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diff --git a/2295-0.txt b/2295-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..302e05c --- /dev/null +++ b/2295-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3702 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Waifs and Strays, by O. Henry + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Waifs and Strays + +Author: O. Henry + +Release Date: August, 2000 [eBook #2295] +[Most recently updated: October 30, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Earle C. Beach. HTML version by Al Haines + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAIFS AND STRAYS *** + + + + +Waifs and Strays + +by O. Henry + + +Contents + + PART I—TWELVE STORIES + The Red Roses of Tonia + Round The Circle + The Rubber Plant’s Story + Out of Nazareth + Confessions of a Humorist + The Sparrows in Madison Square + Hearts and Hands + The Cactus + The Detective Detector + The Dog and the Playlet + A Little Talk About Mobs + The Snow Man + + + + +THE RED ROSES OF TONIA + + +A trestle burned down on the International Railroad. The south-bound +from San Antonio was cut off for the next forty-eight hours. On that +train was Tonia Weaver’s Easter hat. + +Espirition, the Mexican, who had been sent forty miles in a buckboard +from the Espinosa Ranch to fetch it, returned with a shrugging shoulder +and hands empty except for a cigarette. At the small station, Nopal, he +had learned of the delayed train and, having no commands to wait, +turned his ponies toward the ranch again. + +Now, if one supposes that Easter, the Goddess of Spring, cares any more +for the after-church parade on Fifth Avenue than she does for her loyal +outfit of subjects that assemble at the meeting-house at Cactus, Tex., +a mistake has been made. The wives and daughters of the ranchmen of the +Frio country put forth Easter blossoms of new hats and gowns as +faithfully as is done anywhere, and the Southwest is, for one day, a +mingling of prickly pear, Paris, and paradise. And now it was Good +Friday, and Tonia Weaver’s Easter hat blushed unseen in the desert air +of an impotent express car, beyond the burned trestle. On Saturday noon +the Rogers girls, from the Shoestring Ranch, and Ella Reeves, from the +Anchor-O, and Mrs. Bennet and Ida, from Green Valley, would convene at +the Espinosa and pick up Tonia. With their Easter hats and frocks +carefully wrapped and bundled against the dust, the fair aggregation +would then merrily jog the ten miles to Cactus, where on the morrow +they would array themselves, subjugate man, do homage to Easter, and +cause jealous agitation among the lilies of the field. + +Tonia sat on the steps of the Espinosa ranch house flicking gloomily +with a quirt at a tuft of curly mesquite. She displayed a frown and a +contumelious lip, and endeavored to radiate an aura of disagreeableness +and tragedy. + +“I hate railroads,” she announced positively. “And men. Men pretend to +run them. Can you give any excuse why a trestle should burn? Ida +Bennet’s hat is to be trimmed with violets. I shall not go one step +toward Cactus without a new hat. If I were a man I would get one.” + +Two men listened uneasily to this disparagement of their kind. One was +Wells Pearson, foreman of the Mucho Calor cattle ranch. The other was +Thompson Burrows, the prosperous sheepman from the Quintana Valley. +Both thought Tonia Weaver adorable, especially when she railed at +railroads and menaced men. Either would have given up his epidermis to +make for her an Easter hat more cheerfully than the ostrich gives up +his tip or the aigrette lays down its life. Neither possessed the +ingenuity to conceive a means of supplying the sad deficiency against +the coming Sabbath. Pearson’s deep brown face and sunburned light hair +gave him the appearance of a schoolboy seized by one of youth’s +profound and insolvable melancholies. Tonia’s plight grieved him +through and through. Thompson Burrows was the more skilled and pliable. +He hailed from somewhere in the East originally; and he wore neckties +and shoes, and was made dumb by woman’s presence. + +“The big water-hole on Sandy Creek,” said Pearson, scarcely hoping to +make a hit, “was filled up by that last rain.” + +“Oh! Was it?” said Tonia sharply. “Thank you for the information. I +suppose a new hat is nothing to you, Mr. Pearson. I suppose you think a +woman ought to wear an old Stetson five years without a change, as you +do. If your old water-hole could have put out the fire on that trestle +you might have some reason to talk about it.” + +“I am deeply sorry,” said Burrows, warned by Pearson’s fate, “that you +failed to receive your hat, Miss Weaver—deeply sorry, indeed. If there +was anything I could do—” + +“Don’t bother,” interrupted Tonia, with sweet sarcasm. “If there was +anything you could do, you’d be doing it, of course. There isn’t.” + +Tonia paused. A sudden sparkle of hope had come into her eye. Her frown +smoothed away. She had an inspiration. + +“There’s a store over at Lone Elm Crossing on the Nueces,” she said, +“that keeps hats. Eva Rogers got hers there. She said it was the latest +style. It might have some left. But it’s twenty-eight miles to Lone +Elm.” + +The spurs of two men who hastily arose jingled; and Tonia almost +smiled. The Knights, then, were not all turned to dust; nor were their +rowels rust. + +“Of course,” said Tonia, looking thoughtfully at a white gulf cloud +sailing across the cerulean dome, “nobody could ride to Lone Elm and +back by the time the girls call by for me to-morrow. So, I reckon I’ll +have to stay at home this Easter Sunday.” + +And then she smiled. + +“Well, Miss Tonia,” said Pearson, reaching for his hat, as guileful as +a sleeping babe. “I reckon I’ll be trotting along back to Mucho Calor. +There’s some cutting out to be done on Dry Branch first thing in the +morning; and me and Road Runner has got to be on hand. It’s too bad +your hat got sidetracked. Maybe they’ll get that trestle mended yet in +time for Easter.” + +“I must be riding, too, Miss Tonia,” announced Burrows, looking at his +watch. “I declare, it’s nearly five o’clock! I must be out at my +lambing camp in time to help pen those crazy ewes.” + +Tonia’s suitors seemed to have been smitten with a need for haste. They +bade her a ceremonious farewell, and then shook each other’s hands with +the elaborate and solemn courtesy of the Southwesterner. + +“Hope I’ll see you again soon, Mr. Pearson,” said Burrows. + +“Same here,” said the cowman, with the serious face of one whose friend +goes upon a whaling voyage. “Be gratified to see you ride over to Mucho +Calor any time you strike that section of the range.” + +Pearson mounted Road Runner, the soundest cow-pony on the Frio, and let +him pitch for a minute, as he always did on being mounted, even at the +end of a day’s travel. + +“What kind of a hat was that, Miss Tonia,” he called, “that you ordered +from San Antone? I can’t help but be sorry about that hat.” + +“A straw,” said Tonia; “the latest shape, of course; trimmed with red +roses. That’s what I like—red roses.” + +“There’s no color more becoming to your complexion and hair,” said +Burrows, admiringly. + +“It’s what I like,” said Tonia. “And of all the flowers, give me red +roses. Keep all the pinks and blues for yourself. But what’s the use, +when trestles burn and leave you without anything? It’ll be a dry old +Easter for me!” + +Pearson took off his hat and drove Road Runner at a gallop into the +chaparral east of the Espinosa ranch house. + +As his stirrups rattled against the brush Burrows’s long-legged sorrel +struck out down the narrow stretch of open prairie to the southwest. + +Tonia hung up her quirt and went into the sitting-room. + +“I’m mighty sorry, daughter, that you didn’t get your hat,” said her +mother. + +“Oh, don’t worry, mother,” said Tonia, coolly. “I’ll have a new hat, +all right, in time to-morrow.” + +When Burrows reached the end of the strip of prairie he pulled his +sorrel to the right and let him pick his way daintily across a sacuista +flat through which ran the ragged, dry bed of an arroyo. Then up a +gravelly hill, matted with bush, the horse scrambled, and at length +emerged, with a snort of satisfaction into a stretch of high, level +prairie, grassy and dotted with the lighter green of mesquites in their +fresh spring foliage. Always to the right Burrows bore, until in a +little while he struck the old Indian trail that followed the Nueces +southward, and that passed, twenty-eight miles to the southeast, +through Lone Elm. + +Here Burrows urged the sorrel into a steady lope. As he settled himself +in the saddle for a long ride he heard the drumming of hoofs, the +hollow “thwack” of chaparral against wooden stirrups, the whoop of a +Comanche; and Wells Pearson burst out of the brush at the right of the +trail like a precocious yellow chick from a dark green Easter egg. + +Except in the presence of awing femininity melancholy found no place in +Pearson’s bosom. In Tonia’s presence his voice was as soft as a summer +bullfrog’s in his reedy nest. Now, at his gleesome yawp, rabbits, a +mile away, ducked their ears, and sensitive plants closed their fearful +fronds. + +“Moved your lambing camp pretty far from the ranch, haven’t you, +neighbor?” asked Pearson, as Road Runner fell in at the sorrel’s side. + +“Twenty-eight miles,” said Burrows, looking a little grim. Pearson’s +laugh woke an owl one hour too early in his water-elm on the river +bank, half a mile away. + +“All right for you, sheepman. I like an open game, myself. We’re two +locoed he-milliners hat-hunting in the wilderness. I notify you. Burr, +to mind your corrals. We’ve got an even start, and the one that gets +the headgear will stand some higher at the Espinosa.” + +“You’ve got a good pony,” said Burrows, eyeing Road Runner’s +barrel-like body and tapering legs that moved as regularly as the +pistonrod of an engine. “It’s a race, of course; but you’re too much of +a horseman to whoop it up this soon. Say we travel together till we get +to the home stretch.” + +“I’m your company,” agreed Pearson, “and I admire your sense. If +there’s hats at Lone Elm, one of ’em shall set on Miss Tonia’s brow +to-morrow, and you won’t be at the crowning. I ain’t bragging, Burr, +but that sorrel of yours is weak in the fore-legs.” + +“My horse against yours,” offered Burrows, “that Miss Tonia wears the +hat I take her to Cactus to-morrow.” + +“I’ll take you up,” shouted Pearson. “But oh, it’s just like +horse-stealing for me! I can use that sorrel for a lady’s animal +when—when somebody comes over to Mucho Calor, and—” + +Burrows’ dark face glowered so suddenly that the cowman broke off his +sentence. But Pearson could never feel any pressure for long. + +“What’s all this Easter business about, Burr?” he asked, cheerfully. +“Why do the women folks have to have new hats by the almanac or bust +all cinches trying to get ’em?” + +“It’s a seasonable statute out of the testaments,” explained Burrows. +“It’s ordered by the Pope or somebody. And it has something to do with +the Zodiac I don’t know exactly, but I think it was invented by the +Egyptians.” + +“It’s an all-right jubilee if the heathens did put their brand on it,” +said Pearson; “or else Tonia wouldn’t have anything to do with it. And +they pull it off at church, too. Suppose there ain’t but one hat in the +Lone Elm store, Burr!” + +“Then,” said Burrows, darkly, “the best man of us’ll take it back to +the Espinosa.” + +“Oh, man!” cried Pearson, throwing his hat high and catching it again, +“there’s nothing like you come off the sheep ranges before. You talk +good and collateral to the occasion. And if there’s more than one?” + +“Then,” said Burrows, “we’ll pick our choice and one of us’ll get back +first with his and the other won’t.” + +“There never was two souls,” proclaimed Pearson to the stars, “that +beat more like one heart than yourn and mine. Me and you might be +riding on a unicorn and thinking out of the same piece of mind.” + +At a little past midnight the riders loped into Lone Elm. The half a +hundred houses of the big village were dark. On its only street the big +wooden store stood barred and shuttered. + +In a few moments the horses were fastened and Pearson was pounding +cheerfully on the door of old Sutton, the storekeeper. + +The barrel of a Winchester came through a cranny of a solid window +shutter followed by a short inquiry. + +“Wells Pearson, of the Mucho Calor, and Burrows, of Green Valley,” was +the response. “We want to buy some goods in the store. Sorry to wake +you up but we must have ’em. Come on out, Uncle Tommy, and get a move +on you.” + +Uncle Tommy was slow, but at length they got him behind his counter +with a kerosene lamp lit, and told him of their dire need. + +“Easter hats?” said Uncle Tommy, sleepily. “Why, yes, I believe I have +got just a couple left. I only ordered a dozen this spring. I’ll show +’em to you.” + +Now, Uncle Tommy Sutton was a merchant, half asleep or awake. In dusty +pasteboard boxes under the counter he had two left-over spring hats. +But, alas! for his commercial probity on that early Saturday morn—they +were hats of two springs ago, and a woman’s eye would have detected the +fraud at half a glance. But to the unintelligent gaze of the cowpuncher +and the sheepman they seemed fresh from the mint of contemporaneous +April. + +The hats were of a variety once known as “cart-wheels.” They were of +stiff straw, colored red, and flat brimmed. Both were exactly alike, +and trimmed lavishly around their crowns with full blown, immaculate, +artificial white roses. + +“That all you got, Uncle Tommy?” said Pearson. “All right. Not much +choice here, Burr. Take your pick.” + +“They’re the latest styles” lied Uncle Tommy. “You’d see ’em on Fifth +Avenue, if you was in New York.” + +Uncle Tommy wrapped and tied each hat in two yards of dark calico for a +protection. One Pearson tied carefully to his calfskin saddle-thongs; +and the other became part of Road Runner’s burden. They shouted thanks +and farewells to Uncle Tommy, and cantered back into the night on the +home stretch. + +The horsemen jockeyed with all their skill. They rode more slowly on +their way back. The few words they spoke were not unfriendly. Burrows +had a Winchester under his left leg slung over his saddle horn. Pearson +had a six shooter belted around him. Thus men rode in the Frio country. + +At half-past seven in the morning they rode to the top of a hill and +saw the Espinosa Ranch, a white spot under a dark patch of live-oaks, +five miles away. + +The sight roused Pearson from his drooping pose in the saddle. He knew +what Road Runner could do. The sorrel was lathered, and stumbling +frequently; Road Runner was pegging away like a donkey engine. + +Pearson turned toward the sheepman and laughed. “Good-bye, Burr,” he +cried, with a wave of his hand. “It’s a race now. We’re on the home +stretch.” + +He pressed Road Runner with his knees and leaned toward the Espinosa. +Road Runner struck into a gallop, with tossing head and snorting +nostrils, as if he were fresh from a month in pasture. + +Pearson rode twenty yards and heard the unmistakable sound of a +Winchester lever throwing a cartridge into the barrel. He dropped flat +along his horse’s back before the crack of the rifle reached his ears. + +It is possible that Burrows intended only to disable the horse—he was a +good enough shot to do that without endangering his rider. But as +Pearson stooped the ball went through his shoulder and then through +Road Runner’s neck. The horse fell and the cowman pitched over his head +into the hard road, and neither of them tried to move. + +Burrows rode on without stopping. + +In two hours Pearson opened his eyes and took inventory. He managed to +get to his feet and staggered back to where Road Runner was lying. + +Road Runner was lying there, but he appeared to be comfortable. Pearson +examined him and found that the bullet had “creased” him. He had been +knocked out temporarily, but not seriously hurt. But he was tired, and +he lay there on Miss Tonia’s hat and ate leaves from a mesquite branch +that obligingly hung over the road. + +Pearson made the horse get up. The Easter hat, loosed from the +saddle-thongs, lay there in its calico wrappings, a shapeless thing +from its sojourn beneath the solid carcass of Road Runner. Then Pearson +fainted and fell head long upon the poor hat again, crumpling it under +his wounded shoulders. + +It is hard to kill a cowpuncher. In half an hour he revived—long enough +for a woman to have fainted twice and tried ice-cream for a restorer. +He got up carefully and found Road Runner who was busy with the near-by +grass. He tied the unfortunate hat to the saddle again, and managed to +get himself there, too, after many failures. + +At noon a gay and fluttering company waited in front of the Espinosa +Ranch. The Rogers girls were there in their new buckboard, and the +Anchor-O outfit and the Green Valley folks—mostly women. And each and +every one wore her new Easter hat, even upon the lonely prairies, for +they greatly desired to shine forth and do honor to the coming +festival. + +At the gate stood Tonia, with undisguised tears upon her cheeks. In her +hand she held Burrow’s Lone Elm hat, and it was at its white roses, +hated by her, that she wept. For her friends were telling her, with the +ecstatic joy of true friends, that cart-wheels could not be worn, being +three seasons passed into oblivion. + +“Put on your old hat and come, Tonia,” they urged. + +“For Easter Sunday?” she answered. “I’ll die first.” And wept again. + +The hats of the fortunate ones were curved and twisted into the style +of spring’s latest proclamation. + +A strange being rode out of the brush among them, and there sat his +horse languidly. He was stained and disfigured with the green of the +grass and the limestone of rocky roads. + +“Hallo, Pearson,” said Daddy Weaver. “Look like you’ve been breaking a +mustang. What’s that you’ve got tied to your saddle—a pig in a poke?” + +“Oh, come on, Tonia, if you’re going,” said Betty Rogers. “We mustn’t +wait any longer. We’ve saved a seat in the buckboard for you. Never +mind the hat. That lovely muslin you’ve got on looks sweet enough with +any old hat.” + +Pearson was slowly untying the queer thing on his saddle. Tonia looked +at him with a sudden hope. Pearson was a man who created hope. He got +the thing loose and handed it to her. Her quick fingers tore at the +strings. + +“Best I could do,” said Pearson slowly. “What Road Runner and me done +to it will be about all it needs.” + +“Oh, oh! it’s just the right shape,” shrieked Tonia. “And red roses! +Wait till I try it on!” + +She flew in to the glass, and out again, beaming, radiating, blossomed. + +“Oh, don’t red become her?” chanted the girls in recitative. “Hurry up, +Tonia!” + +Tonia stopped for a moment by the side of Road Runner. + +“Thank you, thank you, Wells,” she said, happily. “It’s just what I +wanted. Won’t you come over to Cactus to-morrow and go to church with +me?” + +“If I can,” said Pearson. He was looking curiously at her hat, and then +he grinned weakly. + +Tonia flew into the buckboard like a bird. The vehicles sped away for +Cactus. + +“What have you been doing, Pearson?” asked Daddy Weaver. “You ain’t +looking so well as common.” + +“Me?” said Pearson. “I’ve been painting flowers. Them roses was white +when I left Lone Elm. Help me down, Daddy Weaver, for I haven’t got any +more paint to spare.” + + + + +ROUND THE CIRCLE + + +[This story is especially interesting as an early treatment (1902) of +the theme afterward developed with a surer hand in The Pendulum.] + + +“Find yo’ shirt all right, Sam?” asked Mrs. Webber, from her chair +under the live-oak, where she was comfortably seated with a paper-back +volume for company. + +“It balances perfeckly, Marthy,” answered Sam, with a suspicious +pleasantness in his tone. “At first I was about ter be a little +reckless and kick ’cause ther buttons was all off, but since I diskiver +that the button holes is all busted out, why, I wouldn’t go so fur as +to say the buttons is any loss to speak of.” + +“Oh, well,” said his wife, carelessly, “put on your necktie—that’ll +keep it together.” + +Sam Webber’s sheep ranch was situated in the loneliest part of the +country between the Nueces and the Frio. The ranch house—a two-room box +structure—was on the rise of a gently swelling hill in the midst of a +wilderness of high chaparral. In front of it was a small clearing where +stood the sheep pens, shearing shed, and wool house. Only a few feet +back of it began the thorny jungle. + +Sam was going to ride over to the Chapman ranch to see about buying +some more improved merino rams. At length he came out, ready for his +ride. This being a business trip of some importance, and the Chapman +ranch being almost a small town in population and size, Sam had decided +to “dress up” accordingly. The result was that he had transformed +himself from a graceful, picturesque frontiersman into something much +less pleasing to the sight. The tight white collar awkwardly +constricted his muscular, mahogany-colored neck. The buttonless shirt +bulged in stiff waves beneath his unbuttoned vest. The suit of +“ready-made” effectually concealed the fine lines of his straight, +athletic figure. His berry-brown face was set to the melancholy dignity +befitting a prisoner of state. He gave Randy, his three-year-old son, a +pat on the head, and hurried out to where Mexico, his favorite saddle +horse, was standing. + +Marthy, leisurely rocking in her chair, fixed her place in the book +with her finger, and turned her head, smiling mischievously as she +noted the havoc Sam had wrought with his appearance in trying to “fix +up.” + +“Well, ef I must say it, Sam,” she drawled, “you look jest like one of +them hayseeds in the picture papers, ’stead of a free and independent +sheepman of the State o’ Texas.” + +Sam climbed awkwardly into the saddle. + +“You’re the one ought to be ’shamed to say so,” he replied hotly. +“’Stead of ’tendin’ to a man’s clothes you’re al’ays setting around +a-readin’ them billy-by-dam yaller-back novils.” + +“Oh, shet up and ride along,” said Mrs. Webber, with a little jerk at +the handles of her chair; “you always fussin’ ’bout my readin’. I do +a-plenty; and I’ll read when I wanter. I live in the bresh here like a +varmint, never seein’ nor hearin’ nothin’, and what other ’musement kin +I have? Not in listenin’ to you talk, for it’s complain, complain, one +day after another. Oh, go on, Sam, and leave me in peace.” + +Sam gave his pony a squeeze with his knees and “shoved” down the wagon +trail that connected his ranch with the old, open Government road. It +was eight o’clock, and already beginning to be very warm. He should +have started three hours earlier. Chapman ranch was only eighteen miles +away, but there was a road for only three miles of the distance. He had +ridden over there once with one of the Half-Moon cowpunchers, and he +had the direction well-defined in his mind. + +Sam turned off the old Government road at the split mesquite, and +struck down the arroyo of the Quintanilla. Here was a narrow stretch of +smiling valley, upholstered with a rich mat of green, curly mesquite +grass; and Mexico consumed those few miles quickly with his long, easy +lope. Again, upon reaching Wild Duck Waterhole, must he abandon +well-defined ways. He turned now to his right up a little hill, +pebble-covered, upon which grew only the tenacious and thorny prickly +pear and chaparral. At the summit of this he paused to take his last +general view of the landscape for, from now on, he must wind through +brakes and thickets of chaparral, pear, and mesquite, for the most part +seeing scarcely farther than twenty yards in any direction, choosing +his way by the prairie-dweller’s instinct, guided only by an occasional +glimpse of a far distant hilltop, a peculiarly shaped knot of trees, or +the position of the sun. + +Sam rode down the sloping hill and plunged into the great pear flat +that lies between the Quintanilla and the Piedra. + +In about two hours he discovered that he was lost. Then came the usual +confusion of mind and the hurry to get somewhere. Mexico was anxious to +redeem the situation, twisting with alacrity along the tortuous +labyrinths of the jungle. At the moment his master’s sureness of the +route had failed his horse had divined the fact. There were no hills +now that they could climb to obtain a view of the country. They came +upon a few, but so dense and interlaced was the brush that scarcely +could a rabbit penetrate the mass. They were in the great, lonely +thicket of the Frio bottoms. + +It was a mere nothing for a cattleman or a sheepman to be lost for a +day or a night. The thing often happened. It was merely a matter of +missing a meal or two and sleeping comfortably on your saddle blankets +on a soft mattress of mesquite grass. But in Sam’s case it was +different. He had never been away from his ranch at night. Marthy was +afraid of the country—afraid of Mexicans, of snakes, of panthers, even +of sheep. So he had never left her alone. + +It must have been about four in the afternoon when Sam’s conscience +awoke. He was limp and drenched, rather from anxiety than the heat or +fatigue. Until now he had been hoping to strike the trail that led to +the Frio crossing and the Chapman ranch. He must have crossed it at +some dim part of it and ridden beyond. If so he was now something like +fifty miles from home. If he could strike a ranch—a camp—any place +where he could get a fresh horse and inquire the road, he would ride +all night to get back to Marthy and the kid. + +So, I have hinted, Sam was seized by remorse. There was a big lump in +his throat as he thought of the cross words he had spoken to his wife. +Surely it was hard enough for her to live in that horrible country +without having to bear the burden of his abuse. He cursed himself +grimly, and felt a sudden flush of shame that over-glowed the summer +heat as he remembered the many times he had flouted and railed at her +because she had a liking for reading fiction. + +“Ther only so’ce ov amusement ther po’ gal’s got,” said Sam aloud, with +a sob, which unaccustomed sound caused Mexico to shy a bit. “A-livin’ +with a sore-headed kiote like me—a low-down skunk that ought to be +licked to death with a saddle cinch—a-cookin’ and a-washin’ and +a-livin’ on mutton and beans and me abusin’ her fur takin’ a squint or +two in a little book!” + +He thought of Marthy as she had been when he first met her in +Dogtown—smart, pretty, and saucy—before the sun had turned the roses in +her cheeks brown and the silence of the chaparral had tamed her +ambitions. + +“Ef I ever speaks another hard word to ther little gal,” muttered Sam, +“or fails in the love and affection that’s coming to her in the deal, I +hopes a wildcat’ll t’ar me to pieces.” + +He knew what he would do. He would write to Garcia & Jones, his San +Antonio merchants where he bought his supplies and sold his wool, and +have them send down a big box of novels and reading matter for Marthy. +Things were going to be different. He wondered whether a little piano +could be placed in one of the rooms of the ranch house without the +family having to move out of doors. + +In nowise calculated to allay his self-reproach was the thought that +Marthy and Randy would have to pass the night alone. In spite of their +bickerings, when night came Marthy was wont to dismiss her fears of the +country, and rest her head upon Sam’s strong arm with a sigh of +peaceful content and dependence. And were her fears so groundless? Sam +thought of roving, marauding Mexicans, of stealthy cougars that +sometimes invaded the ranches, of rattlesnakes, centipedes, and a dozen +possible dangers. Marthy would be frantic with fear. Randy would cry, +and call for dada to come. + +Still the interminable succession of stretches of brush, cactus, and +mesquite. Hollow after hollow, slope after slope—all exactly alike—all +familiar by constant repetition, and yet all strange and new. If he +could only arrive _somewhere_. + +The straight line is Art. Nature moves in circles. A straightforward +man is more an artificial product than a diplomatist is. Men lost in +the snow travel in exact circles until they sink, exhausted, as their +footprints have attested. Also, travellers in philosophy and other +mental processes frequently wind up at their starting-point. + +It was when Sam Webber was fullest of contrition and good resolves that +Mexico, with a heavy sigh, subsided from his regular, brisk trot into a +slow complacent walk. They were winding up an easy slope covered with +brush ten or twelve feet high. + +“I say now, Mex,” demurred Sam, “this here won’t do. I know you’re +plumb tired out, but we got ter git along. Oh, Lordy, ain’t there no +mo’ houses in the world!” He gave Mexico a smart kick with his heels. + +Mexico gave a protesting grunt as if to say: “What’s the use of that, +now we’re so near?” He quickened his gait into a languid trot. Rounding +a great clump of black chaparral he stopped short. Sam dropped the +bridle reins and sat, looking into the back door of his own house, not +ten yards away. + +Marthy, serene and comfortable, sat in her rocking-chair before the +door in the shade of the house, with her feet resting luxuriously upon +the steps. Randy, who was playing with a pair of spurs on the ground, +looked up for a moment at his father and went on spinning the rowels +and singing a little song. Marthy turned her head lazily against the +back of the chair and considered the arrivals with emotionless eyes. +She held a book in her lap with her finger holding the place. + +Sam shook himself queerly, like a man coming out of a dream, and slowly +dismounted. He moistened his dry lips. + +“I see you are still a-settin’,” he said, “a-readin’ of them +billy-by-dam yaller-back novils.” + +Sam had traveled round the circle and was himself again. + + + + +THE RUBBER PLANT’S STORY + + +We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdom +and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenue +theatre. I haven’t looked up our family tree, but I believe we were +raised by grafting a gum overshoe on to a 30-cent table d’hôte stalk of +asparagus. You take a white bulldog with a Bourke Cockran air of +independence about him and a rubber plant and there you have the fauna +and flora of a flat. What the shamrock is to Ireland the rubber plant +is to the dweller in flats and furnished rooms. We get moved from one +place to another so quickly that the only way we can get our picture +taken is with a kinetoscope. We are the vagrant vine and the flitting +fig tree. You know the proverb: “Where the rubber plant sits in the +window the moving van draws up to the door.” + +We are the city equivalent to the woodbine and the honeysuckle. No +other vegetable except the Pittsburg stogie can withstand as much +handling as we can. When the family to which we belong moves into a +flat they set us in the front window and we become lares and penates, +fly-paper and the peripatetic emblem of “Home Sweet Home.” We aren’t as +green as we look. I guess we are about what you would call the +soubrettes of the conservatory. You try sitting in the front window of +a $40 flat in Manhattan and looking out into the street all day, and +back into the flat at night, and see whether you get wise or not—hey? +Talk about the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of +Eden—say! suppose there had been a rubber plant there when Eve—but I +was going to tell you a story. + +The first thing I can remember I had only three leaves and belonged to +a member of the pony ballet. I was kept in a sunny window, and was +generally watered with seltzer and lemon. I had plenty of fun in those +days. I got cross-eyed trying to watch the numbers of the automobiles +in the street and the dates on the labels inside at the same time. + +Well, then the angel that was molting for the musical comedy lost his +last feather and the company broke up. The ponies trotted away and I +was left in the window ownerless. The janitor gave me to a refined +comedy team on the eighth floor, and in six weeks I had been set in the +window of five different flats. I took on experience and put out two +more leaves. + +Miss Carruthers, of the refined comedy team—did you ever see her cross +both feet back of her neck?—gave me to a friend of hers who had made an +unfortunate marriage with a man in a store. Consequently I was placed +in the window of a furnished room, rent in advance, water two flights +up, gas extra after ten o’clock at night. Two of my leaves withered off +here. Also, I was moved from one room to another so many times that I +got to liking the odor of the pipes the expressmen smoked. + +I don’t think I ever had so dull a time as I did with this lady. There +was never anything amusing going on inside—she was devoted to her +husband, and, besides leaning out the window and flirting with the +iceman, she never did a thing toward breaking the monotony. + +When the couple broke up they left me with the rest of their goods at a +second-hand store. I was put out in front for sale along with the +jobbiest lot you ever heard of being lumped into one bargain. Think of +this little cornucopia of wonders, all for $1.89: Henry James’s works, +six talking machine records, one pair of tennis shoes, two bottles of +horse radish, and a rubber plant—that was me! + +One afternoon a girl came along and stopped to look at me. She had dark +hair and eyes, and she looked slim, and sad around the mouth. + +“Oh, oh!” she says to herself. “I never thought to see one up here.” + +She pulls out a little purse about as thick as one of my leaves and +fingers over some small silver in it. Old Koen, always on the lockout, +is ready, rubbing his hands. This girl proceeds to turn down Mr. James +and the other commodities. Rubber plants or nothing is the burden of +her song. And at last Koen and she come together at 39 cents, and away +she goes with me in her arms. + +She was a nice girl, but not my style. Too quiet and sober looking. +Thinks I to myself: “I’ll just about land on the fire-escape of a +tenement, six stories up. And I’ll spend the next six months looking at +clothes on the line.” + +But she carried me to a nice little room only three flights up in quite +a decent street. And she put me in the window, of course. And then she +went to work and cooked dinner for herself. And what do you suppose she +had? Bread and tea and a little dab of jam! Nothing else. Not a single +lobster, nor so much as one bottle of champagne. The Carruthers comedy +team had both every evening, except now and then when they took a +notion for pig’s knuckle and kraut. + +After she had finished her dinner my new owner came to the window and +leaned down close to my leaves and cried softly to herself for a while. +It made me feel funny. I never knew anybody to cry that way over a +rubber plant before. Of course, I’ve seen a few of ’em turn on the +tears for what they could get out of it, but she seemed to be crying +just for the pure enjoyment of it. She touched my leaves like she loved +’em, and she bent down her head and kissed each one of ’em. I guess I’m +about the toughest specimen of a peripatetic orchid on earth, but I +tell you it made me feel sort of queer. Home never was like that to me +before. Generally I used to get chewed by poodles and have shirt-waists +hung on me to dry, and get watered with coffee grounds and peroxide of +hydrogen. + +This girl had a piano in the room, and she used to disturb it with both +hands while she made noises with her mouth for hours at a time. I +suppose she was practising vocal music. + +One day she seemed very much excited and kept looking at the clock. At +eleven somebody knocked and she let in a stout, dark man with tousled +black hair. He sat down at once at the piano and played while she sang +for him. When she finished she laid one hand on her bosom and looked at +him. He shook his head, and she leaned against the piano. “Two years +already,” she said, speaking slowly—“do you think in two more—or even +longer?” + +The man shook his head again. “You waste your time,” he said, roughly I +thought. “The voice is not there.” And then he looked at her in a +peculiar way. “But the voice is not everything,” he went on. “You have +looks. I can place you, as I told you if—” + +The girl pointed to the door without saying anything, and the dark man +left the room. And then she came over and cried around me again. It’s a +good thing I had enough rubber in me to be water-proof. + +About that time somebody else knocked at the door. “Thank goodness,” I +said to myself. “Here’s a chance to get the water-works turned off. I +hope it’s somebody that’s game enough to stand a bird and a bottle to +liven things up a little.” Tell you the truth, this little girl made me +tired. A rubber plant likes to see a little sport now and then. I don’t +suppose there’s another green thing in New York that sees as much of +gay life unless it’s the chartreuse or the sprigs of parsley around the +dish. + +When the girl opens the door in steps a young chap in a traveling cap +and picks her up in his arms, and she sings out “Oh, Dick!” and stays +there long enough to—well, you’ve been a rubber plant too, sometimes, I +suppose. + +“Good thing!” says I to myself. “This is livelier than scales and +weeping. Now there’ll be something doing.” + +“You’ve got to go back with me,” says the young man. “I’ve come two +thousand miles for you. Aren’t you tired of it yet. Bess? You’ve kept +all of us waiting so long. Haven’t you found out yet what is best?” + +“The bubble burst only to-day,” says the girl. “Come here, Dick, and +see what I found the other day on the sidewalk for sale.” She brings +him by the hand and exhibits yours truly. “How one ever got away up +here who can tell? I bought it with almost the last money I had.” + +He looked at me, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her for more than a +second. “Do you remember the night, Bess,” he said, “when we stood +under one of those on the bank of the bayou and what you told me then?” + +“Geewillikins!” I said to myself. “Both of them stand under a rubber +plant! Seems to me they are stretching matters somewhat!” + +“Do I not,” says she, looking up at him and sneaking close to his vest, +“and now I say it again, and it is to last forever. Look, Dick, at its +leaves, how wet they are. Those are my tears, and it was thinking of +you that made them fall.” + +“The dear old magnolias!” says the young man, pinching one of my +leaves. “I love them all.” + +Magnolia! Well, wouldn’t that—say! those innocents thought I was a +magnolia! What the—well, wasn’t that tough on a genuine little old New +York rubber plant? + + + + +OUT OF NAZARETH + + +Okochee, in Georgia, had a boom, and J. Pinkney Bloom came out of it +with a “wad.” Okochee came out of it with a half-million-dollar debt, a +two and a half per cent. city property tax, and a city council that +showed a propensity for traveling the back streets of the town. These +things came about through a fatal resemblance of the river Cooloosa to +the Hudson, as set forth and expounded by a Northern tourist. Okochee +felt that New York should not be allowed to consider itself the only +alligator in the swamp, so to speak. And then that harmless, but +persistent, individual so numerous in the South—the man who is always +clamoring for more cotton mills, and is ready to take a dollar’s worth +of stock, provided he can borrow the dollar—that man added his deadly +work to the tourist’s innocent praise, and Okochee fell. + +The Cooloosa River winds through a range of small mountains, passes +Okochee and then blends its waters trippingly, as fall the mellifluous +Indian syllables, with the Chattahoochee. + +Okochee rose, as it were, from its sunny seat on the post-office stoop, +hitched up its suspender, and threw a granite dam two hundred and forty +feet long and sixty feet high across the Cooloosa one mile above the +town. Thereupon, a dimpling, sparkling lake backed up twenty miles +among the little mountains. Thus in the great game of municipal rivalry +did Okochee match that famous drawing card, the Hudson. It was conceded +that nowhere could the Palisades be judged superior in the way of +scenery and grandeur. Following the picture card was played the ace of +commercial importance. Fourteen thousand horsepower would this dam +furnish. Cotton mills, factories, and manufacturing plants would rise +up as the green corn after a shower. The spindle and the flywheel and +turbine would sing the shrewd glory of Okochee. Along the picturesque +heights above the lake would rise in beauty the costly villas and the +splendid summer residences of capital. The naphtha launch of the +millionaire would spit among the romantic coves; the verdured hills +would take formal shapes of terrace, lawn, and park. Money would be +spent like water in Okochee, and water would be turned into money. + +The fate of the good town is quickly told. Capital decided not to +invest. Of all the great things promised, the scenery alone came to +fulfilment. The wooded peaks, the impressive promontories of solemn +granite, the beautiful green slants of bank and ravine did all they +could to reconcile Okochee to the delinquency of miserly gold. The +sunsets gilded the dreamy draws and coves with a minting that should +charm away heart-burning. Okochee, true to the instinct of its blood +and clime, was lulled by the spell. It climbed out of the arena, loosed +its suspender, sat down again on the post-office stoop, and took a +chew. It consoled itself by drawling sarcasms at the city council which +was not to blame, causing the fathers, as has been said, to seek back +streets and figure perspiringly on the sinking fund and the +appropriation for interest due. + +The youth of Okochee—they who were to carry into the rosy future the +burden of the debt—accepted failure with youth’s uncalculating joy. +For, here was sport, aquatic and nautical, added to the meagre round of +life’s pleasures. In yachting caps and flowing neckties they pervaded +the lake to its limits. Girls wore silk waists embroidered with anchors +in blue and pink. The trousers of the young men widened at the bottom, +and their hands were proudly calloused by the oft-plied oar. Fishermen +were under the spell of a deep and tolerant joy. Sailboats and rowboats +furrowed the lenient waves, popcorn and ice-cream booths sprang up +about the little wooden pier. Two small excursion steamboats were +built, and plied the delectable waters. Okochee philosophically gave up +the hope of eating turtle soup with a gold spoon, and settled back, not +ill content, to its regular diet of lotus and fried hominy. And out of +this slow wreck of great expectations rose up J. Pinkney Bloom with his +“wad” and his prosperous, cheery smile. + +Needless to say J. Pinkney was no product of Georgia soil. He came out +of that flushed and capable region known as the “North.” He called +himself a “promoter”; his enemies had spoken of him as a “grafter”; +Okochee took a middle course, and held him to be no better nor no worse +than a “Yank.” + +Far up the lake—eighteen miles above the town—the eye of this cheerful +camp-follower of booms had spied out a graft. He purchased there a +precipitous tract of five hundred acres at forty-five cents per acre; +and this he laid out and subdivided as the city of Skyland—the Queen +City of the Switzerland of the South. Streets and avenues were +surveyed; parks designed; corners of central squares reserved for the +“proposed” opera house, board of trade, lyceum, market, public schools, +and “Exposition Hall.” The price of lots ranged from five to five +hundred dollars. Positively, no lot would be priced higher than five +hundred dollars. + +While the boom was growing in Okochee, J. Pinkney’s circulars, maps, +and prospectuses were flying through the mails to every part of the +country. Investors sent in their money by post, and the Skyland Real +Estate Company (J. Pinkney Bloom) returned to each a deed, duly placed +on record, to the best lot, at the price, on hand that day. All this +time the catamount screeched upon the reserved lot of the Skyland Board +of Trade, the opossum swung by his tail over the site of the exposition +hall, and the owl hooted a melancholy recitative to his audience of +young squirrels in opera house square. Later, when the money was coming +in fast, J. Pinkney caused to be erected in the coming city half a +dozen cheap box houses, and persuaded a contingent of indigent natives +to occupy them, thereby assuming the role of “population” in subsequent +prospectuses, which became, accordingly, more seductive and +remunerative. + +So, when the dream faded and Okochee dropped back to digging bait and +nursing its two and a half per cent. tax, J. Pinkney Bloom (unloving of +checks and drafts and the cold interrogatories of bankers) strapped +about his fifty-two-inch waist a soft leather belt containing eight +thousand dollars in big bills, and said that all was very good. + +One last trip he was making to Skyland before departing to other salad +fields. Skyland was a regular post-office, and the steamboat, _Dixie +Belle_, under contract, delivered the mail bag (generally empty) twice +a week. There was a little business there to be settled—the postmaster +was to be paid off for his light but lonely services, and the +“inhabitants” had to be furnished with another month’s homely rations, +as per agreement. And then Skyland would know J. Pinkney Bloom no more. +The owners of these precipitous, barren, useless lots might come and +view the scene of their invested credulity, or they might leave them to +their fit tenants, the wild hog and the browsing deer. The work of the +Skyland Real Estate Company was finished. + +The little steamboat _Dixie Belle_ was about to shove off on her +regular up-the-lake trip, when a rickety hired carriage rattled up to +the pier, and a tall, elderly gentleman, in black, stepped out, +signaling courteously but vivaciously for the boat to wait. Time was of +the least importance in the schedule of the _Dixie Belle_; Captain +MacFarland gave the order, and the boat received its ultimate two +passengers. For, upon the arm of the tall, elderly gentleman, as he +crossed the gangway, was a little elderly lady, with a gray curl +depending quaintly forward of her left ear. + +Captain MacFarland was at the wheel; therefore it seemed to J. Pinkney +Bloom, who was the only other passenger, that it should be his to play +the part of host to the boat’s new guests, who were, doubtless, on a +scenery-viewing expedition. He stepped forward, with that translucent, +child-candid smile upon his fresh, pink countenance, with that air of +unaffected sincerity that was redeemed from bluffness only by its +exquisite calculation, with that promptitude and masterly decision of +manner that so well suited his calling—with all his stock in trade well +to the front; he stepped forward to receive Colonel and Mrs. Peyton +Blaylock. With the grace of a grand marshal or a wedding usher, he +escorted the two passengers to a side of the upper deck, from which the +scenery was supposed to present itself to the observer in increased +quantity and quality. There, in comfortable steamer chairs, they sat +and began to piece together the random lines that were to form an +intelligent paragraph in the big history of little events. + +“Our home, sir,” said Colonel Blaylock, removing his wide-brimmed, +rather shapeless black felt hat, “is in Holly Springs—Holly Springs, +Georgia. I am very proud to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bloom. Mrs. +Blaylock and myself have just arrived in Okochee this morning, sir, on +business—business of importance in connection with the recent rapid +march of progress in this section of our state.” + +The Colonel smoothed back, with a sweeping gesture, his long, smooth, +locks. His dark eyes, still fiery under the heavy black brows, seemed +inappropriate to the face of a business man. He looked rather to be an +old courtier handed down from the reign of Charles, and re-attired in a +modern suit of fine, but raveling and seam-worn, broadcloth. + +“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bloom, in his heartiest prospectus voice, “things +have been whizzing around Okochee. Biggest industrial revival and +waking up to natural resources Georgia ever had. Did you happen to +squeeze in on the ground floor in any of the gilt-edged grafts, +Colonel?” + +“Well, sir,” said the Colonel, hesitating in courteous doubt, “if I +understand your question, I may say that I took the opportunity to make +an investment that I believe will prove quite advantageous—yes, sir, I +believe it will result in both pecuniary profit and agreeable +occupation.” + +“Colonel Blaylock,” said the little elderly lady, shaking her gray curl +and smiling indulgent explanation at J. Pinkney Bloom, “is so devoted +to businesss. He has such a talent for financiering and markets and +investments and those kind of things. I think myself extremely +fortunate in having secured him for a partner on life’s journey—I am so +unversed in those formidable but very useful branches of learning.” + +Colonel Blaylock rose and made a bow—a bow that belonged with silk +stockings and lace ruffles and velvet. + +“Practical affairs,” he said, with a wave of his hand toward the +promoter, “are, if I may use the comparison, the garden walks upon +which we tread through life, viewing upon either side of us the flowers +which brighten that journey. It is my pleasure to be able to lay out a +walk or two. Mrs. Blaylock, sir, is one of those fortunate higher +spirits whose mission it is to make the flowers grow. Perhaps, Mr. +Bloom, you have perused the lines of Lorella, the Southern poetess. +That is the name above which Mrs. Blaylock has contributed to the press +of the South for many years.” + +“Unfortunately,” said Mr. Bloom, with a sense of the loss clearly +written upon his frank face, “I’m like the Colonel—in the walk-making +business myself—and I haven’t had time to even take a sniff at the +flowers. Poetry is a line I never dealt in. It must be nice, +though—quite nice.” + +“It is the region,” smiled Mrs. Blaylock, “in which my soul dwells. My +shawl, Peyton, if you please—the breeze comes a little chilly from yon +verdured hills.” + +The Colonel drew from the tail pocket of his coat a small shawl of +knitted silk and laid it solicitously about the shoulders of the lady. +Mrs. Blaylock sighed contentedly, and turned her expressive eyes—still +as clear and unworldly as a child’s—upon the steep slopes that were +slowly slipping past. Very fair and stately they looked in the clear +morning air. They seemed to speak in familiar terms to the responsive +spirit of Lorella. “My native hills!” she murmured, dreamily. “See how +the foliage drinks the sunlight from the hollows and dells.” + +“Mrs. Blaylock’s maiden days,” said the Colonel, interpreting her mood +to J. Pinkney Bloom, “were spent among the mountains of northern +Georgia. Mountain air and mountain scenery recall to her those days. +Holly Springs, where we have lived for twenty years, is low and flat. I +fear that she may have suffered in health and spirits by so long a +residence there. That is one portent reason for the change we are +making. My dear, can you not recall those lines you wrote—entitled, I +think, ‘The Georgia Hills’—the poem that was so extensively copied by +the Southern press and praised so highly by the Atlanta critics?” + +Mrs. Blaylock turned a glance of speaking tenderness upon the Colonel, +fingered for a moment the silvery curl that drooped upon her bosom, +then looked again toward the mountains. Without preliminary or +affectation or demurral she began, in rather thrilling and more deeply +pitched tones to recite these lines: + +“The Georgia hills, the Georgia hills!— + Oh, heart, why dost thou pine? +Are not these sheltered lowlands fair + With mead and bloom and vine? +Ah! as the slow-paced river here + Broods on its natal rills +My spirit drifts, in longing sweet, + Back to the Georgia hills. + +“And through the close-drawn, curtained night + I steal on sleep’s slow wings +Back to my heart’s ease—slopes of pine— + Where end my wanderings. +Oh, heaven seems nearer from their tops— + And farther earthly ills— +Even in dreams, if I may but + Dream of my Georgia hills. + +The grass upon their orchard sides + Is a fine couch to me; +The common note of each small bird + Passes all minstrelsy. +It would not seem so dread a thing + If, when the Reaper wills, +He might come there and take my hand + Up in the Georgia hills.” + + +“That’s great stuff, ma’am,” said J. Pinkney Bloom, enthusiastically, +when the poetess had concluded. “I wish I had looked up poetry more +than I have. I was raised in the pine hills myself.” + +“The mountains ever call to their children,” murmured Mrs. Blaylock. “I +feel that life will take on the rosy hue of hope again in among these +beautiful hills. Peyton—a little taste of the currant wine, if you will +be so good. The journey, though delightful in the extreme, slightly +fatigues me.” Colonel Blaylock again visited the depths of his prolific +coat, and produced a tightly corked, rough, black bottle. Mr. Bloom was +on his feet in an instant. + +“Let me bring a glass, ma’am. You come along, Colonel—there’s a little +table we can bring, too. Maybe we can scare up some fruit or a cup of +tea on board. I’ll ask Mac.” + +Mrs. Blaylock reclined at ease. Few royal ladies have held their royal +prerogative with the serene grace of the petted Southern woman. The +Colonel, with an air as gallant and assiduous as in the days of his +courtship, and J. Pinkney Bloom, with a ponderous agility half +professional and half directed by some resurrected, unnamed, +long-forgotten sentiment, formed a diversified but attentive court. The +currant wine—wine home made from the Holly Springs fruit—went round, +and then J. Pinkney began to hear something of Holly Springs life. + +It seemed (from the conversation of the Blaylocks) that the Springs was +decadent. A third of the population had moved away. Business—and the +Colonel was an authority on business—had dwindled to nothing. After +carefully studying the field of opportunities open to capital he had +sold his little property there for eight hundred dollars and invested +it in one of the enterprises opened up by the book in Okochee. + +“Might I inquire, sir,” said Mr. Bloom, “in what particular line of +business you inserted your coin? I know that town as well as I know the +regulations for illegal use of the mails. I might give you a hunch as +to whether you can make the game go or not.” + +J. Pinkney, somehow, had a kindly feeling toward these unsophisticated +representatives of by-gone days. They were so simple, impractical, and +unsuspecting. He was glad that he happened not to have a gold brick or +a block of that western Bad Boy Silver Mine stock along with him. He +would have disliked to unload on people he liked so well as he did +these; but there are some temptations toe enticing to be resisted. + +“No, sir,” said Colonel Blaylock, pausing to arrange the queen’s wrap. +“I did not invest in Okochee. I have made an exhaustive study of +business conditions, and I regard old settled towns as unfavorable +fields in which to place capital that is limited in amount. Some months +ago, through the kindness of a friend, there came into my hands a map +and description of this new town of Skyland that has been built upon +the lake. The description was so pleasing, the future of the town set +forth in such convincing arguments, and its increasing prosperity +portrayed in such an attractive style that I decided to take advantage +of the opportunity it offered. I carefully selected a lot in the centre +of the business district, although its price was the highest in the +schedule—five hundred dollars—and made the purchase at once.” + +“Are you the man—I mean, did you pay five hundred dollars for a lot in +Skyland” asked J. Pinkney Bloom. + +“I did, sir,” answered the Colonel, with the air of a modest +millionaire explaining his success; “a lot most excellently situated on +the same square with the opera house, and only two squares from the +board of trade. I consider the purchase a most fortuitous one. It is my +intention to erect a small building upon it at once, and open a modest +book and stationery store. During past years I have met with many +pecuniary reverses, and I now find it necessary to engage in some +commercial occupation that will furnish me with a livelihood. The book +and stationery business, though an humble one, seems to me not inapt +nor altogether uncongenial. I am a graduate of the University of +Virginia; and Mrs. Blaylock’s really wonderful acquaintance with +belles-lettres and poetic literature should go far toward insuring +success. Of course, Mrs. Blaylock would not personally serve behind the +counter. With the nearly three hundred dollars I have remaining I can +manage the building of a house, by giving a lien on the lot. I have an +old friend in Atlanta who is a partner in a large book store, and he +has agreed to furnish me with a stock of goods on credit, on extremely +easy terms. I am pleased to hope, sir, that Mrs. Blaylock’s health and +happiness will be increased by the change of locality. Already I fancy +I can perceive the return of those roses that were once the hope and +despair of Georgia cavaliers.” + +Again followed that wonderful bow, as the Colonel lightly touched the +pale cheek of the poetess. Mrs. Blaylock, blushing like a girl, shook +her curl and gave the Colonel an arch, reproving tap. Secret of eternal +youth—where art thou? Every second the answer comes—“Here, here, here.” +Listen to thine own heartbeats, O weary seeker after external miracles. + +“Those years,” said Mrs. Blaylock, “in Holly Springs were long, long, +long. But now is the promised land in sight. Skyland!—a lovely name.” + +“Doubtless,” said the Colonel, “we shall be able to secure comfortable +accommodations at some modest hotel at reasonable rates. Our trunks are +in Okochee, to be forwarded when we shall have made permanent +arrangements.” + +J. Pinkney Bloom excused himself, went forward, and stood by the +captain at the wheel. + +“Mac,” said he, “do you remember my telling you once that I sold one of +those five-hundred-dollar lots in Skyland?” + +“Seems I do,” grinned Captain MacFarland. + +“I’m not a coward, as a general rule,” went on the promoter, “but I +always said that if I ever met the sucker that bought that lot I’d run +like a turkey. Now, you see that old babe-in-the-wood over there? Well, +he’s the boy that drew the prize. That was the only five-hundred-dollar +lot that went. The rest ranged from ten dollars to two hundred. His +wife writes poetry. She’s invented one about the high grounds of +Georgia, that’s way up in G. They’re going to Skyland to open a book +store.” + +“Well,” said MacFarland, with another grin, “it’s a good thing you are +along, J. P.; you can show ’em around town until they begin to feel at +home.” + +“He’s got three hundred dollars left to build a house and store with,” +went on J. Pinkney, as if he were talking to himself. “And he thinks +there’s an open house up there.” + +Captain MacFarland released the wheel long enough to give his leg a +roguish slap. + +“You old fat rascal!” he chuckled, with a wink. + +“Mac, you’re a fool,” said J. Pinkney Bloom, coldly. He went back and +joined the Blaylocks, where he sat, less talkative, with that straight +furrow between his brows that always stood as a signal of schemes being +shaped within. + +“There’s a good many swindles connected with these booms,” he said +presently. “What if this Skyland should turn out to be one—that is, +suppose business should be sort of dull there, and no special sale for +books?” + +“My dear sir,” said Colonel Blaylock, resting his hand upon the back of +his wife’s chair, “three times I have been reduced to almost penury by +the duplicity of others, but I have not yet lost faith in humanity. If +I have been deceived again, still we may glean health and content, if +not worldly profit. I am aware that there are dishonest schemers in the +world who set traps for the unwary, but even they are not altogether +bad. My dear, can you recall those verses entitled ‘He Giveth the +Increase,’ that you composed for the choir of our church in Holly +Springs?” + +“That was four years ago,” said Mrs. Blaylock; “perhaps I can repeat a +verse or two. + +“The lily springs from the rotting mould; + Pearls from the deep sea slime; +Good will come out of Nazareth + All in God’s own time. + +“To the hardest heart the softening grace + Cometh, at last, to bless; +Guiding it right to help and cheer + And succor in distress. + + +“I cannot remember the rest. The lines were not ambitious. They were +written to the music composed by a dear friend.” + +“It’s a fine rhyme, just the same,” declared Mr. Bloom. “It seems to +ring the bell, all right. I guess I gather the sense of it. It means +that the rankest kind of a phony will give you the best end of it once +in a while.” + +Mr. Bloom strayed thoughtfully back to the captain, and stood +meditating. + +“Ought to be in sight of the spires and gilded domes of Skyland now in +a few minutes,” chirruped MacFarland, shaking with enjoyment. + +“Go to the devil,” said Mr. Bloom, still pensive. + +And now, upon the left bank, they caught a glimpse of a white village, +high up on the hills, smothered among green trees. That was Cold +Branch—no boom town, but the slow growth of many years. Cold Branch lay +on the edge of the grape and corn lands. The big country road ran just +back of the heights. Cold Branch had nothing in common with the frisky +ambition of Okochee with its impertinent lake. + +“Mac,” said J. Pinkney suddenly, “I want you to stop at Cold Branch. +There’s a landing there that they made to use sometimes when the river +was up.” + +“Can’t,” said the captain, grinning more broadly. “I’ve got the United +States mails on board. Right to-day this boat’s in the government +service. Do you want to have the poor old captain keelhauled by Uncle +Sam? And the great city of Skyland, all disconsolate, waiting for its +mail? I’m ashamed of your extravagance, J. P.” + +“Mac,” almost whispered J. Pinkney, in his danger-line voice, “I looked +into the engine room of the _Dixie Belle_ a while ago. Don’t you know +of somebody that needs a new boiler? Cement and black Japan can’t hide +flaws from me. And then, those shares of building and loan that you +traded for repairs—they were all yours, of course. I hate to mention +these things, but—” + +“Oh, come now, J. P.,” said the captain. “You know I was just fooling. +I’ll put you off at Cold Branch, if you say so.” + +“The other passengers get off there, too,” said Mr. Bloom. + +Further conversation was held, and in ten minutes the _Dixie Belle_ +turned her nose toward a little, cranky wooden pier on the left bank, +and the captain, relinquishing the wheel to a roustabout, came to the +passenger deck and made the remarkable announcement: “All out for +Skyland.” + +The Blaylocks and J. Pinkney Bloom disembarked, and the _Dixie Belle_ +proceeded on her way up the lake. Guided by the indefatigable promoter, +they slowly climbed the steep hillside, pausing often to rest and +admire the view. Finally they entered the village of Cold Branch. +Warmly both the Colonel and his wife praised it for its homelike and +peaceful beauty. Mr. Bloom conducted them to a two-story building on a +shady street that bore the legend, “Pine-top Inn.” Here he took his +leave, receiving the cordial thanks of the two for his attentions, the +Colonel remarking that he thought they would spend the remainder of the +day in rest, and take a look at his purchase on the morrow. + +J. Pinkney Bloom walked down Cold Branch’s main street. He did not know +this town, but he knew towns, and his feet did not falter. Presently he +saw a sign over a door: “Frank E. Cooly, Attorney-at-Law and Notary +Public.” A young man was Mr. Cooly, and awaiting business. + +“Get your hat, son,” said Mr. Bloom, in his breezy way, “and a blank +deed, and come along. It’s a job for you.” + +“Now,” he continued, when Mr. Cooly had responded with alacrity, “is +there a bookstore in town?” + +“One,” said the lawyer. “Henry Williams’s.” + +“Get there,” said Mr. Bloom. “We’re going to buy it.” + +Henry Williams was behind his counter. His store was a small one, +containing a mixture of books, stationery, and fancy rubbish. Adjoining +it was Henry’s home—a decent cottage, vine-embowered and cosy. Henry +was lank and soporific, and not inclined to rush his business. + +“I want to buy your house and store,” said Mr. Bloom. “I haven’t got +time to dicker—name your price.” + +“It’s worth eight hundred,” said Henry, too much dazed to ask more than +its value. + +“Shut that door,” said Mr. Bloom to the lawyer. Then he tore off his +coat and vest, and began to unbutton his shirt. + +“Wanter fight about it, do yer?” said Henry Williams, jumping up and +cracking his heels together twice. “All right, hunky—sail in and cut +yer capers.” + +“Keep your clothes on,” said Mr. Bloom. “I’m only going down to the +bank.” + +He drew eight one-hundred-dollar bills from his money belt and planked +them down on the counter. Mr. Cooly showed signs of future promise, for +he already had the deed spread out, and was reaching across the counter +for the ink bottle. Never before or since was such quick action had in +Cold Branch. + +“Your name, please?” asked the lawyer. + +“Make it out to Peyton Blaylock,” said Mr. Bloom. “God knows how to +spell it.” + +Within thirty minutes Henry Williams was out of business, and Mr. Bloom +stood on the brick sidewalk with Mr. Cooly, who held in his hand the +signed and attested deed. + +“You’ll find the party at the Pinetop Inn,” said J. Pinkney Bloom. “Get +it recorded, and take it down and give it to him. He’ll ask you a +hell’s mint of questions; so here’s ten dollars for the trouble you’ll +have in not being able to answer ’em. Never run much to poetry, did +you, young man?” + +“Well,” said the really talented Cooly, who even yet retained his right +mind, “now and then.” + +“Dig into it,” said Mr. Bloom, “it’ll pay you. Never heard a poem, now, +that run something like this, did you?— + +A good thing out of Nazareth + Comes up sometimes, I guess, +On hand, all right, to help and cheer + A sucker in distress.” + + +“I believe not,” said Mr. Cooly. + +“It’s a hymn,” said J. Pinkney Bloom. “Now, show me the way to a livery +stable, son, for I’m going to hit the dirt road back to Okochee.” + + + + +CONFESSIONS OF A HUMORIST + + +There was a painless stage of incubation that lasted twenty-five years, +and then it broke out on me, and people said I was It. + +But they called it humor instead of measles. + +The employees in the store bought a silver inkstand for the senior +partner on his fiftieth birthday. We crowded into his private office to +present it. I had been selected for spokesman, and I made a little +speech that I had been preparing for a week. + +It made a hit. It was full of puns and epigrams and funny twists that +brought down the house—which was a very solid one in the wholesale +hardware line. Old Marlowe himself actually grinned, and the employees +took their cue and roared. + +My reputation as a humorist dates from half-past nine o’clock on that +morning. For weeks afterward my fellow clerks fanned the flame of my +self-esteem. One by one they came to me, saying what an awfully clever +speech that was, old man, and carefully explained to me the point of +each one of my jokes. + +Gradually I found that I was expected to keep it up. Others might speak +sanely on business matters and the day’s topics, but from me something +gamesome and airy was required. + +I was expected to crack jokes about the crockery and lighten up the +granite ware with persiflage. I was second bookkeeper, and if I failed +to show up a balance sheet without something comic about the footings +or could find no cause for laughter in an invoice of plows, the other +clerks were disappointed. By degrees my fame spread, and I became a +local “character.” Our town was small enough to make this possible. The +daily newspaper quoted me. At social gatherings I was indispensable. + +I believe I did possess considerable wit and a facility for quick and +spontaneous repartee. This gift I cultivated and improved by practice. +And the nature of it was kindly and genial, not running to sarcasm or +offending others. People began to smile when they saw me coming, and by +the time we had met I generally had the word ready to broaden the smile +into a laugh. + +I had married early. We had a charming boy of three and a girl of five. +Naturally, we lived in a vine-covered cottage, and were happy. My +salary as bookkeeper in the hardware concern kept at a distance those +ills attendant upon superfluous wealth. + +At sundry times I had written out a few jokes and conceits that I +considered peculiarly happy, and had sent them to certain periodicals +that print such things. All of them had been instantly accepted. +Several of the editors had written to request further contributions. + +One day I received a letter from the editor of a famous weekly +publication. He suggested that I submit to him a humorous composition +to fill a column of space; hinting that he would make it a regular +feature of each issue if the work proved satisfactory. I did so, and at +the end of two weeks he offered to make a contract with me for a year +at a figure that was considerably higher than the amount paid me by the +hardware firm. + +I was filled with delight. My wife already crowned me in her mind with +the imperishable evergreens of literary success. We had lobster +croquettes and a bottle of blackberry wine for supper that night. Here +was the chance to liberate myself from drudgery. I talked over the +matter very seriously with Louisa. We agreed that I must resign my +place at the store and devote myself to humor. + +I resigned. My fellow clerks gave me a farewell banquet. The speech I +made there coruscated. It was printed in full by the _Gazette_. The +next morning I awoke and looked at the clock. + +“Late, by George!” I exclaimed, and grabbed for my clothes. Louisa +reminded me that I was no longer a slave to hardware and contractors’ +supplies. I was now a professional humorist. + +After breakfast she proudly led me to the little room off the kitchen. +Dear girl! There was my table and chair, writing pad, ink, and pipe +tray. And all the author’s trappings—the celery stand full of fresh +roses and honeysuckle, last year’s calendar on the wall, the +dictionary, and a little bag of chocolates to nibble between +inspirations. Dear girl! + +I sat me to work. The wall paper is patterned with arabesques or +odalisks or—perhaps—it is trapezoids. Upon one of the figures I fixed +my eyes. I bethought me of humor. + +A voice startled me—Louisa’s voice. + +“If you aren’t too busy, dear,” it said, “come to dinner.” + +I looked at my watch. Yes, five hours had been gathered in by the grim +scytheman. I went to dinner. + +“You mustn’t work too hard at first,” said Louisa. “Goethe—or was it +Napoleon?—said five hours a day is enough for mental labor. Couldn’t +you take me and the children to the woods this afternoon?” + +“I _am_ a little tired,” I admitted. So we went to the woods. + +But I soon got the swing of it. Within a month I was turning out copy +as regular as shipments of hardware. + +And I had success. My column in the weekly made some stir, and I was +referred to in a gossipy way by the critics as something fresh in the +line of humorists. I augmented my income considerably by contributing +to other publications. + +I picked up the tricks of the trade. I could take a funny idea and make +a two-line joke of it, earning a dollar. With false whiskers on, it +would serve up cold as a quatrain, doubling its producing value. By +turning the skirt and adding a ruffle of rhyme you would hardly +recognize it as _vers de societe_ with neatly shod feet and a +fashion-plate illustration. + +I began to save up money, and we had new carpets, and a parlor organ. +My townspeople began to look upon me as a citizen of some consequence +instead of the merry trifler I had been when I clerked in the hardware +store. + +After five or six months the spontaniety seemed to depart from my +humor. Quips and droll sayings no longer fell carelessly from my lips. +I was sometimes hard run for material. I found myself listening to +catch available ideas from the conversation of my friends. Sometimes I +chewed my pencil and gazed at the wall paper for hours trying to build +up some gay little bubble of unstudied fun. + +And then I became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to my +acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like a +veritable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty comparison, a piquant +phrase fall from their lips and I was after it like a hound springing +upon a bone. I dared not trust my memory; but, turning aside guiltily +and meanly, I would make a note of it in my ever-present memorandum +book or upon my cuff for my own future use. + +My friends regarded me in sorrow and wonder. I was not the same man. +Where once I had furnished them entertainment and jollity, I now preyed +upon them. No jests from me ever bid for their smiles now. They were +too precious. I could not afford to dispense gratuitously the means of +my livelihood. + +I was a lugubrious fox praising the singing of my friends, the crow’s, +that they might drop from their beaks the morsels of wit that I +coveted. + +Nearly every one began to avoid me. I even forgot how to smile, not +even paying that much for the sayings I appropriated. + +No persons, places, times, or subjects were exempt from my plundering +in search of material. Even in church my demoralized fancy went hunting +among the solemn aisles and pillars for spoil. + +Did the minister give out the long-meter doxology, at once I began: +“Doxology—sockdology—sockdolager—meter—meet her.” + +The sermon ran through my mental sieve, its precepts filtering +unheeded, could I but glean a suggestion of a pun or a _bon mot_. The +solemnest anthems of the choir were but an accompaniment to my thoughts +as I conceived new changes to ring upon the ancient comicalities +concerning the jealousies of soprano, tenor, and basso. + +My own home became a hunting ground. My wife is a singularly feminine +creature, candid, sympathetic, and impulsive. Once her conversation was +my delight, and her ideas a source of unfailing pleasure. Now I worked +her. She was a gold mine of those amusing but lovable inconsistencies +that distinguish the female mind. + +I began to market those pearls of unwisdom and humor that should have +enriched only the sacred precincts of home. With devilish cunning I +encouraged her to talk. Unsuspecting, she laid her heart bare. Upon the +cold, conspicuous, common, printed page I offered it to the public +gaze. + +A literary Judas, I kissed her and betrayed her. For pieces of silver I +dressed her sweet confidences in the pantalettes and frills of folly +and made them dance in the market place. + +Dear Louisa! Of nights I have bent over her cruel as a wolf above a +tender lamb, hearkening even to her soft words murmured in sleep, +hoping to catch an idea for my next day’s grind. There is worse to +come. + +God help me! Next my fangs were buried deep in the neck of the fugitive +sayings of my little children. + +Guy and Viola were two bright fountains of childish, quaint thoughts +and speeches. I found a ready sale for this kind of humor, and was +furnishing a regular department in a magazine with “Funny Fancies of +Childhood.” I began to stalk them as an Indian stalks the antelope. I +would hide behind sofas and doors, or crawl on my hands and knees among +the bushes in the yard to eavesdrop while they were at play. I had all +the qualities of a harpy except remorse. + +Once, when I was barren of ideas, and my copy must leave in the next +mail, I covered myself in a pile of autumn leaves in the yard, where I +knew they intended to come to play. I cannot bring myself to believe +that Guy was aware of my hiding place, but even if he was, I would be +loath to blame him for his setting fire to the leaves, causing the +destruction of my new suit of clothes, and nearly cremating a parent. + +Soon my own children began to shun me as a pest. Often, when I was +creeping upon them like a melancholy ghoul, I would hear them say to +each other: “Here comes papa,” and they would gather their toys and +scurry away to some safer hiding place. Miserable wretch that I was! + +And yet I was doing well financially. Before the first year had passed +I had saved a thousand dollars, and we had lived in comfort. + +But at what a cost! I am not quite clear as to what a pariah is, but I +was everything that it sounds like. I had no friends, no amusements, no +enjoyment of life. The happiness of my family had been sacrificed. I +was a bee, sucking sordid honey from life’s fairest flowers, dreaded +and shunned on account of my sting. + +One day a man spoke to me, with a pleasant and friendly smile. Not in +months had the thing happened. I was passing the undertaking +establishment of Peter Heffelbower. Peter stood in the door and saluted +me. I stopped, strangely wrung in my heart by his greeting. He asked me +inside. + +The day was chill and rainy. We went into the back room, where a fire +burned, in a little stove. A customer came, and Peter left me alone for +a while. Presently I felt a new feeling stealing over me—a sense of +beautiful calm and content, I looked around the place. There were rows +of shining rosewood caskets, black palls, trestles, hearse plumes, +mourning streamers, and all the paraphernalia of the solemn trade. Here +was peace, order, silence, the abode of grave and dignified +reflections. Here, on the brink of life, was a little niche pervaded by +the spirit of eternal rest. + +When I entered it, the follies of the world abandoned me at the door. I +felt no inclination to wrest a humorous idea from those sombre and +stately trappings. My mind seemed to stretch itself to grateful repose +upon a couch draped with gentle thoughts. + +A quarter of an hour ago I was an abandoned humorist. Now I was a +philosopher, full of serenity and ease. I had found a refuge from +humor, from the hot chase of the shy quip, from the degrading pursuit +of the panting joke, from the restless reach after the nimble repartee. + +I had not known Heffelbower well. When he came back, I let him talk, +fearful that he might prove to be a jarring note in the sweet, +dirgelike harmony of his establishment. + +But, no. He chimed truly. I gave a long sigh of happiness. Never have I +known a man’s talk to be as magnificently dull as Peter’s was. Compared +with it the Dead Sea is a geyser. Never a sparkle or a glimmer of wit +marred his words. Commonplaces as trite and as plentiful as +blackberries flowed from his lips no more stirring in quality than a +last week’s tape running from a ticker. Quaking a little, I tried upon +him one of my best pointed jokes. It fell back ineffectual, with the +point broken. I loved that man from then on. + +Two or three evenings each week I would steal down to Heffelbower’s and +revel in his back room. That was my only joy. I began to rise early and +hurry through my work, that I might spend more time in my haven. In no +other place could I throw off my habit of extracting humorous ideas +from my surroundings. Peter’s talk left me no opening had I besieged it +ever so hard. + +Under this influence I began to improve in spirits. It was the +recreation from one’s labor which every man needs. I surprised one or +two of my former friends by throwing them a smile and a cheery word as +I passed them on the streets. Several times I dumfounded my family by +relaxing long enough to make a jocose remark in their presence. + +I had so long been ridden by the incubus of humor that I seized my +hours of holiday with a schoolboy’s zest. + +Mv work began to suffer. It was not the pain and burden to me that it +had been. I often whistled at my desk, and wrote with far more fluency +than before. I accomplished my tasks impatiently, as anxious to be off +to my helpful retreat as a drunkard is to get to his tavern. + +My wife had some anxious hours in conjecturing where I spent my +afternoons. I thought it best not to tell her; women do not understand +these things. Poor girl!—she had one shock out of it. + +One day I brought home a silver coffin handle for a paper weight and a +fine, fluffy hearse plume to dust my papers with. + +I loved to see them on my desk, and think of the beloved back room down +at Heffelbower’s. But Louisa found them, and she shrieked with horror. +I had to console her with some lame excuse for having them, but I saw +in her eyes that the prejudice was not removed. I had to remove the +articles, though, at double-quick time. + +One day Peter Heffelbower laid before me a temptation that swept me off +my feet. In his sensible, uninspired way he showed me his books, and +explained that his profits and his business were increasing rapidly. He +had thought of taking in a partner with some cash. He would rather have +me than any one he knew. When I left his place that afternoon Peter had +my check for the thousand dollars I had in the bank, and I was a +partner in his undertaking business. + +I went home with feelings of delirious joy, mingled with a certain +amount of doubt. I was dreading to tell my wife about it. But I walked +on air. To give up the writing of humorous stuff, once more to enjoy +the apples of life, instead of squeezing them to a pulp for a few drops +of hard cider to make the pubic feel funny—what a boon that would be! + +At the supper table Louisa handed me some letters that had come during +my absence. Several of them contained rejected manuscript. Ever since I +first began going to Heffelbower’s my stuff had been coming back with +alarming frequency. Lately I had been dashing off my jokes and articles +with the greatest fluency. Previously I had labored like a bricklayer, +slowly and with agony. + +Presently I opened a letter from the editor of the weekly with which I +had a regular contract. The checks for that weekly article were still +our main dependence. The letter ran thus: + +DEAR SIR: + + +As you are aware, our contract for the year expires with the present +month. While regretting the necessity for so doing, we must say that we +do not care to renew same for the coming year. We were quite pleased +with your style of humor, which seems to have delighted quite a large +proportion of our readers. But for the past two months we have noticed +a decided falling off in its quality. Your earlier work showed a +spontaneous, easy, natural flow of fun and wit. Of late it is labored, +studied, and unconvincing, giving painful evidence of hard toil and +drudging mechanism. + + +Again regretting that we do not consider your contributions available +any longer, we are, yours sincerely, + + +THE EDITOR. + + +I handed this letter to my wife. After she had read it her face grew +extremely long, and there were tears in her eyes. + +“The mean old thing!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I’m sure your pieces +are just as good as they ever were. And it doesn’t take you half as +long to write them as it did.” And then, I suppose, Louisa thought of +the checks that would cease coming. “Oh, John,” she wailed, “what will +you do now?” + +For an answer I got up and began to do a polka step around the supper +table. I am sure Louisa thought the trouble had driven me mad; and I +think the children hoped it had, for they tore after me, yelling with +glee and emulating my steps. I was now something like their old +playmate as of yore. + +“The theatre for us to-night!” I shouted; “nothing less. And a late, +wild, disreputable supper for all of us at the Palace Restaurant. +Lumpty-diddle-de-dee-de-dum!” + +And then I explained my glee by declaring that I was now a partner in a +prosperous undertaking establishment, and that written jokes might go +hide their heads in sackcloth and ashes for all me. + +With the editor’s letter in her hand to justify the deed I had done, my +wife could advance no objections save a few mild ones based on the +feminine inability to appreciate a good thing such as the little back +room of Peter Hef—no, of Heffelbower & Co’s. undertaking establishment. + +In conclusion, I will say that to-day you will find no man in our town +as well liked, as jovial, and full of merry sayings as I. My jokes are +again noised about and quoted; once more I take pleasure in my wife’s +confidential chatter without a mercenary thought, while Guy and Viola +play at my feet distributing gems of childish humor without fear of the +ghastly tormentor who used to dog their steps, notebook in hand. + +Our business has prospered finely. I keep the books and look after the +shop, while Peter attends to outside matters. He says that my levity +and high spirits would simply turn any funeral into a regular Irish +wake. + + + + +THE SPARROWS IN MADISON SQUARE + + +The young man in straitened circumstances who comes to New York City to +enter literature has but one thing to do, provided he has studied +carefully his field in advance. He must go straight to Madison Square, +write an article about the sparrows there, and sell it to the _Sun_ for +$15. + +I cannot recall either a novel or a story dealing with the popular +theme of the young writer from the provinces who comes to the +metropolis to win fame and fortune with his pen in which the hero does +not get his start that way. It does seem strange that some author, in +casting about for startlingly original plots, has not hit upon the idea +of having his hero write about the bluebirds in Union Square and sell +it to the _Herald_. But a search through the files of metropolitan +fiction counts up overwhelmingly for the sparrows and the old Garden +Square, and the _Sun_ always writes the check. + +Of course it is easy to understand why this first city venture of the +budding author is always successful. He is primed by necessity to a +superlative effort; mid the iron and stone and marble of the roaring +city he has found this spot of singing birds and green grass and trees; +every tender sentiment in his nature is battling with the sweet pain of +homesickness; his genius is aroused as it never may be again; the birds +chirp, the tree branches sway, the noise of wheels is forgotten; he +writes with his soul in his pen—and he sells it to the _Sun_ for $15. + +I had read of this custom during many years before I came to New York. +When my friends were using their strongest arguments to dissuade me +from coming, I only smiled serenely. They did not know of that sparrow +graft I had up my sleeve. + +When I arrived in New York, and the car took me straight from the ferry +up Twenty-third Street to Madison Square, I could hear that $15 check +rustling in my inside pocket. + +I obtained lodging at an unhyphenated hostelry, and the next morning I +was on a bench in Madison Square almost by the time the sparrows were +awake. Their melodious chirping, the benignant spring foliage of the +noble trees and the clean, fragrant grass reminded me so potently of +the old farm I had left that tears almost came into my eyes. + +Then, all in a moment, I felt my inspiration. The brave, piercing notes +of those cheerful small birds formed a keynote to a wonderful, light, +fanciful song of hope and joy and altruism. Like myself, they were +creatures with hearts pitched to the tune of woods and fields; as I +was, so were they captives by circumstance in the discordant, dull +city—yet with how much grace and glee they bore the restraint! + +And then the early morning people began to pass through the square to +their work—sullen people, with sidelong glances and glum faces, +hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. And I got my theme cut out clear from the +bird notes, and wrought it into a lesson, and a poem, and a carnival +dance, and a lullaby; and then translated it all into prose and began +to write. + +For two hours my pencil traveled over my pad with scarcely a rest. Then +I went to the little room I had rented for two days, and there I cut it +to half, and then mailed it, white-hot, to the _Sun_. + +The next morning I was up by daylight and spent two cents of my capital +for a paper. If the word “sparrow” was in it I was unable to find it. I +took it up to my room and spread it out on the bed and went over it, +column by column. Something was wrong. + +Three hours afterward the postman brought me a large envelope +containing my MS. and a piece of inexpensive paper, about 3 inches by +4—I suppose some of you have seen them—upon which was written in violet +ink, “With the _Sun’s_ thanks.” + +I went over to the square and sat upon a bench. No; I did not think it +necessary to eat any breakfast that morning. The confounded pests of +sparrows were making the square hideous with their idiotic “cheep, +cheep.” I never saw birds so persistently noisy, impudent, and +disagreeable in all my life. + +By this time, according to all traditions, I should have been standing +in the office of the editor of the _Sun_. That personage—a tall, grave, +white-haired man—would strike a silver bell as he grasped my hand and +wiped a suspicious moisture from his glasses. + +“Mr. McChesney,” he would be saying when a subordinate appeared, “this +is Mr. Henry, the young man who sent in that exquisite gem about the +sparrows in Madison Square. You may give him a desk at once. Your +salary, sir, will be $80 a week, to begin with.” + +This was what I had been led to expect by all writers who have evolved +romances of literary New York. + +Something was decidedly wrong with tradition. I could not assume the +blame, so I fixed it upon the sparrows. I began to hate them with +intensity and heat. + +At that moment an individual wearing an excess of whiskers, two hats, +and a pestilential air slid into the seat beside me. + +“Say, Willie,” he muttered cajolingly, “could you cough up a dime out +of your coffers for a cup of coffee this morning?” + +“I’m lung-weary, my friend,” said I. “The best I can do is three +cents.” + +“And you look like a gentleman, too,” said he. “What brung you +down?—boozer?” + +“Birds,” I said fiercely. “The brown-throated songsters carolling songs +of hope and cheer to weary man toiling amid the city’s dust and din. +The little feathered couriers from the meadows and woods chirping +sweetly to us of blue skies and flowering fields. The confounded little +squint-eyed nuisances yawping like a flock of steam pianos, and +stuffing themselves like aldermen with grass seeds and bugs, while a +man sits on a bench and goes without his breakfast. Yes, sir, birds! +look at them!” + +As I spoke I picked up a dead tree branch that lay by the bench, and +hurled it with all my force into a close congregation of the sparrows +on the grass. The flock flew to the trees with a babel of shrill cries; +but two of them remained prostrate upon the turf. + +In a moment my unsavory friend had leaped over the row of benches and +secured the fluttering victims, which he thrust hurriedly into his +pockets. Then he beckoned me with a dirty forefinger. + +“Come on, cully,” he said hoarsely. “You’re in on the feed.” + +Thank you very much! + +Weakly I followed my dingy acquaintance. He led me away from the park +down a side street and through a crack in a fence into a vacant lot +where some excavating had been going on. Behind a pile of old stones +and lumber he paused, and took out his birds. + +“I got matches,” said he. “You got any paper to start a fire with?” + +I drew forth my manuscript story of the sparrows, and offered it for +burnt sacrifice. There were old planks, splinters, and chips for our +fire. My frowsy friend produced from some interior of his frayed +clothing half a loaf of bread, pepper, and salt. + +In ten minutes each of us was holding a sparrow spitted upon a stick +over the leaping flames. + +“Say,” said my fellow bivouacker, “this ain’t so bad when a fellow’s +hungry. It reminds me of when I struck New York first—about fifteen +years ago. I come in from the West to see if I could get a job on a +newspaper. I hit the Madison Square Park the first mornin’ after, and +was sitting around on the benches. I noticed the sparrows chirpin’, and +the grass and trees so nice and green that I thought I was back in the +country again. Then I got some papers out of my pocket, and—” + +“I know,” I interrupted. “You sent it to the _Sun_ and got $15.” + +“Say,” said my friend, suspiciously, “you seem to know a good deal. +Where was you? I went to sleep on the bench there, in the sun, and +somebody touched me for every cent I had—$15.” + + + + +HEARTS AND HANDS + + +At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on the +eastbound B. & M. express. In one coach there sat a very pretty young +woman dressed in elegant taste and surrounded by all the luxurious +comforts of an experienced traveler. Among the newcomers were two young +men, one of handsome presence with a bold, frank countenance and +manner; the other a ruffled, glum-faced person, heavily built and +roughly dressed. The two were handcuffed together. + +As they passed down the aisle of the coach the only vacant seat offered +was a reversed one facing the attractive young woman. Here the linked +couple seated themselves. The young woman’s glance fell upon them with +a distant, swift disinterest; then with a lovely smile brightening her +countenance and a tender pink tingeing her rounded cheeks, she held out +a little gray-gloved hand. When she spoke her voice, full, sweet, and +deliberate, proclaimed that its owner was accustomed to speak and be +heard. + +“Well, Mr. Easton, if you _will_ make me speak first, I suppose I must. +Don’t you ever recognize old friends when you meet them in the West?” + +The younger man roused himself sharply at the sound of her voice, +seemed to struggle with a slight embarrassment which he threw off +instantly, and then clasped her fingers with his left hand. + +“It’s Miss Fairchild,” he said, with a smile. “I’ll ask you to excuse +the other hand; it’s otherwise engaged just at present.” + +He slightly raised his right hand, bound at the wrist by the shining +“bracelet” to the left one of his companion. The glad look in the +girl’s eyes slowly changed to a bewildered horror. The glow faded from +her cheeks. Her lips parted in a vague, relaxing distress. Easton, with +a little laugh, as if amused, was about to speak again when the other +forestalled him. The glum-faced man had been watching the girl’s +countenance with veiled glances from his keen, shrewd eyes. + +“You’ll excuse me for speaking, miss, but, I see you’re acquainted with +the marshall here. If you’ll ask him to speak a word for me when we get +to the pen he’ll do it, and it’ll make things easier for me there. He’s +taking me to Leavenworth prison. It’s seven years for counterfeiting.” + +“Oh!” said the girl, with a deep breath and returning color. “So that +is what you are doing out here? A marshal!” + +“My dear Miss Fairchild,” said Easton, calmly, “I had to do something. +Money has a way of taking wings unto itself, and you know it takes +money to keep step with our crowd in Washington. I saw this opening in +the West, and—well, a marshalship isn’t quite as high a position as +that of ambassador, but—” + +“The ambassador,” said the girl, warmly, “doesn’t call any more. He +needn’t ever have done so. You ought to know that. And so now you are +one of these dashing Western heroes, and you ride and shoot and go into +all kinds of dangers. That’s different from the Washington life. You +have been missed from the old crowd.” + +The girl’s eyes, fascinated, went back, widening a little, to rest upon +the glittering handcuffs. + +“Don’t you worry about them, miss,” said the other man. “All marshals +handcuff themselves to their prisoners to keep them from getting away. +Mr. Easton knows his business.” + +“Will we see you again soon in Washington?” asked the girl. + +“Not soon, I think,” said Easton. “My butterfly days are over, I fear.” + +“I love the West,” said the girl irrelevantly. Her eyes were shining +softly. She looked away out the car window. She began to speak truly +and simply without the gloss of style and manner: “Mamma and I spent +the summer in Denver. She went home a week ago because father was +slightly ill. I could live and be happy in the West. I think the air +here agrees with me. Money isn’t everything. But people always +misunderstand things and remain stupid—” + +“Say, Mr. Marshal,” growled the glum-faced man. “This isn’t quite fair. +I’m needing a drink, and haven’t had a smoke all day. Haven’t you +talked long enough? Take me in the smoker now, won’t you? I’m half dead +for a pipe.” + +The bound travelers rose to their feet, Easton with the same slow smile +on his face. + +“I can’t deny a petition for tobacco,” he said, lightly. “It’s the one +friend of the unfortunate. Good-bye, Miss Fairchild. Duty calls, you +know.” He held out his hand for a farewell. + +“It’s too bad you are not going East,” she said, reclothing herself +with manner and style. “But you must go on to Leavenworth, I suppose?” + +“Yes,” said Easton, “I must go on to Leavenworth.” + +The two men sidled down the aisle into the smoker. + +The two passengers in a seat near by had heard most of the +conversation. Said one of them: “That marshal’s a good sort of chap. +Some of these Western fellows are all right.” + +“Pretty young to hold an office like that, isn’t he?” asked the other. + +“Young!” exclaimed the first speaker, “why—Oh! didn’t you catch on? +Say—did you ever know an officer to handcuff a prisoner to his _right_ +hand?” + + + + +THE CACTUS + + +The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A +large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the +drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire +courtship while removing one’s gloves. + +That is what Trysdale was doing, standing by a table in his bachelor +apartments. On the table stood a singular-looking green plant in a red +earthen jar. The plant was one of the species of cacti, and was +provided with long, tentacular leaves that perpetually swayed with the +slightest breeze with a peculiar beckoning motion. + +Trysdale’s friend, the brother of the bride, stood at a sideboard +complaining at being allowed to drink alone. Both men were in evening +dress. White favors like stars upon their coats shone through the gloom +of the apartment. + +As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves, there passed through Trysdale’s +mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last few hours. It seemed +that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that had been +banked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears the +lowpitched hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp +garments, and, most insistently recurring, the drawling words of the +minister irrevocably binding her to another. + +From this last hopeless point of view he still strove, as if it had +become a habit of his mind, to reach some conjecture as to why and how +he had lost her. Shaken rudely by the uncompromising fact, he had +suddenly found himself confronted by a thing he had never before +faced—his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self. He saw all +the garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to rags of +folly. He shuddered at the thought that to others, before now, the +garments of his soul must have appeared sorry and threadbare. Vanity +and conceit? These were the joints in his armor. And how free from +either she had always been—But why— + +As she had slowly moved up the aisle toward the altar he had felt an +unworthy, sullen exultation that had served to support him. He had told +himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another than the man to +whom she was about to give herself. But even that poor consolation had +been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that swift, limpid, upward +look that she gave the man when he took her hand, he knew himself to be +forgotten. Once that same look had been raised to him, and he had +gauged its meaning. Indeed, his conceit had crumbled; its last prop was +gone. Why had it ended thus? There had been no quarrel between them, +nothing— + +For the thousandth time he remarshalled in his mind the events of those +last few days before the tide had so suddenly turned. + +She had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal, and he had +accepted her homage with royal grandeur. It had been a very sweet +incense that she had burned before him; so modest (he told himself); so +childlike and worshipful, and (he would once have sworn) so sincere. +She had invested him with an almost supernatural number of high +attributes and excellencies and talents, and he had absorbed the +oblation as a desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no promise +of blossom or fruit. + +As Trysdale grimly wrenched apart the seam of his last glove, the +crowning instance of his fatuous and tardily mourned egoism came +vividly back to him. The scene was the night when he had asked her to +come up on his pedestal with him and share his greatness. He could not, +now, for the pain of it, allow his mind to dwell upon the memory of her +convincing beauty that night—the careless wave of her hair, the +tenderness and virginal charm of her looks and words. But they had been +enough, and they had brought him to speak. During their conversation +she had said: + +“And Captain Carruthers tells me that you speak the Spanish language +like a native. Why have you hidden this accomplishment from me? Is +there anything you do not know?” + +Now, Carruthers was an idiot. No doubt he (Trysdale) had been guilty +(he sometimes did such things) of airing at the club some old, canting +Castilian proverb dug from the hotchpotch at the back of dictionaries. +Carruthers, who was one of his incontinent admirers, was the very man +to have magnified this exhibition of doubtful erudition. + +But, alas! the incense of her admiration had been so sweet and +flattering. He allowed the imputation to pass without denial. Without +protest, he allowed her to twine about his brow this spurious bay of +Spanish scholarship. He let it grace his conquering head, and, among +its soft convolutions, he did not feel the prick of the thorn that was +to pierce him later. + +How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was! How she fluttered like a +snared bird when he laid his mightiness at her feet! He could have +sworn, and he could swear now, that unmistakable consent was in her +eyes, but, coyly, she would give him no direct answer. “I will send you +my answer to-morrow,” she said; and he, the indulgent, confident +victor, smilingly granted the delay. The next day he waited, impatient, +in his rooms for the word. At noon her groom came to the door and left +the strange cactus in the red earthen jar. There was no note, no +message, merely a tag upon the plant bearing a barbarous foreign or +botanical name. He waited until night, but her answer did not come. His +large pride and hurt vanity kept him from seeking her. Two evenings +later they met at a dinner. Their greetings were conventional, but she +looked at him, breathless, wondering, eager. He was courteous, adamant, +waiting her explanation. With womanly swiftness she took her cue from +his manner, and turned to snow and ice. Thus, and wider from this on, +they had drifted apart. Where was his fault? Who had been to blame? +Humbled now, he sought the answer amid the ruins of his self-conceit. +If— + +The voice of the other man in the room, querulously intruding upon his +thoughts, aroused him. + +“I say, Trysdale, what the deuce is the matter with you? You look +unhappy as if you yourself had been married instead of having acted +merely as an accomplice. Look at me, another accessory, come two +thousand miles on a garlicky, cockroachy banana steamer all the way +from South America to connive at the sacrifice—please to observe how +lightly my guilt rests upon my shoulders. Only little sister I had, +too, and now she’s gone. Come now! take something to ease your +conscience.” + +“I don’t drink just now, thanks,” said Trysdale. + +“Your brandy,” resumed the other, coming over and joining him, “is +abominable. Run down to see me some time at Punta Redonda, and try some +of our stuff that old Garcia smuggles in. It’s worth the trip. Hallo! +here’s an old acquaintance. Wherever did you rake up this cactus, +Trysdale?” + +“A present,” said Trysdale, “from a friend. Know the species?” + +“Very well. It’s a tropical concern. See hundreds of ’em around Punta +every day. Here’s the name on this tag tied to it. Know any Spanish, +Trysdale?” + +“No,” said Trysdale, with the bitter wraith of a smile—“Is it Spanish?” + +“Yes. The natives imagine the leaves are reaching out and beckoning to +you. They call it by this name—Ventomarme. Name means in English, ‘Come +and take me.’” + + + + +THE DETECTIVE DETECTOR + + +I was walking in Central Park with Avery Knight, the great New York +burglar, highwayman, and murderer. + +“But, my dear Knight,” said I, “it sounds incredible. You have +undoubtedly performed some of the most wonderful feats in your +profession known to modern crime. You have committed some marvellous +deeds under the very noses of the police—you have boldly entered the +homes of millionaires and held them up with an empty gun while you made +free with their silver and jewels; you have sandbagged citizens in the +glare of Broadway’s electric lights; you have killed and robbed with +superb openness and absolute impunity—but when you boast that within +forty-eight hours after committing a murder you can run down and +actually bring me face to face with the detective assigned to apprehend +you, I must beg leave to express my doubts—remember, you are in New +York.” + +Avery Knight smiled indulgently. + +“You pique my professional pride, doctor,” he said in a nettled tone. +“I will convince you.” + +About twelve yards in advance of us a prosperous-looking citizen was +rounding a clump of bushes where the walk curved. Knight suddenly drew +a revolver and shot the man in the back. His victim fell and lay +without moving. + +The great murderer went up to him leisurely and took from his clothes +his money, watch, and a valuable ring and cravat pin. He then rejoined +me smiling calmly, and we continued our walk. + +Ten steps and we met a policeman running toward the spot where the shot +had been fired. Avery Knight stopped him. + +“I have just killed a man,” he announced, seriously, “and robbed him of +his possessions.” + +“G’wan,” said the policeman, angrily, “or I’ll run yez in! Want yer +name in the papers, don’t yez? I never knew the cranks to come around +so quick after a shootin’ before. Out of th’ park, now, for yours, or +I’ll fan yez.” + +“What you have done,” I said, argumentatively, as Knight and I walked +on, “was easy. But when you come to the task of hunting down the +detective that they send upon your trail you will find that you have +undertaken a difficult feat.” + +“Perhaps so,” said Knight, lightly. “I will admit that my success +depends in a degree upon the sort of man they start after me. If it +should be an ordinary plain-clothes man I might fail to gain a sight of +him. If they honor me by giving the case to some one of their +celebrated sleuths I do not fear to match my cunning and powers of +induction against his.” + +On the next afternoon Knight entered my office with a satisfied look on +his keen countenance. + +“How goes the mysterious murder?” I asked. + +“As usual,” said Knight, smilingly. “I have put in the morning at the +police station and at the inquest. It seems that a card case of mine +containing cards with my name and address was found near the body. They +have three witnesses who saw the shooting and gave a description of me. +The case has been placed in the hands of Shamrock Jolnes, the famous +detective. He left Headquarters at 11:30 on the assignment. I waited at +my address until two, thinking he might call there.” + +I laughed, tauntingly. + +“You will never see Jolnes,” I continued, “until this murder has been +forgotten, two or three weeks from now. I had a better opinion of your +shrewdness, Knight. During the three hours and a half that you waited +he has got out of your ken. He is after you on true induction theories +now, and no wrongdoer has yet been known to come upon him while thus +engaged. I advise you to give it up.” + +“Doctor,” said Knight, with a sudden glint in his keen gray eye and a +squaring of his chin, “in spite of the record your city holds of +something like a dozen homicides without a subsequent meeting of the +perpetrator, and the sleuth in charge of the case, I will undertake to +break that record. To-morrow I will take you to Shamrock Jolnes—I will +unmask him before you and prove to you that it is not an impossibility +for an officer of the law and a manslayer to stand face to face in your +city.” + +“Do it,” said I, “and you’ll have the sincere thanks of the Police +Department.” + +On the next day Knight called for me in a cab. + +“I’ve been on one or two false scents, doctor,” he admitted. “I know +something of detectives’ methods, and I followed out a few of them, +expecting to find Jolnes at the other end. The pistol being a +.45-caliber, I thought surely I would find him at work on the clue in +Forty-fifth Street. Then, again, I looked for the detective at the +Columbia University, as the man’s being shot in the back naturally +suggested hazing. But I could not find a trace of him.” + +“—Nor will you,” I said, emphatically. + +“Not by ordinary methods,” said Knight. “I might walk up and down +Broadway for a month without success. But you have aroused my pride, +doctor; and if I fail to show you Shamrock Jolnes this day, I promise +you I will never kill or rob in your city again.” + +“Nonsense, man,” I replied. “When our burglars walk into our houses and +politely demand, thousands of dollars’ worth of jewels, and then dine +and bang the piano an hour or two before leaving, how do you, a mere +murderer, expect to come in contact with the detective that is looking +for you?” + +Avery Knight, sat lost in thought for a while. At length he looked up +brightly. + +“Doc,” said he, “I have it. Put on your hat, and come with me. In half +an hour I guarantee that you shall stand in the presence of Shamrock +Jolnes.” + +I entered a cab with Avery Knight. I did not hear his instructions to +the driver, but the vehicle set out at a smart pace up Broadway, +turning presently into Fifth Avenue, and proceeding northward again. It +was with a rapidly beating heart that I accompanied this wonderful and +gifted assassin, whose analytical genius and superb self-confidence had +prompted him to make me the tremendous promise of bringing me into the +presence of a murderer and the New York detective in pursuit of him +simultaneously. Even yet I could not believe it possible. + +“Are you sure that you are not being led into some trap?” I asked. +“Suppose that your clue, whatever it is, should bring us only into the +presence of the Commissioner of Police and a couple of dozen cops!” + +“My dear doctor,” said Knight, a little stiffly. “I would remind you +that I am no gambler.” + +“I beg your pardon,” said I. “But I do not think you will find Jolnes.” + +The cab stopped before one of the handsomest residences on the avenue. +Walking up and down in front of the house was a man with long red +whiskers, with a detective’s badge showing on the lapel of his coat. +Now and then the man would remove his whiskers to wipe his face, and +then I would recognize at once the well-known features of the great New +York detective. Jolnes was keeping a sharp watch upon the doors and +windows of the house. + +“Well, doctor,” said Knight, unable to repress a note of triumph in his +voice, “have you seen?” + +“It is wonderful—wonderful!” I could not help exclaiming as our cab +started on its return trip. “But how did you do it? By what process of +induction—” + +“My dear doctor,” interrupted the great murderer, “the inductive theory +is what the detectives use. My process is more modern. I call it the +saltatorial theory. Without bothering with the tedious mental phenomena +necessary to the solution of a mystery from slight clues, I jump at +once to a conclusion. I will explain to you the method I employed in +this case. + +“In the first place, I argued that as the crime was committed in New +York City in broad daylight, in a public place and under peculiarly +atrocious circumstances, and that as the most skilful sleuth available +was let loose upon the case, the perpetrator would never be discovered. +Do you not think my postulation justified by precedent?” + +“Perhaps so,” I replied, doggedly. “But if Big Bill Dev—” + +“Stop that,” interrupted Knight, with a smile, “I’ve heard that several +times. It’s too late now. I will proceed. + +“If homicides in New York went undiscovered, I reasoned, although the +best detective talent was employed to ferret them out, it must be true +that the detectives went about their work in the wrong way. And not +only in the wrong way, but exactly opposite from the right way. That +was my clue. + +“I slew the man in Central Park. Now, let me describe myself to you. + +“I am tall, with a black beard, and I hate publicity. I have no money +to speak of; I do not like oatmeal, and it is the one ambition of my +life to die rich. I am of a cold and heartless disposition. I do not +care for my fellowmen and I never give a cent to beggars or charity. + +“Now, my dear doctor, that is the true description of myself, the man +whom that shrewd detective was to hunt down. You who are familiar with +the history of crime in New York of late should be able to foretell the +result. When I promised you to exhibit to your incredulous gaze the +sleuth who was set upon me, you laughed at me because you said that +detectives and murderers never met in New York. I have demonstrated to +you that the theory is possible.” + +“But how did you do it?” I asked again. + +“It was very simple,” replied the distinguished murderer. “I assumed +that the detective would go exactly opposite to the clues he had. I +have given you a description of myself. Therefore, he must necessarily +set to work and trail a short man with a white beard who likes to be in +the papers, who is very wealthy, is fond ‘of oatmeal, wants to die +poor, and is of an extremely generous and philanthropic disposition. +When thus far is reached the mind hesitates no longer. I conveyed you +at once to the spot where Shamrock Jolnes was piping off Andrew +Carnegie’s residence.” + +“Knight,” said I, “you’re a wonder. If there was no danger of your +reforming, what a rounds man you’d make for the Nineteenth Precinct!” + + + + +THE DOG AND THE PLAYLET + + +[This story has been rewritten and published in “Strictly Business” +under the title, The Proof of the Pudding.] + + +Usually it is a cold day in July when you can stroll up Broadway in +that month and get a story out of the drama. I found one a few +breathless, parboiling days ago, and it seems to decide a serious +question in art. + +There was not a soul left in the city except Hollis and me—and two or +three million sunworshippers who remained at desks and counters. The +elect had fled to seashore, lake, and mountain, and had already begun +to draw for additional funds. Every evening Hollis and I prowled about +the deserted town searching for coolness in empty cafes, dining-rooms, +and roofgardens. We knew to the tenth part of a revolution the speed of +every electric fan in Gotham, and we followed the swiftest as they +varied. Hollis’s fiancee. Miss Loris Sherman, had been in the +Adirondacks, at Lower Saranac Lake, for a month. In another week he +would join her party there. In the meantime, he cursed the city +cheerfully and optimistically, and sought my society because I suffered +him to show me her photograph during the black coffee every time we +dined together. + +My revenge was to read to him my one-act play. + +It was one insufferable evening when the overplus of the day’s heat was +being hurled quiveringly back to the heavens by every surcharged brick +and stone and inch of iron in the panting town. But with the cunning of +the two-legged beasts we had found an oasis where the hoofs of Apollo’s +steed had not been allowed to strike. Our seats were on an ocean of +cool, polished oak; the white linen of fifty deserted tables flapped +like seagulls in the artificial breeze; a mile away a waiter lingered +for a heliographic signal—we might have roared songs there or fought a +duel without molestation. + +Out came Miss Loris’s photo with the coffee, and I once more praised +the elegant poise of the neck, the extremely low-coiled mass of heavy +hair, and the eyes that followed one, like those in an oil painting. + +“She’s the greatest ever,” said Hollis, with enthusiasm. “Good as Great +Northern Preferred, and a disposition built like a watch. One week more +and I’ll be happy Jonny-on-the-spot. Old Tom Tolliver, my best college +chum, went up there two weeks ago. He writes me that Loris doesn’t talk +about anything but me. Oh, I guess Rip Van Winkle didn’t have all the +good luck!” + +“Yes, yes,” said I, hurriedly, pulling out my typewritten play. “She’s +no doubt a charming girl. Now, here’s that little curtain-raiser you +promised to listen to.” + +“Ever been tried on the stage?” asked Hollis. + +“Not exactly,” I answered. “I read half of it the other day to a fellow +whose brother knows Robert Edeson; but he had to catch a train before I +finished.” + +“Go on,” said Hollis, sliding back in his chair like a good fellow. +“I’m no stage carpenter, but I’ll tell you what I think of it from a +first-row balcony standpoint. I’m a theatre bug during the season, and +I can size up a fake play almost as quick as the gallery can. Flag the +waiter once more, and then go ahead as hard as you like with it. I’ll +be the dog.” + +I read my little play lovingly, and, I fear, not without some +elocution. There was one scene in it that I believed in greatly. The +comedy swiftly rises into thrilling and unexpectedly developed drama. +Capt. Marchmont suddenly becomes cognizant that his wife is an +unscrupulous adventuress, who has deceived him from the day of their +first meeting. The rapid and mortal duel between them from that +moment—she with her magnificent lies and siren charm, winding about him +like a serpent, trying to recover her lost ground; he with his man’s +agony and scorn and lost faith, trying to tear her from his heart. That +scene I always thought was a crackerjack. When Capt. Marchmont +discovers her duplicity by reading on a blotter in a mirror the +impression of a note that she has written to the Count, he raises his +hand to heaven and exclaims: “O God, who created woman while Adam +slept, and gave her to him for a companion, take back Thy gift and +return instead the sleep, though it last forever!” + +“Rot,” said Hollis, rudely, when I had given those lines with proper +emphasis. + +“I beg your pardon!” I said, as sweetly as I could. + +“Come now,” went on Hollis, “don’t be an idiot. You know very well that +nobody spouts any stuff like that these days. That sketch went along +all right until you rang in the skyrockets. Cut out that right-arm +exercise and the Adam and Eve stunt, and make your captain talk as you +or I or Bill Jones would.” + +“I’ll admit,” said I, earnestly (for my theory was being touched upon), +“that on all ordinary occasions all of us use commonplace language to +convey our thoughts. You will remember that up to the moment when the +captain makes his terrible discovery all the characters on the stage +talk pretty much as they would, in real life. But I believe that I am +right in allowing him lines suitable to the strong and tragic situation +into which he falls.” + +“Tragic, my eye!” said my friend, irreverently. “In Shakespeare’s day +he might have sputtered out some high-cockalorum nonsense of that sort, +because in those days they ordered ham and eggs in blank verse and +discharged the cook with an epic. But not for B’way in the summer of +1905!” + +“It is my opinion,” said I, “that great human emotions shake up our +vocabulary and leave the words best suited to express them on top. A +sudden violent grief or loss or disappointment will bring expressions +out of an ordinary man as strong and solemn and dramatic as those used +in fiction or on the stage to portray those emotions.” + +“That’s where you fellows are wrong,” said Hollis. “Plain, every-day +talk is what goes. Your captain would very likely have kicked the cat, +lit a cigar, stirred up a highball, and telephoned for a lawyer, +instead of getting off those Robert Mantell pyrotechnics.” + +“Possibly, a little later,” I continued. “But just at the time—just as +the blow is delivered, if something Scriptural or theatrical and +deep-tongued isn’t wrung from a man in spite of his modern and +practical way of speaking, then I’m wrong.” + +“Of course,” said Hollis, kindly, “you’ve got to whoop her up some +degrees for the stage. The audience expects it. When the villain +kidnaps little Effie you have to make her mother claw some chunks out +of the atmosphere, and scream: “Me chee-ild, me chee-ild!” What she +would actually do would be to call up the police by ’phone, ring for +some strong tea, and get the little darling’s photo out, ready for the +reporters. When you get your villain in a corner—a stage corner—it’s +all right for him to clap his hand to his forehead and hiss: “All is +lost!” Off the stage he would remark: “This is a conspiracy against +me—I refer you to my lawyers.’” + +“I get no consolation,” said I, gloomily, “from your concession of an +accentuated stage treatment. In my play I fondly hoped that I was +following life. If people in real life meet great crises in a +commonplace way, they should do the same on the stage.” + +And then we drifted, like two trout, out of our cool pool in the great +hotel and began to nibble languidly at the gay flies in the swift +current of Broadway. And our question of dramatic art was unsettled. + +We nibbled at the flies, and avoided the hooks, as wise trout do; but +soon the weariness of Manhattan in summer overcame us. Nine stories up, +facing the south, was Hollis’s apartment, and we soon stepped into an +elevator bound for that cooler haven. + +I was familiar in those quarters, and quickly my play was forgotten, +and I stood at a sideboard mixing things, with cracked ice and glasses +all about me. A breeze from the bay came in the windows not altogether +blighted by the asphalt furnace over which it had passed. Hollis, +whistling softly, turned over a late-arrived letter or two on his +table, and drew around the coolest wicker armchairs. + +I was just measuring the Vermouth carefully when I heard a sound. Some +man’s voice groaned hoarsely: “False, oh, God!—false, and Love is a lie +and friendship but the byword of devils!” + +I looked around quickly. Hollis lay across the table with his head down +upon his outstretched arms. And then he looked up at me and laughed in +his ordinary manner. + +I knew him—he was poking fun at me about my theory. And it did seem so +unnatural, those swelling words during our quiet gossip, that I half +began to believe I had been mistaken—that my theory was wrong. + +Hollis raised himself slowly from the table. + +“You were right about that theatrical business, old man,” he said, +quietly, as he tossed a note to me. + +I read it. + +Loris had run away with Tom Tolliver. + + + + +A LITTLE TALK ABOUT MOBS + + +“I see,” remarked the tall gentleman in the frock coat and black slouch +hat, “that another street car motorman in your city has narrowly +excaped lynching at the hands of an infuriated mob by lighting a cigar +and walking a couple of blocks down the street.” + +“Do you think they would have lynched him?” asked the New Yorker, in +the next seat of the ferry station, who was also waiting for the boat. + +“Not until after the election,” said the tall man, cutting a corner off +his plug of tobacco. “I’ve been in your city long enough to know +something about your mobs. The motorman’s mob is about the least +dangerous of them all, except the National Guard and the Dressmakers’ +Convention. + +“You see, when little Willie Goldstein is sent by his mother for pigs’ +knuckles, with a nickel tightly grasped in his chubby fist, he always +crosses the street car track safely twenty feet ahead of the car; and +then suddenly turns back to ask his mother whether it was pale ale or a +spool of 80 white cotton that she wanted. The motorman yells and throws +himself on the brakes like a football player. There is a horrible +grinding and then a ripping sound, and a piercing shriek, and Willie is +sitting, with part of his trousers torn away by the fender, screaming +for his lost nickel. + +“In ten seconds the car is surrounded by 600 infuriated citizens, +crying, ‘Lynch the motorman! Lynch the motorman!’ at the top of their +voices. Some of them run to the nearest cigar store to get a rope; but +they find the last one has just been cut up and labelled. Hundreds of +the excited mob press close to the cowering motorman, whose hand is +observed to tremble perceptibly as he transfers a stick of pepsin gum +from his pocket to his mouth. + +“When the bloodthirsty mob of maddened citizens has closed in on the +motorman, some bringing camp stools and sitting quite close to him, and +all shouting, ‘Lynch him!’ Policeman Fogarty forces his way through +them to the side of their prospective victim. + +“‘Hello, Mike,’ says the motorman in a low voice, ‘nice day. Shall I +sneak off a block or so, or would you like to rescue me?’ + +“‘Well, Jerry, if you don’t mind,’ says the policeman, ‘I’d like to +disperse the infuriated mob singlehanded. I haven’t defeated a lynching +mob since last Tuesday; and that was a small one of only 300, that +wanted to string up a Dago boy for selling wormy pears. It would boost +me some down at the station.’ + +“‘All right, Mike,’ says the motorman, ‘anything to oblige. I’ll turn +pale and tremble.’ + +“And he does so; and Policeman Fogarty draws his club and says, ‘G’wan +wid yez!’ and in eight seconds the desperate mob has scattered and gone +about its business, except about a hundred who remain to search for +Willie’s nickel.” + +“I never heard of a mob in our city doing violence to a motorman +because of an accident,” said the New Yorker. + +“You are not liable to,” said the tall man. “They know the motorman’s +all right, and that he wouldn’t even run over a stray dog if he could +help it. And they know that not a man among ’em would tie the knot to +hang even a Thomas cat that had been tried and condemned and sentenced +according to law.” + +“Then why do they become infuriated and make threats of lynching?” +asked the New Yorker. + +“To assure the motorman,” answered the tall man, “that he is safe. If +they really wanted to do him up they would go into the houses and drop +bricks on him from the third-story windows.” + +“New Yorkers are not cowards,” said the other man, a little stiffly. + +“Not one at a time,” agreed the tall man, promptly. “You’ve got a fine +lot of single-handed scrappers in your town. I’d rather fight three of +you than one; and I’d go up against all the Gas Trust’s victims in a +bunch before I’d pass two citizens on a dark corner, with my watch +chain showing. When you get rounded up in a bunch you lose your nerve. +Get you in crowds and you’re easy. Ask the ‘L’ road guards and George +B. Cortelyou and the tintype booths at Coney Island. Divided you stand, +united you fall. _E pluribus nihil_. Whenever one of your mobs +surrounds a man and begins to holler, ‘Lynch him!’ he says to himself, +“Oh, dear, I suppose I must look pale to please the boys, but I will, +forsooth, let my life insurance premium lapse to-morrow. This is a sure +tip for me to play Methuselah straight across the board in the next +handicap.’ + +“I can imagine the tortured feelings of a prisoner in the hands of New +York policemen when an infuriated mob demands that he be turned over to +them for lynching. ‘For God’s sake, officers,’ cries the distracted +wretch, ‘have ye hearts of stone, that ye will not let them wrest me +from ye?’ + +“‘Sorry, Jimmy,’ says one of the policemen, ‘but it won’t do. There’s +three of us—me and Darrel and the plain-clothes man; and there’s only +sivin thousand of the mob. How’d we explain it at the office if they +took ye? Jist chase the infuriated aggregation around the corner, +Darrel, and we’ll be movin’ along to the station.’” + +“Some of our gatherings of excited citizens have not been so harmless,” +said the New Yorker, with a faint note of civic pride. + +“I’ll admit that,” said the tall man. “A cousin of mine who was on a +visit here once had an arm broken and lost an ear in one of them.” + +“That must have been during the Cooper Union riots,” remarked the New +Yorker. + +“Not the Cooper Union,” explained the tall man—“but it was a union +riot—at the Vanastor wedding.” + +“You seem to be in favor of lynch law,” said the New Yorker, severely. + +“No, sir, I am not. No intelligent man is. But, sir, there are certain +cases when people rise in their just majesty and take a righteous +vengeance for crimes that the law is slow in punishing. I am an +advocate of law and order, but I will say to you that less than six +months ago I myself assisted at the lynching of one of that race that +is creating a wide chasm between your section of country and mine, +sir.” + +“It is a deplorable condition,” said the New Yorker, “that exists in +the South, but—” + +“I am from Indiana, sir,” said the tall man, taking another chew; “and +I don’t think you will condemn my course when I tell you that the +colored man in question had stolen $9.60 in cash, sir, from my own +brother.” + + + + +THE SNOW MAN + + +EDITORIAL NOTE.—_Before the fatal illness of William Sydney Porter +(known through his literary work as “O. Henry”) this American master of +short-story writing had begun for Hampton’s Magazine the story printed +below. Illness crept upon him rapidly and he was compelled to give up +writing about at the point where the girl enters the story._ + + +_When he realized that he could do no more (it was his lifelong habit +to write with a pencil, never dictating to a stenographer), O. Henry +told in detail the remainder of The Snow Man to Harris Merton Lyon, +whom he had often spoken of as one of the most effective short-story +writers of the present time. Mr. Porter had delineated all of the +characters, leaving only the rounding out of the plot in the final +pages to Mr. Lyon._ + + +Housed and windowpaned from it, the greatest wonder to little children +is the snow. To men, it is something like a crucible in which their +world melts into a white star ten million miles away. The man who can +stand the test is a Snow Man; and this is his reading by Fahrenheit, +Réaumur, or Moses’s carven tablets of stone. + +Night had fluttered a sable pinion above the cañon of Big Lost River, +and I urged my horse toward the Bay Horse Ranch because the snow was +deepening. The flakes were as large as an hour’s circular tatting by +Miss Wilkins’s ablest spinster, betokening a heavy snowfall and less +entertainment and more adventure than the completion of the tatting +could promise. I knew Ross Curtis of the Bay Horse, and that I would be +welcome as a snow-bound pilgrim, both for hospitality’s sake and +because Ross had few chances to confide in living creatures who did not +neigh, bellow, bleat, yelp, or howl during his discourse. + +The ranch house was just within the jaws of the cañon where its builder +may have fatuously fancied that the timbered and rocky walls on both +sides would have protected it from the wintry Colorado winds; but I +feared the drift. Even now through the endless, bottomless rift in the +hills—the speaking tube of the four winds—came roaring the voice of the +proprietor to the little room on the top floor. + +At my “hello,” a ranch hand came from an outer building and received my +thankful horse. In another minute, Ross and I sat by a stove in the +dining-room of the four-room ranch house, while the big, simple welcome +of the household lay at my disposal. Fanned by the whizzing norther, +the fine, dry snow was sifted and bolted through the cracks and +knotholes of the logs. The cook room, without a separating door, +appended. + +In there I could see a short, sturdy, leisurely and weather-beaten man +moving with professional sureness about his red-hot stove. His face was +stolid and unreadable—something like that of a great thinker, or of one +who had no thoughts to conceal. I thought his eye seemed unwarrantably +superior to the elements and to the man, but quickly attributed that to +the characteristic self-importance of a petty chef. “Camp cook” was the +niche that I gave him in the Hall of Types; and he fitted it as an +apple fits a dumpling. + +Cold it was in spite of the glowing stove; and Ross and I sat and +talked, shuddering frequently, half from nerves and half from the +freezing draughts. So he brought the bottle and the cook brought +boiling water, and we made prodigious hot toddies against the attacks +of Boreas. We clinked glasses often. They sounded like icicles dropping +from the eaves, or like the tinkle of a thousand prisms on a Louis XIV +chandelier that I once heard at a boarder’s dance in the parlor of a +ten-a-week boarding-house in Gramercy Square. _Sic transit_. + +Silence in the terrible beauty of the snow and of the Sphinx and of the +stars; but they who believe that all things, from a without-wine table +d’hôte to the crucifixion, may be interpreted through music, might have +found a nocturne or a symphony to express the isolation of that +blotted-out world. The clink of glass and bottle, the aeolian chorus of +the wind in the house crannies, its deeper trombone through the cañon +below, and the Wagnerian crash of the cook’s pots and pans, united in a +fit, discordant melody, I thought. No less welcome an accompaniment was +the sizzling of broiling ham and venison cutlet indorsed by the solvent +fumes of true Java, bringing rich promises of comfort to our yearning +souls. + +The cook brought the smoking supper to the table. He nodded to me +democratically as he cast the heavy plates around as though he were +pitching quoits or hurling the discus. I looked at him with some +appraisement and curiosity and much conciliation. There was no prophet +to tell us when that drifting evil outside might cease to fall; and it +is well, when snow-bound, to stand somewhere within the radius of the +cook’s favorable consideration. But I could read neither favor nor +disapproval in the face and manner of our pot-wrestler. + +He was about five feet nine inches, and two hundred pounds of +commonplace, bull-necked, pink-faced, callous calm. He wore brown duck +trousers too tight and too short, and a blue flannel shirt with sleeves +rolled above his elbows. There was a sort of grim, steady scowl on his +features that looked to me as though he had fixed it there purposely as +a protection against the weakness of an inherent amiability that, he +fancied, were better concealed. And then I let supper usurp his brief +occupancy of my thoughts. + +“Draw up, George,” said Ross. “Let’s all eat while the grub’s hot.” + +“You fellows go on and chew,” answered the cook. “I ate mine in the +kitchen before sun-down.” + +“Think it’ll be a big snow, George?” asked the ranchman. + +George had turned to reenter the cook room. He moved slowly around and, +looking at his face, it seemed to me that he was turning over the +wisdom and knowledge of centuries in his head. + +“It might,” was his delayed reply. + +At the door of the kitchen he stopped and looked back at us. Both Ross +and I held our knives and forks poised and gave him our regard. Some +men have the power of drawing the attention of others without speaking +a word. Their attitude is more effective than a shout. + +“And again it mightn’t,” said George, and went back to his stove. + +After we had eaten, he came in and gathered the emptied dishes. He +stood for a moment, while his spurious frown deepened. + +“It might stop any minute,” he said, “or it might keep up for days.” + +At the farther end of the cook room I saw George pour hot water into +his dishpan, light his pipe, and put the tableware through its required +lavation. He then carefully unwrapped from a piece of old saddle +blanket a paperback book, and settled himself to read by his dim oil +lamp. + +And then the ranchman threw tobacco on the cleared table and set forth +again the bottles and glasses; and I saw that I stood in a deep channel +through which the long dammed flood of his discourse would soon be +booming. But I was half content, comparing my fate with that of the +late Thomas Tucker, who had to sing for his supper, thus doubling the +burdens of both himself and his host. + +“Snow is a hell of a thing,” said Ross, by way of a foreword. “It +ain’t, somehow, it seems to me, salubrious. I can stand water and mud +and two inches below zero and a hundred and ten in the shade and +medium-sized cyclones, but this here fuzzy white stuff naturally gets +me all locoed. I reckon the reason it rattles you is because it changes +the look of things so much. It’s like you had a wife and left her in +the morning with the same old blue cotton wrapper on, and rides in of a +night and runs across her all outfitted in a white silk evening frock, +waving an ostrich-feather fan, and monkeying with a posy of lily +flowers. Wouldn’t it make you look for your pocket compass? You’d be +liable to kiss her before you collected your presence of mind.” + +By and by, the flood of Ross’s talk was drawn up into the clouds (so it +pleased me to fancy) and there condensed into the finer snowflakes of +thought; and we sat silent about the stove, as good friends and bitter +enemies will do. I thought of Ross’s preamble about the mysterious +influence upon man exerted by that ermine-lined monster that now +covered our little world, and knew he was right. + +Of all the curious knickknacks, mysteries, puzzles, Indian gifts, +rat-traps, and well-disguised blessings that the gods chuck down to us +from the Olympian peaks, the most disquieting and evil-bringing is the +snow. By scientific analysis it is absolute beauty and purity—so, at +the beginning we look doubtfully at chemistry. + +It falls upon the world, and lo! we live in another. It hides in a +night the old scars and familiar places with which we have grown +heart-sick or enamored. So, as quietly as we can, we hustle on our +embroidered robes and hie us on Prince Camaralzaman’s horse or in the +reindeer sleigh into the white country where the seven colors converge. +This is when our fancy can overcome the bane of it. + +But in certain spots of the earth comes the snow-madness, made known by +people turned wild and distracted by the bewildering veil that has +obscured the only world they know. In the cities, the white fairy who +sets the brains of her dupes whirling by a wave of her wand is cast for +the comedy role. Her diamond shoe buckles glitter like frost; with a +pirouette she invites the spotless carnival. + +But in the waste places the snow is sardonic. Sponging out the world of +the outliers, it gives no foothold on another sphere in return. It +makes of the earth a firmament under foot; it leaves us clawing and +stumbling in space in an inimical fifth element whose evil outdoes its +strangeness and beauty, There Nature, low comedienne, plays her tricks +on man. Though she has put him forth as her highest product, it appears +that she has fashioned him with what seems almost incredible +carelessness and indexterity. One-sided and without balance, with his +two halves unequally fashioned and joined, must he ever jog his +eccentric way. The snow falls, the darkness caps it, and the ridiculous +man-biped strays in accurate circles until he succumbs in the ruins of +his defective architecture. + +In the throat of the thirsty the snow is vitriol. In appearance as +plausible as the breakfast food of the angels, it is as hot in the +mouth as ginger, increasing the pangs of the water-famished. It is a +derivative from water, air, and some cold, uncanny fire from which the +caloric has been extracted. Good has been said of it; even the poets, +crazed by its spell and shivering in their attics under its touch, have +indited permanent melodies commemorative of its beauty. + +Still, to the saddest overcoated optimist it is a plague—a corroding +plague that Pharaoh successfully side-stepped. It beneficently covers +the wheat fields, swelling the crop—and the Flour Trust gets us by the +throat like a sudden quinsy. It spreads the tail of its white kirtle +over the red seams of the rugged north—and the Alaskan short story is +born. Etiolated perfidy, it shelters the mountain traveler burrowing +from the icy air—and, melting to-morrow, drowns his brother in the +valley below. + +At its worst it is lock and key and crucible, and the wand of Circe. +When it corrals man in lonely ranches, mountain cabins, and forest +huts, the snow makes apes and tigers of the hardiest. It turns the +bosoms of weaker ones to glass, their tongues to infants’ rattles, +their hearts to lawlessness and spleen. It is not all from the +isolation; the snow is not merely a blockader; it is a Chemical Test. +It is a good man who can show a reaction that is not chiefly composed +of a drachm or two of potash and magnesia, with traces of Adam, +Ananias, Nebuchadnezzar, and the fretful porcupine. + +This is no story, you say; well, let it begin. + +There was a knock at the door (is the opening not full of context and +reminiscence oh, best buyers of best sellers?). + +We drew the latch, and in stumbled Etienne Girod (as he afterward named +himself). But just then he was no more than a worm struggling for life, +enveloped in a killing white chrysalis. + +We dug down through snow, overcoats, mufflers, and waterproofs, and +dragged forth a living thing with a Van Dyck beard and marvellous +diamond rings. We put it through the approved curriculum of +snow-rubbing, hot milk, and teaspoonful doses of whiskey, working him +up to a graduating class entitled to a diploma of three fingers of rye +in half a glassful of hot water. One of the ranch boys had already come +from the quarters at Ross’s bugle-like yell and kicked the stranger’s +staggering pony to some sheltered corral where beasts were entertained. + +Let a paragraphic biography of Girod intervene. + +Etienne was an opera singer originally, we gathered; but adversity and +the snow had made him _non compos vocis_. The adversity consisted of +the stranded San Salvador Opera Company, a period of hotel second-story +work, and then a career as a professional palmist, jumping from town to +town. For, like other professional palmists, every time he worked the +Heart Line too strongly he immediately moved along the Line of Least +Resistance. Though Etienne did not confide this to us, we surmised that +he had moved out into the dusk about twenty minutes ahead of a +constable, and had thus encountered the snow. In his most sacred blue +language he dilated upon the subject of snow; for Etienne was +Paris-born and loved the snow with the same passion that an orchid +does. + +“Mee-ser-rhable!” commented Etienne, and took another three fingers. + +“Complete, cast-iron, pussy-footed, blank... blank!” said Ross, and +followed suit. + +“Rotten,” said I. + +The cook said nothing. He stood in the door weighing our outburst; and +insistently from behind that frozen visage I got two messages (via the +M. A. M wireless). One was that George considered our vituperation +against the snow childish; the other was that George did not love +Dagoes. Inasmuch as Etienne was a Frenchman, I concluded I had the +message wrong. So I queried the other: “Bright eyes, you don’t really +mean Dagoes, do you?” and over the wireless came three deathly, psychic +taps: “Yes.” Then I reflected that to George all foreigners were +probably “Dagoes.” I had once known another camp cook who had thought +Mons., Sig., and Millie (Trans-Mississippi for Mlle.) were Italian +given names; this cook used to marvel therefore at the paucity of +Neo-Roman precognomens, and therefore why not— + +I have said that snow is a test of men. For one day, two days, Etienne +stood at the window, Fletcherizing his finger nails and shrieking and +moaning at the monotony. To me, Etienne was just about as unbearable as +the snow; and so, seeking relief, I went out on the second day to look +at my horse, slipped on a stone, broke my collarbone, and thereafter +underwent not the snow test, but the test of flat-on-the-back. A test +that comes once too often for any man to stand. + +However, I bore up cheerfully. I was now merely a spectator, and from +my couch in the big room I could lie and watch the human interplay with +that detached, impassive, impersonal feeling which French writers tell +us is so valuable to the litterateur, and American writers to the +faro-dealer. + +“I shall go crazy in this abominable, mee-ser-rhable place!” was +Etienne’s constant prediction. + +“Never knew Mark Twain to bore me before,” said Ross, over and over. He +sat by the other window, hour after hour, a box of Pittsburg stogies of +the length, strength, and odor of a Pittsburg graft scandal deposited +on one side of him, and “Roughing It,” “The Jumping Frog,” and “Life on +the Mississippi” on the other. For every chapter he lit a new stogy, +puffing furiously. This in time, gave him a recurrent premonition of +cramps, gastritis, smoker’s colic or whatever it is they have in +Pittsburg after a too deep indulgence in graft scandals. To fend off +the colic, Ross resorted time and again to Old Doctor Still’s +Amber-Colored U. S. A. Colic Cure. Result, after forty-eight +hours—nerves. + +“Positive fact I never knew Mark Twain to make me tired before. +Positive fact.” Ross slammed “Roughing It” on the floor. “When you’re +snowbound this-away you want tragedy, I guess. Humor just seems to +bring out all your cussedness. You read a man’s poor, pitiful attempts +to be funny and it makes you so nervous you want to tear the book up, +get out your bandana, and have a good, long cry.” + +At the other end of the room, the Frenchman took his finger nails out +of his mouth long enough to exclaim: “Humor! Humor at such a time as +thees! My God, I shall go crazy in thees abominable—” + +“Supper,” announced George. + +These meals were not the meals of Rabelais who said, “the great God +makes the planets and we make the platters neat.” By that time, the +ranch-house meals were not affairs of gusto; they were mental +distraction, not bodily provender. What they were to be later shall +never be forgotten by Ross or me or Etienne. + +After supper, the stogies and finger nails began again. My shoulder +ached wretchedly, and with half-closed eyes I tried to forget it by +watching the deft movements of the stolid cook. + +Suddenly I saw him cock his ear, like a dog. Then, with a swift step, +he moved to the door, threw it open, and stood there. + +The rest of us had heard nothing. + +“What is it, George?” asked Ross. + +The cook reached out his hand into the darkness alongside the jamb. +With careful precision he prodded something. Then he made one careful +step into the snow. His back muscles bulged a little under the arms as +he stooped and lightly lifted a burden. Another step inside the door, +which he shut methodically behind him, and he dumped the burden at a +safe distance from the fire. + +He stood up and fixed us with a solemn eye. None of us moved under that +Orphic suspense until, + +“A woman,” remarked George. + +Miss Willie Adams was her name. Vocation, school-teacher. Present +avocation, getting lost in the snow. Age, yum-yum (the Persian for +twenty). Take to the woods if you would describe Miss Adams. A willow +for grace; a hickory for fibre; a birch for the clear whiteness of her +skin; for eyes, the blue sky seen through treetops; the silk in cocoons +for her hair; her voice, the murmur of the evening June wind in the +leaves; her mouth, the berries of the wintergreen; fingers as light as +ferns; her toe as small as a deer track. General impression upon the +dazed beholder—you could not see the forest for the trees. + +Psychology, with a capital P and the foot of a lynx, at this juncture +stalks into the ranch house. Three men, a cook, a pretty young +woman—all snowbound. Count me out of it, as I did not count, anyway. I +never did, with women. Count the cook out, if you like. But note the +effect upon Ross and Etienne Girod. + +Ross dumped Mark Twain in a trunk and locked the trunk. Also, he +discarded the Pittsburg scandals. Also, he shaved off a three days’ +beard. + +Etienne, being French, began on the beard first. He pomaded it, from a +little tube of grease Hongroise in his vest pocket. He combed it with a +little aluminum comb from the same vest pocket. He trimmed it with +manicure scissors from the same vest pocket. His light and Gallic +spirits underwent a sudden, miraculous change. He hummed a blithe San +Salvador Opera Company tune; he grinned, smirked, bowed, pirouetted, +twiddled, twaddled, twisted, and tooralooed. Gayly, the notorious +troubadour, could not have equalled Etienne. + +Ross’s method of advance was brusque, domineering. “Little woman,” he +said, “you’re welcome here!”—and with what he thought subtle double +meaning—“welcome to stay here as long as you like, snow or no snow.” + +Miss Adams thanked him a little wildly, some of the wintergreen berries +creeping into the birch bark. She looked around hurriedly as if seeking +escape. But there was none, save the kitchen and the room allotted her. +She made an excuse and disappeared into her own room. + +Later I, feigning sleep, heard the following: + +“Mees Adams, I was almost to perish-die-of monotony w’en your fair and +beautiful face appear in thees mee-ser-rhable house.” I opened my +starboard eye. The beard was being curled furiously around a finger, +the Svengali eye was rolling, the chair was being hunched closer to the +school-teacher’s. “I am French—you see—temperamental—nervous! I cannot +endure thees dull hours in thees ranch house; but—a woman comes! Ah!” +The shoulders gave nine ’rahs and a tiger. “What a difference! All is +light and gay; ever’ting smile w’en you smile. You have ’eart, beauty, +grace. My ’eart comes back to me w’en I feel your ’eart. So!” He laid +his hand upon his vest pocket. From this vantage point he suddenly +snatched at the school-teacher’s own hand, “Ah! Mees Adams, if I could +only tell you how I ad—” + +“Dinner,” remarked George. He was standing just behind the Frenchman’s +ear. His eyes looked straight into the school-teacher’s eyes. After +thirty seconds of survey, his lips moved, deep in the flinty, frozen +maelstrom of his face: “Dinner,” he concluded, “will be ready in two +minutes.” + +Miss Adams jumped to her feet, relieved. “I must get ready for dinner,” +she said brightly, and went into her room. + +Ross came in fifteen minutes late. After the dishes had been cleaned +away, I waited until a propitious time when the room was temporarily +ours alone, and told him what had happened. + +He became so excited that he lit a stogy without thinking. +“Yeller-hided, unwashed, palm-readin’ skunk,” he said under his breath. +“I’ll shoot him full o’ holes if he don’t watch out—talkin’ that way to +my wife!” + +I gave a jump that set my collarbone back another week. “Your wife!” I +gasped. + +“Well, I mean to make her that,” he announced. + +The air in the ranch house the rest of that day was tense with pent-up +emotions, oh, best buyers of best sellers. + +Ross watched Miss Adams as a hawk does a hen; he watched Etienne as a +hawk does a scarecrow, Etienne watched Miss Adams as a weasel does a +henhouse. He paid no attention to Ross. + +The condition of Miss Adams, in the role of sought-after, was feverish. +Lately escaped from the agony and long torture of the white cold, where +for hours Nature had kept the little school-teacher’s vision locked in +and turned upon herself, nobody knows through what profound feminine +introspections she had gone. Now, suddenly cast among men, instead of +finding relief and security, she beheld herself plunged anew into other +discomforts. Even in her own room she could hear the loud voices of her +imposed suitors. “I’ll blow you full o’ holes!” shouted Ross. +“Witnesses,” shrieked Etienne, waving his hand at the cook and me. She +could not have known the previous harassed condition of the men, +fretting under indoor conditions. All she knew was, that where she had +expected the frank freemasonry of the West, she found the subtle tangle +of two men’s minds, bent upon exacting whatever romance there might be +in her situation. + +She tried to dodge Ross and the Frenchman by spells of nursing me. They +also came over to help nurse. This combination aroused such a natural +state of invalid cussedness on my part that they were all forced to +retire. Once she did manage to whisper: “I am so worried here. I don’t +know what to do.” + +To which I replied, gently, hitching up my shoulder, that I was a +hunch-savant and that the Eighth House under this sign, the Moon being +in Virgo, showed that everything would turn out all right. + +But twenty minutes later I saw Etienne reading her palm and felt that +perhaps I might have to recast her horoscope, and try for a dark man +coming with a bundle. + +Toward sunset, Etienne left the house for a few moments and Ross, who +had been sitting taciturn and morose, having unlocked Mark Twain, made +another dash. It was typical Ross talk. + +He stood in front of her and looked down majestically at that cool and +perfect spot where Miss Adams’ forehead met the neat part in her +fragrant hair. First, however, he cast a desperate glance at me. I was +in a profound slumber. + +“Little woman,” he began, “it’s certainly tough for a man like me to +see you bothered this way. You”—gulp—“you have been alone in this world +too long. You need a protector. I might say that at a time like this +you need a protector the worst kind—a protector who would take a +three-ring delight in smashing the saffron-colored kisser off of any +yeller-skinned skunk that made himself obnoxious to you. Hem. Hem. I am +a lonely man, Miss Adams. I have so far had to carry on my life without +the”—gulp—“sweet radiance”—gulp—“of a woman around the house. I feel +especially doggoned lonely at a time like this, when I am pretty near +locoed from havin’ to stall indoors, and hence it was with delight I +welcomed your first appearance in this here shack. Since then I have +been packed jam full of more different kinds of feelings, ornery, mean, +dizzy, and superb, than has fallen my way in years.” + +Miss Adams made a useless movement toward escape. The Ross chin stuck +firm. “I don’t want to annoy you, Miss Adams, but, by heck, if it comes +to that you’ll have to be annoyed. And I’ll have to have my say. This +palm-ticklin’ slob of a Frenchman ought to be kicked off the place and +if you’ll say the word, off he goes. But I don’t want to do the wrong +thing. You’ve got to show a preference. I’m gettin’ around to the +point, Miss—Miss Willie, in my own brick fashion. I’ve stood about all +I can stand these last two days and somethin’s got to happen. The +suspense hereabouts is enough to hang a sheepherder. Miss Willie”—he +lassooed her hand by main force—“just say the word. You need somebody +to take your part all your life long. Will you mar—” + +“Supper,” remarked George, tersely, from the kitchen door. + +Miss Adams hurried away. + +Ross turned angrily. “You—” + +“I have been revolving it in my head,” said George. + +He brought the coffee pot forward heavily. Then bravely the big platter +of pork and beans. Then somberly the potatoes. Then profoundly the +biscuits. “I have been revolving it in my mind. There ain’t no use +waitin’ any longer for Swengalley. Might as well eat now.” + +From my excellent vantage-point on the couch I watched the progress of +that meal. Ross, muddled, glowering, disappointed; Etienne, eternally +blandishing, attentive, ogling; Miss Adams, nervous, picking at her +food, hesitant about answering questions, almost hysterical; now and +then the solid, flitting shadow of the cook, passing behind their backs +like a Dreadnaught in a fog. + +I used to own a clock which gurgled in its throat three minutes before +it struck the hour. I know, therefore, the slow freight of +Anticipation. For I have awakened at three in the morning, heard the +clock gurgle, and waited those three minutes for the three strokes I +knew were to come. _Alors_. In Ross’s ranch house that night the slow +freight of Climax whistled in the distance. + +Etienne began it after supper. Miss Adams had suddenly displayed a +lively interest in the kitchen layout and I could see her in there, +chatting brightly at George—not with him—the while he ducked his head +and rattled his pans. + +“My fren’,” said Etienne, exhaling a large cloud from his cigarette and +patting Ross lightly on the shoulder with a bediamonded hand which, +hung limp from a yard or more of bony arm, “I see I mus’ be frank with +you. Firs’, because we are rivals; second, because you take these +matters so serious. I—I am Frenchman. I love the women”—he threw back +his curls, bared his yellow teeth, and blew an unsavory kiss toward the +kitchen. “It is, I suppose, a trait of my nation. All Frenchmen love +the women—pretty women. Now, look: Here I am!” He spread out his arms. +“Cold outside! I detes’ the col-l-l! Snow! I abominate the +mees-ser-rhable snow! Two men! This—” pointing to me—“an’ this!” +Pointing to’ Ross. “I am distracted! For two whole days I stan’ at the +window an’ tear my ’air! I am nervous, upset, pr-r-ro-foun’ly distress +inside my ’ead! An’ suddenly—be’old! A woman, a nice, pretty, charming, +innocen’ young woman! I, naturally, rejoice. I become myself again—gay, +light-’earted, ’appy. I address myself to mademoiselle; it passes the +time. That, m’sieu’, is wot the women are for—pass the time! +Entertainment—like the music, like the wine! + +“They appeal to the mood, the caprice, the temperamen’. To play with +thees woman, follow her through her humor, pursue her—ah! that is the +mos’ delightful way to sen’ the hours about their business.” + +Ross banged the table. “Shut up, you miserable yeller pup!” he roared. +“I object to your pursuin’ anything or anybody in my house. Now, you +listen to me, you—” He picked up the box of stogies and used it on the +table as an emphasizer. The noise of it awoke the attention of the girl +in the kitchen. Unheeded, she crept into the room. “I don’t know +anything about your French ways of lovemakin’ an’ I don’t care. In my +section of the country, it’s the best man wins. And I’m the best man +here, and don’t you forget it! This girl’s goin’ to be mine. There +ain’t going to be any playing, or philandering, or palm reading about +it. I’ve made up my mind I’ll have this girl, and that settles it. My +word is the law in this neck o’ the woods. She’s mine, and as soon as +she says she’s mine, you pull out.” The box made one final, tremendous +punctuation point. + +Etienne’s bravado was unruffled. “Ah! that is no way to win a woman,” +he smiled, easily. “I make prophecy you will never win ’er that way. +No. Not thees woman. She mus’ be played along an’ then keessed, this +charming, delicious little creature. One kees! An’ then you ’ave her.” +Again he displayed his unpleasant teeth. “I make you a bet I will kees +her—” + +As a cheerful chronicler of deeds done well, it joys me to relate that +the hand which fell upon Etienne’s amorous lips was not his own. There +was one sudden sound, as of a mule kicking a lath fence, and +then—through the swinging doors of oblivion for Etienne. + +I had seen this blow delivered. It was an aloof, unstudied, almost +absent-minded affair. I had thought the cook was rehearsing the proper +method of turning a flapjack. + +Silently, lost in thought, he stood there scratching his head. Then he +began rolling down his sleeves. + +“You’d better get your things on, Miss, and we’ll get out of here,” he +decided. “Wrap up warm.” + +I heard her heave a little sigh of relief as she went to get her cloak, +sweater, and hat. + +Ross jumped to his feet, and said: “George, what are you goin’ to do?” + +George, who had been headed in my direction, slowly swivelled around +and faced his employer. “Bein’ a camp cook, I ain’t over-burdened with +hosses,” George enlightened us. “Therefore, I am going to try to borrow +this feller’s here.” + +For the first time in four days my soul gave a genuine cheer. “If it’s +for Lochinvar purposes, go as far as you like,” I said, grandly. + +The cook studied me a moment, as if trying to find an insult in my +words. “No,” he replied. “It’s for mine and the young lady’s purposes, +and we’ll go only three miles—to Hicksville. Now let me tell you +somethin’, Ross.” Suddenly I was confronted with the cook’s chunky back +and I heard a low, curt, carrying voice shoot through the room at my +host. George had wheeled just as Ross started to speak. “You’re nutty. +That’s what’s the matter with you. You can’t stand the snow. You’re +getting nervouser, and nuttier every day. That and this Dago”—he jerked +a thumb at the half-dead Frenchman in the corner—“has got you to the +point where I thought I better horn in. I got to revolving it around in +my mind and I seen if somethin’ wasn’t done, and done soon, there’d be +murder around here and maybe”—his head gave an imperceptible list +toward the girl’s room—“worse.” + +He stopped, but he held up a stubby finger to keep any one else from +speaking. Then he plowed slowly through the drift of his ideas. “About +this here woman. I know you, Ross, and I know what you reely think +about women. If she hadn’t happened in here durin’ this here snow, +you’d never have given two thoughts to the whole woman question. +Likewise, when the storm clears, and you and the boys go hustlin’ out, +this here whole business ’ll clear out of your head and you won’t think +of a skirt again until Kingdom Come. Just because o’ this snow here, +don’t forget you’re living in the selfsame world you was in four days +ago. And you’re the same man, too. Now, what’s the use o’ getting all +snarled up over four days of stickin’ in the house? That there’s what I +been revolvin’ in my mind and this here’s the decision I’ve come to.” + +He plodded to the door and shouted to one of the ranch hands to saddle +my horse. + +Ross lit a stogy and stood thoughtful in the middle of the room. Then +he began: “I’ve a durn good notion, George, to knock your confounded +head off and throw you into that snowbank, if—” + +“You’re wrong, mister. That ain’t a durned good notion you’ve got. It’s +durned bad. Look here!” He pointed steadily out of doors until we were +both forced to follow his finger. “You’re in here for more’n a week +yet.” After allowing this fact to sink in, he barked out at Ross: “Can +you cook?” Then at me: “Can you cook?” Then he looked at the wreck of +Etienne and sniffed. + +There was an embarrassing silence as Ross and I thought solemnly of a +foodless week. + +“If you just use hoss sense,” concluded George, “and don’t go for to +hurt my feelin’s, all I want to do is to take this young gal down to +Hicksville; and then I’ll head back here and cook fer you.” + +The horse and Miss Adams arrived simultaneously, both of them very +serious and quiet. The horse because he knew what he had before him in +that weather; the girl because of what she had left behind. + +Then all at once I awoke to a realization of what the cook was doing. +“My God, man!” I cried, “aren’t you afraid to go out in that snow?” + +Behind my back I heard Ross mutter, “Not him.” + +George lifted the girl daintily up behind the saddle, drew on his +gloves, put his foot in the stirrup, and turned to inspect me +leisurely. + +As I passed slowly in his review, I saw in my mind’s eye the algebraic +equation of Snow, the equals sign, and the answer in the man before me. + +“Snow is my last name,” said George. He swung into the saddle and they +started cautiously out into the darkening swirl of fresh new currency +just issuing from the Snowdrop Mint. The girl, to keep her place, clung +happily to the sturdy figure of the camp cook. + +I brought three things away from Ross Curtis’s ranch house—yes, four. +One was the appreciation of snow, which I have so humbly tried here to +render; (2) was a collarbone, of which I am extra careful; (3) was a +memory of what it is to eat very extremely bad food for a week; and (4) +was the cause of (3) a little note delivered at the end of the week and +hand-painted in blue pencil on a sheet of meat paper. + +“I cannot come back there to that there job. Mrs. Snow say no, George. +I been revolvin’ it in my mind; considerin’ circumstances she’s right.” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAIFS AND STRAYS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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 an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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