drew Bedell's glance ashore to a
+group of men excitedly gesticulating. They seemed motioning him to
+watch the American shore. Turning, he saw a boat in midstream, where
+no craft then on the river, except his own skiff, could be safe,
+unless manned by several good men. Only two oars were flashing.
+Bedell could make out two figures indistinctly. It was clear they were
+doomed,--though still a full mile above the point whence he had come,
+they were much farther out than he when near the rapids. Yet one life
+might be saved! Instantly Bedell's bow turned outward, and cheers
+flung to him from ashore.
+
+At that moment he looked to his own landing-place, and saw that his
+larger boat was gone. Turning again, he angrily recognized it, but
+kept right on--he must try to rescue even a thief. He wondered Ruth
+had not prevented the theft, but had no suspicion of the truth. Always
+he had refused to let her go out upon the river--mortally fearing it
+for _her_.
+
+Thrusting his skiff mightily forward,--often it glanced, half-whirled
+by up-whelming and spreading spaces of water,--the old Loyalist's
+heart was quit of his pangs, and sore only with certainty that he must
+abandon one human soul to death. By the time that he could reach the
+larger boat his would be too near the rapids for escape with three!
+
+When George Winthrop saw Bedell in pursuit, he bent to his ash-blades
+more strongly, and Ruth, trembling to remember her father's threats,
+urged her lover to speed. They feared the pursuer only, quite
+unconscious that they were in the remorseless grasp of the river. Ruth
+had so often seen her father far lower down than they had yet drifted
+that she did not realize the truth, and George, a stranger in the
+Niagara district, was unaware of the length of the cataracts above the
+Falls. He was also deceived by the stream's treacherous smoothness,
+and instead of half-upward, pulled straight across, as if certainly
+able to land anywhere he might touch the American shore.
+
+Bedell looked over his shoulder often. When he distinguished a woman,
+he put on more force, but slackened soon--the pull home would tax his
+endurance, he reflected. In some sort it was a relief to know that
+one _was_ a woman; he had been anticipating trouble with two men
+equally bent on being saved. That the man would abandon himself
+bravely, the Squire took as a matter of course. For a while he thought
+of pulling with the woman to the American shore, more easily to be
+gained from the point where the rescue must occur. But he rejected the
+plan, confident he could win back, for he had sworn never to set foot
+on that soil unless in war. Had it been possible to save both, he
+would have been forced to disregard that vow; but the Squire knew that
+it was impossible for him to reach the New York Shore with two
+passengers--two would overload his boat beyond escape. Man or
+woman--one must go over the Falls.
+
+Having carefully studied landmarks for his position, Bedell turned to
+look again at the doomed boat, and a well-known ribbon caught his
+attention! The old man dropped his oars, confused with horror. "My
+God, my God! it's Ruth!" he cried, and the whole truth came with
+another look, for he had not forgotten George Winthrop.
+
+"Your father stops, Ruth. Perhaps he is in pain," said George to the
+quaking girl.
+
+She looked back. "What can it be?" she cried, filial love returning
+overmasteringly.
+
+"Perhaps he is only tired." George affected carelessness,--his first
+wish was to secure his bride,--and pulled hard away to get all
+advantage from Bedell's halt.
+
+"Tired! He is in danger of the Falls, then!" screamed Ruth. "Stop!
+Turn! Back to him!"
+
+Winthrop instantly prepared to obey. "Yes, darling," he said, "we must
+not think of ourselves. We must go back to save him!" Yet his was a
+sore groan at turning; what Duty ordered was so hard,--he must give up
+his love for the sake of his enemy.
+
+But while Winthrop was still pulling round, the old Loyalist resumed
+rowing, with a more rapid stroke that soon brought him alongside.
+
+In those moments of waiting, all Bedell's life, his personal hatreds,
+his loves, his sorrows, had been reviewed before his soul. He had seen
+again his sons, the slain in battle, in the pride of their young
+might; and the gentle eyes of Ruth had pleaded with him beneath his
+dead wife's brow. Into those beloved, unforgotten, visionary eyes he
+looked with an encouraging, strengthening gaze,--now that the deed to
+be done was as clear before him as the face of Almighty God. In
+accepting it the darker passions that had swayed his stormy life fell
+suddenly away from their hold on his soul. How trivial had been old
+disputes! how good at heart old well-known civic enemies! how poor
+seemed hate! how mean and poor seemed all but Love and Loyalty!
+
+Resolution and deep peace had come upon the man.
+
+The lovers wondered at his look. No wrath was there. The old eyes were
+calm and cheerful, a gentle smile flickered about his lips. Only that
+he was very pale, Ruth would have been wholly glad for the happy
+change.
+
+"Forgive me, father," she cried, as he laid hand on their boat.
+
+"I do, my child," he answered. "Come now without an instant's delay to
+me."
+
+"Oh, father, if you would let us be happy!" cried Ruth, heart-torn by
+two loves.
+
+"Dear, you shall be happy. I was wrong, child; I did not understand
+how you loved him. But come! You hesitate! Winthrop, my son, you are
+in some danger. Into this boat instantly! both of you! Take the oars,
+George. Kiss me, dear, my Ruth, once more. Good-bye, my little girl.
+Winthrop, be good to her. And may God bless you both forever!"
+
+As the old Squire spoke, he stepped into the larger boat, instantly
+releasing the skiff. His imperative gentleness had secured his object
+without loss of time, and the boats were apart with Winthrop's
+readiness to pull.
+
+"Now row! Row for her life to yonder shore! Bow well up! Away, or the
+Falls will have her!" shouted Bedell.
+
+"But you!" cried Winthrop, bending for his stroke. Yet he did not
+comprehend Bedell's meaning. Till the last the old man had spoken
+without strong excitement. Dread of the river was not on George; his
+bliss was supreme in his thought, and he took the Squire's order for
+one of exaggerated alarm.
+
+"Row, I say, with all your strength!" cried Bedell, with a flash of
+anger that sent the young fellow away instantly. "Row! Concern
+yourself not for me. I am going home. Row! for her life, Winthrop! God
+will deliver you yet. Good-bye, children. Remember always my blessing
+is freely given you."
+
+"God bless and keep you forever, father!" cried Ruth, from the
+distance, as her lover pulled away.
+
+They landed, conscious of having passed a swift current, indeed, but
+quite unthinking of the price paid for their safety. Looking back on
+the darkling river, they saw nothing of the old man.
+
+"Poor father!" sighed Ruth, "how kind he was! I'm sore-hearted for
+thinking of him at home, so lonely."
+
+Left alone in the clumsy boat, Bedell stretched with the long, heavy
+oars for his own shore, making appearance of strong exertion. But when
+he no longer feared that his children might turn back with sudden
+understanding, and vainly, to his aid, he dragged the boat slowly,
+watching her swift drift down--down toward the towering mist. Then as
+he gazed at the cloud, rising in two distinct volumes, came a thought
+spurring the Loyalist spirit in an instant. He was not yet out of
+American water! Thereafter he pulled steadily, powerfully, noting
+landmarks anxiously, studying currents, considering always their trend
+to or from his own shore. Half an hour had gone when he again dropped
+into slower motion. Then he could see Goat Island's upper end between
+him and the mist of the American Fall.
+
+Now the old man gave himself up to intense curiosity, looking over
+into the water with fascinated inquiry. He had never been so far down
+the river. Darting beside their shadows, deep in the clear flood, were
+now larger fishes than he had ever taken, and all moved up as if
+hurrying to escape. How fast the long trailing, swaying, single weeds,
+and the crevices in flat rock whence they so strangely grew, went up
+stream and away as if drawn backward. The sameness of the bottom to
+that higher up interested him--where then _did_ the current begin to
+sweep clean? He should certainly know that soon, he thought, without a
+touch of fear, having utterly accepted death when he determined it
+were base to carry his weary old life a little longer, and let Ruth's
+young love die. Now the Falls' heavy monotone was overborne by
+terrible sounds--a mingled clashing, shrieking, groaning, and
+rumbling, as of great bowlders churned in their beds.
+
+Bedell was nearing the first long swoop downward at the rapids' head
+when those watching him from the high bank below the Chippewa River's
+mouth saw him put his boat stern with the current and cease rowing
+entirely, facing fairly the up-rushing mist to which he was being
+hurried. Then they observed him stooping, as if writing, for a time.
+Something flashed in his hands, and then he knelt with head bowed
+down. Kneeling, they prayed, too.
+
+Now he was almost on the brink of the cascades. Then he arose, and,
+glancing backward to his home, caught sight of his friends on the high
+shore. Calmly he waved a farewell. What then? Thrice round he flung
+his hat, with a gesture they knew full well. Some had seen that
+exultant waving in front of ranks of battle. As clearly as though the
+roar of waters had not drowned his ringing voice, they knew that old
+John Bedell, at the poise of death, cheered thrice, "Hurrah! Hurrah!
+Hurrah for the King!"
+
+They found his body a week afterward, floating with the heaving water
+in the gorge below the Falls. Though beaten almost out of recognition,
+portions of clothing still adhered to it, and in a waistcoat pocket
+they found the old Loyalist's metal snuff-box, with this inscription
+scratched by knife-point on the cover: "God be praised, I die in
+British waters! JOHN BEDELL."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: The United Empire Loyalists were American Tories who
+forsook their homes and property after the Revolution in order to live
+in Canada under the British Flag. It is impossible to understand
+Canadian feeling for the Crown at the present day without
+understanding the U. E. Loyalist spirit, which, though Canadians are
+not now unfriendly to the United States, is still the most important
+political force in the Dominion, and holds it firmly in allegiance to
+the Queen.]
+
+
+
+
+VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM.
+
+
+What had Alexander Verbitzsky and I done that the secret service of
+our father, the Czar, should dog us for five months, and in the end
+drive us to Siberia, whence we have, by the goodness of God, escaped
+from Holy Russia, our mother? They called us Nihilists--as if all
+Nihilists were of one way of thinking!
+
+We did not belong to the Terrorists,--the section that believes in
+killing the tyrant or his agents in hope that the hearts of the mighty
+may be shaken as Pharaoh's was in Egypt long ago. No; we were two
+students of nineteen years old, belonging to the section of
+"peasantists," or of Peaceful Education. Its members solemnly devote
+all their lives to teaching the poor people to read, think, save,
+avoid _vodka_, and seek quietly for such liberty with order as here in
+America all enjoy. Was that work a crime in Verbitzsky and me?
+
+Was it a crime for us to steal to the freight-shed of the Moscow and
+St. Petersburg Railway that night in December two years ago? We sat in
+the superintendent's dark office, and talked to the eight trainmen
+that were brought in by the guard of the eastern gate, who had
+belonged to all the sections, but was no longer "active."
+
+We were there to prevent a crime. At the risk of our lives, we two
+went to save the Czar of all the Russias, though well we knew that
+Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police, had offered a reward on
+our capture.
+
+Boris Kojukhov and the other seven trainmen who came with him had been
+chosen, with ten others who were not Nihilists, to operate the train
+that was to bear His Imperial Majesty next day to St. Petersburg. Now
+Boris was one of the Section of Terror, and most terrible was his
+scheme. Kojukhov was not really his name I may tell you. Little did
+the Czar's railway agents suspect that Boris was a noble, and brother
+to the gentle girl that had been sent to Siberia. No wonder the heart
+of Boris was hot and his brain partly crazed when he learned of Zina's
+death in the starvation strike at the Olek Mines.
+
+Verbitzsky was cousin to Zina and Boris, and as his young head was a
+wise one, Boris wished to consult him. We both went, hoping to
+persuade him out of the crime he meditated.
+
+"No," said Boris, "my mind is made up. I may never have such another
+chance. I will fling these two bombs under the foremost car at the
+middle of the Volga Bridge. The tyrant and his staff shall all plunge
+with us down to death in the river."
+
+"The bombs--have you them here?" asked Verbitzsky in the dark.
+
+"I have them in my hands," said Boris, tapping them lightly together.
+"I have carried them in my inner clothing for a week. They give me
+warmth at my heart as I think how they shall free Holy Russia."
+
+There was a stir of dismay in the dark office. The comrades, though
+willing to risk death at the Volga Bridge, were horrified by
+Kojukhov's tapping of the iron bombs together, and all rose in fear of
+their explosion, all except Verbitzsky and me.
+
+"For God's sake, be more careful, Boris!" said my friend.
+
+"Oh, you're afraid, too?" said Kojukhov. "Pah! you cowards of the
+Peace Section!" He tapped the bombs together again.
+
+"I _am_ afraid," said Verbitzsky. "Why should I die for your reckless
+folly? Will any good happen if you explode the bombs here? You will
+but destroy all of us, and our friends the watchmen, and the
+freight-sheds containing the property of many worthy people."
+
+"You are a fool, Verbitzsky!" said his cousin. "Come here. Whisper."
+
+Something Boris then whispered in my comrade's ear. When Verbitzsky
+spoke again his voice seemed calmer.
+
+"Let me feel the shape," he said.
+
+"Here," said Boris, as if handing something to Verbitzsky.
+
+At that moment the outer door of the freight-shed resounded with a
+heavy blow. The next blow, as from a heavy maul, pounded the door
+open.
+
+"The police!" shouted Boris. "They must have dogged you, Alexander,
+for they don't suspect me." He dashed out of the dark office into the
+great dark shed.
+
+As we all ran forth, glancing at the main door about seventy feet
+distant, we saw a squad of police outlined against the moonlit sky
+beyond the great open space of railway yard. My eyes were dazzled by a
+headlight that one of them carried. By that lamp they must have seen
+us clearly; for as we started to run away down the long shed they
+opened fire, and I stumbled over Boris Kojukhov, as he fell with a
+shriek.
+
+Rising, I dodged aside, thinking to avoid bullets, and then dashed
+against a bale of wool, one of a long row. Clambering over it, I
+dropped beside a man crouching on the other side.
+
+"Michael, is it you?" whispered Verbitzsky.
+
+"Yes. We're lost, of course?"
+
+"No. Keep still. Let them pass."
+
+The police ran past us down the middle aisle left between high walls
+of wool bales. They did not notice the narrow side lane in which we
+were crouching.
+
+"Come. I know a way out," said Verbitzsky. "I was all over here this
+morning, looking round, in case we should be surprised to-night."
+
+"What's this?" I whispered, groping, and touching something in his
+hand.
+
+"Kojukhov's bombs. I have them both. Come. Ah, poor Boris, he's with
+Zina now!"
+
+The bomb was a section of iron pipe about two inches in diameter and
+eighteen inches long. Its ends were closed with iron caps. Filled
+with nitroglycerine, such pipes are terrible shells, which explode by
+concussion. I was amazed to think of the recklessness of Boris in
+tapping them together.
+
+"Put them down, Verbitzsky!" I whispered, as we groped our way between
+high walls of bales.
+
+"No, no, they're weapons!" he whispered. "We may need them."
+
+"Then for the love of the saints, be careful!"
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said, as we neared a small side door.
+
+Meantime, we heard the police run after the Terrorists, who brought up
+against the great door at the south end. As they tore away the bar and
+opened the door they shouted with dismay. They had been confronted by
+another squad of police! For a few moments a confusion of sounds came
+to us, all somewhat muffled by passing up and over the high walls of
+baled wool.
+
+"Boris! Where are you?" cried one.
+
+"He's killed!" cried another.
+
+"Oh, if we had the bombs!"
+
+"He gave them to Verbitzsky."
+
+"Verbitzsky, where are you? Throw them! Let us all die together!"
+
+"Yes, it's death to be taken!"
+
+Then we heard shots, blows, and shrieks, all in confusion. After a
+little there was clatter of grounded arms, and then no sound but the
+heavy breathing of men who had been struggling hard. That silence was
+a bad thing for Verbitzsky and me, because the police heard the
+opening of the small side door through which Alexander next moment
+led. In a moment we dashed out into the clear night, over the tracks,
+toward the Petrovsky Gardens.
+
+As we reached the railway yard the police ran round their end of the
+wool-shed in pursuit--ten of them. The others stayed with the
+prisoners.
+
+"Don't fire! Don't shoot!" cried a voice we knew well,--the voice of
+Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police.
+
+"One of them is Verbitzsky!" he cried to his men. "The conspirator
+I've been after for four months. A hundred roubles for him who first
+seizes him! He must be taken alive!"
+
+That offer, I suppose, was what pushed them to such eagerness that
+they all soon felt themselves at our mercy. And that offer was what
+caused them to follow so silently, lest other police should overhear a
+tumult and run to head us off.
+
+Verbitzsky, though encumbered by the bombs, kept the lead, for he was
+a very swift runner. I followed close at his heels. We could hear
+nothing in the great walled-in railway yard except the clack of feet
+on gravel, and sometimes on the network of steel tracks that shone
+silvery as the hard snow under the round moon.
+
+My comrade ran like a man who knows exactly where he means to go.
+Indeed, he had already determined to follow a plan that had long
+before occurred to him. It was a vision of what one or two desperate
+men with bombs might do at close quarters against a number with
+pistols.
+
+As Verbitzsky approached the south end of the yard, which is excavated
+deeply and walled in from the surrounding streets, he turned, to my
+amazement, away from the line that led into the suburbs, and ran along
+four tracks that led under a street bridge.
+
+This bridge was fully thirty feet overhead, and flanked by wings of
+masonry. The four tracks led into a small yard, almost surrounded by
+high stone warehouses; a yard devoted solely to turn-tables for
+locomotives. There was no exit from it except under the bridge that we
+passed beneath.
+
+"Good!" we heard Nolenki cry, fifty yards behind. "We have them now in
+a trap!"
+
+At that, Verbitzsky, still in the moonlight, slackened speed,
+half-turned as if in hesitation, then ran on more slowly, with zigzag
+steps, as if desperately looking for a way out. But he said to me in a
+low, panting voice:--
+
+"We shall escape. Do exactly as I do."
+
+When the police were not fifty feet behind us, Verbitzsky jumped down
+about seven feet into a wide pit. I jumped to his side. We were now
+standing in the walled-in excavation for a new locomotive turn-table.
+This pit was still free from its machinery and platform.
+
+"We are done now!" I said, staring around as Verbitzsky stopped in the
+middle of the circular pit, which was some forty feet wide.
+
+Just as the police came crowding to the edge, Verbitzsky fell on his
+knees as if in surrender. In their eagerness to lay first hands, on
+him, all the police jumped down except the chief, Dmitry Nolenki. Some
+fell. As those who kept their feet rushed toward us, Verbitzsky sprang
+up and ran to the opposite wall, with me at his heels.
+
+Three seconds later the foremost police were within fifteen feet of
+us. Then Verbitzsky raised his terrible bombs.
+
+From high above the roofs of the warehouses the full moon so clearly
+illuminated the yard that we could see every button on our
+assailants' coats, and even the puffs of fat Nolenki's breath. He
+stood panting on the opposite wall of the excavation.
+
+"Halt, or die!" cried Verbitzsky, in a terrible voice.
+
+The bombs were clearly to be seen in his hands. Every policeman in
+Moscow knew of the destruction done, only six days before, by just
+such weapons. The foremost men halted instantly. The impetus of those
+behind brought all together in a bunch--nine expectants of instant
+death. Verbitzsky spoke again:--
+
+"If any man moves hand or foot, I'll throw these," he cried. "Listen!"
+
+"Why, you fool," said Nolenki, a rather slow-witted man, "you can't
+escape. Surrender instantly."
+
+He drew his revolver and pointed it at us.
+
+"Michael," said Verbitzsky to me, in that steely voice which I had
+never before heard from my gentle comrade; "Michael, Nolenki can
+shoot but one of us before he dies. Take this bomb. Now if he hits me
+you throw your bomb at him. If he hits you I will throw mine."
+
+"Infernal villains!" gasped the chief; but we could see his pistol
+wavering.
+
+"Michael," resumed Verbitzsky, "we will give Nolenki a chance for his
+life. Obey me exactly! Listen! If Dmitry Nolenki does not jump down
+into this pit before I say five, throw your bomb straight at him! I
+will, at the moment I say five, throw mine at these rascals."
+
+"Madman!" cried Nolenki. "Do you think to--"
+
+He stopped as if paralyzed. I suppose he had suddenly understood that
+the explosion of a bomb in that small, high-walled yard would kill
+every man in it.
+
+"One!" cried Verbitzsky.
+
+"But I may not hit him!" said I.
+
+"No matter. If it explodes within thirty feet of him he will move no
+more."
+
+I took one step forward and raised the bomb. Did I mean to throw it? I
+do not know. I think not. But I knew we must make the threat or be
+captured and hung. And I felt certain that the bomb would be exploded
+anyway when Verbitzsky should say "Five." He would then throw his, and
+mine would explode by the concussion.
+
+"Two!" said Verbitzsky.
+
+Dmitry Nolenki had lowered his pistol. He glanced behind him uneasily.
+
+"If he runs, throw it!" said Verbitzsky, loudly. "THREE!"
+
+The chief of the Moscow secret police was reputed a brave man, but he
+was only a cruel one. Now his knees trembled so that we could see them
+shake, and his teeth chattered in the still cold night. Verbitzsky
+told me afterward that he feared the man's slow brain had become so
+paralyzed by fright that he might not be able to think and obey and
+jump down. That would have placed my comrade and me in a dreadful
+dilemma, but quite a different one from what you may suppose.
+
+As if to make Nolenki reflect, Verbitzsky spoke more slowly:--
+
+"If Dmitry Nolenki jumps down into this pit _before_ I say five, do
+_not_ throw the bomb at him. You understand, Michael, do not throw if
+he jumps down instantly. FOUR!"
+
+Nolenki's legs were so weak that he could not walk to the edge. In
+trying to do so he stumbled, fell, crawled, and came in head first, a
+mere heap.
+
+"Wise Nolenki!" said my comrade, with a laugh. Then in his tone of
+desperate resolution, "Nolenki, get down on your hands and knees, and
+put your head against that wall. Don't move now--if you wish to live."
+
+"Now, men," he cried to the others in military fashion, "right about,
+face!"
+
+They hesitated, perhaps fearful that he would throw at them when they
+turned.
+
+"About! instantly!" he cried. They all turned.
+
+"Now, men, you see your chief. At the word 'March,' go and kneel in a
+row beside him, your heads against that wall. Hump your backs as high
+as you can. If any man moves to get out, all will suffer together. You
+understand?"
+
+"Yes! yes! yes!" came in an agony of abasement from their lips.
+
+"March!"
+
+When they were all kneeling in a row, Verbitzsky said to me clearly:--
+
+"Michael, you can easily get to the top of that wall from any one of
+their backs. No man will dare to move. Go! Wait on the edge! Take your
+bomb with you!"
+
+I obeyed. I stood on a man's back. I laid my bomb with utmost care on
+the wall, over which I could then see. Then I easily lifted myself out
+by my hands and elbows.
+
+"Good!" said Verbitzsky. "Now, Michael, stand there till I come. If
+they try to seize me, throw your bomb. We can all die together."
+
+In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's back. Nolenki groaned
+with abasement. Next moment Verbitzsky was beside me.
+
+"Give me your bomb. Now, Michael," he said loudly, "I will stand guard
+over these wretches till I see you beyond the freight-sheds. Walk at
+an ordinary pace, lest you be seen and suspected."
+
+"But you? They'll rise and fire at you as you run," I said.
+
+"Of course they will. But you will escape. Here! Good-bye!"
+
+He embraced me, and whispered in my ear:
+
+"Go the opposite way from the freight-sheds. Go out toward the
+Petrovsky Gardens. There are few police there. Run hard after you've
+walked out under the bridge and around the abutments. You will then be
+out of hearing."
+
+"Go, dear friend," he said aloud, in a mournful voice. "I may never
+see you again. Possibly I may have to destroy myself and all here.
+Go!"
+
+I obeyed precisely, and had not fairly reached the yard's end when
+Verbitzsky, running very silently, came up beside me.
+
+"I think they must be still fancying that I'm standing over them," he
+chuckled. "No, they are shooting! Now, out they come!"
+
+From where we now stood in shadow we could see Nolenki and his men
+rush furiously out from under the bridge. They ran away from us toward
+the freight-sheds, shouting the alarm, while we calmly walked home to
+our unsuspected lodgings.
+
+Not till then did I think of the bombs.
+
+"Where are they?" I asked in alarm.
+
+"I left them for the police. They will ruin Nolenki--it was he who
+sent poor Zina to Siberia and her death."
+
+"Ruin him?" I said, wondering.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They were not loaded."
+
+"Not loaded!"
+
+"That's what Boris whispered to me in the wool-shed office. He meant
+to load them to-morrow before going to His Imperial Majesty's train.
+Nolenki will be laughed to death in Moscow, if not sent to Siberia."
+
+Verbitzsky was right. Nolenki, after being laughed nearly to death,
+was sent to Siberia in disgrace, and we both worked in the same gang
+with him for eight months before we escaped from the Ural Mines. No
+doubt he is working there yet.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_JUST ISSUED_....
+
+=ETCHINGS=
+FROM A
+=PARSONAGE VERANDA=
+BY
+MRS. E. JEFFERS GRAHAM
+Illustrated by J. W. BENGOUGH
+
+=CLOTH,--$1.00=
+
+=Contents=: THE PARSONAGE--SOLOMON WISEACRE--TWO WOMEN--MARION
+FULLER--JACOB WHINELY--CARLO--A PENSIONER--MRS TAFFETY--THE KNIGHT AND
+THE DOVE--A CROSS--UNDER A CLOUD--JOY IN THE MORNING--A SUPPLY--ONLY A
+CHILD--MISS PRIMPERTY--A TEMPERANCE MEETING--A DINNER PARTY--AU
+REVOIR--PARTING.
+
+The following words from the closing sketch of this charming book are
+representative of the spirit and style of the whole: "The moon is
+shining in calm majesty. Her children, the stars, are laughing and
+twinkling around her. Earth's children are sleeping, carousing and
+suffering. I am writing in the moonlight. I am so glad we have lived
+here--so happy that we have known all these good, heroic, sweet
+characters. We need not read novels to find heroes. They are living
+all around us. We are talking to them every day. They pass us on the
+street, they sit by us in the church and hall. There is no historian
+to write of them, only a book of remembrance in heaven, where all
+their good deeds are recorded."
+
+Smiles and tears alternate as the delicate humor and tender pathos
+succeed each other through these delightful character sketches. We do
+not hope for popularity for the book--we are _sure of it_.
+
+
+For Sale by all Booksellers
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher
+29-33 Richmond Street West, TORONTO
+Montreal: C. W. COATES.       Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+_TWO NEW BOOKS_
+
+=Forest, Lake AND Prairie=
+
+_TWENTY YEARS OF FRONTIER LIFE IN WESTERN CANADA, 1842-1862._
+
+BY
+
+=REV. JOHN McDOUGALL=
+
+_With Twenty-seven Full-page Original Illustrations by J. E.
+LAUGHLIN._
+
+Strongly bound in English Cloth, with handsome original design in ink
+and gold.
+
+=PRICE,--$1.00=
+
+
+A Companion Book to "Black Beauty."
+
+LION, THE MASTIFF
+
+=FROM LIFE=
+
+By A. G. SAVIGNY
+
+With Introduction by REV. PRINCIPAL CAVEN, D.D.
+
+=CLOTH, 50 CENTS NET=
+
+An ingenious and clever humane story in which "Lion" tells the
+narrative of his life, to quote Principal Caven, "with more vivacity
+than some famous men have exemplified in memoirs of themselves." It
+should be in the hands of every boy and girl in Canada. The author has
+woven into her story a great deal of useful information to guide us in
+our treatment of dumb animals.
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher
+Wesley Buildings, Toronto
+Montreal: C. W. COATES.          Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+=SOME RECENT ISSUES.=
+
+=A Veteran of 1812.= By Mary Agnes FitzGibbon               $1.00
+
+=Cape Breton, Historic, Picturesque and Descriptive.=
+By John M. Gow                                               3.00
+
+=Birds of Ontario.= By Thomas McIlwraith                     2.00
+
+=Pearls and Pebbles; or, Notes of an Old Naturalist.=
+By Mrs. Catharine Parr Traill. With Biographical
+Sketch by Mary Agnes FitzGibbon                              1.50
+
+=The Life and Times of Major-General Sir Isaac
+Brock.= By D. B. Read, Q.C.                                  1.50
+
+=The History of British Columbia.= From its Earliest
+Discovery to the Present Time. By Alexander Begg.            3.00
+
+=China and its People.= By W. H. Withrow, D.D.               1.00
+
+=The Native Races of North America.= By W. H.
+Withrow, D.D.                                                0.75
+
+=Japan, the Land of the Morning.= By Rev. J. W.
+Saunby, B.A.                                                 1.00
+
+=Motley: Verses Grave and Gay.= By J. W. Bengough.
+Illustrated by the Author                                    1.00
+
+=Forest, Lake and Prairie=: Twenty Years of Frontier
+Life in Western Canada--1842-62. By Rev. John McDougall      1.00
+
+=The Catholic Church in the Niagara Peninsula.= By
+Rev. Dean Harris                                             2.00
+
+=Etchings from a Parsonage Veranda.= By Mrs. E.
+Jeffers Graham. Illustrated by J. W. Bengough                1.00
+
+=Lion the Mastiff.= By A. G. Savigny                         0.50
+
+=The Red, Red Wine.= By J. Jackson Wray. Illustrated.        1.00
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher,
+29-33 Richmond St. West, Toronto.
+MONTREAL: C. W. COATES.   HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Pg. 241: Respectacle is possibly a typo for respectable, or the
+author's coined word combining respectable and spectacle.
+(... cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by
+Edward Wilson Thomson
+
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+
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