diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 01:49:04 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 01:49:04 -0700 |
| commit | ba0d7439765a8a612e8fe35d037e0b21b414ddce (patch) | |
| tree | 6252888292e67f457aeb111f16eff459f8ed4985 /22401.txt | |
Diffstat (limited to '22401.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 22401.txt | 5182 |
1 files changed, 5182 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/22401.txt b/22401.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d196a00 --- /dev/null +++ b/22401.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5182 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories by American Authors (Volume 4), by +Constance Fenimore Woolson and H. C. Bunner and N. P. Willis and Mary Hallock Foote and J. W. De Forest + +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: Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) + +Author: Constance Fenimore Woolson + H. C. Bunner + N. P. Willis + Mary Hallock Foote + J. W. De Forest + +Release Date: August 25, 2007 [EBook #22401] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY AMERICAN AUTHORS *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +STORIES BY AMERICAN AUTHORS. + +VOLUME 4 + + + +_The Stories in this Volume are protected by copyright, and are +printed here by authority of the authors or their representatives._ + + +[Illustration: Noah Brooks] + + + +Stories by American Authors + +VOLUME IV + + +_MISS GRIEF_ + By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON + +_LOVE IN OLD CLOATHES_ + By H. C. BUNNER + +_TWO BUCKETS IN A WELL_ + By N. P. WILLIS + +_FRIEND BARTON'S CONCERN_ + By MARY HALLOCK FOOTE + +_AN INSPIRED LOBBYIST_ + By J. W. DE FOREST + +_LOST IN THE FOG_ + By NOAH BROOKS + + + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1897 + + +Copyright, 1884, by +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + + +Transcriber's Note: In the story LOVE IN OLD CLOATHES, the circumflex +(^) is used to indicate that the letters following it are printed in +superscript type. + + + + + +MISS GRIEF. + +By Constance Fenimore Woolson. + +(_Lippincott's Magazine, May,_ 1880.) + + +"A conceited fool" is a not uncommon expression. Now, I know that I am +not a fool, but I also know that I am conceited. But, candidly, can it +be helped if one happens to be young, well and strong, passably +good-looking, with some money that one has inherited and more that one +has earned--in all, enough to make life comfortable--and if upon this +foundation rests also the pleasant superstructure of a literary +success? The success is deserved, I think: certainly it was not +lightly-gained. Yet even with this I fully appreciate its rarity. Thus, +I find myself very well entertained in life: I have all I wish in the +way of society, and a deep, though of course carefully concealed, +satisfaction in my own little fame; which fame I foster by a gentle +system of non-interference. I know that I am spoken of as "that quiet +young fellow who writes those delightful little studies of society, you +know;" and I live up to that definition. + +A year ago I was in Rome, and enjoying life particularly. I had a large +number of my acquaintances there, both American and English, and no day +passed without its invitation. Of course I understood it: it is seldom +that you find a literary man who is good-tempered, well-dressed, +sufficiently provided with money, and amiably obedient to all the rules +and requirements of "society." "When found, make a note of it;" and the +note was generally an invitation. + +One evening, upon returning to my lodgings, my man Simpson informed me +that a person had called in the afternoon, and upon learning that I was +absent had left not a card, but her name--"Miss Grief." The title +lingered--Miss Grief! "Grief has not so far visited me here," I said to +myself, dismissing Simpson and seeking my little balcony for a final +smoke, "and she shall not now. I shall take care to be 'not at home' to +her if she continues to call." And then I fell to thinking of Isabel +Abercrombie, in whose society I had spent that and many evenings: they +were golden thoughts. + +The next day there was an excursion; it was late when I reached my +rooms, and again Simpson informed me that Miss Grief had called. + +"Is she coming continuously?" I said, half to myself. + +"Yes, sir: she mentioned that she should call again." + +"How does she look?" + +"Well, sir, a lady, but not so prosperous as she was, I should say," +answered Simpson, discreetly. + +"Young?" + +"No, sir." + +"Alone?" + +"A maid with her, sir." + +But once outside in my little high-up balcony with my cigar, I again +forgot Miss Grief and whatever she might represent. Who would not +forget in that moonlight, with Isabel Abercrombie's face to remember? + +The stranger came a third time, and I was absent; then she let two days +pass, and began again. It grew to be a regular dialogue between Simpson +and myself when I came in at night: "Grief to-day?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"What time?" + +"Four, sir." + +"Happy the man," I thought, "who can keep her confined to a particular +hour!" + +But I should not have treated my visitor so cavalierly if I had not +felt sure that she was eccentric and unconventional--qualities +extremely tiresome in a woman no longer young or attractive. If she +were not eccentric she would not have persisted in coming to my door +day after day in this silent way, without stating her errand, leaving a +note, or presenting her credentials in any shape. I made up my mind +that she had something to sell--a bit of carving or some intaglio +supposed to be antique. It was known that I had a fancy for oddities. I +said to myself, "She has read or heard of my 'Old Gold' story, or else +'The Buried God,' and she thinks me an idealizing ignoramus upon whom +she can impose. Her sepulchral name is at least not Italian; probably +she is a sharp countrywoman of mine, turning, by means of the present +aesthetic craze, an honest penny when she can." + +She had called seven times during a period of two weeks without seeing +me, when one day I happened to be at home in the afternoon, owing to a +pouring rain and a fit of doubt concerning Miss Abercrombie. For I had +constructed a careful theory of that young lady's characteristics in my +own mind, and she had lived up to it delightfully until the previous +evening, when with one word she had blown it to atoms and taken flight, +leaving me standing, as it were, on a desolate shore, with nothing but +a handful of mistaken inductions wherewith to console myself. I do not +know a more exasperating frame of mind, at least for a constructor of +theories. I could not write, and so I took up a French novel (I model +myself a little on Balzac). I had been turning over its pages but a few +moments when Simpson knocked, and, entering softly, said, with just a +shadow of a smile on his well-trained face, "Miss Grief." I briefly +consigned Miss Grief to all the Furies, and then, as he still +lingered--perhaps not knowing where they resided--I asked where the +visitor was. + +"Outside, sir--in the hall. I told her I would see if you were at +home." + +"She must be unpleasantly wet if she had no carriage." + +"No carriage, sir: they always come on foot. I think she _is_ a little +damp, sir." + +"Well, let her in; but I don't want the maid. I may as well see her +now, I suppose, and end the affair." + +"Yes, sir." + +I did not put down my book. My visitor should have a hearing, but not +much more: she had sacrificed her womanly claims by her persistent +attacks upon my door. Presently Simpson ushered her in. "Miss Grief," +he said, and then went out, closing the curtain behind him. + +A woman--yes, a lady--but shabby, unattractive, and more than +middle-aged. + +I rose, bowed slightly, and then dropped into my chair again, still +keeping the book in my hand. "Miss Grief?" I said interrogatively as I +indicated a seat with my eyebrows. + +"Not Grief," she answered--"Crief: my name is Crief." + +She sat down, and I saw that she held a small flat box. + +"Not carving, then," I thought--"probably old lace, something that +belonged to Tullia or Lucrezia Borgia." But as she did not speak I +found myself obliged to begin: "You have been here, I think, once or +twice before?" + +"Seven times; this is the eighth." + +A silence. + +"I am often out; indeed, I may say that I am never in," I remarked +carelessly. + +"Yes; you have many friends." + +"--Who will perhaps buy old lace," I mentally added. But this time I +too remained silent; why should I trouble myself to draw her out? She +had sought me; let her advance her idea, whatever it was, now that +entrance was gained. + +But Miss Grief (I preferred to call her so) did not look as though she +could advance anything; her black gown, damp with rain, seemed to +retreat fearfully to her thin self, while her thin self retreated as +far as possible from me, from the chair, from everything. Her eyes were +cast down; an old-fashioned lace veil with a heavy border shaded her +face. She looked at the floor, and I looked at her. + +I grew a little impatient, but I made up my mind that I would continue +silent and see how long a time she would consider necessary to give due +effect to her little pantomime. Comedy? Or was it tragedy? I suppose +full five minutes passed thus in our double silence; and that is a long +time when two persons are sitting opposite each other alone in a small +still room. + +At last my visitor, without raising her eyes, said slowly, "You are +very happy, are you not, with youth, health, friends, riches, fame?" + +It was a singular beginning. Her voice was clear, low, and very sweet +as she thus enumerated my advantages one by one in a list. I was +attracted by it, but repelled by her words, which seemed to me flattery +both dull and bold. + +"Thanks," I said, "for your kindness, but I fear it is undeserved. I +seldom discuss myself even when with my friends." + +"I am your friend," replied Miss Grief. Then, after a moment, she added +slowly, "I have read every word you have written." + +I curled the edges of my book indifferently; I am not a fop, I hope, +but--others have said the same. + +"What is more, I know much of it by heart," continued my visitor. +"Wait: I will show you;" and then, without pause, she began to repeat +something of mine word for word, just as I had written it. On she went, +and I--listened. I intended interrupting her after a moment, but I did +not, because she was reciting so well, and also because I felt a desire +gaining upon me to see what she would make of a certain conversation +which I knew was coming--a conversation between two of my characters +which was, to say the least, sphinx-like, and somewhat incandescent as +well. What won me a little, too, was the fact that the scene she was +reciting (it was hardly more than that, though called a story) was +secretly my favorite among all the sketches from my pen which a +gracious public has received with favor. I never said so, but it was; +and I had always felt a wondering annoyance that the aforesaid public, +while kindly praising beyond their worth other attempts of mine, had +never noticed the higher purpose of this little shaft, aimed not at the +balconies and lighted windows of society, but straight up toward the +distant stars. So she went on, and presently reached the conversation: +my two people began to talk. She had raised her eyes now, and was +looking at me soberly as she gave the words of the woman, quiet, +gentle, cold, and the replies of the man, bitter, hot, and scathing. +Her very voice changed, and took, though always sweetly, the different +tones required, while no point of meaning, however small, no breath of +delicate emphasis which I had meant, but which the dull types could not +give, escaped an appreciative and full, almost overfull, recognition +which startled me. For she had understood me--understood me almost +better than I had understood myself. It seemed to me that while I had +labored to interpret, partially, a psychological riddle, she, coming +after, had comprehended its bearings better than I had, though +confining herself strictly to my own words and emphasis. The scene +ended (and it ended rather suddenly), she dropped her eyes, and moved +her hand nervously to and fro over the box she held; her gloves were +old and shabby, her hands small. + +I was secretly much surprised by what I had heard, but my ill-humor was +deep-seated that day, and I still felt sure, besides, that the box +contained something which I was expected to buy. + +"You recite remarkably well," I said carelessly, "and I am much +flattered also by your appreciation of my attempt. But it is not, I +presume, to that alone that I owe the pleasure of this visit?" + +"Yes," she answered, still looking down, "it is, for if you had not +written that scene I should not have sought you. Your other sketches +are interiors--exquisitely painted and delicately finished, but of +small scope. _This_ is a sketch in a few bold, masterly lines--work of +entirely different spirit and purpose." + +I was nettled by her insight. "You have bestowed so much of your kind +attention upon me that I feel your debtor," I said, conventionally. "It +may be that there is something I can do for you--connected, possibly, +with that little box?" + +It was impertinent, but it was true; for she answered, "Yes." + +I smiled, but her eyes were cast down and she did not see the smile. + +"What I have to show you is a manuscript," she said after a pause which +I did not break; "it is a drama. I thought that perhaps you would read +it." + +"An authoress! This is worse than old lace," I said to myself in +dismay.--Then, aloud, "My opinion would be worth nothing, Miss Crief." + +"Not in a business way, I know. But it might be--an assistance +personally." Her voice had sunk to a whisper; outside, the rain was +pouring steadily down. She was a very depressing object to me as she +sat there with her box. + +"I hardly think I have the time at present--" I began. + +She had raised her eyes and was looking at me; then, when I paused, she +rose and came suddenly toward my chair. "Yes, you will read it," she +said with her hand on my arm--"you will read it. Look at this room; +look at yourself; look at all you have. Then look at me, and have +pity." + +I had risen, for she held my arm, and her damp skirt was brushing my +knees. + +Her large dark eyes looked intently into mine as she went on; "I have +no shame in asking. Why should I have? It is my last endeavor; but a +calm and well-considered one. If you refuse I shall go away, knowing +that Fate has willed it so. And I shall be content." + +"She is mad," I thought. But she did not look so, and she had spoken +quietly, even gently.--"Sit down," I said, moving away from her. I felt +as if I had been magnetized; but it was only the nearness of her eyes +to mine, and their intensity. I drew forward a chair, but she remained +standing. + +"I cannot," she said in the same sweet, gentle tone, "unless you +promise." + +"Very well, I promise; only sit down." + +As I took her arm to lead her to the chair I perceived that she was +trembling, but her face continued unmoved. + +"You do not, of course, wish me to look at your manuscript now?" I +said, temporizing; "it would be much better to leave it. Give me your +address, and I will return it to you with my written opinion; though, I +repeat, the latter will be of no use to you. It is the opinion of an +editor or publisher that you want." + +"It shall be as you please. And I will go in a moment," said Miss +Grief, pressing her palms together, as if trying to control the tremor +that had seized her slight frame. + +She looked so pallid that I thought of offering her a glass of wine; +then I remembered that if I did it might be a bait to bring her there +again, and this I was desirous to prevent. She rose while the thought +was passing through my mind. Her pasteboard box lay on the chair she +had first occupied; she took it, wrote an address on the cover, laid it +down, and then, bowing with a little air of formality, drew her black +shawl round her shoulders and turned toward the door. + +I followed, after touching the bell. "You will hear from me by letter," +I said. + +Simpson opened the door, and I caught a glimpse of the maid, who was +waiting in the anteroom. She was an old woman, shorter than her +mistress, equally thin, and dressed like her in rusty black. As the +door opened she turned toward it a pair of small, dim blue eyes with a +look of furtive suspense. Simpson dropped the curtain, shutting me into +the inner room; he had no intention of allowing me to accompany my +visitor further. But I had the curiosity to go to a bay-window in an +angle from whence I could command the street-door, and presently I saw +them issue forth in the rain and walk away side by side, the mistress, +being the taller, holding the umbrella: probably there was not much +difference in rank between persons so poor and forlorn as these. + +It grew dark. I was invited out for the evening, and I knew that if I +should go I should meet Miss Abercrombie. I said to myself that I would +not go. I got out my paper for writing, I made my preparations for a +quiet evening at home with myself; but it was of no use. It all ended +slavishly in my going. At the last allowable moment I presented myself, +and--as a punishment for my vacillation, I suppose--I never passed a +more disagreeable evening. I drove homeward in a murky temper; it was +foggy without, and very foggy within. What Isabel really was, now that +she had broken through my elaborately-built theories, I was not able to +decide. There was, to tell the truth, a certain young Englishman--But +that is apart from this story. + +I reached home, went up to my rooms, and had a supper. It was to +console myself; I am obliged to console myself scientifically once in a +while. I was walking up and down afterward, smoking and feeling +somewhat better, when my eye fell upon the pasteboard box. I took it +up; on the cover was written an address which showed that my visitor +must have walked a long distance in order to see me: "A. Crief."--"A +Grief," I thought; "and so she is. I positively believe she has brought +all this trouble upon me: she has the evil eye." I took out the +manuscript and looked at it. It was in the form of a little volume, and +clearly written; on the cover was the word "Armor" in German text, and, +underneath, a pen-and-ink sketch of a helmet, breastplate, and shield. + +"Grief certainly needs armor," I said to myself, sitting down by the +table and turning over the pages. "I may as well look over the thing +now; I could not be in a worse mood." And then I began to read. + +Early the next morning Simpson took a note from me to the given +address, returning with the following reply: "No; I prefer to come to +you; at four; A. CRIEF." These words, with their three semicolons, were +written in pencil upon a piece of coarse printing-paper, but the +handwriting was as clear and delicate as that of the manuscript in ink. + +"What sort of a place was it, Simpson?" + +"Very poor, sir, but I did not go all the way up. The elder person came +down, sir, took the note, and requested me to wait where I was." + +"You had no chance, then, to make inquiries?" I said, knowing full well +that he had emptied the entire neighborhood of any information it might +possess concerning these two lodgers. + +"Well, sir, you know how these foreigners will talk, whether one wants +to hear or not. But it seems that these two persons have been there but +a few weeks; they live alone, and are uncommonly silent and reserved. +The people round there call them something that signifies 'the Madames +American, thin and dumb.'" + +At four the "Madames American" arrived; it was raining again, and they +came on foot under their old umbrella. The maid waited in the anteroom, +and Miss Grief was ushered into my bachelor's parlor. I had thought +that I should meet her with great deference; but she looked so forlorn +that my deference changed to pity. It was the woman that impressed me +then, more than the writer--the fragile, nerveless body more than the +inspired mind. For it was inspired: I had sat up half the night over +her drama, and had felt thrilled through and through more than once by +its earnestness, passion, and power. + +No one could have been more surprised than I was to find myself thus +enthusiastic. I thought I had outgrown that sort of thing. And one +would have supposed, too (I myself should have supposed so the day +before), that the faults of the drama, which were many and prominent, +would have chilled any liking I might have felt, I being a writer +myself, and therefore critical; for writers are as apt to make much of +the "how," rather than the "what," as painters, who, it is well known, +prefer an exquisitely rendered representation of a commonplace theme to +an imperfectly executed picture of even the most striking subject. But +in this case, on the contrary, the scattered rays of splendor in Miss +Grief's drama had made me forget the dark spots, which were numerous +and disfiguring; or, rather, the splendor had made me anxious to have +the spots removed. And this also was a philanthropic state very unusual +with me. Regarding unsuccessful writers, my motto had been "Vae victis!" + +My visitor took a seat and folded her hands; I could see, in spite of +her quiet manner, that she was in breathless suspense. It seemed so +pitiful that she should be trembling there before me--a woman so much +older than I was, a woman who possessed the divine spark of genius, +which I was by no means sure (in spite of my success) had been granted +to me--that I felt as if I ought to go down on my knees before her, and +entreat her to take her proper place of supremacy at once. But there! +one does not go down on one's knees, combustively, as it were, before a +woman over fifty, plain in feature, thin, dejected, and ill-dressed. I +contented myself with taking her hands (in their miserable old gloves) +in mine, while I said cordially, "Miss Crief, your drama seems to me +full of original power. It has roused my enthusiasm: I sat up half the +night reading it." + +The hands I held shook, but something (perhaps a shame for having +evaded the knees business) made me tighten my hold and bestow upon her +also a reassuring smile. She looked at me for a moment, and then, +suddenly and noiselessly, tears rose and rolled down her cheeks. I +dropped her hands and retreated. I had not thought her tearful: on the +contrary, her voice and face had seemed rigidly controlled. But now +here she was bending herself over the side of the chair with her head +resting on her arms, not sobbing aloud, but her whole frame shaken by +the strength of her emotion. I rushed for a glass of wine; I pressed +her to take it. I did not quite know what to do, but, putting myself in +her place, I decided to praise the drama; and praise it I did. I do not +know when I have used so many adjectives. She raised her head and began +to wipe her eyes. + +"Do take the wine," I said, interrupting myself in my cataract of +language. + +"I dare not," she answered; then added humbly, "that is, unless you +have a biscuit here or a bit of bread." + +I found some biscuit; she ate two, and then slowly drank the wine, +while I resumed my verbal Niagara. Under its influence--and that of the +wine too, perhaps--she began to show new life. It was not that she +looked radiant--she could not--but simply that she looked warm. I now +perceived what had been the principal discomfort of her appearance +heretofore: it was that she had looked all the time as if suffering +from cold. + +At last I could think of nothing more to say, and stopped. I really +admired the drama, but I thought I had exerted myself sufficiently as +an anti-hysteric, and that adjectives enough, for the present at least, +had been administered. She had put down her empty wine-glass, and was +resting her hands on the broad cushioned arms of her chair with, for a +thin person, a sort of expanded content. + +"You must pardon my tears," she said, smiling; "it was the revulsion of +feeling. My life was at a low ebb: if your sentence had been against me +it would have been my end." + +"Your end?" + +"Yes, the end of my life; I should have destroyed myself." + +"Then you would have been a weak as well as wicked woman," I said in a +tone of disgust. I do hate sensationalism. + +"Oh no, you know nothing about it. I should have destroyed only this +poor worn tenement of clay. But I can well understand how _you_ would +look upon it. Regarding the desirableness of life the prince and the +beggar may have different opinions.--We will say no more of it, but +talk of the drama instead." As she spoke the word "drama" a triumphant +brightness came into her eyes. + +I took the manuscript from a drawer and sat down beside her. "I suppose +you know that there are faults," I said, expecting ready acquiescence. + +"I was not aware that there were any," was her gentle reply. + +Here was a beginning! After all my interest in her--and, I may say +under the circumstances, my kindness--she received me in this way! +However, my belief in her genius was too sincere to be altered by her +whimsies; so I persevered. "Let us go over it together," I said. "Shall +I read it to you, or will you read it to me?" + +"I will not read it, but recite it." + +"That will never do; you will recite it so well that we shall see only +the good points, and what we have to concern ourselves with now is the +bad ones." + +"I will recite it," she repeated. + +"Now, Miss Crief," I said bluntly, "for what purpose did you come to +me? Certainly not merely to recite: I am no stage-manager. In plain +English, was it not your idea that I might help you in obtaining a +publisher?" + +"Yes, yes," she answered, looking at me apprehensively, all her old +manner returning. + +I followed up my advantage, opened the little paper volume and began. I +first took the drama line by line, and spoke of the faults of +expression and structure; then I turned back and touched upon two or +three glaring impossibilities in the plot. "Your absorbed interest in +the motive of the whole no doubt made you forget these blemishes," I +said apologetically. + +But, to my surprise, I found that she did not see the blemishes--that +she appreciated nothing I had said, comprehended nothing. Such +unaccountable obtuseness puzzled me. I began again, going over the +whole with even greater minuteness and care. I worked hard: the +perspiration stood in beads upon my forehead as I struggled with +her--what shall I call it--obstinacy? But it was not exactly obstinacy. +She simply could not see the faults of her own work, any more than a +blind man can see the smoke that dims a patch of blue sky. When I had +finished my task the second time she still remained as gently impassive +as before. I leaned back in my chair exhausted, and looked at her. + +Even then she did not seem to comprehend (whether she agreed with it or +not) what I must be thinking. "It is such a heaven to me that you like +it!" she murmured dreamily, breaking the silence. Then, with more +animation, "And _now_ you will let me recite it?" + +I was too weary to oppose her; she threw aside her shawl and bonnet, +and, standing in the centre of the room, began. + +And she carried me along with her: all the strong passages were doubly +strong when spoken, and the faults, which seemed nothing to her, were +made by her earnestness to seem nothing to me, at least for that +moment. When it was ended she stood looking at me with a triumphant +smile. + +"Yes," I said, "I like it, and you see that I do. But I like it because +my taste is peculiar. To me originality and force are everything--perhaps +because I have them not to any marked degree myself--but the world at +large will not overlook as I do your absolutely barbarous shortcomings +on account of them. Will you trust me to go over the drama and correct +it at my pleasure?" This was a vast deal for me to offer; I was +surprised at myself. + +"No," she answered softly, still smiling. "There shall not be so much +as a comma altered." Then she sat down and fell into a reverie as +though she were alone. + +"Have you written anything else?" I said after a while, when I had +become tired of the silence. + +"Yes." + +"Can I see it? Or is it _them_?" + +"It is _them_. Yes, you can see all." + +"I will call upon you for the purpose." + +"No, you must not," she said, coming back to the present nervously. "I +prefer to come to you." + +At this moment Simpson entered to light the room, and busied himself +rather longer than was necessary over the task. When he finally went +out I saw that my visitor's manner had sunk into its former depression: +the presence of the servant seemed to have chilled her. + +"When did you say I might come?" I repeated, ignoring her refusal. + +"I did not say it. It would be impossible." + +"Well, then, when will you come here?" There was, I fear, a trace of +fatigue in my tone. + +"At your good pleasure, sir," she answered humbly. + +My chivalry was touched by this: after all, she was a woman. "Come +to-morrow," I said. "By the way, come and dine with me then; why not?" +I was curious to see what she would reply. + +"Why not, indeed? Yes, I will come. I am forty-three: I might have been +your mother." + +This was not quite true, as I am over thirty: but I look young, while +she--Well, I had thought her over fifty. "I can hardly call you +'mother,' but we might compromise upon 'aunt,'" I said, laughing. "Aunt +what?" + +"My name is Aaronna," she gravely answered. "My father was much +disappointed that I was not a boy, and gave me as nearly as possible +the name he had prepared--Aaron." + +"Then come and dine with me to-morrow, and bring with you the other +manuscripts, Aaronna," I said, amused at the quaint sound of the name. +On the whole, I did not like "aunt." + +"I will come," she answered. + +It was twilight and still raining, but she refused all offers of escort +or carriage, departing with her maid, as she had come, under the brown +umbrella. The next day we had the dinner. Simpson was astonished--and +more than astonished, grieved--when I told him that he was to dine with +the maid; but he could not complain in words, since my own guest, the +mistress, was hardly more attractive. When our preparations were +complete I could not help laughing: the two prim little tables, one in +the parlor and one in the anteroom, and Simpson disapprovingly going +back and forth between them, were irresistible. + +I greeted my guest hilariously when she arrived, and, fortunately, her +manner was not quite so depressed as usual: I could never have accorded +myself with a tearful mood. I had thought that perhaps she would make, +for the occasion, some change in her attire; I have never known a woman +who had not some scrap of finery, however small, in reserve for that +unexpected occasion of which she is ever dreaming. But no: Miss Grief +wore the same black gown, unadorned and unaltered. I was glad that +there was no rain that day, so that the skirt did not at least look so +damp and rheumatic. + +She ate quietly, almost furtively, yet with a good appetite, and she +did not refuse the wine. Then, when the meal was over and Simpson had +removed the dishes, I asked for the new manuscripts. She gave me an old +green copybook filled with short poems, and a prose sketch by itself; I +lit a cigar and sat down at my desk to look them over. + +"Perhaps you will try a cigarette?" I suggested, more for amusement +than anything else, for there was not a shade of Bohemianism about her; +her whole appearance was puritanical. + +"I have not yet succeeded in learning to smoke." + +"You have tried?" I said, turning round. + +"Yes: Serena and I tried, but we did not succeed." + +"Serena is your maid?" + +"She lives with me." + +I was seized with inward laughter, and began hastily to look over her +manuscripts with my back toward her, so that she might not see it. A +vision had risen before me of those two forlorn women, alone in their +room with locked doors, patiently trying to acquire the smoker's art. + +But my attention was soon absorbed by the papers before me. Such a +fantastic collection of words, lines, and epithets I had never before +seen, or even in dreams imagined. In truth, they were like the work of +dreams: they were _Kubla Khan_, only more so. Here and there was +radiance like the flash of a diamond, but each poem, almost each verse +and line, was marred by some fault or lack which seemed wilful +perversity, like the work of an evil sprite. It was like a case of +jeweller's wares set before you, with each ring unfinished, each +bracelet too large or too small for its purpose, each breastpin without +its fastening, each necklace purposely broken. I turned the pages, +marvelling. When about half an hour had passed, and I was leaning back +for a moment to light another cigar, I glanced toward my visitor. She +was behind me, in an easy-chair before my small fire, and she was--fast +asleep! In the relaxation of her unconsciousness I was struck anew by +the poverty her appearance expressed; her feet were visible, and I saw +the miserable worn old shoes which hitherto she had kept concealed. + +After looking at her for a moment I returned to my task and took up the +prose story; in prose she must be more reasonable. She was less +fantastic perhaps, but hardly more reasonable. The story was that of a +profligate and commonplace man forced by two of his friends, in order +not to break the heart of a dying girl who loves him, to live up to a +high imaginary ideal of himself which her pure but mistaken mind has +formed. He has a handsome face and sweet voice, and repeats what they +tell him. Her long, slow decline and happy death, and his own inward +ennui and profound weariness of the role he has to play, made the vivid +points of the story. So far, well enough, but here was the trouble: +through the whole narrative moved another character, a physician of +tender heart and exquisite mercy, who practised murder as a fine art, +and was regarded (by the author) as a second Messiah! This was +monstrous. I read it through twice, and threw it down; then, fatigued, +I turned round and leaned back, waiting for her to wake. I could see +her profile against the dark hue of the easy-chair. + +Presently she seemed to feel my gaze, for she stirred, then opened her +eyes. "I have been asleep," she said, rising hurriedly. + +"No harm in that, Aaronna." + +But she was deeply embarrassed and troubled, much more so than the +occasion required; so much so, indeed, that I turned the conversation +back upon the manuscripts as a diversion. "I cannot stand that doctor +of yours," I said, indicating the prose story; "no one would. You must +cut him out." + +Her self-possession returned as if by magic. "Certainly not," she +answered haughtily. + +"Oh, if you do not care--I had labored under the impression that you +were anxious these things should find a purchaser." + +"I am, I am," she said, her manner changing to deep humility with +wonderful rapidity. With such alternations of feeling as this sweeping +over her like great waves, no wonder she was old before her time. + +"Then you must take out that doctor." + +"I am willing, but do not know how," she answered, pressing her hands +together helplessly. "In my mind he belongs to the story so closely +that he cannot be separated from it." + +Here Simpson entered, bringing a note for me: it was a line from Mrs. +Abercrombie inviting me for that evening--an unexpected gathering, and +therefore likely to be all the more agreeable. My heart bounded in +spite of me; I forgot Miss Grief and her manuscripts for the moment as +completely as though they had never existed. But, bodily, being still +in the same room with her, her speech brought me back to the present. + +"You have had good news?" she said. + +"Oh no, nothing especial--merely an invitation." + +"But good news also," she repeated. "And now, as for me, I must go." + +Not supposing that she would stay much later in any case, I had that +morning ordered a carriage to come for her at about that hour. I told +her this. She made no reply beyond putting on her bonnet and shawl. + +"You will hear from me soon," I said; "I shall do all I can for you." + +She had reached the door, but before opening it she stopped, turned and +extended her hand. "You are good," she said: "I give you thanks. Do not +think me ungrateful or envious. It is only that you are young, and I am +so--so old." Then she opened the door and passed through the anteroom +without pause, her maid accompanying her and Simpson with gladness +lighting the way. They were gone. I dressed hastily and went out--to +continue my studies in psychology. + +Time passed; I was busy, amused and perhaps a little excited (sometimes +psychology is exciting). But, though much occupied with my own affairs, +I did not altogether neglect my self-imposed task regarding Miss Grief. +I began by sending her prose story to a friend, the editor of a monthly +magazine, with a letter making a strong plea for its admittance. It +should have a chance first on its own merits. Then I forwarded the +drama to a publisher, also an acquaintance, a man with a taste for +phantasms and a soul above mere common popularity, as his own coffers +knew to their cost. This done, I waited with conscience clear. + +Four weeks passed. During this waiting period I heard nothing from Miss +Grief. At last one morning came a letter from my editor. "The story has +force, but I cannot stand that doctor," he wrote. "Let her cut him out, +and I might print it." Just what I myself had said. The package lay +there on my table, travel-worn and grimed; a returned manuscript is, I +think, the most melancholy object on earth. I decided to wait, before +writing to Aaronna, until the second letter was received. A week later +it came. "Armor" was declined. The publisher had been "impressed" by +the power displayed in certain passages, but the "impossibilities of +the plot" rendered it "unavailable for publication"--in fact, would +"bury it in ridicule" if brought before the public, a public +"lamentably" fond of amusement, "seeking it, undaunted, even in the +cannon's mouth." I doubt if he knew himself what he meant. But one +thing, at any rate, was clear: "Armor" was declined. + +Now, I am, as I have remarked before, a little obstinate. I was +determined that Miss Grief's work should be received. I would alter and +improve it myself, without letting her know: the end justified the +means. Surely the sieve of my own good taste, whose mesh had been +pronounced so fine and delicate, would serve for two. I began; and +utterly failed. + +I set to work first upon "Armor." I amended, altered, left out, put in, +pieced, condensed, lengthened; I did my best, and all to no avail. I +could not succeed in completing anything that satisfied me, or that +approached, in truth, Miss Grief's own work just as it stood. I suppose +I went over that manuscript twenty times: I covered sheets of paper +with my copies. But the obstinate drama refused to be corrected; as it +was it must stand or fall. + +Wearied and annoyed, I threw it aside and took up the prose story: that +would be easier. But, to my surprise, I found that that apparently +gentle "doctor" would not out: he was so closely interwoven with every +part of the tale that to take him out was like taking out one especial +figure in a carpet: that is, impossible, unless you unravel the whole. +At last I did unravel the whole, and then the story was no longer good, +or Aaronna's: it was weak, and mine. All this took time, for of course +I had much to do in connection with my own life and tasks. But, though +slowly and at my leisure, I really did try my best as regarded Miss +Grief, and without success. I was forced at last to make up my mind +that either my own powers were not equal to the task, or else that her +perversities were as essential a part of her work as her inspirations, +and not to be separated from it. Once during this period I showed two +of the short poems to Isabel, withholding of course the writer's name. +"They were written by a woman," I explained. + +"Her mind must have been disordered, poor thing!" Isabel said in her +gentle way when she returned them--"at least, judging by these. They +are hopelessly mixed and vague." + +Now, they were not vague so much as vast. But I knew that I could not +make Isabel comprehend it, and (so complex a creature is man) I do not +know that I wanted her to comprehend it. These were the only ones in +the whole collection that I would have shown her, and I was rather glad +that she did not like even these. Not that poor Aaronna's poems were +evil: they were simply unrestrained, large, vast, like the skies or the +wind. Isabel was bounded on all sides, like a violet in a garden-bed. +And I liked her so. + +One afternoon, about the time when I was beginning to see that I could +not "improve" Miss Grief, I came upon the maid. I was driving, and she +had stopped on the crossing to let the carriage pass. I recognized her +at a glance (by her general forlornness), and called to the driver to +stop: "How is Miss Grief?" I said. "I have been intending to write to +her for some time." + +"And your note, when it comes," answered the old woman on the crosswalk +fiercely, "she shall not see." + +"What?" + +"I say she shall not see it. Your patronizing face shows that you have +no good news, and you shall not rack and stab her any more on _this_ +earth, please God, while I have authority." + +"Who has racked or stabbed her, Serena?" + +"Serena, indeed! Rubbish! I'm no Serena: I'm her aunt. And as to who +has racked and stabbed her, I say you, _you_--YOU literary men!" She +had put her old head inside my carriage, and flung out these words at +me in a shrill, menacing tone. "But she shall die in peace in spite of +you," she continued. "Vampires! you take her ideas and fatten on them, +and leave her to starve. You know you do--_you_ who have had her poor +manuscripts these months and months!" + +"Is she ill?" I asked in real concern, gathering that much at least +from the incoherent tirade. + +"She is dying," answered the desolate old creature, her voice softening +and her dim eyes filling with tears. + +"Oh, I trust not. Perhaps something can be done. Can I help you in any +way?" + +"In all ways if you would," she said, breaking down and beginning to +sob weakly, with her head resting on the sill of the carriage-window. +"Oh, what have we not been through together, we two! Piece by piece I +have sold all." + +I am good-hearted enough, but I do not like to have old women weeping +across my carriage-door. I suggested, therefore, that she should come +inside and let me take her home. Her shabby old skirt was soon beside +me, and, following her directions, the driver turned toward one of the +most wretched quarters of the city, the abode of poverty, crowded and +unclean. Here, in a large bare chamber up many flights of stairs, I +found Miss Grief. + +As I entered I was startled: I thought she was dead. There seemed no +life present until she opened her eyes, and even then they rested upon +us vaguely, as though she did not know who we were. But as I approached +a light came into them: she recognized me, and this sudden +revivification, this return of the soul to the almost deserted bod, was +the most wonderful thing I ever saw. "You have good news of the drama?" +she whispered as I bent over her: "tell me. I _know_ you have good +news." + +What was I to answer? Pray, what would you have answered, puritan? + +"Yes, I have good news, Aaronna," I said. "The drama will appear." (And +who knows? Perhaps it will in some other world.) + +She smiled, and her now brilliant eyes did not leave my face. + +"He knows I'm your aunt: I told him," said the old woman, coming to the +bedside. + +"Did you?" whispered Miss Grief, still gazing at me with a smile. "Then +please, dear Aunt Martha, give me something to eat." + +Aunt Martha hurried across the room, and I followed her. "It's the +first time she's asked for food in weeks," she said in a husky tone. + +She opened a cupboard-door vaguely, but I could see nothing within. +"What have you for her?" I asked with some impatience, though in a low +voice. + +"Please God, nothing!" answered the poor old woman, hiding her reply +and her tears behind the broad cupboard-door. "I was going out to get a +little something when I met you." + +"Good Heavens! is it money you need? Here, take this and send; or go +yourself in the carriage waiting below." + +She hurried out breathless, and I went back to the bedside, much +disturbed by what I had seen and heard. But Miss Grief's eyes were full +of life, and as I sat down beside her she whispered earnestly, "Tell +me." + +And I did tell her--a romance invented for the occasion. I venture to +say that none of my published sketches could compare with it. As for +the lie involved, it will stand among my few good deeds; I know, at the +judgment-bar. + +And she was satisfied. "I have never known what it was," she whispered, +"to be fully happy until now." She closed her eyes, and when the lids +fell I again thought that she had passed away. But no, there was still +pulsation in her small, thin wrist. As she perceived my touch she +smiled. "Yes, I am happy," she said again, though without audible +sound. + +The old aunt returned; food was prepared, and she took some. I myself +went out after wine that should be rich and pure. She rallied a little, +but I did not leave her: her eyes dwelt upon me and compelled me to +stay, or rather my conscience compelled me. It was a damp night, and I +had a little fire made. The wine, fruit, flowers, and candles I had +ordered made the bare place for the time being bright and fragrant. +Aunt Martha dozed in her chair from sheer fatigue--she had watched many +nights--but Miss Grief was awake, and I sat beside her. + +"I make you my executor," she murmured, "as to the drama. But my other +manuscripts place, when I am gone, under my head, and let them be +buried with me. They are not many--those you have and these. See!" + +I followed her gesture, and saw under her pillows the edges of two more +copybooks like the one I had. "Do not look at them--my poor dead +children!" she said tenderly. "Let them depart with me--unread, as I +have been." + +Later she whispered, "Did you wonder why I came to you? It was the +contrast. You were young--strong--rich--praised--loved--successful: all +that I was not. I wanted to look at you--and imagine how it would feel. +You had success--but I had the greater power. Tell me, did I not have +it?" + +"Yes, Aaronna." + +"It is all in the past now. But I am satisfied." + +After another pause she said with a faint smile, "Do you remember when +I fell asleep in your parlor? It was the good and rich food. It was so +long since I had had food like that!" + +I took her hand and held it, conscience-stricken, but now she hardly +seemed to perceive my touch. "And the smoking?" she whispered. "Do you +remember how you laughed? I saw it. But I had heard that smoking +soothed--that one was no longer tired and hungry--with a cigar." + +In little whispers of this sort, separated by long rests and pauses, +the night passed. Once she asked if her aunt was asleep, and when I +answered in the affirmative she said, "Help her to return home--to +America: the drama will pay for it. I ought never to have brought her +away." + +I promised, and she resumed her bright-eyed silence. + +I think she did not speak again. Toward morning the change came, and +soon after sunrise, with her old aunt kneeling by her side, she passed +away. + +All was arranged as she had wished. Her manuscripts, covered with +violets, formed her pillow. No one followed her to the grave save her +aunt and myself; I thought she would prefer it so. Her name was not +"Crief," after all, but "Moncrief;" I saw it written out by Aunt Martha +for the coffin-plate, as follows: "Aaronna Moncrief, aged forty-three +years, two months, and eight days." + +I never knew more of her history than is written here. If there was +more that I might have learned, it remained unlearned, for I did not +ask. + +And the drama? I keep it here in this locked case. I could have had it +published at my own expense; but I think that now she knows its faults +herself, perhaps, and would not like it. + +I keep it; and, once in a while, I read it over--not as a _memento +mori_ exactly, but rather as a memento of my own good fortune, for +which I should continually give thanks. The want of one grain made all +her work void, and that one grain was given to me. She, with the +greater power, failed--I, with the less, succeeded. But no praise is +due to me for that. When I die "Armor" is to be destroyed unread: not +even Isabel is to see it. For women will misunderstand each other; and, +dear and precious to me as my sweet wife is, I could not bear that she +or any one should cast so much as a thought of scorn upon the memory of +the writer, upon my poor dead, "unavailable," unaccepted "Miss Grief." + + + + + +LOVE IN OLD CLOATHES. + +By H. C. Bunner. + +(_Century Magazine, September,_ 1883.) + + +Newe York, y^e 1^st Aprile, 1883. + +Y^e worste of my ailment is this, y^t it groweth not Less with much +nursinge, but is like to those fevres w^ch y^e leeches Starve, 'tis +saide, for that y^e more Bloode there be in y^e Sicke man's Bodie, y^e +more foode is there for y^e Distemper to feede upon.--And it is moste +fittinge y^t I come backe to y^s my Journall (wherein I have not writt +a Lyne these manye months) on y^e 1^st of Aprile, beinge in some Sort +myne owne foole and y^e foole of Love, and a poore Butt on whome his +hearte hath play'd a Sorry tricke.-- + +For it is surelie a strange happenninge, that I, who am ofte accompted +a man of y^e Worlde, (as y^e Phrase goes,) sholde be soe Overtaken & +caste downe lyke a Schoole-boy or a countrie Bumpkin, by a meere Mayde, +& sholde set to Groaninge and Sighinge, &, for that She will not have +me Sighe to Her, to Groaninge and Sighinge on paper, w^ch is y^e greter +Foolishnesse in Me, y^t some one maye reade it Here-after, who hath +taken his dose of y^e same Physicke, and made no Wrye faces over it; in +w^ch case I double I shall be much laugh'd at.--Yet soe much am I a +foole, and soe enamour'd of my Foolishnesse, y^t I have a sorte of +Shamefull Joye in tellinge, even to my Journall, y^t I am mightie deepe +in Love withe y^e yonge Daughter of Mistresse Ffrench, and all maye +knowe what an Angell is y^e Daughter, since I have chose M^rs. Ffrench +for my Mother in Lawe.--(Though she will have none of my choosinge.)--And +I likewise take comforte in y^e Fancie, y^t this poore Sheete, wh^on I +write, may be made of y^e Raggs of some lucklesse Lover, and maye y^e +more readilie drinke up my complaininge Inke.-- + +This muche I have learnt y^t Fraunce distilles not, nor y^e Indies +growe not, y^e Remedie for my Aile.--For when I 1^st became sensible of +y^e folly of my Suite, I tooke to drynkinge & smoakinge, thinkinge to +cure my minde, but all I got was a head ache, for fellow to my Hearte +ache.--A sorrie Payre!--I then made Shifte, for a while, withe a +Bicycle, but breakinge of Bones mendes no breakinge of Heartes, and 60 +myles a Daye bringes me no nearer to a Weddinge.--This beinge Lowe +Sondaye, (w^ch my Hearte telleth me better than y^e Allmanack,) I will +goe to Churche; wh. I maye chaunce to see her.--Laste weeke, her Eastre +bonnett vastlie pleas'd me, beinge most cunninglie devys'd in y^e mode +of oure Grandmothers, and verie lyke to a coales Scuttle, of white +satine.-- + + +2^nd Aprile. + +I trust I make no more moane, than is just for a man in my case, but +there is small comforte in lookinge at y^e backe of a white Satine +bonnett for two Houres, and I maye saye as much.--Neither any cheere in +Her goinge out of y^e Churche, & Walkinge downe y^e Avenue, with a +Puppe by y^e name of Williamson. + + +4^th Aprile. + +Because a man have a Hatt with a Brimme to it like y^e Poope-Decke of a +Steam-Shippe, and breeches lyke y^e Case of an umbrella, and have loste +money on Hindoo, he is not therefore in y^e beste Societie.--I made +this observation, at y^e Clubbe, laste nighte, in y^e hearinge of +W^mson, who made a mightie Pretence, to reade y^e Sp^t of y^e Tymes.--I +doubte it was scurvie of me, but it did me muche goode. + + +7^th Aprile. + +Y^e manner of my meetinge with Her and fallinge in Love with Her (for +y^e two were of one date) is thus--I was made acquainte withe Her on a +Wednesdaie, at y^e House of Mistresse Varick, ('twas a Reception,) but +did not hear Her Name, nor She myne, by reason of y^e noise, and of +M^rsse Varick having but lately a newe sett of Teethe, of wh. she had +not yet gott, as it were, y^e just Pitche and accordance.--I sayde to +Her that y^e Weather was warm for that season of y^e yeare.--She made +answer She thought I was right, for M^r Williamson had saide y^e same +thinge to Her not a minute past--I tolde Her She muste not holde it +originall or an Invention of W^mson, for ye Speache had beene manie +yeares in my Familie.--Answer was made, She wolde be muche bounden to +me if I wolde maintaine y^e Rightes of my Familie, and lett all others +from usinge of my propertie, when perceivinge Her to be of a livelie +Witt, I went about to ingage her in converse, if onlie so I mighte +looke into Her Eyes, wh. were of a coloure suche as I have never seene +before, more like to a Pansie, or some such flower, than anything else +I can compair with them.--Shortlie we grew most friendlie, so that She +did aske me if I colde keepe a Secrett.--I answering I colde, She saide +She was anhungred, having Shopp'd all y^e forenoone since +Breakfast.--She pray'd me to gett Her some Foode.--What, I ask'd.--She +answer'd merrilie, a Beafe-steake.--I tolde Her y^t that _Confection_ +was not on y^e Side-Boarde; but I presentlie brought Her such as there +was, & She beinge behinde a Screane, I stoode in y^e waie, so y^t none +mighte see Her, & She did eate and drynke as followeth, to witt-- + + iij cupps of Bouillon (w^ch is a Tea, or Tisane, of Beafe, made verie + hott & thinne) + iv Alberte biscuit + ij eclairs + i creame-cake + +together with divers small cates & comfeits wh^of I know not y^e names. + +So y^t I was grievously afeard for Her Digestion, leste it be +over-tax'd. Saide this to Her, however addinge it was my Conceite, y^t +by some Processe, lyke Alchemie, wh^by y^e baser metals are transmuted +into golde, so y^e grosse mortall foode was on Her lippes chang'd to +y^e fabled Nectar & Ambrosia of y^e Gods.--She tolde me 'twas a sillie +Speache, yet seam'd not ill-pleas'd withall.--She hath a verie prettie +Fashion, or Tricke, of smilinge, when She hath made an end of +speakinge, and layinge Her finger upon Her nether Lippe, like as She +wolde bid it be stille.--After some more Talke, wh^in She show'd that +Her Witt was more deepe, and Her minde more seriouslie inclin'd, than I +had Thoughte from our first Jestinge, She beinge call'd to go thence, I +did see Her mother, whose face I knewe, & was made sensible, y^t I had +given my Hearte to y^e daughter of a House wh. with myne owne had longe +been at grievous Feud, for y^e folly of oure Auncestres.--Havinge come +to wh. heavie momente in my Tale, I have no Patience to write more +to-nighte. + + +22^nd Aprile. + +I was mynded to write no more in y^s journall, for verie Shame's sake, +y^t I shoude so complayne, lyke a Childe, whose toie is taken f^m him, +butt (mayhapp for it is nowe y^e fulle Moone, & a moste greavous period +for them y^t are Love-strucke) I am fayne, lyke y^e Drunkarde who maye +not abstayne f^m his cupp, to set me anewe to recordinge of My Dolorous +mishapp.--When I sawe Her agayn, She beinge aware of my name, & of y^e +division betwixt oure Houses, wolde have none of me, butt I wolde nott +be putt Off, & made bolde to question Her, why She sholde showe me +suche exceed^g Coldness.--She answer'd, 'twas wel knowne what Wronge my +Grandefather had done Her G.father.--I saide, She confounded me with My +G.father--we were nott y^e same Persone, he beinge muche my Elder, & +besydes Deade.--She w^d have it, 'twas no matter for jestinge.--I tolde +Her, I wolde be resolv'd, what grete Wronge y^is was.--Y^s more for to +make Speache th^n for mine owne advertisem^t, for I knewe wel y^e whole +Knaverie, wh. She rehears'd, Howe my G.father had cheated Her G.father +of Landes upp y^e River, with more, howe my G.father had impounded y^e +Cattle of Hern.--I made answer, 'twas foolishnesse, in my mynde, for +y^e iii^d Generation to so quarrell over a Parsel of rascallie Landes, +y^t had long ago beene solde for Taxes, y^t as to y^e Cowes, I wolde +make them goode, & th^r Produce & Offspringe, if it tooke y^e whole +Wash^tn Markett.--She however tolde me y^t y^e Ffrenche familie had y^e +where w^al to buye what they lack'd in Butter, Beafe & Milke, and +likewise in _Veale_, wh. laste I tooke much to Hearte, wh. She seeinge, +became more gracious &, on my pleadinge, accorded y^t I sholde have y^e +Privilege to speake with Her when we next met.--Butt neyther then, nor +at anie other Tyme th^after wolde She suffer me to visitt Her. So I was +harde putt to it to compass waies of gettinge to see Her at such Houses +as She mighte be att, for Routs or Feasts, or y^e lyke.-- + +But though I sawe Her manie tymes, oure converse was ever of y^ts +Complex^n, & y^e accursed G.father satt downe, & rose upp with us.--Yet +colde I see by Her aspecte, y^t I had in some sorte Her favoure, & y^t +I mislyk'd Her not so gretelie as She w^d have me thinke.--So y^t one +daie, ('twas in Januarie, & verie colde,) I, beinge moste distrackt, +saide to Her, I had tho't 'twolde pleasure Her more, to be friends w. a +man, who had a knave for a G.father, y^n with One who had no G.father +att alle, lyke W^mson (y^e Puppe).--She made answer, I was exceedinge +fresshe, or some such matter. She cloath'd her thoughte in phrase more +befittinge a Gentlewoman.--Att this I colde no longer contayne myself, +but tolde Her roundlie, I lov'd Her, & 'twas my Love made me soe +unmannerlie.--And w. y^ts speache I att y^e leaste made an End of my +Uncertaintie, for She bade me speake w. Her no more.--I wolde be +determin'd, whether I was Naught to Her.--She made Answer She colde not +justlie say I was Naught, seeing y^t wh^ever She mighte bee, I was One +too manie.--I saide, 'twas some Comforte, I had even a Place in Her +thoughtes, were it onlie in Her disfavour.--She saide, my Solace was +indeede grete, if it kept pace with y^e measure of Her Disfavour, for, +in plain Terms, She hated me, & on Her intreatinge of me to goe, I +went.--Y^is happ'd att y^e house of M^rss Varicke, wh. I 1^st met Her, +who (M^rss Varicke) was for staying me, y^t I might eate some Ic'd +Cream, butt of a Truth I was chill'd to my Taste allreadie.--Albeit I +afterwards tooke to walkinge of y^e Streets till near Midnight.--'Twas +as I saide before in Januarie & exceedinge colde. + + +20^th Maie. + +How wearie is y^is dulle procession of y^e Yeare! For it irketh my +Soule y^t eache Monthe shoude come so aptlie after y^e Month afore, & +Nature looke so Smug, as She had done some grete thinge.--Surelie if +she make no Change, she hath work'd no Miracle, for we knowe wel, what +we maye look for.--Y^e Vine under my Window hath broughte forth Purple +Blossoms, as itt hath eache Springe these xii Yeares.--I wolde have had +them Redd, or Blue, or I knowe not what Coloure, for I am sicke of +likinge of Purple a Dozen Springes in Order.--And wh. moste galls me is +y^is, I knowe howe y^is sadd Rounde will goe on, & Maie give Place to +June, & she to July, & onlie my Hearte blossom not nor my Love growe no +greener. + + +2^nd June. + +I and my Foolishnesse, we laye Awake last night till y^e Sunrise gun, +wh. was Shott att 4-1/2 o'ck, & wh. beinge hearde in y^t stillnesse fm. +an Incredible Distance, seem'd lyke as 'twere a Full Stopp, or Period +putt to y^is Wakinge-Dreminge, wh^at I did turne a newe Leafe in my +Counsells, and after much Meditation, have commenc't a newe Chapter, +wh. I hope maye leade to a better Conclusion, than them y^t came +afore.--For I am nowe resolv'd, & havinge begunn wil carry to an Ende, +y^t if I maie not over-come my Passion, I maye at y^e least over-com +y^e Melanchollie, & Spleene, borne y^of, & beinge a Lover, be none y^e +lesse a Man.--To wh. Ende I have come to y^is Resolution, to departe +fm. y^e Towne, & to goe to y^e Countrie-House of my Frend, Will +Winthrop, who has often intreated me, & has instantlie urg'd, y^t I +sholde make him a Visitt.--And I take much Shame to myselfe, y^t I have +not given him y^is Satisfaction since he was married, wh. is nowe ii +Yeares.--A goode Fellowe, & I minde me a grete Burden to his Frends +when he was in Love, in wh. Plight I mockt him, who am nowe, I much +feare me, mockt myselfe. + + +3^rd June. + +Pack'd my cloathes, beinge Sundaye. Y^e better y^e Daie, y^e better y^e +Deede. + + +4^th June. + +Goe downe to Babylon to-daye. + + +5^th June. + +Att Babylon, att y^e Cottage of Will Winthrop, wh. is no Cottage, but a +grete House, Red, w. Verandahs, & builded in y^e Fash^n of Her Maiestie +Q. Anne.--Found a mightie Housefull of People.--Will, his Wife, a verie +proper fayre Ladie, who gave me moste gracious Reception, M^rss Smithe, +y^e ii Gresham girles (knowne as y^e Titteringe Twins), Bob White, +Virginia Kinge & her Moth^r, Clarence Winthrop, & y^e whole Alexander +Family.--A grete Gatheringe for so earlie in y^e Summer.--In y^e +afternoone play'd Lawne-Tenniss.--Had for Partner one of y^e Twinns, +ag^st Clarence Winthrop & y^e other Twinn, wh. by beinge Confus'd, I +loste iii games.--Was voted a Duffer.--Clarence Winthrop moste +unmannerlie merrie.--He call'd me y^e Sad-Ey'd Romeo, & lykewise cut +down y^e Hammocke wh^in I laye, allso tied up my Cloathes wh. we were +att Bath.--He sayde, he Chaw'd them, a moste barbarous worde for a +moste barbarous Use.--Wh. we were Boyes, & he did y^is thinge, I was +wont to trounce him Soundlie, but nowe had to contente Myselfe w. +beatinge of him iii games of Billyardes in y^e Evg., & w. daringe of +him to putt on y^e Gloves w. me, for Funne, wh. he mighte not doe, for +I coude knocke him colde. + + +10^th June. + +Beinge gon to my Roome somewhatt earlie, for I found myselfe of a +peevish humour, Clarence came to me, and pray^d a few minutes' +Speache.--Sayde 'twas Love made him so Rude & Boysterous he was +privilie betroth'd to his Cozen, Angelica Robertes, she whose Father +lives at Islipp, & colde not containe Himselfe for Joye.--I sayinge, +there was a Breache in y^e Familie, he made Answer, 'twas true, her +Father & His, beinge Cozens, did hate each other moste heartilie, butt +for him he cared not for that, & for Angelica, She gave not a +Continentall.--But, sayde I, Your Consideration matters mightie Little, +synce y^e Governours will not heare to it.--He answered 'twas for that +he came to me, I must be his allie, for reason of our olde Friend^sp. +With that I had no Hearte to heare more, he made so Light of suche a +Division as parted me & my Happinesse, but tolde him I was his Frend, +wolde serve him when he had Neede of me, & presentlie seeing my Humour, +he made excuse to goe, & left me to write downe this, sicke in Mynde, +and thinkinge ever of y^e Woman who wil not oute of my Thoughtes for +any change of Place, neither of employe.--For indeede I doe love Her +moste heartilie, so y^t my Wordes can not saye it, nor will y^is Booke +containe it.--So I wil even goe to Sleepe, y^t in my Dreames perchaunce +my Fancie maye do my Hearte better Service. + + +12^th June. + +She is here.--What Spyte is y^is of Fate & y^e alter'd gods! That I, +who mighte nott gett to see Her when to See was to Hope, muste nowe +daylie have Her in my Sighte, stucke lyke a fayre Apple under olde +Tantalus his Nose.--Goinge downe to y^e Hotell to-day, for to gett me +some Tobackoe, was made aware y^t y^e Ffrench familie had hyred one of +y^e Cottages round-abouts.--'Tis a goodlie Dwellinge Without--Woude I +coude speake with as much Assurance of y^e Innsyde! + + +13^th June. + +Goinge downe to y^e Hotell againe To-day, for more Tobackoe, sawe y^e +accursed name of W^mson on y^e Registre.--Went about to a neighbouringe +Farm & satt me downe behynd y^e Barne, for a 1/2 an Houre.--Frighted +y^e Horned Cattle w. talkinge to My Selfe. + + +15^th June. + +I wil make an Ende to y^is Businesse.--Wil make no longer Staye +here.--Sawe Her to-day, driven Home fm. y^e Beache, about 4-1/2 of y^e +After-noone, by W^mson, in his Dogge-Carte, wh. y^e Cadde has broughten +here.--Wil betake me to y^e Boundlesse Weste--Not y^t I care aught for +y^e Boundlesse Weste, butt y^t I shal doe wel if haplie I leave my +Memourie am^g y^e Apaches & bringe Home my Scalpe. + + +16^th June. + +To Fyre Islande, in Winthrop's Yacht--y^e Twinnes w. us, so Titteringe +& Choppinge Laughter, y^t 'twas worse y^n a Flocke of Sandpipers.--Found +a grete Concourse of people there, Her amonge them, in a Suite of blue, +y^t became Her bravelie.--She swimms lyke to a Fishe, butt everie +Stroke of Her white Arms (of a lovelie Roundnesse) clefte, as 'twere, +my Hearte, rather y^n y^e Water.--She bow'd to me, on goinge into y^e +Water, w. muche Dignitie, & agayn on Cominge out, but y^is Tyme w. +lesse Dignitie, by reason of y^e Water in Her Cloathes, & Her Haire in +Her Eyes.-- + + +17^th June. + +Was for goinge awaie To-morrowe, butt Clarence cominge againe to my +Chamber, & mightilie purswadinge of me, I feare I am comitted to a +verie sillie Undertakinge.--For I am promis'd to Help him, secretlie to +wedd his Cozen.--He wolde take no Deniall, wolde have it, his Brother +car'd Naughte, 'twas but y^e Fighte of theyre Fathers, he was bounde it +sholde be done, & 'twere best I stoode his Witnesse, who was wel lyked +of bothe y^e Braunches of y^e Family.--So 'twas agree'd, y^t I shal +stay Home to-morrowe fm. y^e Expedition to Fyre Islande, feigning a +Head-Ache, (wh. indeede I meante to do, in any Happ, for I cannot see +Her againe,) & shall meet him at y^e little Churche on y^e Southe +Roade.--He to drive to Islipp to fetch Angelica, lykewise her Witnesse, +who sholde be some One of y^e Girles, she hadd not yet made her +Choice.--I made y^is Condition, it sholde not be either of y^e +Twinnes.--No, nor Bothe, for that matter.--Inquiringe as to y^e +Clergyman, he sayde y^e Dominie was allreadie Squar'd. + + +Newe York, y^e Buckingham Hotell, +19^th June. + +I am come to y^e laste Entrie I shall ever putt downe in y^s Booke, and +needes must y^t I putt it downe quicklie, for all hath Happ'd in so +short a Space, y^t my Heade whirles w. thynkinge of it. Y^e after-noone +of Yesterdaye, I set about Counterfeittinge of a Head-Ache, & so wel +did I compasse it, y^t I verilie thinke one of y^e Twinnes was mynded +to Stay Home & nurse me.--All havinge gone off, & Clarence on his waye +to Islipp, I sett forth for y^e Churche, where arriv'd I founde it +emptie, w. y^e Door open.--Went in & writh'd on y^e hard Benches a 1/4 +of an Houre, when, hearinge a Sounde, I look'd up & saw standinge in +y^e Door-waye, Katherine Ffrench.--She seem'd muche astonished, saying +You Here! or y^e lyke.--I made Answer & sayde y^t though my Familie +were greate Sinners, yet had they never been Excommunicate by y^e +Churche.--She sayde, they colde not Putt Out what never was In.--While +I was bethynkinge me wh. I mighte answer to y^is, she went on, sayinge +I must excuse Her, She wolde goe upp in y^e Organ-Lofte.--I enquiring +what for? She sayde to practice on y^e Organ.--She turn'd verie Redd, +of a warm Coloure, as She sayde this.--I ask'd Do you come hither +often? She replyinge Yes, I enquir'd how y^e Organ lyked Her.--She +sayde Right well, when I made question more curiously (for She grew +more Redd eache moment) how was y^e Action? y^e Tone? how manie Stopps? +Wh^at She growinge gretelie Confus'd, I led Her into y^e Churche, & +show'd Her y^t there was no Organ, y^e Choire beinge indeede a Band, of +i Tuninge-Forke, i Kitt, & i Horse-Fiddle.--At this She fell to +Smilinge & Blushinge att one Tyme.--She perceiv'd our Errandes were y^e +Same, & crav'd Pardon for Her Fibb.--I tolde Her, If She came Thither +to be Witness at her Frend's Weddinge, 'twas no greate Fibb, 'twolde +indeede be Practice for Her.--This havinge a rude Sound, I added I +thankt y^e Starrs y^t had bro't us Together. She sayde if y^e Starrs +appoint'd us to meete no oftener y^n this Couple shoude be Wedded, She +was wel content. This cominge on me lyke a last Buffett of Fate, that +She shoude so despitefully intreate me, I was suddenlie Seized with so +Sorrie a Humour, & withal so angrie, y^t I colde scarce Containe +myselfe, but went & Sat downe neare y^e Doore, lookinge out till +Clarence shd. come w. his Bride.--Looking over my Sholder, I sawe y^t +She wente fm. Windowe to Windowe within, Pluckinge y^e Blossoms fm. y^e +Vines, & settinge them in her Girdle.--She seem'd most tall and faire, +& swete to look uponn, & itt Anger'd me y^e More.--Meanwhiles, She +discours'd pleasantlie, askinge me manie questions, to the wh. I gave +but shorte and churlish answers. She ask'd Did I nott Knowe Angelica +Roberts was Her best Frend? How longe had I knowne of y^e Betrothal? +Did I thinke 'twolde knitt y^e House together, & Was it not Sad to see +a Familie thus Divided?--I answer'd Her, I wd. not robb a Man of y^e +precious Righte to Quarrell with his Relations.--And then, with +meditatinge on y^e goode Lucke of Clarence, & my owne harde Case, I had +suche a sudden Rage of peevishnesse y^t I knewe scarcelie what I +did.--Soe when She ask'd me merrilie why I turn'd my Backe on Her, I +made Reply I had turn'd my Backe on muche Follie.--Wh. was no sooner +oute of my Mouthe than I was mightilie Sorrie for it, and turninge +aboute, I perceiv'd She was in Teares & weepinge bitterlie. Wh^at my +Hearte wolde holde no More, & I rose upp & tooke Her in my arms & +Kiss'd & Comforted Her, She makinge no Denyal, but seeminge gretelie to +Neede such Solace, wh. I was not Loathe to give Her.--Whiles we were at +This, onlie She had gott to Smilinge, & to sayinge of Things which even +y^is paper shal not knowe, came in y^e Dominie, sayinge He judg'd We +were the Couple he came to Wed.--With him y^e Sexton & y^e Sexton's +Wife.--My swete Kate, alle as rosey as Venus's Nape, was for Denyinge +of y^is, butt I wolde not have it, & sayde Yes.--She remonstrating w. +me, privilie, I tolde Her She must not make me Out a Liar, y^t to +Deceave y^e Man of God were a greavous Sinn, y^t I had gott Her nowe, & +wd. not lett her Slipp from me, & did soe Talke Her Downe, & w. suche +Strengthe of joie, y^t allmost before She knewe it, we Stoode upp, & +were Wed, w. a Ringe (tho' She Knewe it nott) wh. belong'd to My G. +father. (Him y^t Cheated Her^n.)-- + +Wh. was no sooner done, than in came Clarence & Angelica, & were Wedded +in theyre Turn.--The Clergyman greatelie surprised, but more att y^e +Largenesse of his Fee. + +This Businesse beinge Ended, we fled by y^e Trayne of 4-1/2 o'cke, to +y^is Place, where we wait till y^e Bloode of all y^e Ffrenches have +Tyme to coole downe, for y^e wise Mann who meeteth his Mother in Lawe +y^e 1^st tyme, wil meete her when she is Milde.-- + +And so I close y^is Journall, wh., tho' for y^e moste Parte 'tis but a +peevish Scrawle, hath one Page of Golde, wh^on I have writt ye laste +strange Happ wh^by I have layd Williamson by y^e Heeles & found me y^e +sweetest Wife y^t ever + + * * * * * + +stopp'd a man's Mouthe w. kisses for writinge of Her Prayses. + + + + + +TWO BUCKETS IN A WELL. + +By N. P. Willis. + +(_From "People I Have Met" (now out of print)._) + + +"Five hundred dollars a year!" echoed Fanny Bellairs, as the first +silver gray of the twilight spread over her picture. + +"And my art," modestly added the painter, prying into his bright copy +of the lips pronouncing upon his destiny. + +"And how much may that be, at the present rate of patronage--one +picture a year, painted for love!" + +"Fanny, how can you be so calculating!" + +"By the bumps over my eyebrows, I suppose. Why, my dear coz, we have +another state of existence to look forward to--old man-age and old +woman-age! What am I to do with five hundred dollars a year, when my +old frame wants gilding--(to use one of your own similes)--I sha'n't +always be pretty Fanny Bellairs!" + +"But, good Heavens! we shall grow old together!" exclaimed the painter, +sitting down at her feet, "and what will you care for other admiration, +if your husband see you still beautiful, with the eyes of memory and +habit." + +"Even if I were sure he would so look upon me," answered Miss Bellairs, +more seriously, "I cannot but dread an old age without great means of +embellishment. Old people, except in poetry and in very primitive +society, are dishonored by wants and cares. And, indeed, before we are +old--when neither young nor old--we want horses and ottomans, kalydor +and conservatories, books, pictures, and silk curtains--all quite out +of the range of your little allowance, don't you see!" + +"You do not love me, Fanny!" + +"I do--and will marry you, Philip--as I, long ago, with my whole heart, +promised. But I wish to be happy with you--as happy, quite as happy, as +is at all possible, with our best efforts, and coolest, discreetest +management. I laugh the matter over sometimes, but I may tell you, +since you are determined to be in earnest, that I have treated it, in +my solitary thought, as the one important event of my life--(so indeed +it is!)--and, as such, worthy of all forethought, patience, self-denial, +and calculation. To inevitable ills I can make up my mind like other +people. If your art were your only hope of subsistence--why--I don't +know--(should I look well as a page?)--I don't know that I couldn't run +your errands and grind your paints in hose and doublet. But there is +another door open for you--a counting-house door, to be sure--leading +to opulence and all the appliances of dignity and happiness, and +through this door, my dear Philip, the art you would live by comes to +pay tribute and beg for patronage. Now, out of your hundred and twenty +reasons, give me the two stoutest and best, why you should refuse your +brother's golden offer of partnership--my share, in your alternative of +poverty, left for the moment out of the question." + +Rather overborne by the confident decision of his beautiful cousin, and +having probably made up his mind that he must ultimately yield to her, +Philip replied in a lower and more dejected tone: + +"If you were not to be a sharer in my renown, should I be so fortunate +as to acquire it, I should feel as if it were selfish to dwell so much +on my passion for distinction, and my devotion to my pencil as a means +of winning it. My heart is full of you--but it is full of ambition, +too, paradox though it be. I cannot live ignoble. I should not have +felt worthy to press my love upon you--worthy to possess you--except +with the prospect of celebrity in my art. You make the world dark to +me, Fanny! You close down the sky, when you shut out this hope! Yet it +shall be so." + +Philip paused a moment, and the silence was uninterrupted. + +"There was another feeling I had, upon which I have not insisted," he +continued. "By my brother's project, I am to reside almost wholly +abroad. Even the little stipend I have to offer you now is absorbed of +course by the investment of my property in his trading capital, and +marriage, till I have partly enriched myself, would be even more +hopeless than at present. Say the interval were five years--and five +years of separation!" + +"With happiness in prospect, it would soon pass, my dear Philip!" + +"But is there nothing wasted in this time? My life is yours--the gift +of love. Are not these coming five years the very flower of it!--a +mutual loss, too, for are they not, even more emphatically, the very +flower of yours? Eighteen and twenty-five are ages at which to marry, +not ages to defer. During this time the entire flow of my existence is +at its crowning fulness--passion, thought, joy, tenderness, +susceptibility to beauty and sweetness--all I have that can be +diminished or tarnished, or made dull by advancing age and contact with +the world, is thrown away--for its spring and summer. Will the autumn +of life repay us for this? Will it--even if we are rich and blest with +health, and as capable of an unblemished union as now? Think of this a +moment, dear Fanny!" + +"I do--it is full of force and meaning, and, could we marry now, with a +tolerable prospect of competency, it would be irresistible. But poverty +in wedlock, Philip--" + +"What do you call poverty? If we can suffice for each other, and have +the necessaries of life, we are not poor! My art will bring us +consideration enough--which is the main end of wealth, after all--and, +of society, speaking for myself only, I want nothing. Luxuries for +yourself, Fanny--means for your dear comfort and pleasure--you should +not want if the world held them, and surely the unbounded devotion of +one man to the support of the one woman he loves, _ought_ to suffice +for the task! I am strong--I am capable of labor--I have limbs to toil, +if my genius and my present means fail me, and, oh, Heaven! you could +not want!" + +"No, no, no! I thought not of want!" murmured Miss Bellairs, "I thought +only--" + +But she was not permitted to finish the sentence. + +"Then my bright picture for the future _may_ be realized!" exclaimed +Philip, knitting his hands together in a transport of hope. "I may +build up a reputation, with _you_ for the constant partner of its +triumphs and excitements! I may go through the world, and have some +care in life besides subsistence, how I shall sleep, and eat, and +accumulate gold; some companion, who, from the threshold of manhood, +shared every thought--and knew every feeling--some pure and present +angel who walked with me and purified my motives and ennobled my +ambitions, and received from my lips and eyes, and from the beating of +my heart against her own, all the love I had to give in a lifetime. +Tell me, Fanny! tell me, my sweet cousin! is not this a picture of +bliss, which, combined with success in my noble art, might make a +Paradise on earth for you and me?" + +The hand of Fanny Bellairs rested on the upturned forehead of her lover +as he sat at her feet in the deepening twilight, and she answered him +with such sweet words as are linked together by spells known only to +woman--but his palette and pencils were, nevertheless, burned in solemn +holocaust that very night, and the lady carried her point, as ladies +must. And, to the importation of silks from Lyons, was devoted, +thenceforth, the genius of a Raphael--perhaps! Who knows? + + * * * * * + +The reader will naturally have gathered from this dialogue that Miss +Fanny Bellairs had black eyes, and was rather below the middle stature. +She was a belle, and it is only belle-metal of this particular +description which is not fusible by "burning words." She had mind +enough to appreciate fully the romance and enthusiasm of her cousin, +Philip Ballister, and knew precisely the phenomena which a tall +_blonde_ (this complexion of woman being soluble in love and tears) +would have exhibited under a similar experiment. While the fire of her +love glowed, therefore, she opposed little resistance, and seemed +softened and yielding, but her purpose remained unaltered, and she rang +out "No!" the next morning, with a tone as little changed as a +convent-bell from matins to vespers, though it has passed meantime +through the furnace of an Italian noon. + +Fanny was not a designing girl, either. She might have found a +wealthier customer for her heart than her cousin Philip. And she loved +this cousin as truly and well as her nature would admit, or as need be, +indeed. But two things had conspired to give her the unmalleable +quality just described--a natural disposition to confide, first and +foremost, on all occasions, in her own sagacity, and a vivid impression +made upon her mind by a childhood of poverty. At the age of twelve she +had been transferred from the distressed fireside of her mother, Mrs. +Bellairs, to the luxurious roof of her aunt, Mrs. Ballister, and, her +mother dying soon after, the orphan girl was adopted, and treated as a +child; but the memory of the troubled hearth at which she had first +learned to observe and reason, colored all the purposes and affections, +thoughts, impulses, and wishes of the ripening girl, and to think of +happiness in any proximity to privation seemed to her impossible, even +though it were in the bosom of love. Seeing no reason to give her +cousin credit for any knowledge of the world beyond his own experience, +she decided to think for him as well as love him, and, not being so +much pressed as the enthusiastic painter by the "_besoin d'aimer et de +se faire aimer_," she very composedly prefixed, to the possession of +her hand, the trifling achievement of getting rich--quite sure that if +he knew as much as she, he would willingly run that race without the +incumbrance of matrimony. + +The death of Mr. Ballister, senior, had left the widow and her two boys +more slenderly provided for than was anticipated--Phil's portion, after +leaving college, producing the moderate income before mentioned. The +elder brother had embarked in his father's business, and it was thought +best on all hands for the younger Ballister to follow his example. But +Philip, whose college leisure had been devoted to poetry and painting, +and whose genius for the latter, certainly, was very decided, brought +down his habits by a resolute economy to the limits of his income, and +took up the pencil for a profession. With passionate enthusiasm, great +purity of character, distaste for all society not in harmony with his +favorite pursuit, and an industry very much concentrated and rendered +effective by abstemious habits, Philip Ballister was very likely to +develop what genius might lie between his head and hand, and his +progress in the first year had been allowed, by eminent artists, to +give very unusual promise. The Ballisters were still together, under +the maternal roof, and the painter's studies were the portraits of the +family, and Fanny's picture, of course, much the most difficult to +finish. It would be very hard if a painter's portrait of his liege +mistress, the lady of his heart, were not a good picture, and Fanny +Bellairs on canvas was divine accordingly. If the copy had more +softness of expression than the original (as it was thought to have), +it only proves that wise men have for some time suspected, that love is +more dumb than blind, and the faults of our faultless idols are noted, +however unconsciously. Neither thumb-screws nor hot coals--nothing +probably but repentance after matrimony--would have drawn from Philip +Ballister, in words, the same correction of his mistress's foible that +had oozed out through his treacherous pencil! + +Cupid is often drawn as a stranger pleading to be "taken in," but it is +a miracle that he is not invariably drawn as a portrait-painter. A bird +tied to the muzzle of a gun--an enemy who has written a book--an Indian +prince under the protection of Giovanni Bulletto (Tuscan for John +Bull),--is not more close upon demolition, one would think, than the +heart of a lady delivered over to a painter's eyes, posed, draped, and +lighted with the one object of studying her beauty. If there be any +magnetism in isolated attention, any in steadfast gazing, any in passes +of the hand hither and thither--if there be any magic in _ce doux +demi-jour_ so loved in France, in stuff for flattery ready pointed and +feathered, in freedom of admiration, "and all in the way of +business"--then is a lovable sitter to a love-like painter in "parlous" +vicinity (as the new school would phrase it) to sweet heart-land! +Pleasure in a vocation has no offset in political economy as honor has +("the more honor the less profit"), or portrait-painters would be +poorer than poets. + +And, _malgre_ his consciousness of the quality which required softening +in his cousin's beauty, and _malgre_ his rare advantages for obtaining +over her a lover's proper ascendency, Mr. Philip Ballister bowed to the +stronger will of Miss Fanny Bellairs, and sailed for France on his +apprenticeship to Mammon. + + * * * * * + +The reader will please to advance five years. Before proceeding thence +with our story, however, let us take a Parthian glance at the +overstepped interval. Philip Ballister had left New York with the +triple vow that he would enslave every faculty of his mind and body to +business, that he would not return till he had made a fortune, and that +such interstices as might occur in the building up of this chateau for +felicity should be filled with sweet reveries about Fanny Bellairs. The +forsworn painter had genius, as we have before hinted, and genius is +(as much as it is any one thing) the power of concentration. He entered +upon his duties, accordingly with a force and patience of application +which soon made him master of what are called business habits, and, +once in possession of the details, his natural cleverness gave him a +speedy insight to all the scope and tactics of his particular field of +trade. Under his guidance, the affairs of the house were soon in a much +more prosperous train, and, after a year's residence at Lyons, Philip +saw his way very clear to manage them with a long arm and take up his +quarters in Paris. "_Les fats sont les seuls hommes qui aient soin +d'eux memes_," says a French novelist, but there is a period, early or +late, in the lives of the cleverest men, when they become suddenly +curious as to their capacity for the graces. Paris, to a stranger who +does not visit in the Faubourg St. Germain, is a republic of personal +exterior, where the degree of privilege depends, with Utopian +impartiality, on the style of the outer man; and Paris, therefore, if +he is not already a Bachelor of Arts (qu?--_beau's Arts_), usually +serves the traveller as an Alma Mater of the pomps and vanities. + +Phil. Ballister, up to the time of his matriculation in _Chaussee +d'Antin_, was a romantic-looking sloven. From this to a very dashing +coxcomb is but half a step, and, to be rid of the coxcombry and retain +a look of fashion, is still within the easy limits of imitation. +But--to obtain superiority of presence, with no apparent aid from dress +and no describable manner, and to display, at the same time, every +natural advantage in effective relief, and, withal, to adapt this +subtle philtre, not only to the approbation of the critical and +censorious, but to the taste of fair women gifted with judgment as God +pleases--this is a finish not born with any man (though unsuccessful if +it do not seem to be), and never reached in the apprenticeship of life, +and never reached at all by men not much above their fellows. He who +has it, has "bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his +bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere," for he must know, as a +chart of quicksands, the pronounced models of other nations; but to be +a "picked man of countries," and to _have been_ a coxcomb and a man of +fashion, are, as a painter would say, but the setting of the palette +toward the making of the _chef-d'oeoeuvre_. + +Business prospered, and the facilities of leisure increased, while +Ballister passed through these transitions of taste, and he found +intervals to travel, and time to read, and opportunity to indulge, as +far as he could with the eye only, his passion for knowledge in the +arts. To all that appertained to the refinement of himself, he applied +the fine feelers of a delicate and passionate construction, physical +and mental, and, as the reader will already have included, wasted on +culture comparatively unprofitable, faculties that would have been +better employed but for the meddling of Miss Fanny Bellairs. + + * * * * * + +Ballister's return from France was heralded by the arrival of statuary +and pictures, books, furniture, and numberless articles of tasteful and +costly luxury. The reception of these by the family at home threw +rather a new light on the probable changes in the long-absent brother, +for, from the signal success of the business he had managed, they had +very naturally supposed that it was the result only of unremitted and +plodding care. Vague rumors of changes in his personal appearance had +reached them, such as might be expected from conformity to foreign +fashions, but those who had seen Philip Ballister in France, and called +subsequently on the family in New York, were not people qualified to +judge of the man, either from their own powers of observation or from +any confidence he was likely to put forward while in their society. His +letters had been delightful, but they were confined to third-person +topics, descriptions of things likely to interest them, etc., and Fanny +had few addressed personally to herself, having thought it worth while, +for the experiment sake, or for some other reason, to see whether love +would subsist without it usual _pabulum_ of tender correspondence, and +a _veto_ on love-letters having served her for a parting injunction at +Phil's embarkation for Havre. However varied by their different +fancies, the transformation looked for by the whole family was +substantially the same--the romantic artist sobered down to a +practical, plain man of business. And Fanny herself had an occasional +misgiving as to her relish for his counting-house virtues and manners; +though, on the detection of the feeling, she immediately closed her +eyes upon it, and drummed up her delinquent constancy for "parade and +inspection." + +All bustles are very much alike (we use the word as defined in +Johnson), and the reader will appreciate our delicacy, besides, in not +intruding on the first reunion of relatives and lovers long separated. + +The morning after Philip Ballister's arrival, the family sat long at +breakfast. The mother's gaze fastened untiringly on the features of her +son--still her boy--prying into them with a vain effort to reconcile +the face of the man with the cherished picture of the child with sunny +locks, and noting little else than the work of inward change upon the +countenance and expression. The brother, with the predominant feeling +of respect for the intelligence and industry of one who had made the +fortunes of the house, read only subdued sagacity in the perfect +simplicity of his whole exterior. And Fanny--Fanny was puzzled. The +_bourgeoisie_ and ledger-bred hardness of manner which she had looked +for were not there, nor any variety of the "foreign slip-slop" common +to travelled youth, nor any superciliousness, nor (faith!) any wear and +tear of youth and good looks--nothing that she expected--nothing! Not +even a French guard-chain! + +What there _was_ in her cousin's manners and exterior, however, was +much more difficult to define by Miss Bellairs than what there _was +not_. She began the renewal of their intercourse with very high +spirits, herself--the simple nature and unpretendingness of his address +awakening only an unembarrassed pleasure at seeing him again--but she +soon began to suspect there was an exquisite refinement in this very +simplicity, and to wonder "at the trick of it;" and, after the first +day passed in his society, her heart beat when he spoke to her, as it +did not use to beat when she was sitting to him for her picture, and +listening to his passionate love-making. And, with all her faculties, +she studied him. What was the charm of his presence? He was himself, +and himself only. He seemed perfect, but he seemed to have arrived at +perfection like a statue, not like a picture--by what had been taken +away, not by what had been laid on. He was as natural as a bird, and as +graceful and unembarrassed. He neither forced conversation, nor pressed +the little attentions of the drawing-room, and his attitudes were full +of repose; yet she was completely absorbed in what he said, and she had +been impressed imperceptibly with his high-bred politeness, and the +singular elegance of his person. Fanny felt there was a change in her +relative position to her cousin. In what it consisted, or which had the +advantage, she was perplexed to discover--but she bit her lips as she +caught herself thinking that if she were not engaged to marry Philip +Ballister, she should suspect that she had just fallen irrecoverably in +love with him. + +It would have been a novelty in the history of Miss Bellairs that any +event to which she had once consented, should admit of reconsideration; +and the Ballister family, used to her strong will, were confirmed +fatalists as to the coming about of her ends and aims. Her marriage +with Philip, therefore, was discussed, _coeur ouvert_, from his first +arrival, and, indeed, in her usual fashion of saving others the trouble +of making up their minds, "herself had named the day." This, it is +true, was before his landing, and was, then, an effort of considerable +magnanimity, as the expectant Penelope was not yet advised of her +lover's state of preservation or damages by cares and keeping. If +Philip had not found his wedding-day fixed on his arrival, however, he +probably would have had a voice in the naming of it, for, with Fanny's +new inspirations as to his character, there had grown up a new flower +in her garden of beauties--timidity! What bird of the air had sown the +seed in such a soil was a problem to herself--but true it was!--the +confident belle had grown a blushing trembler! She would as soon have +thought of bespeaking her wings for the sky, as to have ventured on +naming the day in a short week after. + +The day _was_ named, however, and the preparations went on--_nem. +con._--the person most interested (after herself) accepting every +congratulation and allusion, touching the event, with the most +impenetrable suavity. The marbles and pictures, upholstery and +services, were delivered over to the order of Miss Bellairs, and +Philip, disposed, apparently, to be very much a recluse in his rooms, +or, at other times, engrossed by troops of welcoming friends, saw much +less of his bride elect than suited her wishes, and saw her seldom +alone. By particular request, also, he took no part in the plenishing +and embellishing of the new abode--not permitted even to inquire where +it was situated; and, under this cover, besides the pleasure of having +her own way, Fanny concealed a little secret, which, when disclosed, +she now felt, would figure forth Philip's comprehension, her whole +scheme of future happiness. She had taken the elder brother into her +counsels a fortnight after Philip's return, and, with his aid and +consent, had abandoned the original idea of a house in town, purchased +a beautifully-secluded estate and _cottage ornee_, on the East River, +and transferred thither all the objects of art, furniture, etc. One +room only of the maternal mansion was permitted to contribute its quota +to the completion of the bridal dwelling--the wing, never since +inhabited, in which Philip had made his essay as a painter--and, +without variation of a cobweb, and, with whimsical care and effort on +the part of Miss Fanny, this apartment was reproduced at Revedere--her +own picture on the easel, as it stood on the night of his abandonment +of his art, and palette, pencils and colors in tempting readiness on +the table. Even the fire-grate of the old studio had been re-set in the +new, and the cottage throughout had been refitted with a view to +occupation in the winter. And to sundry hints on the part of the elder +brother, that some thought should be given to a city residence--for the +Christmas holidays at least--Fanny replied, through a blush, that she +would never wish to see the town--with Philip at Revedere! + +Five years had ripened and mellowed the beauty of Fanny Bellairs, and +the same summer-time of youth had turned into fruit the feeling left by +Philip in bud and flower. She was ready now for love. She had felt the +variable temper of society, and there was a presentiment in the heart, +of receding flatteries and the winter of life. It was with mournful +self-reproach that she thought of the years wasted in separation, of +her own choosing, from the man she loved; and, with the power to recall +time, she would have thanked God with tears of joy for the privilege of +retracing the chain of life to that link of parting. Not worth a day of +those lost years, she bitterly confessed to herself, was the wealth +they had purchased. + +It lacked as little as one week of "the happy day," when the workmen +were withdrawn from Revedere, and the preparations for a family +breakfast, to be succeeded by the agreeable surprise to Philip of +informing him he was at home, were finally completed. One or two very +intimate friends were added to the party, and the invitations (from the +elder Ballister) proposed simply a _dejeuner sur l'herbe_ in the +grounds of an unoccupied villa, the property of an acquaintance. + +With the subsiding of the excitement of return, the early associations +which had temporarily confused and colored the feelings of Philip +Ballister settled gradually away, leaving uppermost once more the +fastidious refinement of the Parisian. Through this medium, thin and +cold, the bubbles from the breathing of the heart of youth, rose rarely +and reluctantly. The Ballisters held a good station in society, without +caring for much beyond the easy conveniences of life, and Fanny, though +capable of any degree of elegance, had not seen the expediency of +raising the tone of her manners above that of her immediate friends. +Without being positively distasteful to Philip, the family circle, +Fanny included, left him much to desire in the way of society, and, +unwilling to abate the warmth of his attentions while with them, he had +latterly pleaded occupation more frequently, and passed his time in the +more congenial company of his library of art. This was the less noticed +that it gave Miss Bellairs the opportunity to make frequent visits to +the workmen at Revedere, and, in the polished devotion of her betrothed +when with her, Fanny saw nothing reflected but her own daily increasing +tenderness and admiration. + +The morning of _fete_ came in like the air in an overture--a harmony of +all the instruments of summer. The party were at the gate of Revedere +by ten, and the drive through the avenue to the lawn drew a burst of +delighted admiration from all. The place was exquisite, and seen in its +glory, and Fanny's heart was brimming with gratified pride and +exultation. She assumed at once the dispensation of the honors, and +beautiful she looked with her snowy dress and raven ringlets flitting +across the lawn, and queening it like Perdita among the flowers. Having +narrowly escaped bursting into tears of joy when Philip pronounced the +place prettier than anything he had seen in his travels, she was, for +the rest of the day, calmly happy; and, with the grateful shade, the +delicious breakfast in the grove, the rambling and boating on the +river, the hours passed off like dreams, and no one even hinted a +regret that the house itself was under lock and bar. And so the sun +set, and the twilight came on, and the guests were permitted to order +round their carriages and depart, the Ballisters accompanying them to +the gate. And, on the return of the family through the avenue, excuses +were made for idling hither and thither, till light began to show +through the trees, and, by the time of their arrival at the lawn, the +low windows of the cottage poured forth streams of light, and the open +doors, and servants busy within, completed a scene more like magic than +reality. Philip was led in by the excited girl who was the fairy of the +spell, and his astonishment at the discovery of his statuary and +pictures, books and furniture, arranged in complete order within, was +fed upon with the passionate delight of love in authority. + +When an hour had been spent in examining and admiring the different +apartments, an inner room was thrown open, in which supper was +prepared, and this fourth act in the day's drama was lingered over in +untiring happiness by the family. + +Mrs. Ballister, the mother, rose and retired, and Philip pleaded +indisposition, and begged to be shown to the room allotted to him. This +was ringing-up the curtain for the last act sooner than had been +planned by Fanny, but she announced herself as his chamberlain, and, +with her hands affectionately crossed on his arm, led him to a suite of +rooms in a wing still unvisited, and, with a goodnight kiss, left him +at the open door of the revived studio, furnished for the night with a +bachelor's bed. Turning upon the threshold, he closed the door with a +parting wish of sweet dreams, and Fanny, after listening a moment with +a vain hope of overhearing some expression of pleasure, and lingering +again on her way back, to be overtaken by her surprised lover, sought +her own bed without rejoining the circle, and passed a sleepless and +happy night of tears and joy. + +Breakfast was served the next morning on a terrace overlooking the +river, and it was voted by acclamation that Fanny never before looked +so lovely. As none but the family were to be present, she had stolen a +march on her marriage wardrobe, and added to her demi-toilet a morning +cap of exquisite becomingness. Altogether she looked deliciously +wife-like, and did the honors of the breakfast-table with a grace and +sweetness that warmed out love and compliments even from the sober soil +of household intimacy. Philip had not yet made his appearance, and they +lingered long at table, till at last, a suggestion that he might be ill +started Fanny to her feet, and she ran to his door before a servant +could be summoned. + +The rooms were open, and the bed had not been occupied. The candle was +burned to the socket, and on the easel, resting against the picture, +was a letter addressed--"Miss Fanny Bellairs." + + THE LETTER. + + "I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in the path you + have marked out for me. It has brought me back, in this chamber, to + the point from which I started under your guidance, and if it had + brought me back unchanged--if it restored me my energy, my hope, + and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven that it would also + give me back my love, and be content--more than content, if it gave + me back also my poverty. The sight of my easel, and of the + surroundings of my boyish dreams of glory, have made my heart + bitter. They have given form and voice to a vague unhappiness, + which has haunted me through all these absent years--years of + degrading pursuits and wasted powers--and it now impels me from + you, kind and lovely as you are, with an aversion I cannot control. + I cannot forgive you. You have thwarted my destiny. You have + extinguished with sordid cares a lamp within me, that might, by + this time, have shone through the world. And what am I, since your + wishes are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt in + happiness and self-respect. + + "With a heart sick, and a brain aching for distinction, I have come + to an unhonored stand-still at thirty! I am a successful tradesman, + and in this character I shall probably die. Could I begin to be a + painter now, say you? Alas! my knowledge of the art is too great + for patience with the slow hand! I could not draw a line without + despair. The pliant fingers and the plastic mind must keep pace to + make progress in art. My taste is fixed, and my imagination + uncreative, because chained down by certainties; and the + shortsighted ardor and daring experiments which are indispensable + to sustain and advance the follower in Raphael's footsteps, are too + far behind for my resuming. The tide ebbed from me at the accursed + burning of my pencils by your pitiless hand, and from that hour I + have felt hope receding. Could I be happy with you, stranded here + in ignoble idleness, and owing to you the loss of my whole venture + of opportunity? No, Fanny?--surely no! + + "I would not be unnecessarily harsh. I am sensible of your + affection and constancy. I have deferred this explanation unwisely, + till the time and place make it seem more cruel. You are at this + very moment, I well know, awake in your chamber, devoting to me the + vigils of a heart overflowing with tenderness. And I would--if it + were possible--if it were not utterly beyond my powers of self + sacrifice and concealment--I would affect a devotion I cannot feel, + and carry out this error through a life of artifice and monotony. + But here, again, the work is your own, and my feelings revert + bitterly to your interference. If there were no other obstacle to + my marrying you--if you were not associated repulsively with the + dark cloud on my life, you are not the woman I could now enthrone + in my bosom. We have diverged since the separation which I pleaded + against, and which you commanded. I need for my idolatry, now, a + creature to whom the sordid cares you have sacrificed me to, are + utterly unknown--a woman born and educated in circumstances where + want is never feared, and where calculation never enters. I must + lavish my wealth, if I fulfil my desire, on one who accepts it like + the air she breathes, and who knows the value of nothing but + love--a bird with a human soul and form, believing herself free of + all the world is rich in, and careful only for pleasure and the + happiness of those who belong to her. Such women, beautiful and + highly educated, are found only in ranks of society between which + and my own I have been increasing in distance--nay, building an + impassable barrier, in obedience to your control. Where I stop, + interdicted by the stain of trade, the successful artist is free to + enter. You have stamped me _plebeian_--you would not share my slow + progress toward a higher sphere, and you have disqualified me for + attaining it alone. In your mercenary and immovable will, and in + that only, lies the secret of our twofold unhappiness. + + "I leave you, to return to Europe. My brother and my friends will + tell you I am mad and inexcusable, and look upon you as a victim. + They will say that, to have been a painter, were nothing to the + career that I might mark out for my ambition, if ambition I must + have, in politics. Politics in a country where distinction is a + pillory! But I could not live here. It is my misfortune that my + tastes are so modified by that long and compulsory exile, that + life, here, would be a perpetual penance. This unmixed air of + merchandise suffocates me. Our own home is tinctured black with it. + You yourself, in this rural Paradise you have conjured up, move in + it like a cloud. The counting-house rings in your voice, + calculation draws together your brows, you look on everything as a + _means_, and know its cost; and the calm and means-forgetting + _fruition_, which forms the charm and dignity of superior life, is + utterly unknown to you. What would be my happiness with such a + wife? What would be yours with such a husband? Yet I consider the + incompatibility between us as no advantage on my part--on the + contrary, a punishment, and of your inflicting. What shall I be, + anywhere, but a Tantalus--a fastidious _ennuye_, with a thirst for + the inaccessible burning in my bosom continually! + + "I pray you let us avoid another meeting before my departure. + Though I cannot forgive you as a lover, I can think of you with + pleasure as a cousin, and I give you as your due ('damages,' the + law would phrase it,) the portion of myself which you thought most + important when I offered you my all. You would not take me without + the fortune, but perhaps you will be content with the fortune + without me. I shall immediately take steps to convey to you this + property of Revedere, with an income sufficient to maintain it, and + I trust soon to hear that you have found a husband better worthy of + you than your cousin-- + + "Philip Ballister." + + + + + +FRIEND BARTON'S CONCERN. + +By Mary Hallock Foote. + +(_Scribner's Magazine, July,_ 1879.) + + +It had been "borne in" upon him, more or less, during the long winter; +it had not relaxed its hold when the frosts unlocked and the streams +were set free from their long winter's silence among the hills. He grew +restless and abstracted under "the turnings of the Lord's hand upon +him," and his speech unconsciously shaped itself into the Biblical +cadences which came to him in his moments of spiritual exercise. + +The bedrabbled snows of March shrank away before the keen, quickening +sunbeams; the hills emerged, brown and sodden, like the chrysalis of +the new year. The streams woke in a tumult, and all day and night their +voices called from the hills back of the mill. The waste-weir was a +foaming torrent, and spread itself in muddy shallows across the meadow +beyond the old garden where the robins and blue birds were +house-hunting. Friend Barton's trouble stirred with the life-blood of +the year, and pressed upon him sorely; but as yet he gave it no words. +He plodded about among his lean kine, tempering the winds of March to +his untimely lambs, and reconciling unnatural ewes to their maternal +duties. + +Friend Barton had never heard of the doctrine of the survival of the +fittest; though it was the spring of 1812, and England and America were +investigating the subject on the seas, while the nations of Europe were +practically illustrating it. The "hospital tent," as the boys called an +old corn-basket, covered with carpet, which stood beside the kitchen +chimney, was seldom without an occupant,--a brood of chilled chickens, +a weakly lamb, or a wee pig (with too much blue in its pinkness), which +had been left behind by its stouter brethren in the race for existence. +The old mill hummed away through the day, and often late in the evening +if time pressed, upon the grists which added a thin, intermittent +stream of tribute to the family income. Whenever work was "slack," +Friend Barton was sawing or chopping in the wood-shed adjoining the +kitchen; every moment he could seize or make he was there, stooping +over the rapidly growing pile. + +"Seems to me, father, thee's in a great hurry with the wood this +spring. I don't know when we've had such a pile ahead." + +"'Twon't burn up any faster for being chopped," Friend Barton said; and +then his wife Rachel knew that if he had a reason for being +"forehanded" with the wood, he was not ready to give it. + +One rainy April afternoon, when the smoky gray distances began to take +a tinge of green, and through the drip and rustle of the rain the call +of the robins sounded, Friend Barton sat in the door of the barn, +oiling the road-harness. The old chaise had been wheeled out and +greased, and its cushions beaten and dusted. + +An ox team with a load of grain creaked up the hill and stopped at the +mill door. The driver, seeing Friend Barton's broad-brimmed drab felt +hat against the dark interior of the barn, came down the short lane +leading from the mill past the house and farm-buildings. + +"Fixin' up for travellin', Uncle Tommy?" + +Vain compliments were unacceptable to Thomas Barton, and he was +generally known and addressed as "Uncle Tommy" by the world's people of +a younger generation. + +"It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps, neighbor +Gordon. I am getting myself in readiness to obey the Lord, whichever +way He calls me." + +Farmer Gordon cast a shrewd eye over the premises. They wore that +patient, sad, exhumed look which old farm-buildings are apt to have in +early spring. The roofs were black with rain, and brightened with +patches of green moss. Farmer Gordon instinctively calculated how many +"bunches o' shingle" would be required to rescue them from the decline +into which they had fallen, in spite of the hectic green spots. + +"Wal, the Lord calls most of us to stay at home and look after things, +such weather as this. Good plantin' weather; good weather for breakin' +ground; fust-rate weather for millin'! This is a reg'lar miller's rain, +Uncle Tommy. You ought to be takin' advantage of it. I've got a grist +back here; wish ye could manage to let me have it when I come back from +store." + +The grist was ground and delivered before Friend Barton went in to his +supper that night. Dorothy Barton had been mixing bread, and was wiping +her white arms and hands on the roller towel by the kitchen door, as +her father stamped and scraped his feet on the stones outside. + +"I do believe I forgot to toll neighbor Gordon's rye," he said, as he +gave a final rub on the broom Dorothy handed out to him. "It's +wonderful how careless I get!" + +"Well, father, I don't suppose thee'd ever forget, and toll a grist +twice!" + +"I believe I've been mostly preserved from mistakes of that kind," said +Friend Barton gently. "It may have been the Lord who stayed my hand +from gathering profit unto myself while his lambs go unfed." + +Dorothy put her hands on her father's shoulders. She was almost as tall +as he, and could look into his patient, troubled eyes. + +"Father, I know what thee is thinking of; but do think _long_. It will +be a hard year; the boys _ought_ to go to school; and mother is so +feeble." + +Friend Barton's "concern" kept him awake long that night. His wife +watched by his side, giving no sign, lest her wakeful presence should +disturb his silent wrestlings. The tall, cherry-wood clock in the entry +measured the hours as they passed with its slow, dispassionate tick. + +At two o'clock Rachel Barton was awakened from her first sleep of +weariness by her husband's voice whispering heavily in the darkness. + +"My way is hedged up! I see no way to go forward. Lord, strengthen my +patience, that I murmur not, after all I have seen of Thy goodness. I +find daily bread is very desirable; want and necessity are painful to +nature; but shall I follow Thee for the sake of the loaves, or will it +do to forsake Thee in times of emptiness and abasement?" + +There was silence again, and restless tossings and sighings continued +the struggle. + +"Thomas," the wife's voice spoke tremulously in the darkness, "my dear +husband, I know where thy thoughts are tending. If the Spirit is with +thee, do not deny it for our sakes, I pray thee. The Lord did not give +thee thy wife and children to hang as a millstone round thy neck. I am +thy helpmeet, to strengthen thee in his service. I am thankful that I +have my health this spring better than usual, and Dorothy is a +wonderful help. Her spirit was sent to sustain me in thy long absences. +Go, dear, and serve our Master, who has called thee in these bitter +strivings! Dorothy and I will keep things together as well as we can. +The way will open--never fear!" She put out her hand and touched his +face in the darkness; there were tears on the furrowed cheeks. "Try to +sleep, dear, and let thy spirit have rest. There is but one answer to +this call." + +With the first drowsy twitterings of the birds, when the +crescent-shaped openings in the board shutters began to define +themselves clearly in the shadowy room, they arose and went about their +morning tasks in silence. Friend Barton's step was a little heavier +than usual, and the hollows round his wife's pale brown eyes were a +little deeper. As he sat on the splint-bottomed chair by the kitchen +fireplace, drawing on his boots, she laid her hands on his shoulders, +and her cheek on the worn spot on the top of his head. + +"Thee will lay this concern before meeting to-morrow, father?" + +"I had it on my mind to do so,--if my light be not quenched before +then." + +Friend Barton's light was not quenched. Words came to him without +seeking, in which to "open the concern which had ripened in his mind," +of a religious visit to the meeting constituting the yearly meetings of +Philadelphia and Baltimore. A "minute" was given him encouraging him in +the name of, and with the full concurrence of, the monthly meetings of +Nine Partners, and Stony Valley, to go wherever the Truth might lead +him. While Friend Barton was thus freshly anointed, and "abundantly +encouraged," his wife, Rachel, was talking with Dorothy in the low +upper chamber, known as the "wheel-room." + +Dorothy was spinning wool on the big wheel, dressed in her light calico +short-gown and brown quilted petticoat; her arms were bare, and her +hair was gathered away from her flushed cheeks and knotted behind her +ears. The roof sloped down on one side, and the light came from a long +low window under the eaves. There was another window (shaped like a +half moon high up in the peak), but it sent down only one long beam of +sunlight, which glimmered across the dust and fell upon Dorothy's white +neck. + +The wheel was humming a quick measure, and Dorothy trod lightly back +and forth, the wheel-pin in one hand, the other upraised holding the +tense, lengthening thread, which the spindle devoured again. + +"Dorothy, thee looks warm:--can't thee sit down a moment, while I talk +to thee?" + +"Is it anything important, mother? I want to get my twenty knots before +dinner." She paused as she joined a long tress of wool at the spindle. +"Is it anything about father?" + +"Yes, it's about father, and all of us." + +"I know," said Dorothy, stretching herself back with a sigh. "He's +going away again!" + +"Yes, dear. He feels that he is called. It is a time of trouble and +contention everywhere,--'the harvest truly is plenteous, but the +laborers are few.'" + +"There are not so _many_ 'laborers' _here_, mother, though to be sure, +the harvest--" + +"Dorothy, my daughter! don't let a spirit of levity creep into thy +speech. Thy father has striven and wrestled with his urgings. I've seen +it working on him all winter; he feels now it is the Lord's will." + +"I don't see how he can be so sure," said Dorothy, swaying gloomily to +and fro against the wheel. "I don't care for myself,--I'm not afraid of +work,--but _thee's_ not able to do what thee does _now_, mother. If I +have outside things to look after, how can I help thee as I should? The +boys are about as much dependence as a flock of barn swallows!" + +"Don't fret about me, dear; the way will open. Thy father has thought +and planned for us; have patience while I tell thee. Thee knows Walter +Evesham's pond is small and his mill is doing a thriving business?" + +"Yes, I know it!" Dorothy exclaimed. "He has his own share, and ours +too--most of it!" + +"Wait, dear, wait! Thy father has rented him the ponds to use when his +own gives out. He is to have the control of the water, and it will give +us a little income, even though the old mill does stand idle." + +"He may as well take the mill, too. If father is away all summer it +will be useless ever to start it again. Thee'll see, mother, how it +will end if Walter Evesham has the custom and the water all summer. I +think it's miserable for a young man to be so keen about money." + +"Dorothy, seems to me thee's hasty in thy judgments. I never heard that +said of Walter Evesham. His father left him with capital to improve his +mill. It does better work than ours; we can't complain of that. Thy +father was never one to study much after ways of making money. He felt +he had no right to more than an honest livelihood. I don't say that +Walter Evesham's in the wrong. We know that Joseph took advantage of +his opportunities, though I can't say that I ever felt much unity with +some of his transactions. What would thee have, my dear? Thee's +discouraged with thy father for choosing the thorny way, which we tread +with him; but thee seems no better satisfied with one who considers the +flesh and its wants!" + +"I don't _know_, mother, _what_ I want for myself. It doesn't matter, +but for thee I would have rest from all these cruel worries thee has +borne so long." + +She buried her face in her mother's lap and put her strong young arms +about the frail, toil-bent form. + +"There, there, dear. Try to rule thy spirit, Dorothy. Thee's too much +worked up about this. They are not worries to me. I am thankful we have +nothing to decide, one way or the other--only to do our best with what +is given us. Thee's not thyself, dear. Go down-stairs and fetch in the +clothes, and don't hurry; stay out till thee gets more composed." + +Dorothy did not succeed in bringing herself into unity with her +father's call, but she came to a fuller realization of his struggle. +When he bade them good-by, his face showed what it had cost him, but +Rachel was calm and cheerful. The pain of parting is keenest to those +who go, but it stays longer with those who are left behind. + +"Dorothy, take good care of thy mother!" Friend Barton said, taking his +daughter's face between his hands and gravely kissing her brow between +the low-parted ripples of her hair. + +"Yes, father," she said, looking into his eyes. "Thee knows I'm thy +eldest son." + +They watched the old chaise swing round the corner of the lane, then +the pollard willows shut it from sight. + +"Come, mother," said Dorothy, hurrying her in at the gate. "I'm going +to make a great pot of mush, and have it hot for supper, and fried for +breakfast, and warmed up with molasses for dinner, and there'll be some +cold with milk for supper, and we shan't have any cooking to do at +all." + +They went round to the kitchen door. Rachel stopped in the wood-shed, +and the tears rushed to her eyes. + +"Dear father! How he has worked over that wood, early and late, to +spare us!" + +We will not revive Dorothy's struggles with the farm-work and with the +boys. They were an isolated family at the mill-house; their peculiar +faith isolated them still more, and they were twelve miles from meeting +and the settlement of Friends at Stony Valley. Dorothy's pride kept her +silent about her needs, lest they might bring reproach upon her father +among the neighbors, who would not be likely to feel the urgency of his +spiritual summons. + +The summer heats came on apace and the nights grew shorter. It seemed +to Dorothy that she had hardly stretched out her tired young body and +forgotten her cares in the low attic bedroom, before the east was +streaked with light and the birds were singing in the apple-trees, +whose falling blossoms drifted in at the window. + +One day in early June, Friend Barton's flock of sheep--consisting of +nine experienced ewes, six yearlings, and a sprinkling of close-curled +lambs whose legs had not yet come into mature relations with their +bodies--were gathered in a little railed inclosure, beside the stream +which flowed into the "mill head." It was supplied by the waste from +the pond, and when the gate was shut, rambled easily over the gray +slate pebbles, with here and there a fall, just forcible enough to +serve as a douche bath for a well-grown sheep. The victims were panting +in their heavy fleeces, and their hoarse, plaintive tremolo mingled +with the ripple of the water and the sound of young voices in a frolic. +Dorothy had divided her forces for the washing to the best advantage. +The two elder boys stood in the stream to receive the sheep, which she, +with the help of little Jimmy, caught and dragged to the bank. + +The boys were at work now upon an elderly ewe, while Dorothy stood on +the brink of the stream, braced against an ash sapling, dragging at the +fleece of a beautiful but reluctant yearling. Her bare feet were +incased in a pair of moccasins which laced around the ankle; her +petticoats were kilted, and her broad hat bound down with a ribbon; one +sleeve was rolled up, the other had been sacrificed in a scuffle in the +sheep-pen. The new candidate for immersion stood bleating and +trembling, with her fore feet planted against the slippery bank, +pushing back with all her strength, while Jimmy propelled from the +rear. + +"Boys!" Dorothy's clear voice called across the stream. "_Do_ hurry! +She's been in long enough, now! Keep her head up, can't you, and +squeeze the wool _hard_! You're not _half_ washing! Oh, Reuby! thee'll +drown her! Keep her _head_ up!" + +Another unlucky douse and another half-smothered bleat,--Dorothy +released the yearling and plunged to the rescue. "Go after that lamb, +Reuby!" she cried, with exasperation in her voice. Reuby followed the +yearling, which had disappeared over the orchard slope, upsetting an +obstacle in its path, which happened to be Jimmy. He was now wailing on +the bank, while Dorothy, with the ewe's nose tucked comfortably in the +bend of her arm, was parting and squeezing the fleece, with the water +swirling round her. Her stout arms ached, and her ears were stunned +with the incessant bleating; she counted with dismay the sheep still +waiting in the pen. "Oh, Jimmy! _do_ stop crying, or else go to the +house!" + +"He'd better go after Reuby," said Sheppard Barton, who was now +Dorothy's sole dependence. + +"Oh yes; do, Jimmy, that's a good boy. Tell him to let the yearling go, +and come back quick." + +The water had run low that morning in Evesham's pond. He shut down the +mill, and strode up the hills, across lots, to raise the gate of the +lower Barton Pond, which had been heading up for his use. He passed the +corn-field where, a month before, he had seen pretty Dorothy Barton +dropping corn with her brothers. It made him ache to think of Dorothy, +with her feeble mother, the boys, as wild as preacher's sons +proverbially are, and the old farm running down on her hands; the +fences all needed mending, and there went Reuben Barton, now, careering +over the fields in chase of a stray yearling. His mother's house was +big, and lonely, and empty; and he flushed as he thought of the "one +ewe-lamb" he coveted, out of Friend Barton's rugged pastures. As he +raised the gate, and leaned to watch the water swirl and gurgle through +the "trunk," sucking the long weeds with it, and thickening with its +tumult the clear current of the stream, the sound of voices and +bleating of sheep came up from below. He had not the farming instincts +in his blood;--the distant bleating, the hot June sunshine and +cloudless sky, did not suggest to him sheep-washing;--but now came a +boy's voice shouting and a cry of distress, and he remembered, with a +thrill, that Friend Barton used the stream for that peaceful purpose. +He shut down the gate and tore along through the ferns and tangled +grass till he came to the sheep-pen, where the bank was muddy and +trampled. The prisoners were bleating drearily and looking with longing +eyes across to the other side, where those who had suffered were now +straying and cropping the short turf, through the lights and shadows of +the orchard. + +There was no other sign of life, except a broad hat with a brown +ribbon, buffeted about in an eddy, among the stones. The stream dipped +now below the hill, and the current, still racing fast with the impetus +he had given it, shot away among the hazel thickets which crowded close +to the brink. He was obliged to make a detour by the orchard, and come +out at the "mill-head" below;--a black, deep pool, with an ugly ripple +setting across it to the "head-gate." He saw something white clinging +there and ran round the brink. It was the sodden fleece of the old ewe +which had been drifted against the "head-gate," and held there to her +death. Evesham, with a sickening contraction of the heart, threw off +his jacket for a plunge, when Dorothy's voice called rather faintly +from the willows on the opposite bank. + +"Don't jump! I'm here," she said. Evesham searched the willows, and +found her seated in the sun just beyond, half buried in a bed of ferns. + +"I wouldn't have called thee," she said shyly, as he sank, pale and +panting, beside her, "but thee looked--I thought thee was going to jump +into the mill-head!" + +"I thought _you_ were there, Dorothy!" + +"I was there quite long enough. Shep pulled me out; I was too tired to +help myself much." Dorothy held her palm pressed against her temple, +and the blood trickled from beneath, streaking her pale, wet cheek. + +"He's gone to the house to get me a cloak. I don't want mother to see +me--not yet," she said. + +"I'm afraid you ought not to wait, Dorothy. Let me take you to the +house, won't you? I'm afraid you'll get a deadly chill." + +Dorothy did not look in the least like death. She was blushing now, +because Evesham would think it so strange of her to stay, and yet she +could not rise in her wet clothes, which clung to her like the calyx to +a bud. + +"Let me see that cut, Dorothy, _please_!" + +"Oh, it's nothing. I don't _wish_ thee to look at it!" + +"But I will! Do you want to make me your murderer--sitting there in +your wet clothes, with a cut on your head?" + +He drew away her hand, and the wound, indeed, was no great affair, but +he bound it up deftly with strips of his handkerchief. Dorothy's wet +curls touched his fingers and clung to them, and her eyelashes drooped +lower and lower. + +"I think it was _very_ stupid of thee. Didn't thee hear us from the +dam? I'm sure we made noise enough." + +"Yes, I heard you when it was too late. I heard the sheep before, but +how could I imagine that _you_, Dorothy, and three boys, as big as +cockerels, were sheep-washing? It's the most preposterous thing I ever +heard of!" + +"Well, I can't help being a woman, and the sheep had to be washed. I +think there ought to be more men in the world when half of them are +preaching and fighting." + +"If you'd only let the men who are left help you a little, Dorothy!" + +"I don't want any help. I only _don't_ want to be washed into the +mill-head." + +They both laughed, and Evesham began again entreating her to let him +take her to the house. + +"Hasn't thee a coat or something I could put around me until Shep +comes?" said Dorothy. "He must be here soon." + +"Yes, I've got a jacket here somewhere." + +He sped away to find it, and faithless Dorothy, as the willows closed +between them, sprang to her feet and fled like a startled Naiad to the +house. + +When Evesham, pushing through the willows, saw nothing but the bed of +wet, crushed ferns and the trail through the long grass where Dorothy's +feet had fled, he smiled grimly to himself, remembering that +"ewe-lambs" are not always as meek as they look. + +That evening Rachel had received a letter from Friend Barton, and was +preparing to read it aloud to the children. They were in the kitchen, +where the boys had been helping Dorothy, in a desultory manner, to +shell corn for the chickens; but now all was silence, while Rachel +wiped her glasses and turned the large sheet of paper, squared with +many foldings, to the candle. + +She read the date, "London Grove, 5th month, 22nd.--Most affectionately +beloved." "He means us all," said Rachel, turning to the children with +a tender smile. "It's spelled with a small b." + +"He means thee!" said Dorothy, laughing. "Thee's not such a very big +beloved." + +There was a moment's silence. "I don't know that the opening of the +letter is of general interest," Rachel mused, with her eyes travelling +slowly down the page. "He says: 'In regard to my health, lest thee +should concern thyself, I am thankful to say I have never enjoyed +better since years have made me acquainted with my infirmities of body, +and I earnestly hope that my dear wife and children are enjoying the +same blessing. + +"'I trust the boys are not deficient in obedience and helpfulness. At +Sheppard's age I had already begun to take the duties of a man upon my +shoulders.'" + +Sheppard giggled uncomfortably, and Dorothy laughed outright. + +"Oh! if father only _knew_ how good the boys are! Mother, thee must +write and tell him about their 'helpfulness and obedience'! Thee can +tell him their appetites keep up pretty well; they manage to take their +meals regularly, and they are _always_ out of bed by eight o'clock, to +help me hang up the milking-stool!" + +"Just wait till thee gets in the mill-head again, Dorothy Barton! Thee +needn't come to _me_ to help thee out!" + +"Go on, mother! Don't let the boys interrupt thee!" + +"Well," said Rachel, rousing herself, "where was I? Oh, 'when I was +Sheppard's age'! Well, next come some allusions to the places where he +has visited, and his spiritual exercises there. I don't know that the +boys are quite old enough to enter into this yet. Thee'd better read it +thyself, Dorothy. I'm keeping all father's letters for the boys to +read, when they are old enough to appreciate them." + +"Well, I think thee might read us about where he's been preachin'! We +can understand a great deal more than thee thinks we can!" said Shep, +in an injured voice. "Reuby, he can preach some himself! Thee ought to +hear him, mother. It's almost as good as meetin'!" + +"I _wondered_ how Reuby spent his time!" said Dorothy, and the mother +hastened to interpose. + +"Well, here's a passage that may be interesting: 'On sixth day attended +the youths' meeting here,--a pretty favored time on the whole. Joseph' +[that's Joseph Carpenter; he mentions him aways back] 'had good service +in lively testimony, while I was calm and easy, without a word to say. +At a meeting at Plumstead, we suffered long, but at length we felt +relieved. The unfaithful were admonished, the youth invited, and the +heavy-hearted encouraged. It was a heavenly time!' Heretofore he seems +to have been closed up with silence a good deal; but now the way opens +continually for him to free himself. He's been 'much favored,' he says, +'of late.' Reuby, what's thee doing to thy brothers?" (Shep and Reuby, +who had been persecuting Jimmy by pouring handfuls of corn down the +neck of his jacket until he had taken refuge behind Dorothy's chair, +were now recriminating with corn-cobs on each other's faces.) "Dorothy, +can't thee keep those boys quiet?" + +"Did thee ever know them to be quiet?" said Dorothy, helping Jimmy to +relieve himself of his corn. + +"Well now, listen!" Rachel continued placidly, "'Second day, 27th' (of +fifth month, he means, the letter's been a _long time_ coming), +'attended their mid-week meeting at London Grove, where my tongue as it +were clave to the roof of my mouth, while Hannah Husbands was much +favored, and enabled to lift up her voice like the song of an angel'"-- + +"Who's Hannah Husbands?" cried Dorothy. + +"Thee don't know her, dear. She was second cousin to thy father's +step-mother; the families were not congenial, I believe; but she has a +great gift for the ministry." + +"I should think she'd better be at home with her children,--if she has +any. Fancy _thee_, mother, going about to strange meetings, and lifting +up thy voice." + +"Hush! hush! Dorothy! Thy tongue's running away with thee. Consider the +example thee's setting the boys." + +"Thee'd better write to father about Dorothy, mother! Perhaps Hannah +Husbands would like to know what she thinks about her preachin'!" + +"Well now, be quiet, all of you. Here's something about Dorothy: 'I +know that my dear daughter Dorothy is faithful and loving, albeit +somewhat quick of speech, and restive under obligation. I would have +thee remind her that an unwillingness to accept help from others argues +a want of Christian Meekness. Entreat her, from me, not to conceal her +needs from our neighbors, if so be she find her work oppressive. We +know them to be of kindly intention, though not of our way of thinking +in all particulars. Let her receive help from them, not as individuals, +but as instruments of the Lord's protection, which it were impiety and +ingratitude to deny.'" + +"There!" cried Shep. "That means thee's to let Luke Jordan finish the +sheep-washing. Thee'd better have done it in the first place. We +wouldn't have the old ewe to pick if thee had!" + +Dorothy was dimpling at the idea of Luke Jordan in the character of an +instrument of heavenly protection. She had not regarded him in that +light, it must be confessed, and had rejected him with scorn. + +"He may if he wants to," she said; "but you boys shall drive them over. +I'll have nothing to do with it." + +"And shear them too, Dorothy? He asked to shear them long ago." + +"Well, _let_ him shear them, and keep the wool too." + +"I wouldn't say that, Dorothy!" said Rachel Barton. "We need the wool, +and it seems as if over-payment might not be quite honest either." + +"Oh! mother, mother! What a mother thee is!" cried Dorothy laughing, +and rumpling her cap-strings in a tumultuous embrace. + +"She's a great deal too good for _thee_, Dorothy Barton." + +"She's too good for all of us! How did thee ever come to have such a +graceless set of children, mother?" + +"I'm very well satisfied," said Rachel. "But now do be quiet, and let's +finish the letter. We must get to bed some time to-night!" + +The wild clematis was in blossom now--the fences were white with it, +and the rusty cedars were crowned with virgin wreaths, but the weeds +were thick in the garden and in the potato patch. Dorothy, stretching +her cramped back, looked longingly up the shadowy vista of the +farm-lane, which had nothing to do but ramble off into the remotest +green fields, where the daisies' faces were as white and clear as in +early June. + +One hot August night she came home late from the store. The stars were +thick in the sky; the katydids made the night oppressive with their +rasping questionings, and a hoarse revel of frogs kept the ponds from +falling asleep in the shadow of the hills. + +"Is thee very tired to-night, Dorothy?" her mother asked, as she took +her seat on the low step of the porch. "Would thee mind turning old +John out thyself?" + +"No, mother, I'm not tired. But why--oh, _I_ know!" cried Dorothy, with +a quick laugh. "The dance--at Slocum's barn. I _thought_ those boys +were uncommonly helpful." + +"Yes, dear, it's but natural they should want to see it. Hark! we can +hear the music from here." + +They listened, and the breeze brought across the fields the sound of +fiddles and the rhythmic tramp of feet, softened by the distance. +Dorothy's young pulses leaped. + +"Mother, is it any harm for them just to _see_ it? They have so little +fun except what they get out of teasing and shirking." + +"My dear, thy father would never countenance such a scene of frivolity, +or permit one of his children to look upon it." + +Through our eyes and ears the world takes possession of our hearts. + +"Then I'm to spare the boys this temptation, mother? Thee will trust +_me_ to pass the barn?" + +"I would trust my boys, if they were thy age Dorothy. But their +resolution is tender, like their years." + +It might be questioned whether the frame of mind in which the boys went +to bed that night, under their mother's eye,--for Rachel could be firm +in a case of conscience,--was more improving than the frivolity of +Slocum's barn. + +"Mother," called Dorothy, looking in at the kitchen window, where +Rachel was stooping over the embers in the fireplace, to light a +bedroom candle, "I want to speak to thee." + +Rachel came to the window, screening the candle with her hand. + +"Will thee trust _me_ to look at the dancing a little while? It is so +very near." + +"Why, Dorothy, does thee _want_ to?" + +"Yes, mother, I believe I do. I've never seen a dance in my life. It +cannot ruin me to look just once." + +Rachel stood puzzled. + +"Thee's old enough to judge for thyself, Dorothy. But, my child, do not +tamper with thy inclinations through heedless curiosity. Thee knows +thee's more impulsive than I could wish--for thy own peace." + +"I'll be very careful, mother. If I feel in the _least_ wicked I will +not look." + +She kissed her mother's hand, which rested on the window-sill. Rachel +did not like the kiss, or Dorothy's brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks, +as the candle revealed them like a fair picture painted on the +darkness. She hesitated, and Dorothy sped away up the lane with old +John lagging at his halter. + +Was it the music growing nearer that quickened her breathing, or only +the closeness of the night, shut in between the wild grape-vine +curtains, swung from one dark cedar column to another? She caught the +sweet-brier breath as she hurried by, and now, a loop in the leafy +curtain revealed the pond lying black in a hollow of the hills, with a +whole heaven of stars reflected in it. Old John stumbled along over the +stones, cropping the grass as he went. Dorothy tugged at his halter and +urged him on to the head of the lane where two farm-gates stood at +right angles. One of them was open, and a number of horses were +tethered in a row along the fence within. They whinneyed a cheerful +greeting to John as Dorothy slipped his halter and shut him into the +field adjoining. Now should she walk into temptation with her eyes and +ears open? The gate stood wide, with only one field of perfumed +meadow-grass between her and the lights and music of Slocum's barn! The +sound of revelry by night could hardly have taken a more innocent form +than this rustic dancing of neighbors after a "raisin' bee," but had it +been the rout of Comus and his crew, and Dorothy the Lady Una, +trembling near, her heart could hardly have throbbed more thickly as +she crossed the dewy meadow. A young maple stood within ten rods of the +barn, and here she crouched in shadow. + +The great doors stood wide open, and lanterns were hung from the beams +lighting the space between the mows, where a dance was set, with youths +and maidens in two long rows. The fiddlers sat on barrel-heads near the +door; a lantern hanging just behind projected their shadows across the +square of light on the trodden space in front where they executed a +grotesque pantomime, keeping time to the music with spectral wavings +and noddings. The dancers were Dorothy's young neighbors, whom she had +known and yet not known all her life, but they had the strangeness of +familiar faces seen suddenly in some fantastic dream. + +Surely that was Nancy Slocum, in the bright pink gown, heading the line +of girls, and that was Luke Jordan's sunburnt profile leaning from his +place to pluck a straw from the mow behind him. They were marching now, +and the measured tramp of feet, keeping solid time to the fiddles, set +a strange tumult vibrating in Dorothy's blood; and now it stopped with +a thrill as she recognized that Evesham was there marching with the +young men, and that his peer was not among them. The perception of his +difference came to her with a vivid shock. He was coming forward now, +with his light, firm step, formidable in evening dress, and with a +smile of subtle triumph in his eyes, to meet Nancy Slocum, in the +bright pink gown; Dorothy felt she hated pink, of all the colors her +faith had abjured. She could see, in spite of the obnoxious gown, that +Nancy was very pretty. He was taking her first by the right hand, then +by the left, and turning her gayly about;--and now they were meeting +again, for the fourth or fifth time, in the centre of the barn, with +all eyes upon them, and the music lingered while Nancy, holding out her +pink petticoats, coyly revolved around him. Then began a mysterious +turning, and clasping of hands, and weaving of Nancy's pink frock and +Evesham's dark blue coat and white breeches in and out of the line of +figures, until they met at the door, and taking each other by both +hands, swept with a joyous measure to the head of the barn. Dorothy +gave a little choking sigh. + +What a senseless whirl it was! But she was thrilling with a new and +strange excitement, too near the edge of pain to be long endured as a +pleasure. If this were the influence of dancing, she did not wonder so +much at her father's scruples,--and yet it held her like a spell. + +All hands were lifted now, making an arch, through which Evesham, +holding Nancy by the hands, raced stooping and laughing. As they +emerged at the door, he threw up his head to shake a brown lock back. +He looked flushed, and boyishly gay, and his hazel eye searched the +darkness with that subtle ray of triumph in it which had made Dorothy +afraid. She drew back behind the tree and pressed her hot cheek to the +cool, rough bark. She longed for the stillness of the starlit meadow, +and the dim lane, with its faint perfumes and whispering leaves. + +But now suddenly the music stopped, and the dance broke up in a tumult +of voices. Dorothy stole backward in the shadow of the tree-trunk, till +it joined the darkness of the meadow, and then fled,--stumbling along +with blinded eyes, and the music still vibrating in her ears. There +came a quick rush of footsteps behind her, swishing through the long +grass. She did not look back, but quickened her pace, struggling to +reach the gate. Evesham was there before her. He had swung the gate to +and was leaning with his back against it, laughing and panting. + +"I've caught you, Dorothy, you little deceiver! You'll not get rid of +me to-night with any of your tricks. I'm going to take you home to your +mother, and tell her you were peeping at the dancing." + +"Mother knows I am here," said Dorothy. "I asked her!" Her knees were +trembling, and her heart almost choked her with its throbbing. + +"I'm so glad you don't dance, Dorothy. This is much nicer than the +barn; and the katydids are better fiddlers than old Darby and his son. +I'll open the gate if you will put your hand in mine, so I can be sure +of you--you little runaway!" + +"I will stay here all night, first!" said Dorothy, in a low quivering +voice. + +"As you choose. I shall be happy as long as you are here." + +Dead silence, while the katydids seemed to keep time to their +heart-beats; the fiddles began tuning for another reel, and the horses +tethered near stretched out their necks with low inquiring whinneys. + +"Dorothy," said Evesham, softly, leaning toward her and trying to see +her face in the darkness, "are you angry with me? Don't you think you +deserve a little punishment for the trick you played me at the +mill-head?" + +"It was thy fault for wetting me!" Dorothy was too excited and angry to +cry, but she was as miserable as she had ever been in her life before. +"I didn't _want_ thee to stay. People who force themselves where they +are not wanted must take what they get!" + +"What did you say, Dorothy?" + +"I say I didn't want thee then. I do not want thee now! Thee may go +back to thy fiddling and dancing! I'd rather have one of those dumb +brutes for company to-night than thee, Walter Evesham!" + +"Very well! The reel has begun," said Evesham. "Fanny Jordan is waiting +to dance it with me, or if she isn't she ought to be! Shall I open the +gate for you?" + +She passed out in silence, and the gate swung to with a heavy jar. She +made good speed down the lane, and then waited outside the fence till +her breath came more quietly. + +"Is that thee, Dorothy?" Rachel's voice called from the porch. She came +out to meet her, and they went along the walk together. "How damp thy +forehead is, child! is the night so warm?" They sat down on the low +steps, and Dorothy slid her arm under her mother's and laid her soft +palm against the one less soft by twenty years of toil for others. +"Thee's not been long, dear; was it as much as thee expected?" + +"Mother, it was dreadful! I never wish to hear a fiddle again as long +as I live!" + +Rachel opened the way for Dorothy to speak further; she was not without +some mild stirrings of curiosity on the subject herself; but Dorothy +had no more to say. + +They went into the house soon after, and as they separated for the +night, Dorothy clung to her mother with a little nervous laugh. + +"Mother, what is that text about Ephraim?" + +"Ephraim is joined to idols?" Rachel suggested. + +"Yes! Ephraim is joined to his idols!" said Dorothy, lifting her head. +"Let him go!" + +"Let him _alone_," corrected Rachel. + +"Let him _alone!_" Dorothy repeated. "That is better yet." + +"What's thee thinking of, dear?" + +"Oh, I'm thinking about the dance in the barn." + +"I'm glad thee looks at it in that light," said Rachel. + + * * * * * + +Dorothy knelt by her bed in the low chamber under the eaves, crying to +herself that she was not the child of her mother any more. + +She felt she had lost something, which, in truth, had never been hers. +It was only the unconscious poise of her unawakened girlhood which had +been stirred. She had mistaken it for that abiding peace which is not +lost or won in a day. + +Dorothy could not stifle the spring thrills in her blood any more than +she could crush its color out of her cheek or brush the ripples out of +her bright hair, but she longed for the cool grays and the still +waters. She prayed that the "grave and beautiful damsel called +Discretion" might take her by the hand and lead her to that "upper +chamber, whose name is Peace." She lay awake, listening to the music +from the barn, and waiting through breathless silences for it to begin +again. She wondered if Fanny Jordan had grown any prettier since she +had seen her as a half-grown girl; and then she despised herself for +the thought. The katydids seemed to beat their wings upon her brain, +and all the noises of the night, far and near, came to her strained +senses, as if her silent chamber were a whispering gallery. The clock +struck twelve, and in the silence that followed she missed the music; +but voices, talking and laughing, were coming down the lane. There was +the clink of a horse's hoof on the stones; now it was lost on the turf; +and now they were all trooping noisily past the house. She buried her +head in her pillow, and tried to bury with it the consciousness that +she was wondering if Evesham were there, laughing with the rest. + +Yes, Evesham was there. He walked with Farmer Jordan, behind the young +men and girls, and discussed with him, somewhat absently, the war news +and the prices of grain. + +As they passed the dark old house, spreading its wide roofs, like a hen +gathering her chickens under her wing, he became suddenly silent. A +white curtain flapped in and out of an upper window. It was the window +of the boys' room; but Evesham's instincts failed him there. + +"Queer kinks them old Friend preachers git into their heads sometimes!" +said farmer Jordan, as they passed the empty mill. "Now what do you +s'pose took Uncle Tommy Barton off right on top of plantin', leavin' +his wife 'n' critters 'n' child'en to look after themselves? Mighty +good preachin' it ought to be, to make up for such practicin'. +Wonderful set ag'in the war, Uncle Tommy is! He's a-preachin' up peace +now. But Lord! all the preachin' sence Moses won't keep men from +fightin' when their blood's up and there's ter'tory in it!" + +"It makes saints of the women," said Evesham shortly. + +"Wal, yes! Saints in heaven before their time, some of 'em. There's +Dorothy, now. _She'll_ hoe her row with any saint _in_ the kingdom or +out of it. I never see a hulsomer-lookin' gal. My Luke, he run the +furrers in her corn-patch last May. Said it made him sick to see a gal +like that a-staggerin' after a plow. She wouldn't more'n _half let_ +him! She's a proud little piece. They're all proud, Quakers is. I never +could see no 'poorness of spirit,' come to git at 'em! And they're +wonderful clannish, too. My Luke, he'd a notion he'd like to run the +hull concern--Dorothy 'n' all; but I told him he might 's well p'int +off. Them Quaker gals don't never marry out o' meetin'. Besides, the +farm's too poor!" + +"Good-night, Mr. Jordan!" said Evesham suddenly. "I'm off across lots!" +He leaped the fence, crashed through the alder hedge-row, and +disappeared in the dusky meadow. + +Evesham was by no means satisfied with his experiments in planetary +distances. Somewhere, he felt sure, either in his orbit or hers, there +must be a point where Dorothy would be less insensible to the +attraction of atoms in the mass. Thus far, she had reversed the laws of +the spheres, and the greater had followed the less. When she had first +begun to hold a permanent place in his thoughts, he had invested her +with something of that atmosphere of peace and cool passivity which +hedges in the women of her faith. It had been like a thin, clear glass, +revealing her loveliness, but cutting off the magnetic currents. A +young man is not long satisfied with the mystery his thoughts have +woven around the woman who is their object. Evesham had grown +impatient; he had broken the spell of her sweet remoteness. He had +touched her, and found her human,--deliciously, distractingly human, +but with a streak of obduracy which history has attributed to the +Quakers under persecution. In vain he haunted the mill-dam, and bribed +the boys with traps and pop-guns, and lingered at the well-curb to ask +Dorothy for water, which did not reach his thirst. She was there in the +flesh, with her arms aloft, balancing the well-sweep, while he stooped +with his lips at the bucket; but in spirit she was unapproachable. He +felt, with disgust at his own persistence, that she even grudged him +the water! He grew savage and restless, and fretted over the subtle +changes which he counted in Dorothy, as the summer waned. She was +thinner and paler,--perhaps with the heats of harvest, which had not, +indeed, been burdensome from its abundance. Her eyes were darker and +shyer, and her voice more languid. Was she wearing down, with all this +work and care? A fierce disgust possessed him, that this sweet life +should be cast into the breach between faith and works. + +He did not see that Rachel Barton had changed, too,--with a change that +meant more, at her age, than Dorothy's flushings and palings. He did +not miss the mother's bent form from the garden, or the bench by the +kitchen door, where she had been used to wash the milk-things. + +Dorothy washed the milk-things now, and the mother spent her days in +the sunny east room, between her bed and the easy-chair, where she sat +and mused for hours over the five letters she had received from her +husband in as many months. The boys had, in a measure, justified their +father's faith in them, since Rachel's illness, and Dorothy was +released from much of her out-door work; but the silence of the +kitchen, when she was there alone with her ironing and dish-washing, +was a heavier burden than she had yet known. + +Nature sometimes strikes in upon the hopeless monotony of life in +remote farm-houses, with one of her phenomenal moods. They come like +besoms of destruction; but they scatter the web of stifling routine; +they fling into the stiffening pool the stone which jars the atoms into +crystal. + +The storms which had ambushed in the lurid August skies, and circled +ominously round the horizon during the first weeks of September, broke +at last in an equinoctial which was long remembered in the mill-house. +It took its place in the family calendar of momentous dates with the +hard winter of 1800; with the late frost, which coated the incipient +apples with ice, and froze the new potatoes in the ground; and with the +year the typhus got into the valley. + +The rain had been falling a night and a day. It had been welcomed with +thanksgiving; but it had worn out its welcome some hours since, and now +the early darkness was coming on without a lull in the storm. Dorothy +and the two biggest boys had made the rounds of the farm-buildings, +seeing all safe for the second night. The barns and mill stood on high +ground, while the house occupied the sheltered hollow between. Little +streams from the hills were washing in turbid currents across the lower +levels; the waste-weir roared as in early spring; the garden was +inundated, and the meadow a shallow pond. The sheep had been driven +into the upper barn floor; the chickens were in the corn-bin; and old +John and the cows had been transferred from the stable, which stood +low, to the weighing-floor of the mill. A gloomy echoing and gurgling +sounded from the dark wheel-chamber, where the water was rushing under +the wheel, and jarring it with its tumult. At eight o'clock the +wood-shed was flooded, and water began to creep under the kitchen door. +Dorothy and the boys carried armfuls of wood, and stacked them in the +passage to the sitting-room, two steps higher up. At nine o'clock the +boys were sent, protesting, to bed; and Dorothy, looking out of their +window, as she fumbled about in the dark for a pair of Shep's trowsers +which needed mending, saw a lantern flickering up the road. It was +Evesham, on his way to the mill-dams. The light glimmered on his +oil-skin coat as he climbed the stile behind the well-curb. + +"He raised the flood-gates at noon," Dorothy said to herself. "I wonder +if he is anxious about the dams." She resolved to watch for his return, +but she was busy settling her mother for the night when she heard his +footsteps on the porch. The roar of water from the hills startled +Dorothy as she opened the door;--it had increased in violence within an +hour. A gust of wind and rain followed Evesham into the entry. + +"Come in," she said, running lightly across the sitting-room to close +the door of her mother's room. + +He stood opposite her on the hearth-rug and looked into her eyes across +the estrangement of the summer. It was not Dorothy of the mill-head, or +of Slocum's meadow, or the cold maid of the well: it was a very +anxious, lovely little girl, in a crumbling old house, with a foot of +water in the cellar, and a sick mother in the next room. She had +forgotten about Ephraim and his idols; she picked up Shep's trowsers +from the rug, where she had dropped them, and looking intently at her +thimble finger, told him she was very glad he had come. + +"Did you think I wouldn't come?" said he. "I'm going to take you home +with me, Dorothy,--you and your mother and the boys. It's not fit for +you to be here alone!" + +"Do you know of any danger?" + +"I _know_ of none, but water's a thing you can't depend on. It's an +ugly rain; older men than your father remember nothing like it." + +"I shall be glad to have mother go, and Jimmy;--the house is very damp. +It's an awful night for her to be out, though!" + +"She _must_ go!" said Evesham. "You must all go. I'll be back in half +an hour--" + +"_I_ shall not go," Dorothy said; "the boys and I must stay and look +after the stock." + +"What's that?" Evesham was listening to a trickling of water outside +the door. + +"Oh! it's from the kitchen! The door's blown open, I guess!" + +Dorothy looked out into the passage; a strong wind was blowing in from +the kitchen, where the water covered the floor and washed against the +chimney. + +"This is a nice state of things! What's all this wood here for?" + +"The wood-shed's under water, you know." + +"You must get yourself ready, Dorothy! I'll come for your mother first +in the chaise." + +"I cannot go," she said; "I don't believe there is any danger. This old +house has stood for eighty years; it's not likely this is the first big +rain in all that time." Dorothy's spirits had risen. "Besides, I have a +family of orphans to take care of! See here," she said, stooping over a +basket in the shadow of the chimney. It was the "hospital tent," and as +she uncovered it, a brood of belated chickens stretched out their thin +necks with plaintive peeps. + +Dorothy covered them with her hands, and they nestled with cozy +twitterings into silence. + +"You're a kind of special providence, aren't you, Dorothy? But I've no +sympathy with chickens who _will_ be born just in time for the +equinoctial." + +"_I_ didn't want them," said Dorothy, anxious to defend her management. +"The old hen stole her nest, and she left them the day before the rain. +She's making herself comfortable now in the corn-bin." + +"She ought to be made an example of;--that's the way of the world, +however;--retribution don't fall always on the right shoulders. I must +go now. We'll take your mother and Jimmy first, and then, if you +_won't_ come, you shall let me stay with you. The mill is safe enough, +anyhow." + +Evesham returned with the chaise and a man who he insisted should drive +away old John and the cows, so Dorothy should have less care. The +mother was packed into the chaise with a vast collection of wraps, +which almost obliterated Jimmy. As they started, Dorothy ran out in the +rain with her mother's spectacles and the five letters, which always +lay in a box on the table by her bed. Evesham took her gently by the +arms and lifted her back across the puddles to the stoop. + +As the chaise drove off, she went back to the sitting-room and crouched +on the rug, her wet hair shining in the firelight. She took out her +chickens one by one and held them under her chin, with tender words and +finger-touches. If September chickens have hearts as susceptible as +their bodies, Dorothy's orphans must have been imperilled by her +caresses. + +"Look here, Dorothy! Where's my trowsers?" cried Shep, opening the door +at the foot of the stairs. + +Reuby was behind him, fully arrayed in the aforesaid articles, and +carrying the bedroom candle. + +"Here they are--with a needle in them," said Dorothy. "What are you +getting up in the middle of the night for?" + +"Well, I guess it's time somebody's up. Who's that man driving off our +cows?" + +"Goosey! It's Walter Evesham's man. He came for mother and all of us, +and he's taken old John and the cows to save us so much foddering." + +"Ain't we going too?" + +"I don't see why we should, just because there happens to be a little +water in the kitchen. I've often seen it come in there before." + +"Well, thee never saw anything like _this_ before--nor anybody else, +either," said Shep. + +"I don't care," said Reuby; "I wish there'd come a reg'lar flood. We +could climb up in the mill-loft and go sailin' down over Jordan's +meadows. Wouldn't Luke Jordan open that big mouth of his to see us +heave in sight about cock-crow--three sheets in the wind, and the old +tackle a-swingin'!" + +"Do hush!" said Dorothy. "We may have to try it yet." + +"There's an awful roarin' from our window," said Shep. "Thee can't half +hear it down here. Come out on the stoop. The old ponds have got their +dander up this time." + +They opened the door and listened, standing together on the low step. +There was, indeed, a hoarse murmur from the hills which grew louder as +they listened. + +"Now she's comin'! There goes the stable-door! There was only one hinge +left, anyway," said Reuby. "Mighty! Look at that wave!" + +It crashed through the gate, swept across the garden, and broke at +their feet, sending a thin sheet of water over the floor and stoop. + +"Now it's gone into the entry. Why didn't thee shut the door, Shep?" + +"Well, I think we'd better clear out, anyhow. Let's go over to the +mill. Say, Dorothy, sha'n't we?" + +"Wait. There comes another wave!" + +The second onset was not so violent, but they hastened to gather +together a few blankets, and the boys filled their pockets, with a +delightful sense of unusualness and peril, almost equal to a shipwreck +or an attack by Indians. Dorothy took her unlucky chickens under her +cloak and they made a rush, all together, across the road and up the +slope to the mill. + +"Why didn't we think to bring a lantern?" said Dorothy, as they huddled +together on the platform of the scale. "Will _thee_ go back after one, +Shep?" + +"If Reuby'll go, too." + +"Well, _my_ legs are wet enough now! What's the use of a lantern? +Mighty Moses! What's that?" + +"The old mill's got under weigh!" cried Shep. "_She's_ going to tune up +for Kingdom Come!" + +A furious head of water was rushing along the race. The great wheel +creaked and swung over, and with a shudder the old mill awoke from its +long sleep. The cogs clenched their teeth, the shafting shook and +rattled, the stones whirled merrily round. + +"Now she goes it!" cried Shep, as the humming increased to a tremor, +and the tremor to a wild, unsteady din, till the timbers shook and the +bolts and windows rattled. "I just wish _father_ could hear them old +stones hum." + +"Oh, this is awful!" said Dorothy. She was shivering, and sick with +terror at this unseemly midnight revelry of her grandfather's old mill. +It was as if it had awakened in a fit of delirium, and given itself up +to a wild travesty of its years of peaceful work. + +Shep was creeping about in the darkness. + +"Look here! We've got to stop this clatter somehow. The stones are hot +now. The whole thing'll burn up like tinder if we can't chock her +wheels." + +"Shep! Does thee _mean_ it?" + +"Thee'll see if I don't. Thee won't need any lantern either." + +"Can't we break away the race?" + +"Oh, there's a way to stop it. There's the tip-trough, but it's +down-stairs, and we can't reach the pole." + +"I'll go," said Dorothy. + +"It's outside, thee knows. Thee'll get awful _wet_, Dorothy." + +"Well, I'd just as soon be drowned as burned up. Come with me to the +head of the stairs." + +They felt their way hand in hand in the darkness, and Dorothy went down +alone. She had forgotten about the "tip-trough," but she understood its +significance. In a few moments a cascade shot out over the wheel, +sending the water far into the garden. + +"Right over my chrysanthemum bed!" sighed Dorothy. + +The wheel swung slower and slower, the mocking tumult subsided, and the +old mill sank into sleep again. + +There was nothing now to drown the roaring of the floods and the steady +drive of the storm. + +"There's a lantern," Shep called from the door. He had opened the upper +half, and was shielding himself behind it. "I guess it's Evesham coming +back for us. He's a pretty good sort of a fellow, after all; don't thee +think so, Dorothy? He owes us something for drowning us out at the +sheep-washing." + +"What _does all_ this mean?" said Dorothy, as Evesham swung himself +over the half-door, and his lantern showed them in their various phases +of wetness. + +"There's a big leak in the lower dam! I've been afraid of it all along; +there's something wrong in the principle of the thing." + +Dorothy felt as if he had called her grandfather a fraud, and her +father a delusion and a snare. She had grown up in the belief that the +mill-dams were part of Nature's original plan, in laying the +foundations of the hills;--but it was no time to be resentful, and the +facts were against her. + +"Dorothy," said Evesham, as he tucked the buffalo about her, "this is +the second time I've tried to save you from drowning, but you never +will wait! _I'm_ all ready to be a hero, but _you_ won't be a heroine." + +"I'm too practical for a heroine," said Dorothy. "There! I've forgotten +my chickens." + +"I'm glad of it! Those chickens were a mistake. They oughtn't to be +perpetuated." + +Youth and happiness can stand a great deal of cold water; but it was +not to be expected that Rachel Barton should be especially benefited by +her night journey through the floods. Evesham waited in the hall when +he heard the door of her room open next morning. Dorothy came slowly +down the stairs; he knew by her lingering step and the softly closed +door that she was not happy. + +"Mother is very sick," she answered his inquiry. + +"It is like the turn of inflammation and rheumatism she had once +before. It will be very slow,--and oh! it is such suffering! Why _do_ +the best women in the world have to suffer so?" + +"Will you let me talk things over with you after breakfast, Dorothy?" + +"Oh yes!" she said; "there is so much to do and think about. I _wish_ +father _would_ come home!" + +The tears came into Dorothy's eyes as she looked at him. Rest--such as +she had never known, or felt the need of till now--and strength +immeasurable, since it would multiply her own by an unknown quantity, +stood within reach of her hand, but she might not put it out! And +Evesham was dizzy with the struggle between longing and resolution. + +He had braced his nerves for a long and hungry waiting, but fate had +yielded suddenly;--the floods had brought her to him,--his flotsam and +jetsam, more precious than all the guarded treasures of the earth. She +had come, with all her girlish, unconscious beguilements, and all her +womanly cares, and anxieties too. He must strive against her sweetness, +while he helped her to bear her burdens. + +"Now about the boys, Dorothy," he said two hours later, as they stood +together by the fire in the low, oak-finished room at the foot of the +stairs, which was his office and book-room. The door was ajar, so +Dorothy might hear her mother's bell. "Don't you think they had better +be sent to school somewhere?" + +"Yes," said Dorothy, "they _ought_ to go to school--but--well, I may as +well tell thee the truth! There's very little to do it with. We've had +a poor summer. I suppose I've managed badly, and mother has been sick a +good while." + +"You've forgotten about the pond-rent, Dorothy." + +"No," she said, with a quick flush; "I hadn't forgotten it; but I +couldn't _ask_ thee for it!" + +"I spoke to your father about monthly payments; but he said better +leave it to accumulate for emergencies. Shouldn't you call this an +'emergency,' Dorothy?" + +"But does thee think we ought to ask rent for a pond that has all +leaked away?" + +"Oh, there's pond enough left, and I've used it a dozen times over this +summer! I would be ashamed to tell you, Dorothy, how my horn has been +exalted in your father's absence. However, retribution has overtaken me +at last; I'm responsible, you know, for all the damage last night. It +was in the agreement that I should keep up the dams." + +"Oh!" said Dorothy; "is thee sure?" + +Evesham laughed. + +"If your father were like any other man, Dorothy, he'd make me 'sure,' +when he gets home! I will defend myself to this extent: I've patched +and propped them all summer, after every rain, and tried to provide for +the fall storms; but there's a flaw in the original plan--" + +"Thee said that once before," said Dorothy. "I wish thee wouldn't say +it again." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I love those old mill-dams! I've trotted over them ever since +I could walk alone!" + +"You shall trot over them still! We will make them as strong as the +everlasting hills. They shall outlast our time, Dorothy." + +"Well, about the rent," said Dorothy. "I'm afraid it will not take us +through the winter, unless there is something I can do. Mother couldn't +possibly be moved now, and if she could, it will be months before the +house is fit to live in. But we cannot stay here in comfort, unless thy +mother will let me make up in some way. Mother will not need me all the +time, and I know thy mother hires women to spin." + +"She'll let you do all you like, if it will make you any happier. But +you don't know how much money is coming to you. Come, let us look over +the figures." + +He lowered the lid of the black mahogany secretary, placed a chair for +Dorothy, and opened a great ledger before her, bending down, with one +hand on the back of the chair, the other turning the leaves of the +ledger. Considering the index, and the position of the letter B in the +alphabet, he was a long time finding his place. Dorothy looked out of +the window, over the tops of the yellowing woods, to the gray and +turbid river below. Where the hemlocks darkened the channel of the +glen, she heard the angry floods rushing down. The formless rain mists +hung low, and hid the opposite shore. + +"See!" said Evesham, with his finger wandering rather vaguely down the +page. "Your father went away on the third of May. The first month's +rent came due on the third of June. That was the day I opened the gate +and let the water down on you, Dorothy. I'm responsible for everything, +you see,--even for the old ewe that was drowned!" + +His words came in a dream as he bent over her, resting his unsteady +hand heavily on the ledger. + +Dorothy laid her cheek on the date she could not see, and burst into +tears. + +"Don't--please don't!" he said, straightening himself, and locking his +hands behind him. "I am human, Dorothy!" + +The weeks of Rachel's sickness that followed were perhaps the best +discipline Evesham's life had ever known. He held the perfect flower of +his bliss, unclosing in his hand; yet he might barely permit himself to +breathe its fragrance! His mother had been a strong and prosperous +woman; there was little he could ever do for her. It was well for him +to feel the weight of helpless infirmity in his arms, as he lifted +Dorothy's mother from side to side of her bed, while Dorothy's hands +smoothed the coverings. It was well for him to see the patient +endurance of suffering, such as his youth and strength defied. It was +bliss to wait on Dorothy, and follow her with little watchful homages, +received with a shy wonder which was delicious to him,--for Dorothy's +nineteen years had been too full of service to others to leave much +room for dreams of a kingdom of her own. Her silent presence in her +mother's sick-room awed him. Her gentle, decisive voice and ways, her +composure and unshaken endurance through nights of watching and days of +anxious confinement and toil, gave him a new reverence for the +mysteries of her unfathomable womanhood. + +The time of Friend Barton's return drew near. It must be confessed that +Dorothy welcomed it with a little dread, and Evesham did not welcome it +at all. On the contrary, the thought of it roused all his latent +obstinacy and aggressiveness. The first day or two after the momentous +arrival wore a good deal upon every member of the family, except +Margaret Evesham, who was provided with a philosophy of her own, which +amounted almost to a gentle obtuseness, and made her a comfortable +non-conductor, preventing more electric souls from shocking each other. + +On the morning of the fourth day, Dorothy came out of her mother's room +with a tray of empty dishes in her hands. She saw Evesham at the +stair-head and hovered about in the shadowy part of the hall till he +should go down. + +"Dorothy," he said, "I'm waiting for you." He took the tray from her +and rested it on the banisters. "Your father and I have talked over all +the business. He's got the impression I'm one of the most generous +fellows in the world. I intend to let him rest in that delusion for the +present. Now may I speak to him about something else, Dorothy? Have I +not waited long enough for my heart's desire?" + +"Take care!" said Dorothy, softly,--"thee'll upset the tea-cups!" + +"Confound the tea-cups!" He stooped to place the irrelevant tray on the +floor, but now Dorothy was half-way down the staircase. He caught her +on the landing, and taking both her hands, drew her down on the step +beside him. + +"Dorothy, this is the second time you've taken advantage of my +unsuspicious nature! This time you shall be punished! You needn't try +to hide your face, you little traitor! There's no repentance in you!" + +"If I'm to be punished there's no need of repentance." + +"Dorothy, do you know, I've never heard you speak my name, except once, +when you were angry with me." + +"When was that?" + +"The night I caught you at the gate. You said, 'I would rather have one +of those dumb brutes for company than thee, Walter Evesham.' You said +it in the fiercest little voice! Even the 'thee' sounded as if you +hated me." + +"I did," said Dorothy promptly. "I had reason to." + +"Do you hate me now, Dorothy?" + +"Not so much as I did then." + +"What an implacable little Quaker you are!" + +"A tyrant is _always_ hated," said Dorothy, trying to release her +hands. + +"If you will look in my eyes, Dorothy, and call me by my name, just +once,--I'll let 'thee' go." + +"Walter Evesham!" said Dorothy, with great firmness and decision. + +"No! that won't do! You must look at me,--and say it softly,--in a +little sentence, Dorothy!" + +"Will thee please let me go, Walter?" + +Walter Evesham was a man of his word, but as Dorothy sped away, he +looked as if he wished he were not. + +The next evening, Friend Barton sat by his wife's easy-chair, drawn +into the circle of firelight, with his elbows on his knees, and his +head between his hands. + +The worn spot on the top of his head had widened considerably during +the summer, but Rachel looked stronger and brighter than she had for +many a day. There was even a little flush on her cheek, but that might +have come from the excitement of a long talk with her husband. + +"I'm sorry thee takes it so hard, Thomas; I was afraid thee would. But +the way didn't seem to open for me to do much. I can see now, that +Dorothy's inclinations have been turning this way for some time, though +it's not likely she would own it, poor child; and Walter Evesham's not +one who is easily gainsayed. If _thee_ could only feel differently +about it, I can't say but it would make me very happy to see Dorothy's +heart satisfied. Can't thee bring thyself into unity with it, father? +He's a nice young man. They're nice folks. Thee can't complain of the +_blood_. Margaret Evesham tells me a cousin of hers married one of the +Lawrences, so we are kind of kin, after all." + +"I don't complain of the blood; they're well enough placed as far as +the world is concerned! But their ways are not our ways, Rachel! Their +faith is not our faith!" + +"Well! I can't see such a very great difference, come to live among +them! 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' To comfort the widow and +the fatherless, and keep ourselves unspotted from the world!--thee's +always preached that, father! I really can't see any more worldliness +here than among many households with us,--and I'm sure if we haven't +been the widow and the fatherless this summer, we've been next to it!" + +Friend Barton raised his head a little, and rested his forehead on his +clasped hands. + +"Rachel," he said, "look at that!" He pointed upward to an ancient +sword with belt and trappings, which gleamed on the panelled +chimney-piece--crossed by an old queen's arm. Evesham had given up his +large sunny room to Dorothy's mother, but he had not removed all his +lares and penates. + +"Yes, dear; that's his grandfather's sword--Colonel Evesham, who was +killed at Saratoga!" + +"Why does he hang up that thing of abomination for a light and a guide +to his footsteps, if his way be not far from ours?" + +"Why, father! Colonel Evesham was a good man!--I dare say he fought for +the same reason that thee preaches--because he felt it his duty!" + +"I find no fault with _him_, Rachel. Doubtless he followed his light, +as thee says; but he followed it in better ways too. He cleared land +and built a homestead and a meeting-house. Why don't his grandson hang +up his old broad-ax and ploughshare, and worship _them_, if he must +have idols, instead of that symbol of strife and bloodshed. Does thee +want our Dorothy's children to grow up under the shadow of that sword?" + +There was a stern light of prophecy in the old man's eyes. + +"Maybe Walter Evesham would take it down," said Rachel, leaning back +wearily and closing her eyes. "I never was much of a hand to argue, +even if I had the strength for it; but it would hurt me a good deal--I +must say it--if thee denies Dorothy in this matter, Thomas. It's a very +serious thing to have old folks try to turn young hearts the way they +think they ought to go. I remember now,--I was thinking about it last +night, and it all came back as fresh! I don't know that I ever told +thee about that young friend who visited me before I heard thee preach +at Stony Valley? Well! _father, he_ was wonderful pleased with him, but +I didn't feel any drawing that way. He urged me a good deal, more than +was pleasant for either of us. He wasn't at all reconciled to thee, +Thomas, if thee remember." + +"I remember," said Thomas Barton, "it was an anxious time." + +"Well dear, if father _had_ insisted, and sent thee away, I can't say +but life would have been a very different thing to me." + +"I thank thee for saying it, Rachel." Friend Barton's head drooped +between his hands. + +"Thee's suffered much through me; thee's had a hard life, but thee's +been well beloved." + +The flames leaped and flickered in the chimney, they touched the +wrinkled hands, whose only beauty was in their deeds; they crossed the +room and lit the pillows where, for three generations, young heads had +dreamed, and gray heads had watched and suffered; then they mounted to +the chimney and struck a gleam from the sword. + +"Well, father," said Rachel, "what answer is thee going to give Walter +Evesham?" + +"I shall say no more, my dear. Let the young folks have their way. +There's strife and contention enough in the world without my stirring +up more. And it may be I'm resisting the Master's will; I left her in +His care: this may be His way of dealing with her." + +Walter Evesham did not take down his grandfather's sword. Fifty years +later another went up beside it,--the sword of a young Evesham who +never left the field of Shiloh; and beneath them both hangs the +portrait of the Quaker grandmother, Dorothy Evesham, at the age of +sixty-nine. + +The golden ripples, silver now, are hidden under a "round-eared cap," +the quick flush has faded in her cheek, and fold upon fold of snowy +gauze and creamy silk are crossed over the bosom that thrilled to the +fiddles of Slocum's barn. She has found the cool grays and the still +waters; but on Dorothy's children rests the "Shadow of the Sword"! + + + + + +AN INSPIRED LOBBYIST. + +By J. W. DeForest. + +(_Atlantic Monthly, December,_ 1872.) + + +A certain fallen angel (politeness toward his numerous and influential +friends forbids me to mention his name abruptly) lately entered into +the body of Mr. Ananias Pullwool, of Washington, D.C. + +As the said body was a capacious one, having been greatly enlarged +circumferentially since it acquired its full longitude, there was +accommodation in it for both the soul of Pullwool himself (it was a +very little one) and for his distinguished visitant. Indeed, there was +so much room in it that they never crowded each other, and that +Pullwool hardly knew, if he even so much as mistrusted, that there was +a chap in with him. But other people must have been aware of this +double tenantry, or at least must have been shrewdly suspicious of it, +for it soon became quite common to hear fellows say, "Pullwool has got +the Devil in him." + +There was, indeed, a remarkable change--a change not so much moral as +physical and mental--in this gentleman's ways of deporting and behaving +himself. From being logy in movement and slow if not absolutely dull in +mind, he became wonderfully agile and energetic. He had been a +lobbyist, and he remained a lobbyist still, but such a different one, +so much more vigorous, eager, clever, and impudent, that his best +friends (if he could be said to have any friends) scarcely knew him for +the same Pullwool. His fat fingers were in the buttonholes of +Congressmen from the time when they put those buttonholes on in the +morning to the time when they took them off at night. He seemed to be +at one and the same moment treating some honorable member in the +bar-room of the Arlington and running another honorable member to cover +in the committee-rooms of the Capitol. He log-rolled bills which nobody +else believed could be log-rolled, and he pocketed fees which +absolutely and point-blank refused to go into other people's pockets. +During this short period of his life he was the most successful and +famous lobbyist in Washington, and the most sought after by the most +rascally and desperate claimants of unlawful millions. + +But, like many another man who has the Devil in him, Mr. Pullwool ran +his luck until he ran himself into trouble. An investigating committee +pounced upon him; he was put in confinement for refusing to answer +questions; his filchings were held up to the execration of the envious +both by virtuous members and a virtuous press; and when he at last got +out of durance he found it good to quit the District of Columbia for a +season. Thus it happened that Mr. Pullwool and his eminent lodger took +the cars and went to and fro upon the earth seeking what they might +devour. + +In the course of their travels they arrived in a little State, which +may have been Rhode Island, or may have been Connecticut, or may have +been one of the Pleiades, but which at all events had two capitals. +Without regard to Morse's Gazetteer, or to whatever other Gazetteer may +now be in currency, we shall affirm that one of these capitals was +called Slowburg and the other Fastburg. For some hundreds of years (let +us say five hundred, in order to be sure and get it high enough) +Slowburg and Fastburg had shared between them, turn and turn about, +year on and year off, all the gubernatorial and legislative pomps and +emoluments that the said State had to bestow. On the 1st of April of +every odd year the governor, preceded by citizen soldiers, straddling +or curvetting through the mud--the governor, followed by twenty +barouches full of eminent citizens, who were not known to be eminent at +any other time, but who made a rush for a ride on this occasion as +certain old ladies do at funerals--the governor, taking off his hat to +pavements full of citizens of all ages, sizes, and colors, who did not +pretend to be eminent--the governor, catching a fresh cold at every +corner, and wishing the whole thing were passing at the equator,--the +governor triumphantly entered Slowburg,--observe, Slowburg,--read his +always enormously long message there, and convened the legislature +there. On the 1st of April of every even year the same governor, or a +better one who had succeeded him, went through the same ceremonies in +Fastburg. Each of these capitals boasted, or rather blushed over, a +shabby old barn of a State-House, and each of them maintained a company +of foot-guards and ditto of horse-guards, the latter very loose in +their saddles. In each the hotels and boarding-houses had a full year +and a lean year, according as the legislature sat in the one or in the +other. In each there was a loud call for fresh shad and stewed oysters, +or a comparatively feeble call for fresh shad and stewed oysters, under +the same biennial conditions. + +Such was the oscillation of grandeur and power between the two cities. +It was an old-time arrangement, and like many other old-fashioned +things, as for instance wood fires in open fireplaces, it had not only +its substantial merits but its superficial inconveniences. Every year +certain ancient officials were obliged to pack up hundreds of public +documents and expedite them from Fastburg to Slowburg, or from Slowburg +back to Fastburg. Every year there was an expense of a few dollars on +this account, which the State treasurer figured up with agonies of +terror, and which the opposition roared at as if the administration +could have helped it. The State-Houses were two mere deformities of +patched plaster and leprous whitewash; they were such shapeless, +graceless, dilapidated wigwams, that no sensitive patriot could look at +them without wanting to fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; and +yet it was not possible to build new ones, and hardly possible to +obtain appropriations enough to shingle out the weather; for Fastburg +would vote no money to adorn Slowburg, and Slowburg was equally +niggardly toward Fastburg. The same jealousy produced the same +frugality in the management of other public institutions, so that the +patients of the lunatic asylum were not much better lodged and fed than +the average sane citizen, and the gallows-birds in the State's prison +were brought down to a temperance which caused admirers of that species +of fowl to tremble with indignation. In short, the two capitals were as +much at odds as the two poles of a magnet, and the results of this +repulsion were not all of them worthy of hysterical admiration. + +But advantages seesawed with disadvantages. In this double-ender of a +State political jobbery was at fault, because it had no headquarters. +It could not get together a ring; it could not raise a corps of +lobbyists. Such few axe-grinders as there were had to dodge back and +forth between the Fastburg grindstone and the Slowburg grindstone, +without ever fairly getting their tools sharpened. Legislature here and +legislature there; it was like guessing at a pea between two thimbles; +you could hardly ever put your finger on the right one. Then what one +capital favored the other disfavored; and between them appropriations +were kicked and hustled under the table; the grandest of railroad +schemes shrunk into waste-paper baskets; in short, the public treasury +was next door to the unapproachable. Such, indeed, was the desperate +condition of lobbyists in this State, that, had it contained a single +philanthropist of the advanced radical stripe, he would surely have +brought in a bill for their relief and encouragement. + +Into the midst of this happily divided community dropped Mr. Ananias +Pullwool with the Devil in him. It remains to be seen whether this pair +could figure up anything worth pocketing out of the problem of two +capitals. + +It was one of the even years, and the legislature met in Fastburg, and +the little city was brimful. Mr. Pullwool with difficulty found a place +for himself without causing the population to slop over. Of course he +went to a hotel, for he needed to make as many acquaintances as +possible, and he knew that a bar was a perfect hot-house for ripening +such friendships as he cared for. He took the best room he could get; +and as soon as chance favored he took a better one, with parlor +attached; and on the sideboard in the parlor he always had cigars and +decanters. The result was that in a week or so he was on jovial terms +with several senators, numerous members of the lower house, and all the +members of the "third house." But lobbying did not work in Fastburg as +Mr. Pullwool had found it to work in other capitals. He exhibited the +most dazzling double-edged axes, but nobody would grind them; he +pointed out the most attractive and convenient of logs for rolling, but +nobody would put a lever to them. + +"What the doose does this mean?" he at last inquired of Mr. Josiah +Dicker, a member who had smoked dozens of his cigars and drunk quarts +out of his decanters. "I don't understand this little old legislature +at all, Mr. Dicker. Nobody wants to make any money; at least, nobody +has the spirit to try to make any. And yet the State is full; never +been bled a drop; full as a tick. What does it mean?" + +Mr. Dicker looked disconsolate. Perhaps it may be worth a moment's time +to explain that he could not well look otherwise. Broken in fortune and +broken in health, he was a failure and knew it. His large forehead +showed power, and he was in fact a lawyer of some ability; and still he +could not support his family, could not keep a mould of mortgages from +creeping all over his house-lot, and had so many creditors that he +could not walk the streets comfortably. The trouble lay in hard +drinking, with its resultant waste of time, infidelity to trust, and +impatience of application. Thin, haggard, duskily pallid, deeply +wrinkled at forty, his black eyes watery and set in baggy circles of a +dull brown, his lean dark hands shaky and dirty, his linen wrinkled and +buttonless, his clothing frayed and unbrushed, he was an impersonation +of failure. He had gone into the legislature with a desperate hope of +somehow finding money in it, and as yet he had discovered nothing more +than his beggarly three dollars a day, and he felt himself more than +ever a failure. No wonder that he wore an air of profound depression, +approaching to absolute wretchedness and threatening suicide. + +He looked the more cast down by contrast with the successful Mr. +Pullwool, gaudily alight with satin and jewelry, and shining with +conceit. Pullwool, by the way, although a dandy (that is, such a dandy +as one sees in gambling-saloons and behind liquor-bars), was far from +being a thing of beauty. He was so obnoxiously gross and shapeless, +that it seemed as if he did it on purpose and to be irritating. His fat +head was big enough to make a dwarf of, hunchback and all. His mottled +cheeks were vast and pendulous to that degree that they inspired the +imaginative beholder with terror, as reminding him of avalanches and +landslides which might slip their hold at the slightest shock and +plunge downward in a path of destruction. One puffy eyelid drooped in a +sinister way; obviously that was the eye that the Devil had selected +for his own; he kept it well curtained for purposes of concealment. +Looking out of this peep-hole, the Satanic badger could see a short, +thick nose, and by leaning forward a little he could get a glimpse of a +broad chin of several stories. Another unpleasing feature was a full +set of false teeth, which grinned in a ravenous fashion that was truly +disquieting, as if they were capable of devouring the whole internal +revenue. Finally, this continent of physiognomy was diversified by a +gigantic hairy wart, which sprouted defiantly from the temple nearest +the game eye, as though Lucifer had accidentally poked one of his horns +through. Mr. Dicker, who was a sensitive, squeamish man (as drunkards +sometimes are, through bad digestion and shaky nerves), could hardly +endure the sight of this wart, and always wanted to ask Pullwool why he +didn't cut it off. + +"What's the meaning of it all?" persisted the Washington wire-puller, +surveying the Fastburg wire-puller with bland superiority, much as the +city mouse may have surveyed the country mouse. + +"Two capitals," responded Dicker, withdrawing his nervous glance from +the wart, and locking his hands over one knee to quiet their trembling. + +Mr. Pullwool, having the Old Harry in him, and being consequently full +of all malice and subtlety, perceived at once the full scope and force +of the explanation. + +"I see," he said, dropping gently back into his arm-chair, with the +plethoric, soft movement of a subsiding pillow. The puckers of his +cumbrous eyelids drew a little closer together; his bilious eyes peered +out cautiously between them, like sallow assassins watching through +curtained windows; for a minute or so he kept up what might without +hyperbole be called a devil of a thinking. + +"I've got it," he broke out at last. "Dicker, I want you to bring in a +bill to make Fastburg the only capital." + +"What is the use?" asked the legislator, looking more disconsolate, +more hopeless than ever. "Slowburg will oppose it and beat it." + +"Never you mind," persisted Mr. Pullwool. "You bring in your little +bill and stand up for it like a man. There's money in it. You don't see +it? Well, I do; I'm used to seeing money in things; and in this case I +see it plain. As sure as whiskey is whiskey, there's money in it." + +Mr. Pullwool's usually dull and, so to speak, extinct countenance was +fairly alight and aflame with exultation. It was almost a wonder that +his tallowy person did not gutter beneath the blaze, like an over-fat +candle under the flaring of a wick too large for it. + +"Well, I'll bring in the bill," agreed Mr. Dicker, catching the +enthusiasm of his counsellor and shaking off his lethargy. He perceived +a dim promise of fees, and at the sight his load of despondency dropped +away from him, as Christian's burden loosened in presence of the cross. +He looked a little like the confident, resolute Tom Dicker, who twenty +years before had graduated from college the brightest, bravest, most +eloquent fellow in his class, and the one who seemed to have before him +the finest future. + +"Snacks!" said Mr. Pullwool. + +At this brazen word Mr. Dicker's countenance fell again; he was ashamed +to talk so frankly about plundering his fellow-citizens; "a little +grain of conscience turned him sour." + +"I will take pay for whatever I can do as a lawyer," he stammered. + +"Get out!" laughed the Satanic one. "You just take all there is +a-going! You need it bad enough. I know when a man's hard up. I know +the signs. I've been as bad off as you; had to look all ways for five +dollars; had to play second fiddle and say thanky. But what I offer you +ain't a second fiddle. It's as good a chance as my own. Even divides. +One half to you and one half to me. You know the people and I know the +ropes. It's a fair bargain. What do you say?" + +Mr. Dicker thought of his decayed practice and his unpaid bills; and +flipping overboard his little grain of conscience, he said, "Snacks." + +"All right," grinned Pullwool, his teeth gleaming alarmingly. "Word of +a gentleman," he added, extending his pulpy hand, loaded with +ostentatious rings, and grasping Dicker's recoiling fingers. "Harness +up your little bill as quick as you can, and drive it like Jehu. +Fastburg to be the only capital. Slowburg no claims at all, historical, +geographical, or economic. The old arrangement a humbug; as +inconvenient as a fifth wheel of a coach; costs the State thousands of +greenbacks every year. Figure it all up statistically and dab it over +with your shiniest rhetoric and make a big thing of it every way. +That's what you've got to do; that's your little biz. I'll tend to the +rest." + +"I don't quite see where the money is to come from," observed Mr. +Dicker. + +"Leave that to me," said the veteran of the lobbies; "my name is +Pullwool, and I know how to pull the wool over men's eyes, and then I +know how to get at their britches-pockets. You bring in your bill and +make your speech. Will you do it?" + +"Yes," answered Dicker, bolting all scruples in another half tumbler of +brandy. + +He kept his word. As promptly as parliamentary forms and mysteries +would allow, there was a bill under the astonished noses of honorable +lawgivers, removing the seat of legislation from Slowburg and centring +it in Fastburg. This bill Mr. Thomas Dicker supported with that fluency +and fiery enthusiasm of oratory which had for a time enabled him to +show as the foremost man of his State. Great was the excitement, great +the rejoicing and anger. The press of Fastburg sent forth shrieks of +exultation, and the press of Slowburg responded with growlings of +disgust. The two capitals and the two geographical sections which they +represented were ready to fire Parrott guns at each other, without +regard to life and property in the adjoining regions of the earth. If +there was a citizen of the little Commonwealth who did not hear of this +bill and did not talk of it, it was because that citizen was as deaf as +a post and as dumb as an oyster. Ordinary political distinctions were +forgotten, and the old party-whips could not manage their very +wheel-horses, who went snorting and kicking over the traces in all +directions. In short, both in the legislature and out of it, nothing +was thought of but the question of the removal of the capital. + +Among the loudest of the agitators was Mr. Pullwool; not that he cared +one straw whether the capital went to Fastburg, or to Slowburg, or to +Ballyhack; but for the money which he thought he saw in the agitation +he did care mightily, and to get that money he labored with a zeal +which was not of this world alone. At the table of his hotel, and in +the barroom of the same institution, and in the lobbies of the +legislative hall, and in editorial sanctums and barbers' shops, and all +other nooks of gossip, he trumpeted the claims of Fastburg as if that +little city were the New Jerusalem and deserved to be the metropolis of +the sidereal universe. All sorts of trickeries, too; he sent spurious +telegrams and got fictitious items into the newspapers; he lied through +every medium known to the highest civilization. Great surely was his +success, for the row which he raised was tremendous. But a row alone +was not enough; it was the mere breeze upon the surface of the waters; +the treasure-ship below was still to be drawn up and gutted. + +"It will cost money," he whispered confidentially to capitalists and +land-owners. "We must have the sinews of war, or we can't carry it on. +There's your city lots goin' to double in value if this bill goes +through. What per cent will you pay on the advance? That's the +question. Put your hands in your pockets and pull 'em out full, and put +back ten times as much. It's a sure investment; warranted to yield a +hundred per cent; the safest and biggest thing agoing." + +Capitalists and land-owners and merchants hearkened and believed and +subscribed. The slyest old hunks in Fastburg put a faltering forefinger +into his long pocket-book, touched a greenback which had been laid away +there as neatly as a corpse in its coffin, and resurrected it for the +use of Mr. Pullwool. By tens, by twenties, by fifties, and by hundreds +the dollars of the ambitious citizens of the little metropolis were +charmed into the portemonnaie of this rattlesnake of a lobbyist. + +"I never saw a greener set," chuckled Pullwool. "By jiminy, I believe +they'd shell out for a bill to make their town a seaport, if it was a +hundred miles from a drop of water." + +But he was not content with individual subscriptions, and +conscientiously scorned himself until he had got at the city treasury. + +"The corporation must pony up," he insisted, with the mayor. "This bill +is just shaking in the wind for lack of money. Fastburg must come down +with the dust. You ought to see to it. What are you chief magistrate +for? Ain't it to tend to the welfare of the city? Look here, now; you +call the common council together; secret session, you understand. You +call 'em together and let me talk to 'em. I want to make the loons +comprehend that it's their duty to vote something handsome for this +measure." + +The mayor hummed and hawed one way, and then he hawed and hummed the +other way, and the result was that he granted the request. There was a +secret session in the council-room, with his honor at the top of the +long green table, with a row of more or less respectable functionaries +on either side of it, and with Mr. Pullwool and the Devil at the +bottom. Of course it is not to be supposed that this last-named +personage was visible to the others, or that they had more than a vague +suspicion of his presence. Had he fully revealed himself, had he +plainly exhibited his horns and hoofs, or even so much as uncorked his +perfume-bottle of brimstone, it is more than probable that the city +authorities would have been exceedingly scandalized, and they might +have adjourned the session. As it was, seeing nothing more disagreeable +than the obese form of the lobbyist, they listened calmly while he +unfolded his project. + +Mr. Pullwool spoke at length, and to Fastburg ears eloquently. Fastburg +must be the sole capital; it had every claim, historical, geographical, +and commercial, to that distinction; it ought, could, would, and should +be the sole capital; that was about the substance of his exordium. + +"But, gentlemen, it will cost," he went on. "There is an unscrupulous +and furious opposition to the measure. The other side--those fellows +from Slowburg and vicinity--are putting their hands into their +britches-pockets. You must put your hands into yours. The thing will be +worth millions to Fastburg. But it will cost thousands. Are you ready +to fork over? _Are_ you ready?" + +"What's the figure?" asked one of the councilmen. "What do you +estimate?" + +"Gentlemen, I shall astonish _some_ of you," answered Mr. Pullwool, +cunningly. It was well put; it was as much as to say, "I shall astonish +the green ones; of course the really strong heads among you won't be in +the least bothered." "I estimate," he continued, "that the city +treasury will have to put up a good round sum, say a hundred thousand +dollars, be it more or less." + +A murmur of surprise, of chagrin, and of something like indignation ran +along the line of official mustaches. "Nonsense," "The dickens," "Can't +be done," "We can't think of it," broke out several councilmen, in a +distinctly unparliamentary manner. + +"Gentlemen, one moment," pleaded Pullwool, passing his greasy smile +around the company, as though it were some kind of refreshment. "Look +at the whole job; it's a big job. We must have lawyers; we must have +newspapers in all parts of the State; we must have writers to work up +the historical claims of the city; we must have fellows to buttonhole +honorable members; we must have fees for honorable members themselves. +How can you do it for less?" + +Then he showed a schedule; so much to this wire-puller and that and the +other; so much apiece to so many able editors; so much for eminent +legal counsel; finally, a trifle for himself. And one hundred thousand +dollars or thereabouts was what the schedule footed up, turn it +whichever way you would. + +Of course this common council of Fastburg did not dare to vote such a +sum for such a purpose. Mr. Pullwool had not expected that it would; +all that he had hoped for was the half of it; but that half he got. + +"Did they do it?" breathlessly inquired Tom Dicker of him, when he +returned to the hotel. + +"They done it," calmly, yet triumphantly, responded Mr. Pullwool. + +"Thunder!" exclaimed the amazed Dicker. "You are the most extraordinary +man! You must have the very Devil in you!" + +Instead of being startled by this alarming supposition, Mr. Pullwool +looked gratified. People thus possessed generally do look gratified +when the possession is alluded to. + +But the inspired lobbyist did not pass his time in wearing an aspect of +satisfaction. When there was money to get and to spend he could run his +fat off almost as fast as if he were pouring it into candle-moulds. The +ring--the famous capital ring of Fastburg--must be seen to, its fingers +greased, and its energy quickened. Before he rolled his apple-dumpling +of a figure into bed that night he had interviewed Smith and Brown the +editors, Jones and Robinson the lawyers, Smooth and Slow the literary +characters, various lobbyists, and various lawgivers. + +"Work, gentlemen, and capitalize Fastburg and get your dividends," was +his inspiring message to one and all. He promised Smith and Brown ten +dollars for every editorial, and five dollars for every humbugging +telegram, and two dollars for every telling item. Jones and Robinson +were to have five hundred dollars apiece for concurrent legal +statements of the claim of the city; Smooth and Slow, as being merely +authors and so not accustomed to obtain much for their labor, got a +hundred dollars between them for working up the case historically. To +the lobbyists and members Pullwool was munificent; it seemed as if +those gentlemen could not be paid enough for their "influence;" as if +they alone had that kind of time which is money. Only, while dealing +liberally with them, the inspired one did not forget himself. A +thousand for Mr. Sly; yes, Mr. Sly was to receipt for a thousand; but +he must let half of it stick to the Pullwool fingers. The same +arrangement was made with Mr. Green and Mr. Sharp and Mr. Bummer and +Mr. Pickpurse and Mr. Buncombe. It was a game of snacks, half to you +and half to me; and sometimes it was more than snacks,--a thousand for +you two and a thousand for me too. + +With such a greasing of the wheels, you may imagine that the machinery +of the ring worked to a charm. In the city and in the legislature and +throughout the State there was the liveliest buzzing and humming and +clicking of political wheels and cranks and cogs that had ever been +known in those hitherto pastoral localities. The case of Fastburg +against Slowburg was put in a hundred ways, and proved as sure as it +was put. It really seemed to the eager burghers as if they already +heard the clink of hammers on a new State-House and beheld a perpetual +legislature sitting on their fences and curbstones until the edifice +should be finished. The great wire-puller and his gang of stipendiaries +were the objects of popular gratitude and adoration. The landlord of +the hotel which Mr. Pullwool patronized actually would not take pay for +that gentleman's board. + +"No, sir!" declared this simple Boniface, turning crimson with +enthusiasm. "You are going to put thousands of dollars into my purse, +and I'll take nothing out of yours. And any little thing in the way of +cigars and whiskey that you want, sir, why, call for it. It's my treat, +sir." + +"Thank you, sir," kindly smiled the great man. "That's what I call the +square thing. Mr. Boniface, you are a gentleman and a scholar; and I'll +mention your admirable house to my friends. By the way, I shall have to +leave you for a few days." + +"Going to leave us!" exclaimed Mr. Boniface, aghast. "I hope not till +this job is put through." + +"I must run about a bit," muttered Pullwool, confidentially. "A little +turn through the State, you understand, to stir up the country +districts. Some of the members ain't as hot as they should be, and I +want to set their constituents after them. Nothing like getting on a +few deputations." + +"Oh, exactly!" chuckled Mr. Boniface, ramming his hands into his +pockets and cheerfully jingling a bunch of keys and a penknife for lack +of silver. It was strange indeed that he should actually see the Devil +in Mr. Pullwool's eye and should not have a suspicion that he was in +danger of being humbugged by him. "And your rooms?" he suggested. "How +about them?" + +"I keep them," replied the lobbyist, grandly, as if blaspheming the +expense--to Boniface. "Our friends must have a little hole to meet in. +And while you are about it, Mr. Boniface, see that they get something +to drink and smoke; and we'll settle it between us." + +"Pre--cisely!" laughed the landlord, as much as to say, "My treat!" + +And so Mr. Pullwool, that Pericles and Lorenzo de' Medici rolled in +one, departed for a season from the city which he ruled and blessed. +Did he run about the State and preach and crusade in behalf of +Fastburg, and stir up the bucolic populations to stir up their +representatives in its favor? Not a bit of it; the place that he went +to and the only place that he went to was Slowburg; yes, covering up +his tracks in his usual careful style, he made direct for the rival of +Fastburg. What did he propose to do there? Oh, how can we reveal the +whole duplicity and turpitude of Ananias Pullwool? The subject is too +vast for a merely human pen; it requires the literary ability of a +recording angel. Well, we must get our feeble lever under this boulder +of wickedness as we can, and do our faint best to expose all the +reptiles and slimy things beneath it. + +The first person whom this apostle of lobbyism called upon in Slowburg +was the mayor of that tottering capital. + +"My name is Pullwool," he said to the official, and he said it with an +almost enviable ease of impudence, for he was used to introducing +himself to people who despised and detested him. "I want to see you +confidentially about this capital ring which is making so much +trouble." + +"I thought you were in it," replied the mayor, turning very red in the +face, for he had heard of Mr. Pullwool as the leader of said ring; and +being an iracund man, he was ready to knock his head off. + +"In it!" exclaimed the possessed one. "I wish I was. It's a fat thing. +More than fifty thousand dollars paid out already!" + +"Good gracious!" exclaimed the mayor in despair. + +"By the way, this is between ourselves," added Pullwool. "You take it +so, I hope. Word of honor, eh?" + +"Why, if you have anything to communicate that will help us, why, of +course, I promise secrecy," stammered the mayor. "Yes, certainly; word +of honor." + +"Well, I've been looking about among those fellows a little," continued +Ananias. "I've kept my eyes and ears open. It's a way I have. And I've +learned a thing or two that it will be to your advantage to know. Yes, +sir! fifty thousand dollars!--the city has voted it and paid it, and +the ring has got it. That's why they are all working so. And depend +upon it, they'll carry the legislature and turn Slowburg out to grass, +unless you wake up and do something." + +"By heavens!" exclaimed the iracund mayor, turning red again. "It's a +piece of confounded rascality. It ought to be exposed." + +"No, don't expose it," put in Mr. Pullwool, somewhat alarmed. "That +game never works. Of course they'd deny it and swear you down, for +bribing witnesses is as easy as bribing members. I'll tell you what to +do. Beat them at their own weapons. Raise a purse that will swamp +theirs. That's the way the world goes. It's an auction. The highest +bidder gets the article." + +Well, the result of it all was that the city magnates of Slowburg did +just what had been done by the city magnates of Fastburg, only, instead +of voting fifty thousand dollars into the pockets of the ring, they +voted sixty thousand. With a portion of this money about him, and with +authority to draw for the rest on proper vouchers, Mr. Pullwool, his +tongue in his cheek, bade farewell to his new allies. As a further +proof of the ready wit and solid impudence of this sublime politician +and model of American statesmen, let me here introduce a brief +anecdote. Leaving Slowburg by the cars, he encountered a gentleman from +Fastburg, who saluted him with tokens of amazement, and said, "What are +you doing here, Mr. Pullwool?" + +"Oh, just breaking up these fellows a little," whispered the man with +the Devil in him. "They were making too strong a fight. I had to _see_ +some of them," putting one hand behind his back and rubbing his fingers +together, to signify that there had been a taking of bribes. "But be +shady about it. For the sake of the good cause, keep quiet. Mum's the +word." + +The reader can imagine how briskly the fight between the two capitals +reopened when Mr. Pullwool re-entered the lobby. Slowburg now had its +adherents, and they struggled like men who saw money in their warfare, +and they struggled not in vain. To cut a very long story very short, to +sum the whole of an exciting drama in one sentence, the legislature +kicked overboard the bill to make Fastburg the sole seat of government. +Nothing had come of the whole row, except that a pair of simple little +cities had spent over one hundred thousand dollars, and that the +capital ring, fighting on both sides and drawing pay from both sides, +had lined its pockets, while the great creator of the ring had crammed +his to bursting. + +"What does this mean, Mr. Pullwool?" demanded the partially honest and +entirely puzzled Tom Dicker, when he had discovered by an unofficial +count of noses how things were going. "Fastburg has spent all its money +for nothing. It won't be sole capital, after all." + +"I never expected it would be," replied Pullwool, so tickled by the +Devil that was in him that he could not help laughing. "I never wanted +it to be. Why, it would spoil the little game. This is a trick that can +be played every year." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Dicker, and was dumb with astonishment for a +minute. + +"Didn't you see through it before?" grinned the grand master of all +guile and subtlety. + +"I did not," confessed Mr. Dicker, with a mixture of shame and +abhorrence. "Well," he presently added, recovering himself, "shall we +settle?" + +"Oh, certainly, if you are ready," smiled Pullwool, with the air of a +man who has something coming to him. + +"And what, exactly, will be my share?" asked Dicker, humbly. + +"What do you mean?" stared Pullwool, apparently in the extremity of +amazement. + +"You said _snacks_, didn't you?" urged Dicker, trembling violently. + +"Well, _snacks_ it is," replied Pullwool. "Haven't you had a thousand?" + +"Yes," admitted Dicker. + +"Then you owe me five hundred?" + +Mr. Dicker did not faint, though he came very near it, but he staggered +out of the room as white as a sheet, for he was utterly crushed by this +diabolical impudence. + +That very day Mr. Pullwool left for Washington, and the Devil left for +_his_ place, each of them sure to find the other when he wanted him, if +indeed their roads lay apart. + + + + + +LOST IN THE FOG. + +By Noah Brooks. + +(_Overland Monthly, December,_ 1868.) + + +"Down with your helm! you'll have us hard and fast aground!" + +My acquaintance with Captain Booden was at that time somewhat limited, +and if possible I knew less of the difficult and narrow exit from +Bolinas Bay than I did of Captain Booden. So with great trepidation I +jammed the helm hard down, and the obedient little Lively Polly fell +off easily, and we were over the bar and gliding gently along under the +steep bluff of the Mesa, whose rocky edge, rising sheer from the beach +and crowned with dry grass, rose far above the pennon of the little +schooner. I did not intend to deceive Captain Booden, but being anxious +to work my way down to San Francisco, I had shipped as "able seaman" on +the Lively Polly, though it was a long day since I had handled a +foresheet or anything bigger than the little plungers which hover about +Bolinas Bay, and latterly I had been ranching it at Point Reyes, so +what could I know about the bar and the shoals of the harbor, I would +like to know? We had glided out of the narrow channel which is skirted +on one side by a long sandspit that curves around and makes the +southern and western shelter of the bay, and on the other side by a +huge elevated tongue of table-land, called by the inhabitants +thereabouts the Mesa. High, precipitous, perpendicular, level, and +dotted with farm-houses, this singular bit of land stretches several +miles out southward to sea, bordered with a rocky beach, and tapered +off into the wide ocean with Duxbury Reef--a dangerous rocky reef, +curving down to the southward and almost always white with foam, save +when the sea is calm, and then the great lazy green waves eddy +noiselessly over the half-hidden rocks, or slip like oil over the +dreadful dangers which they hide. + +Behind us was the lovely bay of Bolinas, blue and sparkling in the +summer afternoon sun, its borders dotted with thrifty ranches, and the +woody ravines and bristling Tamalpais Range rising over all. The tide +was running out, and only a peaceful swash whispered along the level +sandy beach on our left, where the busy sandpiper chased the playful +wave as it softly rose and fell along the shore. On the higher centre +of the sandspit which shuts in the bay on that side, a row of +ashy-colored gulls sunned themselves, and blinked at us sleepily as we +drifted slowly out of the channel, our breeze cut off by the Mesa that +hemmed us in on the right. I have told you that I did not much pretend +to seamanship, but I was not sorry that I had taken passage on the +Lively Polly, for there is always something novel and fascinating to me +in coasting a region which I have heretofore known only by its hills, +canons, and sea-beaches. The trip is usually made from Bolinas Bay to +San Francisco in five or six hours, when wind and tide favor; and I +could bear being knocked about by Captain Booden for that length of +time, especially as there was one other hand on board--"Lanky" he was +called--but whether a foremast hand or landsman I do not know. He had +been teaching school at Jaybird Canon, and was a little more awkward +with the running rigging of the Lively Polly than I was. Captain Booden +was, therefore, the main reliance of the little twenty-ton schooner, +and if her deck-load of firewood and cargo of butter and eggs ever +reached a market, the skilful and profane skipper should have all the +credit thereof. + +The wind died away, and the sea, before ruffled with a wholesale +breeze, grew as calm as a sheet of billowy glass, heaving only in long, +gentle undulations on which the sinking sun bestowed a green and golden +glory, dimmed only by the white fog-bank that came drifting slowly up +from the Farralones, now shut out from view by the lovely haze. Captain +Booden gazed morosely on the western horizon, and swore by a big round +oath that we should not have a capful of wind if that fog-bank did not +lift. But we were fairly out of the bay; the Mesa was lessening in the +distance, and as we drifted slowly southward the red-roofed buildings +on its level rim grew to look like toy-houses, and we heard the dull +moan of the ebb-tide on Duxbury Reef on our starboard bow. The sea grew +dead calm and the wind fell quite away, but still we drifted southward, +passing Rocky Point and peering curiously into Pilot Boat Cove, which +looked so strangely unfamiliar to me from the sea, though I had fished +in its trout-brooks many a day, and had hauled driftwood from the rocky +beach to Johnson's ranch in times gone by. The tide turned after +sundown, and Captain Booden thought we ought to get a bit of wind then; +but it did not come, and the fog crept up and up the glassy sea, +rolling in huge wreaths of mist, shutting out the surface of the water, +and finally the gray rocks of North Heads were hidden, and little by +little the shore was curtained from our view and we were becalmed in +the fog. + +To say that the skipper swore would hardly describe his case. He cursed +his luck, his stars, his foretop, his main hatch, his blasted +foolishness, his lubberly crew--Lanky and I--and a variety of other +persons and things; but all to no avail. Night came on, and the light +on North Heads gleamed at us with a sickly eye through the deepening +fog. We had a bit of luncheon with us, but no fire, and were fain to +content ourselves with cold meat, bread, and water, hoping that a warm +breakfast in San Francisco would make some amends for our present short +rations. But the night wore on, and we were still tumbling about in the +rising sea without wind enough to fill our sails, a rayless sky +overhead, and with breakers continually under our lee. Once we saw +lights on shore, and heard the sullen thud of rollers that smote +against the rocks; it was aggravating, as the fog lifted for a space, +to see the cheerful windows of the Cliff House, and almost hear the +merry calls of pleasure-seekers as they muffled themselves in their +wraps and drove gayly up the hill, reckless of the poor homeless +mariners who were drifting comfortlessly about so near the shore they +could not reach. We got out the sweeps and rowed lustily for several +hours, steering by the compass and taking our bearings from the cliff. + +But we lost our bearings in the maze of currents in which we soon found +ourselves, and the dim shore melted away in the thickening fog. To add +to our difficulties, Captain Booden put his head most frequently into +the cuddy; and when it emerged, he smelt dreadfully of gin. Lanky and I +held a secret council, in which we agreed, in case he became +intoxicated, we would rise up in mutiny and work the vessel on our own +account. He shortly "lost his head," as Lanky phrased it; and slipping +down on the deck, went quietly into the sleep of the gin-drunken. At +four o'clock in the morning the gray fog grew grayer with the early +dawning; and as I gazed with weary eyes into the vague unknown that +shut us in, Booden roused him from his booze, and seizing the tiller +from my hand, bawled: "'Bout ship, you swab! we're on the Farralones!" +And sure enough, there loomed right under our starboard quarter a group +of conical rocks, steeply rising from the restless blue sea. Their wild +white sides were crowded with chattering sea-fowl; and far above, like +a faint nimbus in the sky, shone the feeble rays of the lighthouse +lantern, now almost quenched by the dull gleam of day that crept up +from the water. The helm was jammed hard down. There was no time to get +out sweeps; but still drifting helplessly, we barely grazed the bare +rocks of the islet, and swung clear, slinking once more into the gloom. + +Our scanty stock of provisions and water was gone; but there was no +danger of starvation, for the generous product of the henneries and +dairies of Bolinas filled the vessel's hold--albeit raw eggs and butter +without bread might only serve as a barrier against famine. So we +drifted and tumbled about--still no wind and no sign of the lifting of +the fog. Once in awhile it would roll upward and show a long, flat +expanse of water, tempting us to believe that the blessed sky was +coming out at last; but soon the veil fell again, and we aimlessly +wondered where we were and whither we were drifting. There is something +awful and mysterious in the shadowy nothingness that surrounds one in a +fog at sea. You fancy that out of that impenetrable mist may suddenly +burst some great disaster or danger. Strange shapes appear to be +forming themselves in the obscurity out of which they emerge, and the +eye is wearied beyond expression with looking into a vacuity which +continually promises to evolve into something, but never does. + +Thus idly drifting, we heard, first, the creaking of a block, then a +faint wash of sea; and out of the white depths of the fog came the +bulky hull of a full-rigged ship. Her sails were set, but she made +scarcely steerage way. Her rusty sides and general look bespoke a long +voyage just concluding; and we found on hailing her that she was the +British ship Marathon, from Calcutta for San Francisco. We boarded the +Marathon, though almost in sight of our own port, with something of the +feeling that shipwrecked seamen may have when they reach land. It was +odd that we, lost and wandering as we were, should be thus encountered +in the vast unknown where we were drifting by a strange ship; and +though scarcely two hours' sail from home, should be supplied with +bread and water by a Britisher from the Indies. We gave them all the +information we had about the pilots, whom we wanted so much to meet +ourselves; and after following slowly for a few hours by the huge side +of our strange friend, parted company--the black hull and huge spars of +the Indiaman gradually lessening in the mist that shut her from our +view. We had touched a chord that bound us to our fellow-men but it was +drawn from our hands, and the unfathomable abyss in which we floated +had swallowed up each human trace, except what was comprised on the +contracted deck of the Lively Polly, where Captain Booden sat glumly +whittling, and Lanky meditatively peered after the disappeared +Marathon, as though his soul and all his hopes had gone with her. The +deck, with its load of cord-wood; the sails and rigging; the +sliding-hutch of the little cuddy; and all the features of the Lively +Polly, but yesterday so unfamiliar, were now as odiously wearisome as +though I had known them for a century. It seemed as if I had never +known any other place. + +All that day we floated aimlessly along, moved only by the sluggish +currents, which shifted occasionally, but generally bore us westward +and southward; not a breath of wind arose, and our sails were as +useless as though we had been on dry land. Night came on again, and +found us still entirely without reckoning and as completely "at sea" as +ever before. To add to our discomfort, a drizzling rain, unusual for +the season of the year, set in, and we cowered on the wet deck-load, +more than ever disgusted with each other and the world. During the +night a big ocean steamer came plunging and crashing through the +darkness, her lights gleaming redly through the dense medium as she +cautiously felt her way past us, falling off a few points as she heard +our hail. We lay right in her path, but with tin horns and a wild +Indian yell from the versatile Lanky managed to make ourselves heard, +and the mysterious stranger disappeared in the fog as suddenly as she +had come, and we were once more alone in the darkness. + +The night wore slowly away, and we made out to catch a few hours' +sleep, standing "watch and watch" with each other of our slender crew. +Day dawned again, and we broke our fast with the last of the Marathon's +biscuit, having "broken cargo" to eke out our cold repast with some of +the Bolinas butter and eggs which we were taking to a most unexpected +market. + +Suddenly, about six o'clock in the morning, we heard the sound of +breakers ahead, and above the sullen roar of the surf I distinctly +heard the tinklings of a bell. We got out our sweeps and had commenced +to row wearily once more, when the fog lifted and before us lay the +blessed land. A high range of sparsely wooded hills, crowned with rocky +ledges, and with abrupt slopes covered with dry brown grass, running to +the water's edge, formed the background of the picture. Nearer, a +tongue of high land, brushy and rocky, made out from the main shore, +and curving southward, formed a shelter to what seemed a harbor within. +Against the precipitous point the sea broke with a heavy blow, and a +few ugly peaks of rock lifted their heads above the heaving green of +the sea. High up above the sky-line rose one tall, sharp, blue peak, +yet veiled in the floating mist, but its base melted away into a mass +of verdure that stretched from the shore far up the mountain-side. Our +sweeps were now used to bring us around the point, and cautiously +pulling in, we opened a lovely bay bordered with orchards and +vineyards, in the midst of which was a neat village, glittering white +in the sunshine, and clustered around an old-fashioned mission church, +whose quaint gable and tower reminded us of the buildings of the early +Spanish settlers of the country. As we neared the shore (there was no +landing-place) we could see an unwonted commotion in the clean streets, +and a flag was run up to the top of a white staff that stood in the +midst of a plaza. Captain Booden returned the compliment by hoisting +the Stars and Stripes at our mainmast head, but was sorely bothered +with the mingled dyes of the flag on shore. A puff of air blew out its +folds, and to our surprise disclosed the Mexican national standard. + +"Blast them greasers," said the patriotic skipper, "if they ain't gone +and histed a Mexican cactus flag, then I'm blowed." He seriously +thought of hauling down his beloved national colors again, resenting +the insult of hoisting a foreign flag on American soil. He pocketed the +affront, however, remarking that "they probably knew that a Bolinas +butter-boat was not much of a fightist anyway." + +We dropped anchor gladly, Captain Booden being wholly at a loss as to +our whereabouts. We judged that we were somewhere south of the Golden +Gate, but what town this was that slept so tranquilly in the summer +sun, and what hills were these that walled in the peaceful scene from +the rest of the world, we could not tell. The village seemed awakening +from its serene sleepiness, and one by one the windows of the adobe +cottages swung open as if the people rubbed their long-closed eyes at +some unwonted sight; and the doors gradually opened as though their +dumb lips would hail us and ask who were these strangers that vexed the +quiet waters of their bay. But two small fishing-boats lay at anchor, +and these Booden said reminded him of Christopher Columbus or Noah's +Ark, they were so clumsy and antique in build. + +We hauled our boat up alongside, and all hands got in and went ashore. +As we landed, a little shudder seemed to go through the sleepy old +place, as if it had been rudely disturbed from its comfortable nap, and +a sudden sob of sea air swept through the quiet streets as though the +insensate houses had actually breathed the weary sigh of awaking. The +buildings were low and white, with dark-skinned children basking in the +doors, and grass hammocks swinging beneath open verandas. There were no +stores, no sign of business, and no sound of vehicles or labor; all was +as decorous and quiet, to use the skipper's description, "as if the +people had slicked up their door-yards, whitewashed their houses, and +gone to bed." It was just like a New England Sabbath in a Mexican +village. + +And this fancy was further colored by a strange procession which now +met us as we went up from the narrow beach, having first made fast our +boat. A lean Mexican priest, with an enormous shovel hat and +particularly shabby cassock, came toward us, followed by a motley crowd +of Mexicans, prominent among whom was a pompous old man clad in a seedy +Mexican uniform and wearing a trailing rapier at his side. The rest of +the procession was brought up with a crowd of shy women, dark-eyed and +tawny and all poorly clad, though otherwise comfortable enough in +condition. These hung back and wonderingly looked at the strange faces, +as though they had never seen the like before. The old padre lifted his +skinny hands, and said something in Spanish which I did not understand. + +"Why, the old mummy is slinging his popish blessings at us!" This was +Lanky's interpretation of the kindly priest's paternal salutation. And, +sure enough, he was welcoming us to the shore of San Ildefonso with +holy fervor and religious phrase. + +"I say," said Booden, a little testily, "what did you say was the name +of this place, and where away does it lay from 'Frisco?" In very choice +Castilian, as Lanky declared, the priest rejoined that he did not +understand the language in which Booden was speaking. "Then bring on +somebody that does," rejoined that irreverent mariner, when due +interpretation had been made. The padre protested that no one in the +village understood the English tongue. The skipper gave a long low +whistle of suppressed astonishment, and wondered if we had drifted down +to Lower California in two days and nights, and had struck a Mexican +settlement. The colors on the flagstaff and the absence of any +Americans gave some show of reason to this startling conclusion; and +Lanky, who was now the interpreter of the party, asked the name of the +place, and was again told that it was San Ildefonso; but when he asked +what country it was in and how far it was to San Francisco, he was met +with a polite "I do not understand you, Senor." Here was a puzzle: +becalmed in a strange port only two days drift from the city of San +Francisco; a town which the schoolmaster declared was not laid down on +any map; a population that spoke only Spanish and did not know English +when they heard it; a Mexican flag flying over the town, and an +educated priest who did not know what we meant when we asked how far it +was to San Francisco. Were we bewitched? + +Accepting a hospitable invitation from the padre, we sauntered up to +the plaza, where we were ushered into a long, low room, which might +once have been a military barrack-room. It was neatly whitewashed and +had a hard clay floor, and along the walls were a few ancient firelocks +and a venerable picture of "His Excellency, General Santa Ana, +President of the Republic of Mexico," as a legend beneath it set forth. +Breakfast of chickens, vegetables, bread, and an excellent sort of +country wine (this last being served in a big earthen bottle) was +served up to us on the long unpainted table that stood in the middle of +the room. During the repast our host, the priest, sat with folded hands +intently regarding us, while the rest of the people clustered around +the door and open windows, eying us with indescribable and +incomprehensible curiosity. If we had been visitors from the moon we +could not have attracted more attention. Even the stolid Indians, a few +of whom strolled lazily about, came and gazed at us until the pompous +old man in faded Mexican uniform drove them noisily away from the +window, where they shut out the light and the pleasant morning air, +perfumed with heliotropes, verbenas, and sweet herbs that grew +luxuriantly about the houses. + +The padre had restrained his curiosity out of rigid politeness until we +had eaten, when he began by asking, "Did our galleon come from Manila?" +We told him that we only came from Bolinas; whereat he said once more, +with a puzzled look of pain, "I do not understand you, Senor." Then +pointing through the open doorway to where the Lively Polly peacefully +floated at anchor, he asked what ensign was that which floated at her +masthead. Lanky proudly, but with some astonishment, replied: "That's +the American flag, Senor." At this the seedy old man in uniform eagerly +said: "Americanos! Americanos! why, I saw some of those people and that +flag at Monterey." Lanky asked him if Monterey was not full of +Americans, and did not have plenty of flags. The Ancient replied that +he did not know; it was a long time since he had been there. Lanky +observed that perhaps he had never been there. "I was there in 1835," +said the Ancient. This curious speech being interpreted to Captain +Booden, that worthy remarked that he did not believe that he had seen a +white man since. + +After an ineffectual effort to explain to the company where Bolinas +was, we rose and went out for a view of the town. It was beautifully +situated on a gentle rise which swelled up from the water's edge and +fell rapidly off in the rear of the town into a deep ravine, where a +brawling mountain stream supplied a little flouring-mill with motive +power. Beyond the ravine were small fields of grain, beans and lentils +on the rolling slopes, and back of these rose the dark, dense +vegetation of low hills, while over all were the rough and ragged +ridges of mountains closing in all the scene. The town itself, as I +have said, was white and clean; the houses were low-browed, with +windows secured by wooden shutters, only a few glazed sashes being seen +anywhere. Out of these openings in the thick adobe walls of the humble +homes of the villagers flashed the curious, the abashed glances of many +a dark-eyed senorita, who fled, laughing, as we approached. The old +church was on the plaza, and in its odd-shaped turret tinkled the +little bell whose notes had sounded the morning angelus when we were +knocking about in the fog outside. High up on its quaintly arched gable +was inscribed in antique letters "1796." In reply to a sceptical remark +from Lanky, Booden declared that "the old shell looked as though it +might have been built in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, for that +matter." The worthy skipper had a misty idea that all old Spanish +buildings were built in the days of these famous sovereigns. + +Hearing the names of Ferdinand and Isabella, the padre gravely and +reverentially asked: "And is the health of His Excellency, General +Santa Ana, whom God protect, still continued to him?" + +With great amazement, Lanky replied: "Santa Ana! why, the last heard of +him was that he was keeping a cockpit in Havana; some of the newspapers +published an obituary of him about six months ago, but I believe he is +alive yet somewhere." + +A little flush of indignation mantled the old man's cheek, and with a +tinge of severity in his voice he said: "I have heard that shameful +scandal about our noble President once before, but you must excuse me +if I ask you not to repeat it. It is true he took away our Pious Fund +some years since, but he is still our revered President, and I would +not hear him ill-spoken of any more than our puissant and mighty +Ferdinand, of whom you just spoke--may he rest in glory!" and here the +good priest crossed himself devoutly. + +"What is the old priest jabbering about?" asked Captain Booden, +impatiently; for he was in haste to "get his bearings" and be off. When +Lanky replied, he burst out: "Tell him that Santa Ana is not President +of Mexico any more than I am, and that he hasn't amounted to a row of +pins since California was part of the United States." + +Lanky faithfully interpreted this fling at the ex-President, whereupon +the padre, motioning to the Ancient to put up his rapier, which had +leaped out of its rusty scabbard, said: "Nay, Senor, you would insult +an old man. We have never been told yet by our government that the +Province of California was alienated from the great Republic of Mexico, +and we owe allegiance to none save the nation whose flag we love so +well;" and the old man turned his tear-dimmed eyes toward the ragged +standard of Mexico that drooped from the staff in the plaza. +Continuing, he said: "Our noble country has strangely forgotten us, and +though we watch the harbor-entrance year after year, no tidings ever +comes. The galleon that was to bring us stores has never been seen on +the horizon yet, and we seem lost in the fog." + +The schoolmaster of Jaybird Canon managed to tell us what the priest +had said, and then asked when he had last heard of the outside world. +"It was in 1837," said he, sadly, "when we sent a courier to the +Mission del Carmelo, at Monterey, for tidings from New Spain. He never +came back, and the great earthquake which shook the country hereabout +opened a huge chasm across the country just back of the Sierra yonder, +and none dared to cross over to the main land. The saints have defended +us in peace, and it is the will of Heaven that we shall stay here by +ourselves until the Holy Virgin, in answer to our prayers, shall send +us deliverance." + +Here was a new revelation. This was an old Spanish Catholic mission, +settled in 1796, called San Ildefonso, which had evidently been +overlooked for nearly forty years, and had quietly slept in an unknown +solitude while the country had been transferred to the United States +from the flag that still idly waved over it. Lost in the fog! Here was +a whole town lost in a fog of years. Empires and dynasties had risen +and fallen; the world had repeatedly been shaken to its centre, and +this people had heeded it not; a great civil war had ravaged the +country to which they now belonged, and they knew not of it; poor +Mexico herself had been torn with dissensions and had been insulted +with an empire, and these peaceful and weary watchers for tidings from +"New Spain" had recked nothing of all these things. All around them the +busy State of California was scarred with the eager pick of +gold-seekers or the shining share of the husbandman; towns and cities +had sprung up where these patriarchs had only known of vast cattle +ranges or sleepy missions of the Roman Catholic Fathers. They knew +nothing of the great city of San Francisco, with its busy marts and +crowded harbor; and thought of its broad bay--if they thought of it at +all--as the lovely shore of Yerba Buena, bounded by bleak hills and +almost unvexed by any keel. The political storms of forty years had +gone hurtless over their heads, and in a certain sort of dreamless +sleep San Ildefonso had still remained true to the red, white, and +green flag that had long since disappeared from every part of the State +save here, where it was still loved and revered as the banner of the +soil. + +The social and political framework of the town had been kept up through +all these years. There had been no connection with the fountain of +political power, but the town was ruled by the legally elected +Ayuntamiento, or Common Council, of which the Ancient, Senor Apolonario +Maldonado, was President or Alcade. They were daily looking for advices +from Don Jose Castro, Governor of the loyal province of California; and +so they had been looking daily for forty years. We asked if they had +not heard from any of the prying Yankees who crowd the country. Father +Ignacio--for that was the padre's name--replied: "Yes; five years ago, +when the winter rains had just set in, a tall, spare man, who talked +some French and some Spanish, came down over the mountains with a pack +containing pocket-knives, razors, soap, perfumery, laces, and other +curious wares, and besought our people to purchase. We have not much +coin, but were disposed to treat him Christianly, until he did declare +that President General Santa Ana, whom may the saints defend! was a +thief and gambler, and had gambled away the Province of California to +the United States; whereupon we drave him hence, the Ayuntamiento +sending a trusty guard to see him two leagues from the borders of the +Pueblo. But months after, we discovered his pack and such of his poor +bones as the wild beasts of prey had not carried off, at the base of a +precipice where he had fallen. His few remains and his goods were +together buried on the mountain-side, and I lamented that we had been +so hard with him. But the saints forbid that he should go back and tell +where the people of San Ildefonso were waiting to hear from their own +neglectful country, which may Heaven defend, bless, and prosper." + +The little town took on a new interest to us cold outsiders after +hearing its strange and almost improbable story. We could have scarcely +believed that San Ildefonso had actually been overlooked in the +transfer of the country from Mexico to the United States, and had for +nearly forty years been hidden away between the Sierra and the sea; but +if we were disposed to doubt the word of the good father, here was +intrinsic evidence of the truth of his narrative. There were no +Americans here: only the remnants of the old Mexican occupation and the +civilized Indians. No traces of later civilization could be found; but +the simple dresses, tools, implements of husbandry, and household +utensils were such as I have seen in the half-civilized wilds of +Central America. The old mill in the canon behind the town was a +curiosity of clumsiness, and nine-tenths of the water-power of the +arroya that supplied it were wasted. Besides, until now, who ever heard +of such a town in California as San Ildefonso? Upon what map can any +such headland and bay be traced? and where are the historic records of +the pueblo whose well-defined boundaries lay palpably before us? I have +dwelt upon this point, about which I naturally have some feeling, +because of the sceptical criticism which my narrative has since +provoked. There are some people in the world who never will believe +anything that they have not seen, touched, or tasted for themselves; +California has her share of such. + +Captain Booden was disposed to reject Father Ignacio's story, until I +called his attention to the fact that this was a tolerable harbor for +small craft, and yet had never before been heard of; that he never knew +of such a town, and that if any of his numerous associates in the +marine profession knew of the town or harbor of San Ildefonso, he +surely would have heard of it from them. He restrained his impatience +to be off long enough to allow Father Ignacio to gather from us a few +chapters of the world's history for forty years past. The discovery of +gold in California, the settlement of the country and the Pacific +Railroad were not so much account to him, somehow, as the condition of +Europe, the Church of Mexico, and what had become of the Pious Fund; +this last I discovered had been a worrisome subject to the good Father. +I did not know what it was myself, but I believe it was the alienation +from the church of certain moneys and incomes which were transferred to +speculators by the Mexican Congress, years and years ago. + +I was glad to find that we were more readily believed by Father Ignacio +and the old Don than our Yankee predecessor had been; perhaps we were +believed more on his corroborative evidence. The priest, however, +politely declined to believe all we said--that was evident; and the Don +steadily refused to believe that California had been transferred to the +United States. It was a little touching to see Father Ignacio's doubt +and hopes struggle in his withered face as he heard in a few brief +sentences the history of his beloved land and Church for forty years +past. His eye kindled or it was bedewed with tears as he listened, and +an occasional flash of resentment flushed his cheek when he heard +something that shook his ancient faith in the established order of +things. To a proposition to take a passage with us to San Francisco, he +replied warmly that he would on no account leave his flock, nor attempt +to thwart the manifest will of Heaven that the town should remain +unheard of until delivered from its long sleep by the same agencies +that had cut it off from the rest of the world. Neither would he allow +any of the people to come with us. + +And so we parted. We went out with the turn of the tide, Father Ignacio +and the Ancient accompanying us to the beach, followed by a crowd of +the townsfolk, who carried for us water and provisions for a longer +voyage than ours promised to be. The venerable priest raised his hands +in parting blessing as we shoved off, and I saw two big tears roll down +the furrowed face of Senor Maldonado, who looked after us as a stalwart +old warrior might look at the departure of a band of hopeful comrades +leaving him to fret in monkish solitude while they were off to the wars +again. Wind and tide served, and in a few minutes the Lively Polly +rounded the point, and looking back, I saw the yellow haze of the +afternoon sun sifted sleepily over all the place; the knots of +white-clad people standing statuesque and motionless as they gazed; the +flag of Mexico faintly waving in the air; and with a sigh of relief +slumbrous veil seemed to fall over all the scene; and as our boat met +the roll of the current outside the headland, the gray rocks of the +point shut out the fading view, and we saw the last of San Ildefonso. + +Captain Booden had gathered enough from the people to know that we were +somewhere south of San Francisco (the Lively Polly had no chart or +nautical instruments on board of course), and so he determined to coast +cautiously along northward, marking the shore line in order to be able +to guide other navigators to the harbor. But a light mist crept down +the coast, shutting out the view of the headlands, and by midnight we +had stretched out to sea again, and we were once more out of our +reckoning. At daybreak, however, the fog lifted, and we found ourselves +in sight of land, and a brisk breeze blowing, we soon made Pigeon +Point, and before noon were inside the Golden Gate, and ended our long +and adventurous cruise from Bolinas Bay by hauling into the wharf of +San Francisco. + +I have little left to tell. Of the shameful way in which our report was +received, every newspaper reader knows. At first there were some +persons, men of science and reading, who were disposed to believe what +we said. I printed in one of the daily newspapers an account of what we +had discovered, giving a full history of San Ildefonso as Father +Ignacio had given it to us. Of course, as I find is usual in such +cases, the other newspapers pooh-poohed the story their contemporary +had published to their exclusion, and made themselves very merry over +what they were pleased to term "The Great San Ildefonso Sell." I +prevailed on Captain Booden to make a short voyage down the coast in +search of the lost port. But we never saw the headland, the ridge +beyond the town, nor anything that looked like these landmarks, though +we went down as far as San Pedro Bay and back twice or three times. It +actually did seem that the whole locality had been swallowed up, or had +vanished into air. In vain did I bring the matter to the notice of the +merchants and scientific men of San Francisco. Nobody would fit out an +exploring expedition by land or sea; those who listened at first +finally inquired "if there was any money in it?" I could not give an +affirmative answer, and they turned away with the discouraging remark +that the California Academy of Natural Science and the Society of +Pioneers were the only bodies interested in the fate of our lost city. +Even Captain Booden somehow lost all interest in the enterprise, and +returned to his Bolinas coasting with the most stolid indifference. I +combated the attacks of the newspapers with facts and depositions of my +fellow-voyagers as long as I could, until one day the editor of the +Daily Trumpeter (I suppress the real name of the sheet) coldly told me +that the public were tired of the story of San Ildefonso. It was plain +that his mind had been soured by the sarcasms of his contemporaries, +and he no longer believed in me. + +The newspaper controversy died away and was forgotten, but I have never +relinquished the hope of proving the verity of my statements. At one +time I expected to establish the truth, having heard that one Zedekiah +Murch had known a Yankee peddler who had gone over the mountains of +Santa Cruz and never was heard of more. But Zedekiah's memory was +feeble, and he only knew that such a story prevailed long ago; so that +clue was soon lost again, and the little fire of enthusiasm which it +had kindled among a few persons died out. I have not yet lost all hope; +and when I think of the regretful conviction that will force itself +upon the mind of good Father Ignacio, that we were, after all, +impostors, I cannot bear to reflect that I may die and visit the lost +town of San Ildefonso no more. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories by American Authors (Volume 4), by +Constance Fenimore Woolson and H. C. Bunner and N. P. Willis and Mary Hallock Foote and J. W. De Forest + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY AMERICAN AUTHORS *** + +***** This file should be named 22401.txt or 22401.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/4/0/22401/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |