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diff --git a/25586.txt b/25586.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc9f3c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/25586.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10886 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays, by +Willa Cather + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays + +Author: Willa Cather + +Release Date: May 24, 2008 [EBook #25586] +Last updated: January 31, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COLLECTION OF STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Barbara Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +A Collection of + +Stories, Reviews and Essays + +by + +Willa Cather + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PART I: STORIES + + Peter + On the Divide + Eric Hermannson's Soul + The Sentimentality of William Tavener + The Namesake + The Enchanted Bluff + The Joy of Nelly Deane + The Bohemian Girl + Consequences + The Bookkeeper's Wife + Ardessa + Her Boss + + + PART II: REVIEWS AND ESSAYS + + Mark Twain + William Dean Howells + Edgar Allan Poe + Walt Whitman + Henry James + Harold Frederic + Kate Chopin + Stephen Crane + Frank Norris + When I Knew Stephen Crane + On the Art of Fiction + + + + +PART I + +STORIES + + + + +_Peter_ + + +"No, Antone, I have told thee many times, no, thou shalt not sell it +until I am gone." + +"But I need money; what good is that old fiddle to thee? The very +crows laugh at thee when thou art trying to play. Thy hand trembles +so thou canst scarce hold the bow. Thou shalt go with me to the Blue +to cut wood to-morrow. See to it thou art up early." + +"What, on the Sabbath, Antone, when it is so cold? I get so very +cold, my son, let us not go to-morrow." + +"Yes, to-morrow, thou lazy old man. Do not I cut wood upon the +Sabbath? Care I how cold it is? Wood thou shalt cut, and haul it +too, and as for the fiddle, I tell thee I will sell it yet." Antone +pulled his ragged cap down over his low heavy brow, and went out. +The old man drew his stool up nearer the fire, and sat stroking his +violin with trembling fingers and muttering, "Not while I live, not +while I live." + +Five years ago they had come here, Peter Sadelack, and his wife, and +oldest son Antone, and countless smaller Sadelacks, here to the +dreariest part of south-western Nebraska, and had taken up a +homestead. Antone was the acknowledged master of the premises, and +people said he was a likely youth, and would do well. That he was +mean and untrustworthy every one knew, but that made little +difference. His corn was better tended than any in the county, and +his wheat always yielded more than other men's. + +Of Peter no one knew much, nor had any one a good word to say for +him. He drank whenever he could get out of Antone's sight long +enough to pawn his hat or coat for whiskey. Indeed there were but +two things he would not pawn, his pipe and his violin. He was a +lazy, absent minded old fellow, who liked to fiddle better than to +plow, though Antone surely got work enough out of them all, for that +matter. In the house of which Antone was master there was no one, +from the little boy three years old, to the old man of sixty, who +did not earn his bread. Still people said that Peter was worthless, +and was a great drag on Antone, his son, who never drank, and was a +much better man than his father had ever been. Peter did not care +what people said. He did not like the country, nor the people, least +of all he liked the plowing. He was very homesick for Bohemia. Long +ago, only eight years ago by the calendar, but it seemed eight +centuries to Peter, he had been a second violinist in the great +theatre at Prague. He had gone into the theatre very young, and had +been there all his life, until he had a stroke of paralysis, which +made his arm so weak that his bowing was uncertain. Then they told +him he could go. Those were great days at the theatre. He had plenty +to drink then, and wore a dress coat every evening, and there were +always parties after the play. He could play in those days, ay, that +he could! He could never read the notes well, so he did not play +first; but his touch, he had a touch indeed, so Herr Mikilsdoff, who +led the orchestra, had said. Sometimes now Peter thought he could +plow better if he could only bow as he used to. He had seen all the +lovely women in the world there, all the great singers and the great +players. He was in the orchestra when Rachel played, and he heard +Liszt play when the Countess d'Agoult sat in the stage box and threw +the master white lilies. Once, a French woman came and played for +weeks, he did not remember her name now. He did not remember her +face very well either, for it changed so, it was never twice the +same. But the beauty of it, and the great hunger men felt at the +sight of it, that he remembered. Most of all he remembered her +voice. He did not know French, and could not understand a word she +said, but it seemed to him that she must be talking the music of +Chopin. And her voice, he thought he should know that in the other +world. The last night she played a play in which a man touched her +arm, and she stabbed him. As Peter sat among the smoking gas jets +down below the footlights with his fiddle on his knee, and looked up +at her, he thought he would like to die too, if he could touch her +arm once, and have her stab him so. Peter went home to his wife very +drunk that night. Even in those days he was a foolish fellow, who +cared for nothing but music and pretty faces. + +It was all different now. He had nothing to drink and little to eat, +and here, there was nothing but sun, and grass, and sky. He had +forgotten almost everything, but some things he remembered well +enough. He loved his violin and the holy Mary, and above all else he +feared the Evil One, and his son Antone. + +The fire was low, and it grew cold. Still Peter sat by the fire +remembering. He dared not throw more cobs on the fire; Antone would +be angry. He did not want to cut wood tomorrow, it would be Sunday, +and he wanted to go to mass. Antone might let him do that. He held +his violin under his wrinkled chin, his white hair fell over it, and +he began to play "Ave Maria." His hand shook more than ever before, +and at last refused to work the bow at all. He sat stupefied for a +while, then arose, and taking his violin with him, stole out into +the old sod stable. He took Antone's shot-gun down from its peg, and +loaded it by the moonlight which streamed in through the door. He +sat down on the dirt floor, and leaned back against the dirt wall. +He heard the wolves howling in the distance, and the night wind +screaming as it swept over the snow. Near him he heard the regular +breathing of the horses in the dark. He put his crucifix above his +heart, and folding his hands said brokenly all the Latin he had ever +known, "_Pater noster, qui in caelum est._" Then he raised his head +and sighed, "Not one kreutzer will Antone pay them to pray for my +soul, not one kreutzer, he is so careful of his money, is Antone, he +does not waste it in drink, he is a better man than I, but hard +sometimes. He works the girls too hard, women were not made to work +so. But he shall not sell thee, my fiddle, I can play thee no more, +but they shall not part us. We have seen it all together, and we +will forget it together, the French woman and all." He held his +fiddle under his chin a moment, where it had lain so often, then put +it across his knee and broke it through the middle. He pulled off +his old boot, held the gun between his knees with the muzzle against +his forehead, and pressed the trigger with his toe. + +In the morning Antone found him stiff, frozen fast in a pool of +blood. They could not straighten him out enough to fit a coffin, so +they buried him in a pine box. Before the funeral Antone carried to +town the fiddle-bow which Peter had forgotten to break. Antone was +very thrifty, and a better man than his father had been. + + _The Mahogany Tree_, May 21, 1892 + + + + +_On the Divide_ + + +Near Rattlesnake Creek, on the side of a little draw stood Canute's +shanty. North, east, south, stretched the level Nebraska plain of +long rust-red grass that undulated constantly in the wind. To the +west the ground was broken and rough, and a narrow strip of timber +wound along the turbid, muddy little stream that had scarcely +ambition enough to crawl over its black bottom. If it had not been +for the few stunted cottonwoods and elms that grew along its banks, +Canute would have shot himself years ago. The Norwegians are a +timber-loving people, and if there is even a turtle pond with a few +plum bushes around it they seem irresistibly drawn toward it. + +As to the shanty itself, Canute had built it without aid of any +kind, for when he first squatted along the banks of Rattlesnake +Creek there was not a human being within twenty miles. It was built +of logs split in halves, the chinks stopped with mud and plaster. +The roof was covered with earth and was supported by one gigantic +beam curved in the shape of a round arch. It was almost impossible +that any tree had ever grown in that shape. The Norwegians used to +say that Canute had taken the log across his knee and bent it into +the shape he wished. There were two rooms, or rather there was one +room with a partition made of ash saplings interwoven and bound +together like big straw basket work. In one corner there was a cook +stove, rusted and broken. In the other a bed made of unplaned planks +and poles. It was fully eight feet long, and upon it was a heap of +dark bed clothing. There was a chair and a bench of colossal +proportions. There was an ordinary kitchen cupboard with a few +cracked dirty dishes in it, and beside it on a tall box a tin +wash-basin. Under the bed was a pile of pint flasks, some broken, +some whole, all empty. On the wood box lay a pair of shoes of almost +incredible dimensions. On the wall hung a saddle, a gun, and some +ragged clothing, conspicuous among which was a suit of dark cloth, +apparently new, with a paper collar carefully wrapped in a red silk +handkerchief and pinned to the sleeve. Over the door hung a wolf and +a badger skin, and on the door itself a brace of thirty or forty +snake skins whose noisy tails rattled ominously every time it +opened. The strangest things in the shanty were the wide +window-sills. At first glance they looked as though they had been +ruthlessly hacked and mutilated with a hatchet, but on closer +inspection all the notches and holes in the wood took form and +shape. There seemed to be a series of pictures. They were, in a +rough way, artistic, but the figures were heavy and labored, as +though they had been cut very slowly and with very awkward +instruments. There were men plowing with little horned imps sitting +on their shoulders and on their horses' heads. There were men +praying with a skull hanging over their heads and little demons +behind them mocking their attitudes. There were men fighting with +big serpents, and skeletons dancing together. All about these +pictures were blooming vines and foliage such as never grew in this +world, and coiled among the branches of the vines there was always +the scaly body of a serpent, and behind every flower there was a +serpent's head. It was a veritable Dance of Death by one who had +felt its sting. In the wood box lay some boards, and every inch of +them was cut up in the same manner. Sometimes the work was very rude +and careless, and looked as though the hand of the workman had +trembled. It would sometimes have been hard to distinguish the men +from their evil geniuses but for one fact, the men were always grave +and were either toiling or praying, while the devils were always +smiling and dancing. Several of these boards had been split for +kindling and it was evident that the artist did not value his work +highly. + +It was the first day of winter on the Divide. Canute stumbled into +his shanty carrying a basket of cobs, and after filling the stove, +sat down on a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over the fire, +staring drearily out of the window at the wide gray sky. He knew by +heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red +shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all +the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all the bitter +barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten by all the plagues +of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and sogged by rain, +beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in the grasshopper years he +had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones that the vultures have +left. After the great fires he had seen it stretch for miles and +miles, black and smoking as the floor of hell. + +He rose slowly and crossed the room, dragging his big feet heavily +as though they were burdens to him. He looked out of the window into +the hog corral and saw the pigs burying themselves in the straw +before the shed. The leaden gray clouds were beginning to spill +themselves, and the snowflakes were settling down over the white +leprous patches of frozen earth where the hogs had gnawed even the +sod away. He shuddered and began to walk, tramping heavily with his +ungainly feet. He was the wreck of ten winters on the Divide and he +knew what they meant. Men fear the winters of the Divide as a child +fears night or as men in the North Seas fear the still dark cold of +the polar twilight. + +His eyes fell upon his gun, and he took it down from the wall and +looked it over. He sat down on the edge of his bed and held the +barrel towards his face, letting his forehead rest upon it, and laid +his finger on the trigger. He was perfectly calm, there was neither +passion nor despair in his face, but the thoughtful look of a man +who is considering. Presently he laid down the gun, and reaching +into the cupboard, drew out a pint bottle of raw white alcohol. +Lifting it to his lips, he drank greedily. He washed his face in the +tin basin and combed his rough hair and shaggy blond beard. Then he +stood in uncertainty before the suit of dark clothes that hung on +the wall. For the fiftieth time he took them in his hands and tried +to summon courage to put them on. He took the paper collar that was +pinned to the sleeve of the coat and cautiously slipped it under his +rough beard, looking with timid expectancy into the cracked, +splashed glass that hung over the bench. With a short laugh he threw +it down on the bed, and pulling on his old black hat, he went out, +striking off across the level. + +It was a physical necessity for him to get away from his cabin once +in a while. He had been there for ten years, digging and plowing and +sowing, and reaping what little the hail and the hot winds and the +frosts left him to reap. Insanity and suicide are very common things +on the Divide. They come on like an epidemic in the hot wind season. +Those scorching dusty winds that blow up over the bluffs from Kansas +seem to dry up the blood in men's veins as they do the sap in the +corn leaves. Whenever the yellow scorch creeps down over the tender +inside leaves about the ear, then the coroners prepare for active +duty; for the oil of the country is burned out and it does not take +long for the flame to eat up the wick. It causes no great sensation +there when a Dane is found swinging to his own windmill tower, and +most of the Poles after they have become too careless and +discouraged to shave themselves keep their razors to cut their +throats with. + +It may be that the next generation on the Divide will be very happy, +but the present one came too late in life. It is useless for men +that have cut hemlocks among the mountains of Sweden for forty years +to try to be happy in a country as flat and gray and as naked as the +sea. It is not easy for men that have spent their youths fishing in +the Northern seas to be content with following a plow, and men that +have served in the Austrian army hate hard work and coarse clothing +and the loneliness of the plains, and long for marches and +excitement and tavern company and pretty barmaids. After a man has +passed his fortieth birthday it is not easy for him to change the +habits and conditions of his life. Most men bring with them to the +Divide only the dregs of the lives that they have squandered in +other lands and among other peoples. + +Canute Canuteson was as mad as any of them, but his madness did not +take the form of suicide or religion but of alcohol. He had always +taken liquor when he wanted it, as all Norwegians do, but after his +first year of solitary life he settled down to it steadily. He +exhausted whisky after a while, and went to alcohol, because its +effects were speedier and surer. He was a big man with a terrible +amount of resistant force, and it took a great deal of alcohol even +to move him. After nine years of drinking, the quantities he could +take would seem fabulous to an ordinary drinking man. He never let +it interfere with his work, he generally drank at night and on +Sundays. Every night, as soon as his chores were done, he began to +drink. While he was able to sit up he would play on his mouth harp +or hack away at his window sills with his jack knife. When the +liquor went to his head he would lie down on his bed and stare out +of the window until he went to sleep. He drank alone and in solitude +not for pleasure or good cheer, but to forget the awful loneliness +and level of the Divide. Milton made a sad blunder when he put +mountains in hell. Mountains postulate faith and aspiration. All +mountain peoples are religious. It was the cities of the plains +that, because of their utter lack of spirituality and the mad +caprice of their vice, were cursed of God. + +Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness +is merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin; a +bloody man, vicious; a coarse man, vulgar. Canute was none of these, +but he was morose and gloomy, and liquor took him through all the +hells of Dante. As he lay on his giant's bed all the horrors of this +world and every other were laid bare to his chilled senses. He was a +man who knew no joy, a man who toiled in silence and bitterness. The +skull and the serpent were always before him, the symbols of eternal +futileness and of eternal hate. + +When the first Norwegians near enough to be called neighbors came, +Canute rejoiced, and planned to escape from his bosom vice. But he +was not a social man by nature and had not the power of drawing out +the social side of other people. His new neighbors rather feared him +because of his great strength and size, his silence and his lowering +brows. Perhaps, too, they knew that he was mad, mad from the eternal +treachery of the plains, which every spring stretch green and rustle +with the promises of Eden, showing long grassy lagoons full of clear +water and cattle whose hoofs are stained with wild roses. Before +autumn the lagoons are dried up, and the ground is burnt dry and +hard until it blisters and cracks open. + +So instead of becoming a friend and neighbor to the men that settled +about him, Canute became a mystery and a terror. They told awful +stories of his size and strength and of the alcohol he drank. They +said that one night, when he went out to see to his horses just +before he went to bed, his steps were unsteady and the rotten planks +of the floor gave way and threw him behind the feet of a fiery young +stallion. His foot was caught fast in the floor, and the nervous +horse began kicking frantically. When Canute felt the blood +trickling down in his eyes from a scalp wound in his head, he roused +himself from his kingly indifference, and with the quiet stoical +courage of a drunken man leaned forward and wound his arms about the +horse's hind legs and held them against his breast with crushing +embrace. All through the darkness and cold of the night he lay +there, matching strength against strength. When little Jim Peterson +went over the next morning at four o'clock to go with him to the +Blue to cut wood, he found him so, and the horse was on its fore +knees, trembling and whinnying with fear. This is the story the +Norwegians tell of him, and if it is true it is no wonder that they +feared and hated this Holder of the Heels of Horses. + +One spring there moved to the next "eighty" a family that made a +great change in Canute's life. Ole Yensen was too drunk most of the +time to be afraid of any one, and his wife Mary was too garrulous to +be afraid of any one who listened to her talk, and Lena, their +pretty daughter, was not afraid of man nor devil. So it came about +that Canute went over to take his alcohol with Ole oftener than he +took it alone. After a while the report spread that he was going to +marry Yensen's daughter, and the Norwegian girls began to tease Lena +about the great bear she was going to keep house for. No one could +quite see how the affair had come about, for Canute's tactics of +courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently never spoke to her +at all: he would sit for hours with Mary chattering on one side of +him and Ole drinking on the other and watch Lena at her work. She +teased him, and threw flour in his face and put vinegar in his +coffee, but he took her rough jokes with silent wonder, never even +smiling. He took her to church occasionally, but the most watchful +and curious people never saw him speak to her. He would sit staring +at her while she giggled and flirted with the other men. + +Next spring Mary Lee went to town to work in a steam laundry. She +came home every Sunday, and always ran across to Yensens to startle +Lena with stories of ten cent theaters, firemen's dances, and all +the other esthetic delights of metropolitan life. In a few weeks +Lena's head was completely turned, and she gave her father no rest +until he let her go to town to seek her fortune at the ironing +board. From the time she came home on her first visit she began to +treat Canute with contempt. She had bought a plush cloak and kid +gloves, had her clothes made by the dress-maker, and assumed airs +and graces that made the other women of the neighborhood cordially +detest her. She generally brought with her a young man from town who +waxed his mustache and wore a red necktie, and she did not even +introduce him to Canute. + +The neighbors teased Canute a good deal until he knocked one of them +down. He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except that he +drank more and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully than +ever. He lay around in his den and no one knew what he felt or +thought, but little Jim Peterson, who had seen him glowering at Lena +in church one Sunday when she was there with the town man, said that +he would not give an acre of his wheat for Lena's life or the town +chap's either; and Jim's wheat was so wondrously worthless that the +statement was an exceedingly strong one. + +Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly like +the town man's as possible. They had cost him half a millet crop; +for tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants and they charge for +it. He had hung those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had +never put them on, partly from fear of ridicule, partly from +discouragement, and partly because there was something in his own +soul that revolted at the littleness of the device. + +Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry +and Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to +get an opportunity to torment Canute once more. + +She was washing in the side kitchen, singing loudly as she worked. +Mary was on her knees, blacking the stove and scolding violently +about the young man who was coming out from town that night. The +young man had committed the fatal error of laughing at Mary's +ceaseless babble and had never been forgiven. + +"He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with him! +I do not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not see why +the Lord should visit such a punishment upon me as to give me such a +daughter. There are plenty of good men you can marry." + +Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, "I don't happen to want to +marry any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice and has +plenty of money to spend, there is no harm in my going with him." + +"Money to spend? Yes, and that is all he does with it I'll be bound. +You think it very fine now, but you will change your tune when you +have been married five years and see your children running naked and +your cupboard empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good end by +marrying a town man?" + +"I don't know anything about Anne Hermanson, but I know any of the +laundry girls would have Dick quick enough if they could get him." + +"Yes, and a nice lot of store clothes huzzies you are too. Now there +is Canuteson who has an 'eighty' proved up and fifty head of cattle +and----" + +"And hair that ain't been cut since he was a baby, and a big dirty +beard, and he wears overalls on Sundays, and drinks like a pig. +Besides he will keep. I can have all the fun I want, and when I am +old and ugly like you he can have me and take care of me. The Lord +knows there ain't nobody else going to marry him." + +Canute drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red hot. +He was not the kind of a man to make a good eavesdropper, and he +wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck +the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a +screech. + +"God! Canute, how you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou,--he has +been tearing around the neighborhood trying to convert folks. I am +afraid as death of him. He ought to be sent off, I think. He is just +as liable as not to kill us all, or burn the barn, or poison the +dogs. He has been worrying even the poor minister to death, and he +laid up with the rheumatism, too! Did you notice that he was too +sick to preach last Sunday? But don't stand there in the cold,--come +in. Yensen isn't here, but he just went over to Sorenson's for the +mail; he won't be gone long. Walk right in the other room and sit +down." + +Canute followed her, looking steadily in front of him and not +noticing Lena as he passed her. But Lena's vanity would not allow +him to pass unmolested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing out +and cracked him across the face with it, and ran giggling to the +other side of the room. The blow stung his cheeks and the soapy +water flew in his eyes, and he involuntarily began rubbing them with +his hands. Lena giggled with delight at his discomfiture, and the +wrath in Canute's face grew blacker than ever. A big man humiliated +is vastly more undignified than a little one. He forgot the sting of +his face in the bitter consciousness that he had made a fool of +himself. He stumbled blindly into the living room, knocking his head +against the door jamb because he forgot to stoop. He dropped into a +chair behind the stove, thrusting his big feet back helplessly on +either side of him. + +Ole was a long time in coming, and Canute sat there, still and +silent, with his hands clenched on his knees, and the skin of his +face seemed to have shriveled up into little wrinkles that trembled +when he lowered his brows. His life had been one long lethargy of +solitude and alcohol, but now he was awakening, and it was as when +the dumb stagnant heat of summer breaks out into thunder. + +When Ole came staggering in, heavy with liquor, Canute rose at once. + +"Yensen," he said quietly, "I have come to see if you will let me +marry your daughter today." + +"Today!" gasped Ole. + +"Yes, I will not wait until tomorrow. I am tired of living alone." + +Ole braced his staggering knees against the bedstead, and stammered +eloquently: "Do you think I will marry my daughter to a drunkard? a +man who drinks raw alcohol? a man who sleeps with rattle snakes? Get +out of my house or I will kick you out for your impudence." And Ole +began looking anxiously for his feet. + +Canute answered not a word, but he put on his hat and went out into +the kitchen. He went up to Lena and said without looking at her, +"Get your things on and come with me!" + +The tones of his voice startled her, and she said angrily, dropping +the soap, "Are you drunk?" + +"If you do not come with me, I will take you,--you had better come," +said Canute quietly. + +She lifted a sheet to strike him, but he caught her arm roughly and +wrenched the sheet from her. He turned to the wall and took down a +hood and shawl that hung there, and began wrapping her up. Lena +scratched and fought like a wild thing. Ole stood in the door, +cursing, and Mary howled and screeched at the top of her voice. As +for Canute, he lifted the girl in his arms and went out of the +house. She kicked and struggled, but the helpless wailing of Mary +and Ole soon died away in the distance, and her face was held down +tightly on Canute's shoulder so that she could not see whither he +was taking her. She was conscious only of the north wind whistling +in her ears, and of rapid steady motion and of a great breast that +heaved beneath her in quick, irregular breaths. The harder she +struggled the tighter those iron arms that had held the heels of +horses crushed about her, until she felt as if they would crush the +breath from her, and lay still with fear. Canute was striding across +the level fields at a pace at which man never went before, drawing +the stinging north wind into his lungs in great gulps. He walked +with his eyes half closed and looking straight in front of him, only +lowering them when he bent his head to blow away the snow flakes +that settled on her hair. So it was that Canute took her to his +home, even as his bearded barbarian ancestors took the fair +frivolous women of the South in their hairy arms and bore them down +to their war ships. For ever and anon the soul becomes weary of the +conventions that are not of it, and with a single stroke shatters +the civilized lies with which it is unable to cope, and the strong +arm reaches out and takes by force what it cannot win by cunning. + +When Canute reached his shanty he placed the girl upon a chair, +where she sat sobbing. He stayed only a few minutes. He filled the +stove with wood and lit the lamp, drank a huge swallow of alcohol +and put the bottle in his pocket. He paused a moment, staring +heavily at the weeping girl, then he went off and locked the door +and disappeared in the gathering gloom of the night. + +Wrapped in flannels and soaked with turpentine, the little Norwegian +preacher sat reading his Bible, when he heard a thundering knock at +his door, and Canute entered, covered with snow and with his beard +frozen fast to his coat. + +"Come in, Canute, you must be frozen," said the little man, shoving +a chair towards his visitor. + +Canute remained standing with his hat on and said quietly, "I want +you to come over to my house tonight to marry me to Lena Yensen." + +"Have you got a license, Canute?" + +"No, I don't want a license. I want to be married." + +"But I can't marry you without a license, man. It would not be +legal." + +A dangerous light came in the big Norwegian's eye. "I want you to +come over to my house to marry me to Lena Yensen." + +"No, I can't, it would kill an ox to go out in a storm like this, +and my rheumatism is bad tonight." + +"Then if you will not go I must take you," said Canute with a sigh. + +He took down the preacher's bearskin coat and bade him put it on +while he hitched up his buggy. He went out and closed the door +softly after him. Presently he returned and found the frightened +minister crouching before the fire with his coat lying beside him. +Canute helped him put it on and gently wrapped his head in his big +muffler. Then he picked him up and carried him out and placed him in +his buggy. As he tucked the buffalo robes around him he said: "Your +horse is old, he might flounder or lose his way in this storm. I +will lead him." + +The minister took the reins feebly in his hands and sat shivering +with the cold. Sometimes when there was a lull in the wind, he could +see the horse struggling through the snow with the man plodding +steadily beside him. Again the blowing snow would hide them from him +altogether. He had no idea where they were or what direction they +were going. He felt as though he were being whirled away in the +heart of the storm, and he said all the prayers he knew. But at last +the long four miles were over, and Canute set him down in the snow +while he unlocked the door. He saw the bride sitting by the fire +with her eyes red and swollen as though she had been weeping. Canute +placed a huge chair for him, and said roughly,-- + +"Warm yourself." + +Lena began to cry and moan afresh, begging the minister to take her +home. He looked helplessly at Canute. Canute said simply,-- + +"If you are warm now, you can marry us." + +"My daughter, do you take this step of your own free will?" asked +the minister in a trembling voice. + +"No sir, I don't, and it is disgraceful he should force me into it! +I won't marry him." + +"Then, Canute, I cannot marry you," said the minister, standing as +straight as his rheumatic limbs would let him. + +"Are you ready to marry us now, sir?" said Canute, laying one iron +hand on his stooped shoulder. The little preacher was a good man, +but like most men of weak body he was a coward and had a horror of +physical suffering, although he had known so much of it. So with +many qualms of conscience he began to repeat the marriage service. +Lena sat sullenly in her chair, staring at the fire. Canute stood +beside her, listening with his head bent reverently and his hands +folded on his breast. When the little man had prayed and said amen, +Canute began bundling him up again. + +"I will take you home, now," he said as he carried him out and +placed him in his buggy, and started off with him through the fury +of the storm, floundering among the snow drifts that brought even +the giant himself to his knees. + +After she was left alone, Lena soon ceased weeping. She was not of a +particularly sensitive temperament, and had little pride beyond that +of vanity. After the first bitter anger wore itself out, she felt +nothing more than a healthy sense of humiliation and defeat. She had +no inclination to run away, for she was married now, and in her eyes +that was final and all rebellion was useless. She knew nothing about +a license, but she knew that a preacher married folks. She consoled +herself by thinking that she had always intended to marry Canute +some day, any way. + +She grew tired of crying and looking into the fire, so she got up +and began to look about her. She had heard queer tales about the +inside of Canute's shanty, and her curiosity soon got the better of +her rage. One of the first things she noticed was the new black suit +of clothes hanging on the wall. She was dull, but it did not take a +vain woman long to interpret anything so decidedly flattering, and +she was pleased in spite of herself. As she looked through the +cupboard, the general air of neglect and discomfort made her pity +the man who lived there. + +"Poor fellow, no wonder he wants to get married to get somebody to +wash up his dishes. Batchin's pretty hard on a man." + +It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled. She +looked at the window sill and gave a little shudder and wondered if +the man were crazy. Then she sat down again and sat a long time +wondering what her Dick and Ole would do. + +"It is queer Dick didn't come right over after me. He surely came, +for he would have left town before the storm began and he might just +as well come right on as go back. If he'd hurried he would have +gotten here before the preacher came. I suppose he was afraid to +come, for he knew Canuteson could pound him to jelly, the coward!" +Her eyes flashed angrily. + +The weary hours wore on and Lena began to grow horribly lonesome. It +was an uncanny night and this was an uncanny place to be in. She +could hear the coyotes howling hungrily a little way from the cabin, +and more terrible still were all the unknown noises of the storm. +She remembered the tales they told of the big log overhead and she +was afraid of those snaky things on the window sills. She remembered +the man who had been killed in the draw, and she wondered what she +would do if she saw crazy Lou's white face glaring into the window. +The rattling of the door became unbearable, she thought the latch +must be loose and took the lamp to look at it. Then for the first +time she saw the ugly brown snake skins whose death rattle sounded +every time the wind jarred the door. + +"Canute, Canute!" she screamed in terror. + +Outside the door she heard a heavy sound as of a big dog getting up +and shaking himself. The door opened and Canute stood before her, +white as a snow drift. + +"What is it?" he asked kindly. + +"I am cold," she faltered. + +He went out and got an armful of wood and a basket of cobs and +filled the stove. Then he went out and lay in the snow before the +door. Presently he heard her calling again. + +"What is it?" he said, sitting up. + +"I'm so lonesome, I'm afraid to stay in here all alone." + +"I will go over and get your mother." And he got up. + +"She won't come." + +"I'll bring her," said Canute grimly. + +"No, no. I don't want her, she will scold all the time." + +"Well, I will bring your father." + +She spoke again and it seemed as though her mouth was close up to +the key-hole. She spoke lower than he had ever heard her speak +before, so low that he had to put his ear up to the lock to hear +her. + +"I don't want him either, Canute,--I'd rather have you." + +For a moment she heard no noise at all, then something like a groan. +With a cry of fear she opened the door, and saw Canute stretched in +the snow at her feet, his face in his hands, sobbing on the door +step. + + _Overland Monthly_, January 1896 + + + + +_Eric Hermannson's Soul_ + + +I. + +It was a great night at the Lone Star schoolhouse--a night when the +Spirit was present with power and when God was very near to man. So +it seemed to Asa Skinner, servant of God and Free Gospeller. The +schoolhouse was crowded with the saved and sanctified, robust men +and women, trembling and quailing before the power of some +mysterious psychic force. Here and there among this cowering, +sweating multitude crouched some poor wretch who had felt the pangs +of an awakened conscience, but had not yet experienced that complete +divestment of reason, that frenzy born of a convulsion of the mind, +which, in the parlance of the Free Gospellers, is termed "the +Light." On the floor, before the mourners' bench, lay the +unconscious figure of a man in whom outraged nature had sought her +last resort. This "trance" state is the highest evidence of grace +among the Free Gospellers, and indicates a close walking with God. + +Before the desk stood Asa Skinner, shouting of the mercy and +vengeance of God, and in his eyes shone a terrible earnestness, an +almost prophetic flame. Asa was a converted train gambler who used +to run between Omaha and Denver. He was a man made for the extremes +of life; from the most debauched of men he had become the most +ascetic. His was a bestial face, a face that bore the stamp of +Nature's eternal injustice. The forehead was low, projecting over +the eyes, and the sandy hair was plastered down over it and then +brushed back at an abrupt right angle. The chin was heavy, the +nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip hung loosely except in +his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it shut like a steel +trap. Yet about those coarse features there were deep, rugged +furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the weakness +of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous +lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over those seamed +cheeks there was a certain pallor, a grayness caught from many a +vigil. It was as though, after Nature had done her worst with that +face, some fine chisel had gone over it, chastening and almost +transfiguring it. To-night, as his muscles twitched with emotion, +and the perspiration dropped from his hair and chin, there was a +certain convincing power in the man. For Asa Skinner was a man +possessed of a belief, of that sentiment of the sublime before which +all inequalities are leveled, that transport of conviction which +seems superior to all laws of condition, under which debauchees have +become martyrs; which made a tinker an artist and a camel-driver the +founder of an empire. This was with Asa Skinner to-night, as he +stood proclaiming the vengeance of God. + +It might have occurred to an impartial observer that Asa Skinner's +God was indeed a vengeful God if he could reserve vengeance for +those of his creatures who were packed into the Lone Star +schoolhouse that night. Poor exiles of all nations; men from the +south and the north, peasants from almost every country of Europe, +most of them from the mountainous, night-bound coast of Norway. +Honest men for the most part, but men with whom the world had dealt +hardly; the failures of all countries, men sobered by toil and +saddened by exile, who had been driven to fight for the dominion of +an untoward soil, to sow where others should gather, the +advance-guard of a mighty civilization to be. + +Never had Asa Skinner spoken more earnestly than now. He felt that +the Lord had this night a special work for him to do. To-night Eric +Hermannson, the wildest lad on all the Divide, sat in his audience +with a fiddle on his knee, just as he had dropped in on his way to +play for some dance. The violin is an object of particular +abhorrence to the Free Gospellers. Their antagonism to the church +organ is bitter enough, but the fiddle they regard as a very +incarnation of evil desires, singing forever of worldly pleasures +and inseparably associated with all forbidden things. + +Eric Hermannson had long been the object of the prayers of the +revivalists. His mother had felt the power of the Spirit weeks ago, +and special prayer-meetings had been held at her house for her son. +But Eric had only gone his ways laughing, the ways of youth, which +are short enough at best, and none too flowery on the Divide. He +slipped away from the prayer-meetings to meet the Campbell boys in +Genereau's saloon, or hug the plump little French girls at +Chevalier's dances, and sometimes, of a summer night, he even went +across the dewy cornfields and through the wild-plum thicket to play +the fiddle for Lena Hanson, whose name was a reproach through all +the Divide country, where the women are usually too plain and too +busy and too tired to depart from the ways of virtue. On such +occasions Lena, attired in a pink wrapper and silk stockings and +tiny pink slippers, would sing to him, accompanying herself on a +battered guitar. It gave him a delicious sense of freedom and +experience to be with a woman who, no matter how, had lived in big +cities and knew the ways of town-folk, who had never worked in the +fields and had kept her hands white and soft, her throat fair and +tender, who had heard great singers in Denver and Salt Lake, and who +knew the strange language of flattery and idleness and mirth. + +Yet, careless as he seemed, the frantic prayers of his mother were +not altogether without their effect upon Eric. For days he had been +fleeing before them as a criminal from his pursuers, and over his +pleasures had fallen the shadow of something dark and terrible that +dogged his steps. The harder he danced, the louder he sang, the more +was he conscious that this phantom was gaining upon him, that in +time it would track him down. One Sunday afternoon, late in the +fall, when he had been drinking beer with Lena Hanson and listening +to a song which made his cheeks burn, a rattlesnake had crawled out +of the side of the sod house and thrust its ugly head in under the +screen door. He was not afraid of snakes, but he knew enough of +Gospellism to feel the significance of the reptile lying coiled +there upon her doorstep. His lips were cold when he kissed Lena +good-by, and he went there no more. + +The final barrier between Eric and his mother's faith was his +violin, and to that he clung as a man sometimes will cling to his +dearest sin, to the weakness more precious to him than all his +strength. In the great world beauty comes to men in many guises, and +art in a hundred forms, but for Eric there was only his violin. It +stood, to him, for all the manifestations of art; it was his only +bridge into the kingdom of the soul. + +It was to Eric Hermannson that the evangelist directed his +impassioned pleading that night. + +"_Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?_ Is there a Saul here +to-night who has stopped his ears to that gentle pleading, who has +thrust a spear into that bleeding side? Think of it, my brother; you +are offered this wonderful love and you prefer the worm that dieth +not and the fire which will not be quenched. What right have you to +lose one of God's precious souls? _Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou +me?_" + +A great joy dawned in Asa Skinner's pale face, for he saw that Eric +Hermannson was swaying to and fro in his seat. The minister fell +upon his knees and threw his long arms up over his head. + +"O my brothers! I feel it coming, the blessing we have prayed for. I +tell you the Spirit is coming! Just a little more prayer, brothers, +a little more zeal, and he will be here. I can feel his cooling wing +upon my brow. Glory be to God forever and ever, amen!" + +The whole congregation groaned under the pressure of this spiritual +panic. Shouts and hallelujahs went up from every lip. Another figure +fell prostrate upon the floor. From the mourners' bench rose a chant +of terror and rapture: + + "Eating honey and drinking wine, + _Glory to the bleeding Lamb!_ + I am my Lord's and he is mine, + _Glory to the bleeding Lamb!_" + +The hymn was sung in a dozen dialects and voiced all the vague +yearning of these hungry lives, of these people who had starved all +the passions so long, only to fall victims to the basest of them +all, fear. + +A groan of ultimate anguish rose from Eric Hermannson's bowed head, +and the sound was like the groan of a great tree when it falls in +the forest. + +The minister rose suddenly to his feet and threw back his head, +crying in a loud voice: + +"_Lazarus, come forth!_ Eric Hermannson, you are lost, going down at +sea. In the name of God, and Jesus Christ his Son, I throw you the +life-line. Take hold! Almighty God, my soul for his!" The minister +threw his arms out and lifted his quivering face. + +Eric Hermannson rose to his feet; his lips were set and the +lightning was in his eyes. He took his violin by the neck and +crushed it to splinters across his knee, and to Asa Skinner the +sound was like the shackles of sin broken audibly asunder. + + +II. + +For more than two years Eric Hermannson kept the austere faith to +which he had sworn himself, kept it until a girl from the East came +to spend a week on the Nebraska Divide. She was a girl of other +manners and conditions, and there were greater distances between her +life and Eric's than all the miles which separated Rattlesnake Creek +from New York city. Indeed, she had no business to be in the West at +all; but ah! across what leagues of land and sea, by what improbable +chances, do the unrelenting gods bring to us our fate! + +It was in a year of financial depression that Wyllis Elliot came to +Nebraska to buy cheap land and revisit the country where he had +spent a year of his youth. When he had graduated from Harvard it was +still customary for moneyed gentlemen to send their scapegrace sons +to rough it on ranches in the wilds of Nebraska or Dakota, or to +consign them to a living death in the sage-brush of the Black Hills. +These young men did not always return to the ways of civilized life. +But Wyllis Elliot had not married a half-breed, nor been shot in a +cow-punchers' brawl, nor wrecked by bad whisky, nor appropriated by +a smirched adventuress. He had been saved from these things by a +girl, his sister, who had been very near to his life ever since the +days when they read fairy tales together and dreamed the dreams that +never come true. On this, his first visit to his father's ranch +since he left it six years before, he brought her with him. She had +been laid up half the winter from a sprain received while skating, +and had had too much time for reflection during those months. She +was restless and filled with a desire to see something of the wild +country of which her brother had told her so much. She was to be +married the next winter, and Wyllis understood her when she begged +him to take her with him on this long, aimless jaunt across the +continent, to taste the last of their freedom together. It comes to +all women of her type--that desire to taste the unknown which +allures and terrifies, to run one's whole soul's length out to the +wind--just once. + +It had been an eventful journey. Wyllis somehow understood that +strain of gypsy blood in his sister, and he knew where to take her. +They had slept in sod houses on the Platte River, made the +acquaintance of the personnel of a third-rate opera company on the +train to Deadwood, dined in a camp of railroad constructors at the +world's end beyond New Castle, gone through the Black Hills on +horseback, fished for trout in Dome Lake, watched a dance at Cripple +Creek, where the lost souls who hide in the hills gathered for their +besotted revelry. And now, last of all, before the return to +thraldom, there was this little shack, anchored on the windy crest +of the Divide, a little black dot against the flaming sunsets, a +scented sea of cornland bathed in opalescent air and blinding +sunlight. + +Margaret Elliot was one of those women of whom there are so many in +this day, when old order, passing, giveth place to new; beautiful, +talented, critical, unsatisfied, tired of the world at twenty-four. +For the moment the life and people of the Divide interested her. She +was there but a week; perhaps had she stayed longer, that inexorable +ennui which travels faster even than the Vestibule Limited would +have overtaken her. The week she tarried there was the week that +Eric Hermannson was helping Jerry Lockhart thresh; a week earlier or +a week later, and there would have been no story to write. + +It was on Thursday and they were to leave on Saturday. Wyllis and +his sister were sitting on the wide piazza of the ranchhouse, +staring out into the afternoon sunlight and protesting against the +gusts of hot wind that blew up from the sandy river-bottom twenty +miles to the southward. + +The young man pulled his cap lower over his eyes and remarked: + +"This wind is the real thing; you don't strike it anywhere else. You +remember we had a touch of it in Algiers and I told you it came from +Kansas. It's the key-note of this country." + +Wyllis touched her hand that lay on the hammock and continued +gently: + +"I hope it's paid you, Sis. Roughing it's dangerous business; it +takes the taste out of things." + +She shut her fingers firmly over the brown hand that was so like her +own. + +"Paid? Why, Wyllis, I haven't been so happy since we were children +and were going to discover the ruins of Troy together some day. Do +you know, I believe I could just stay on here forever and let the +world go on its own gait. It seems as though the tension and strain +we used to talk of last winter were gone for good, as though one +could never give one's strength out to such petty things any more." + +Wyllis brushed the ashes of his pipe away from the silk handkerchief +that was knotted about his neck and stared moodily off at the +sky-line. + +"No, you're mistaken. This would bore you after a while. You can't +shake the fever of the other life. I've tried it. There was a time +when the gay fellows of Rome could trot down into the Thebaid and +burrow into the sandhills and get rid of it. But it's all too +complex now. You see we've made our dissipations so dainty and +respectable that they've gone further in than the flesh, and taken +hold of the ego proper. You couldn't rest, even here. The war-cry +would follow you." + +"You don't waste words, Wyllis, but you never miss fire. I talk more +than you do, without saying half so much. You must have learned the +art of silence from these taciturn Norwegians. I think I like silent +men." + +"Naturally," said Wyllis, "since you have decided to marry the most +brilliant talker you know." + +Both were silent for a time, listening to the sighing of the hot +wind through the parched morning-glory vines. Margaret spoke first. + +"Tell me, Wyllis, were many of the Norwegians you used to know as +interesting as Eric Hermannson?" + +"Who, Siegfried? Well, no. He used to be the flower of the Norwegian +youth in my day, and he's rather an exception, even now. He has +retrograded, though. The bonds of the soil have tightened on him, I +fancy." + +"Siegfried? Come, that's rather good, Wyllis. He looks like a +dragon-slayer. What is it that makes him so different from the +others? I can talk to him; he seems quite like a human being." + +"Well," said Wyllis, meditatively, "I don't read Bourget as much as +my cultured sister, and I'm not so well up in analysis, but I fancy +it's because one keeps cherishing a perfectly unwarranted suspicion +that under that big, hulking anatomy of his, he may conceal a soul +somewhere. Nicht wahr?" + +"Something like that," said Margaret, thoughtfully, "except that +it's more than a suspicion, and it isn't groundless. He has one, and +he makes it known, somehow, without speaking." + +"I always have my doubts about loquacious souls," Wyllis remarked, +with the unbelieving smile that had grown habitual with him. + +Margaret went on, not heeding the interruption. "I knew it from the +first, when he told me about the suicide of his cousin, the +Bernstein boy. That kind of blunt pathos can't be summoned at will +in anybody. The earlier novelists rose to it, sometimes, +unconsciously. But last night when I sang for him I was doubly sure. +Oh, I haven't told you about that yet! Better light your pipe again. +You see, he stumbled in on me in the dark when I was pumping away at +that old parlor organ to please Mrs. Lockhart. It's her household +fetish and I've forgotten how many pounds of butter she made and +sold to buy it. Well, Eric stumbled in, and in some inarticulate +manner made me understand that he wanted me to sing for him. I sang +just the old things, of course. It's queer to sing familiar things +here at the world's end. It makes one think how the hearts of men +have carried them around the world, into the wastes of Iceland and +the jungles of Africa and the islands of the Pacific. I think if one +lived here long enough one would quite forget how to be trivial, and +would read only the great books that we never get time to read in +the world, and would remember only the great music, and the things +that are really worth while would stand out clearly against that +horizon over there. And of course I played the intermezzo from +'Cavalleria Rusticana' for him; it goes rather better on an organ +than most things do. He shuffled his feet and twisted his big hands +up into knots and blurted out that he didn't know there was any +music like that in the world. Why, there were tears in his voice, +Wyllis! Yes, like Rossetti, I _heard_ his tears. Then it dawned upon +me that it was probably the first good music he had ever heard in +all his life. Think of it, to care for music as he does and never to +hear it, never to know that it exists on earth! To long for it as we +long for other perfect experiences that never come. I can't tell you +what music means to that man. I never saw any one so susceptible to +it. It gave him speech, he became alive. When I had finished the +intermezzo, he began telling me about a little crippled brother who +died and whom he loved and used to carry everywhere in his arms. He +did not wait for encouragement. He took up the story and told it +slowly, as if to himself, just sort of rose up and told his own woe +to answer Mascagni's. It overcame me." + +"Poor devil," said Wyllis, looking at her with mysterious eyes, "and +so you've given him a new woe. Now he'll go on wanting Grieg and +Schubert the rest of his days and never getting them. That's a +girl's philanthropy for you!" + +Jerry Lockhart came out of the house screwing his chin over the +unusual luxury of a stiff white collar, which his wife insisted upon +as a necessary article of toilet while Miss Elliot was at the house. +Jerry sat down on the step and smiled his broad, red smile at +Margaret. + +"Well, I've got the music for your dance, Miss Elliot. Olaf Oleson +will bring his accordion and Mollie will play the organ, when she +isn't lookin' after the grub, and a little chap from Frenchtown will +bring his fiddle--though the French don't mix with the Norwegians +much." + +"Delightful! Mr. Lockhart, that dance will be the feature of our +trip, and it's so nice of you to get it up for us. We'll see the +Norwegians in character at last," cried Margaret, cordially. + +"See here, Lockhart, I'll settle with you for backing her in this +scheme," said Wyllis, sitting up and knocking the ashes out of his pipe. +"She's done crazy things enough on this trip, but to talk of dancing +all night with a gang of half-mad Norwegians and taking the carriage +at four to catch the six o'clock train out of Riverton--well, it's +tommy-rot, that's what it is!" + +"Wyllis, I leave it to your sovereign power of reason to decide +whether it isn't easier to stay up all night than to get up at three +in the morning. To get up at three, think what that means! No, sir, +I prefer to keep my vigil and then get into a sleeper." + +"But what do you want with the Norwegians? I thought you were tired +of dancing." + +"So I am, with some people. But I want to see a Norwegian dance, and +I intend to. Come, Wyllis, you know how seldom it is that one really +wants to do anything nowadays. I wonder when I have really wanted to +go to a party before. It will be something to remember next month at +Newport, when we have to and don't want to. Remember your own theory +that contrast is about the only thing that makes life endurable. +This is my party and Mr. Lockhart's; your whole duty to-morrow night +will consist in being nice to the Norwegian girls. I'll warrant you +were adept enough at it once. And you'd better be very nice indeed, +for if there are many such young valkyrs as Eric's sister among +them, they would simply tie you up in a knot if they suspected you +were guying them." + +Wyllis groaned and sank back into the hammock to consider his fate, +while his sister went on. + +"And the guests, Mr. Lockhart, did they accept?" + +Lockhart took out his knife and began sharpening it on the sole of +his plowshoe. + +"Well, I guess we'll have a couple dozen. You see it's pretty hard +to get a crowd together here any more. Most of 'em have gone over to +the Free Gospellers, and they'd rather put their feet in the fire +than shake 'em to a fiddle." + +Margaret made a gesture of impatience. + +"Those Free Gospellers have just cast an evil spell over this +country, haven't they?" + +"Well," said Lockhart, cautiously, "I don't just like to pass +judgment on any Christian sect, but if you're to know the chosen by +their works, the Gospellers can't make a very proud showin', an' +that's a fact. They're responsible for a few suicides, and they've +sent a good-sized delegation to the state insane asylum, an' I don't +see as they've made the rest of us much better than we were before. +I had a little herdboy last spring, as square a little Dane as I +want to work for me, but after the Gospellers got hold of him and +sanctified him, the little beggar used to get down on his knees out +on the prairie and pray by the hour and let the cattle get into the +corn, an' I had to fire him. That's about the way it goes. Now +there's Eric; that chap used to be a hustler and the spryest dancer +in all this section--called all the dances. Now he's got no ambition +and he's glum as a preacher. I don't suppose we can even get him to +come in to-morrow night." + +"Eric? Why, he must dance, we can't let him off," said Margaret, +quickly. "Why, I intend to dance with him myself!" + +"I'm afraid he won't dance. I asked him this morning if he'd help us +out and he said, 'I don't dance now, any more,'" said Lockhart, +imitating the labored English of the Norwegian. + +"'The Miller of Hoffbau, the Miller of Hoffbau, O my Princess!'" +chirped Wyllis, cheerfully, from his hammock. + +The red on his sister's cheek deepened a little, and she laughed +mischievously. "We'll see about that, sir. I'll not admit that I am +beaten until I have asked him myself." + +Every night Eric rode over to St. Anne, a little village in the +heart of the French settlement, for the mail. As the road lay +through the most attractive part of the Divide country, on several +occasions Margaret Elliot and her brother had accompanied him. +To-night Wyllis had business with Lockhart, and Margaret rode with +Eric, mounted on a frisky little mustang that Mrs. Lockhart had +broken to the side-saddle. Margaret regarded her escort very much as +she did the servant who always accompanied her on long rides at +home, and the ride to the village was a silent one. She was occupied +with thoughts of another world, and Eric was wrestling with more +thoughts than had ever been crowded into his head before. He rode +with his eyes riveted on that slight figure before him, as though he +wished to absorb it through the optic nerves and hold it in his +brain forever. He understood the situation perfectly. His brain +worked slowly, but he had a keen sense of the values of things. This +girl represented an entirely new species of humanity to him, but he +knew where to place her. The prophets of old, when an angel first +appeared unto them, never doubted its high origin. + +Eric was patient under the adverse conditions of his life, but he +was not servile. The Norse blood in him had not entirely lost its +self-reliance. He came of a proud fisher line, men who were not +afraid of anything but the ice and the devil, and he had prospects +before him when his father went down off the North Cape in the long +Arctic night, and his mother, seized by a violent horror of +seafaring life, had followed her brother to America. Eric was +eighteen then, handsome as young Siegfried, a giant in stature, with +a skin singularly pure and delicate, like a Swede's; hair as yellow +as the locks of Tennyson's amorous Prince, and eyes of a fierce, +burning blue, whose flash was most dangerous to women. He had in +those days a certain pride of bearing, a certain confidence of +approach, that usually accompanies physical perfection. It was even +said of him then that he was in love with life, and inclined to +levity, a vice most unusual on the Divide. But the sad history of +those Norwegian exiles, transplanted in an arid soil and under a +scorching sun, had repeated itself in his case. Toil and isolation +had sobered him, and he grew more and more like the clods among +which he labored. It was as though some red-hot instrument had +touched for a moment those delicate fibers of the brain which +respond to acute pain or pleasure, in which lies the power of +exquisite sensation, and had seared them quite away. It is a painful +thing to watch the light die out of the eyes of those Norsemen, +leaving an expression of impenetrable sadness, quite passive, quite +hopeless, a shadow that is never lifted. With some this change comes +almost at once, in the first bitterness of homesickness, with others +it comes more slowly, according to the time it takes each man's +heart to die. + +Oh, those poor Northmen of the Divide! They are dead many a year +before they are put to rest in the little graveyard on the windy +hill where exiles of all nations grow akin. + +The peculiar species of hypochondria to which the exiles of his +people sooner or later succumb had not developed in Eric until that +night at the Lone Star schoolhouse, when he had broken his violin +across his knee. After that, the gloom of his people settled down +upon him, and the gospel of maceration began its work. "_If thine +eye offend thee, pluck it out_," et cetera. The pagan smile that +once hovered about his lips was gone, and he was one with sorrow. +Religion heals a hundred hearts for one that it embitters, but when +it destroys, its work is quick and deadly, and where the agony of +the cross has been, joy will not come again. This man understood +things literally: one must live without pleasure to die without +fear; to save the soul it was necessary to starve the soul. + +The sun hung low above the cornfields when Margaret and her cavalier +left St. Anne. South of the town there is a stretch of road that +runs for some three miles through the French settlement, where the +prairie is as level as the surface of a lake. There the fields of +flax and wheat and rye are bordered by precise rows of slender, +tapering Lombard poplars. It was a yellow world that Margaret Elliot +saw under the wide light of the setting sun. + +The girl gathered up her reins and called back to Eric, "It will be +safe to run the horses here, won't it?" + +"Yes, I think so, now," he answered, touching his spur to his pony's +flank. They were off like the wind. It is an old saying in the West +that new-comers always ride a horse or two to death before they get +broken in to the country. They are tempted by the great open spaces +and try to outride the horizon, to get to the end of something. +Margaret galloped over the level road, and Eric, from behind, saw +her long veil fluttering in the wind. It had fluttered just so in +his dreams last night and the night before. With a sudden +inspiration of courage he overtook her and rode beside her, looking +intently at her half-averted face. Before, he had only stolen +occasional glances at it, seen it in blinding flashes, always with +more or less embarrassment, but now he determined to let every line +of it sink into his memory. Men of the world would have said that it +was an unusual face, nervous, finely cut, with clear, elegant lines +that betokened ancestry. Men of letters would have called it a +historic face, and would have conjectured at what old passions, long +asleep, what old sorrows forgotten time out of mind, doing battle +together in ages gone, had curved those delicate nostrils, left +their unconscious memory in those eyes. But Eric read no meaning in +these details. To him this beauty was something more than color and +line; it was as a flash of white light, in which one cannot +distinguish color because all colors are there. To him it was a +complete revelation, an embodiment of those dreams of impossible +loveliness that linger by a young man's pillow on midsummer nights; +yet, because it held something more than the attraction of health +and youth and shapeliness, it troubled him, and in its presence he +felt as the Goths before the white marbles in the Roman Capitol, not +knowing whether they were men or gods. At times he felt like +uncovering his head before it, again the fury seized him to break +and despoil, to find the clay in this spirit-thing and stamp upon +it. Away from her, he longed to strike out with his arms, and take +and hold; it maddened him that this woman whom he could break in his +hands should be so much stronger than he. But near her, he never +questioned this strength; he admitted its potentiality as he +admitted the miracles of the Bible; it enervated and conquered him. +To-night, when he rode so close to her that he could have touched +her, he knew that he might as well reach out his hand to take a +star. + +Margaret stirred uneasily under his gaze and turned questioningly in +her saddle. + +"This wind puts me a little out of breath when we ride fast," she +said. + +Eric turned his eyes away. + +"I want to ask you if I go to New York to work, if I maybe hear +music like you sang last night? I been a purty good hand to work," +he asked, timidly. + +Margaret looked at him with surprise, and then, as she studied the +outline of his face, pityingly. + +"Well, you might--but you'd lose a good deal else. I shouldn't like +you to go to New York--and be poor, you'd be out of atmosphere, some +way," she said, slowly. Inwardly she was thinking: "There he would +be altogether sordid, impossible--a machine who would carry one's +trunks upstairs, perhaps. Here he is every inch a man, rather +picturesque; why is it?" "No," she added aloud, "I shouldn't like +that." + +"Then I not go," said Eric, decidedly. + +Margaret turned her face to hide a smile. She was a trifle amused +and a trifle annoyed. Suddenly she spoke again. + +"But I'll tell you what I do want you to do, Eric. I want you to +dance with us to-morrow night and teach me some of the Norwegian +dances; they say you know them all. Won't you?" + +Eric straightened himself in his saddle and his eyes flashed as they +had done in the Lone Star schoolhouse when he broke his violin +across his knee. + +"Yes, I will," he said, quietly, and he believed that he delivered +his soul to hell as he said it. + +They had reached the rougher country now, where the road wound +through a narrow cut in one of the bluffs along the creek, when a +beat of hoofs ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the ponies +start and Eric rose in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in front of +them and over the steep clay banks thundered a herd of wild ponies, +nimble as monkeys and wild as rabbits, such as horse-traders drive +east from the plains of Montana to sell in the farming country. +Margaret's pony made a shrill sound, a neigh that was almost a +scream, and started up the clay bank to meet them, all the wild +blood of the range breaking out in an instant. Margaret called to +Eric just as he threw himself out of the saddle and caught her +pony's bit. But the wiry little animal had gone mad and was kicking +and biting like a devil. Her wild brothers of the range were all +about her, neighing, and pawing the earth, and striking her with +their fore feet and snapping at her flanks. It was the old liberty +of the range that the little beast fought for. + +"Drop the reins and hold tight, tight!" Eric called, throwing all +his weight upon the bit, struggling under those frantic fore feet +that now beat at his breast, and now kicked at the wild mustangs +that surged and tossed about him. He succeeded in wrenching the +pony's head toward him and crowding her withers against the clay +bank, so that she could not roll. + +"Hold tight, tight!" he shouted again, launching a kick at a +snorting animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she +should lose her courage and fall now, under those hoofs----He struck +out again and again, kicking right and left with all his might. +Already the negligent drivers had galloped into the cut, and their +long quirts were whistling over the heads of the herd. As suddenly +as it had come, the struggling, frantic wave of wild life swept up +out of the gulch and on across the open prairie, and with a long +despairing whinny of farewell the pony dropped her head and stood +trembling in her sweat, shaking the foam and blood from her bit. + +Eric stepped close to Margaret's side and laid his hand on her +saddle. "You are not hurt?" he asked, hoarsely. As he raised his +face in the soft starlight she saw that it was white and drawn and +that his lips were working nervously. + +"No, no, not at all. But you, you are suffering; they struck you!" +she cried in sharp alarm. + +He stepped back and drew his hand across his brow. + +"No, it is not that," he spoke rapidly now, with his hands clenched +at his side. "But if they had hurt you, I would beat their brains +out with my hands, I would kill them all. I was never afraid before. +You are the only beautiful thing that has ever come close to me. You +came like an angel out of the sky. You are like the music you sing, +you are like the stars and the snow on the mountains where I played +when I was a little boy. You are like all that I wanted once and +never had, you are all that they have killed in me. I die for you +to-night, to-morrow, for all eternity. I am not a coward; I was +afraid because I love you more than Christ who died for me, more +than I am afraid of hell, or hope for heaven. I was never afraid +before. If you had fallen--oh, my God!" he threw his arms out +blindly and dropped his head upon the pony's mane, leaning limply +against the animal like a man struck by some sickness. His shoulders +rose and fell perceptibly with his labored breathing. The horse +stood cowed with exhaustion and fear. Presently Margaret laid her +hand on Eric's head and said gently: + +"You are better now, shall we go on? Can you get your horse?" + +"No, he has gone with the herd. I will lead yours, she is not safe. +I will not frighten you again." His voice was still husky, but it +was steady now. He took hold of the bit and tramped home in silence. + +When they reached the house, Eric stood stolidly by the pony's head +until Wyllis came to lift his sister from the saddle. + +"The horses were badly frightened, Wyllis. I think I was pretty +thoroughly scared myself," she said as she took her brother's arm +and went slowly up the hill toward the house. "No, I'm not hurt, +thanks to Eric. You must thank him for taking such good care of me. +He's a mighty fine fellow. I'll tell you all about it in the +morning, dear. I was pretty well shaken up and I'm going right to +bed now. Good-night." + +When she reached the low room in which she slept, she sank upon the +bed in her riding-dress face downward. + +"Oh, I pity him! I pity him!" she murmured, with a long sigh of +exhaustion. She must have slept a little. When she rose again, she +took from her dress a letter that had been waiting for her at the +village post-office. It was closely written in a long, angular hand, +covering a dozen pages of foreign note-paper, and began:-- + +"My Dearest Margaret: If I should attempt to say _how like a winter +hath thine absence been_, I should incur the risk of being tedious. +Really, it takes the sparkle out of everything. Having nothing +better to do, and not caring to go anywhere in particular without +you, I remained in the city until Jack Courtwell noted my general +despondency and brought me down here to his place on the sound to +manage some open-air theatricals he is getting up. 'As You Like It' +is of course the piece selected. Miss Harrison plays Rosalind. I +wish you had been here to take the part. Miss Harrison reads her +lines well, but she is either a maiden-all-forlorn or a tomboy; +insists on reading into the part all sorts of deeper meanings and +highly colored suggestions wholly out of harmony with the pastoral +setting. Like most of the professionals, she exaggerates the +emotional element and quite fails to do justice to Rosalind's facile +wit and really brilliant mental qualities. Gerard will do Orlando, +but rumor says he is epris of your sometime friend, Miss Meredith, +and his memory is treacherous and his interest fitful. + +"My new pictures arrived last week on the 'Gascogne.' The Puvis de +Chavannes is even more beautiful than I thought it in Paris. A pale +dream-maiden sits by a pale dream-cow, and a stream of anemic water +flows at her feet. The Constant, you will remember, I got because +you admired it. It is here in all its florid splendor, the whole +dominated by a glowing sensuosity. The drapery of the female figure +is as wonderful as you said; the fabric all barbaric pearl and gold, +painted with an easy, effortless voluptuousness, and that white, +gleaming line of African coast in the background recalls memories of +you very precious to me. But it is useless to deny that Constant +irritates me. Though I cannot prove the charge against him, his +brilliancy always makes me suspect him of cheapness." + +Here Margaret stopped and glanced at the remaining pages of this +strange love-letter. They seemed to be filled chiefly with +discussions of pictures and books, and with a slow smile she laid +them by. + +She rose and began undressing. Before she lay down she went to open +the window. With her hand on the sill, she hesitated, feeling +suddenly as though some danger were lurking outside, some inordinate +desire waiting to spring upon her in the darkness. She stood there +for a long time, gazing at the infinite sweep of the sky. + +"Oh, it is all so little, so little there," she murmured. "When +everything else is so dwarfed, why should one expect love to be +great? Why should one try to read highly colored suggestions into a +life like that? If only I could find one thing in it all that +mattered greatly, one thing that would warm me when I am alone! Will +life never give me that one great moment?" + +As she raised the window, she heard a sound in the plum-bushes +outside. It was only the house-dog roused from his sleep, but +Margaret started violently and trembled so that she caught the foot +of the bed for support. Again she felt herself pursued by some +overwhelming longing, some desperate necessity for herself, like the +outstretching of helpless, unseen arms in the darkness, and the air +seemed heavy with sighs of yearning. She fled to her bed with the +words, "I love you more than Christ, who died for me!" ringing in +her ears. + + +III. + +About midnight the dance at Lockhart's was at its height. Even the +old men who had come to "look on" caught the spirit of revelry and +stamped the floor with the vigor of old Silenus. Eric took the +violin from the Frenchman, and Minna Oleson sat at the organ, and +the music grew more and more characteristic--rude, half-mournful +music, made up of the folk-songs of the North, that the villagers +sing through the long night in hamlets by the sea, when they are +thinking of the sun, and the spring, and the fishermen so long away. +To Margaret some of it sounded like Grieg's Peer Gynt music. She +found something irresistibly infectious in the mirth of these people +who were so seldom merry, and she felt almost one of them. Something +seemed struggling for freedom in them to-night, something of the +joyous childhood of the nations which exile had not killed. The +girls were all boisterous with delight. Pleasure came to them but +rarely, and when it came, they caught at it wildly and crushed its +fluttering wings in their strong brown fingers. They had a hard life +enough, most of them. Torrid summers and freezing winters, labor and +drudgery and ignorance, were the portion of their girlhood; a short +wooing, a hasty, loveless marriage, unlimited maternity, thankless +sons, premature age and ugliness, were the dower of their womanhood. +But what matter? To-night there was hot liquor in the glass and hot +blood in the heart; to-night they danced. + +To-night Eric Hermannson had renewed his youth. He was no longer the +big, silent Norwegian who had sat at Margaret's feet and looked +hopelessly into her eyes. To-night he was a man, with a man's rights +and a man's power. To-night he was Siegfried indeed. His hair was +yellow as the heavy wheat in the ripe of summer, and his eyes +flashed like the blue water between the ice-packs in the North Seas. +He was not afraid of Margaret to-night, and when he danced with her +he held her firmly. She was tired and dragged on his arm a little, +but the strength of the man was like an all-pervading fluid, +stealing through her veins, awakening under her heart some nameless, +unsuspected existence that had slumbered there all these years and +that went out through her throbbing fingertips to his that answered. +She wondered if the hoydenish blood of some lawless ancestor, long +asleep, were calling out in her to-night, some drop of a hotter +fluid that the centuries had failed to cool, and why, if this curse +were in her, it had not spoken before. But was it a curse, this +awakening, this wealth before undiscovered, this music set free? For +the first time in her life her heart held something stronger than +herself, was not this worth while? Then she ceased to wonder. She +lost sight of the lights and the faces, and the music was drowned by +the beating of her own arteries. She saw only the blue eyes that +flashed above her, felt only the warmth of that throbbing hand which +held hers and which the blood of his heart fed. Dimly, as in a +dream, she saw the drooping shoulders, high white forehead and +tight, cynical mouth of the man she was to marry in December. For an +hour she had been crowding back the memory of that face with all her +strength. + +"Let us stop, this is enough," she whispered. His only answer was to +tighten the arm behind her. She sighed and let that masterful +strength bear her where it would. She forgot that this man was +little more than a savage, that they would part at dawn. The blood +has no memories, no reflections, no regrets for the past, no +consideration of the future. + +"Let us go out where it is cooler," she said when the music stopped; +thinking, "I am growing faint here, I shall be all right in the open +air." They stepped out into the cool, blue air of the night. + +Since the older folk had begun dancing, the young Norwegians had +been slipping out in couples to climb the windmill tower into the +cooler atmosphere, as is their custom. + +"You like to go up?" asked Eric, close to her ear. + +She turned and looked at him with suppressed amusement. "How high is +it?" + +"Forty feet, about. I not let you fall." There was a note of +irresistible pleading in his voice, and she felt that he +tremendously wished her to go. Well, why not? This was a night of +the unusual, when she was not herself at all, but was living an +unreality. To-morrow, yes, in a few hours, there would be the +Vestibule Limited and the world. + +"Well, if you'll take good care of me. I used to be able to climb, +when I was a little girl." + +Once at the top and seated on the platform, they were silent. +Margaret wondered if she would not hunger for that scene all her +life, through all the routine of the days to come. Above them +stretched the great Western sky, serenely blue, even in the night, +with its big, burning stars, never so cold and dead and far away as +in denser atmospheres. The moon would not be up for twenty minutes +yet, and all about the horizon, that wide horizon, which seemed to +reach around the world, lingered a pale, white light, as of a +universal dawn. The weary wind brought up to them the heavy odors of +the cornfields. The music of the dance sounded faintly from below. +Eric leaned on his elbow beside her, his legs swinging down on the +ladder. His great shoulders looked more than ever like those of the +stone Doryphorus, who stands in his perfect, reposeful strength in +the Louvre, and had often made her wonder if such men died forever +with the youth of Greece. + +"How sweet the corn smells at night," said Margaret nervously. + +"Yes, like the flowers that grow in paradise, I think." + +She was somewhat startled by this reply, and more startled when this +taciturn man spoke again. + +"You go away to-morrow?" + +"Yes, we have stayed longer than we thought to now." + +"You not come back any more?" + +"No, I expect not. You see, it is a long trip; half-way across the +continent." + +"You soon forget about this country, I guess." It seemed to him now +a little thing to lose his soul for this woman, but that she should +utterly forget this night into which he threw all his life and all +his eternity, that was a bitter thought. + +"No, Eric, I will not forget. You have all been too kind to me for +that. And you won't be sorry you danced this one night, will you?" + +"I never be sorry. I have not been so happy before. I not be so +happy again, ever. You will be happy many nights yet, I only this +one. I will dream sometimes, maybe." + +The mighty resignation of his tone alarmed and touched her. It was +as when some great animal composes itself for death, as when a great +ship goes down at sea. + +She sighed, but did not answer him. He drew a little closer and +looked into her eyes. + +"You are not always happy, too?" he asked. + +"No, not always, Eric; not very often, I think." + +"You have a trouble?" + +"Yes, but I cannot put it into words. Perhaps if I could do that, I +could cure it." + +He clasped his hands together over his heart, as children do when +they pray, and said falteringly, "If I own all the world, I give him +you." + +Margaret felt a sudden moisture in her eyes, and laid her hand on +his. + +"Thank you, Eric; I believe you would. But perhaps even then I +should not be happy. Perhaps I have too much of it already." + +She did not take her hand away from him; she did not dare. She sat +still and waited for the traditions in which she had always believed +to speak and save her. But they were dumb. She belonged to an +ultra-refined civilization which tries to cheat nature with elegant +sophistries. Cheat nature? Bah! One generation may do it, perhaps +two, but the third---- Can we ever rise above nature or sink below +her? Did she not turn on Jerusalem as upon Sodom, upon St. Anthony +in his desert as upon Nero in his seraglio? Does she not always cry +in brutal triumph: "I am here still, at the bottom of things, +warming the roots of life; you cannot starve me nor tame me nor +thwart me; I made the world, I rule it, and I am its destiny." + +This woman, on a windmill tower at the world's end with a giant +barbarian, heard that cry to-night, and she was afraid! Ah! the +terror and the delight of that moment when first we fear ourselves! +Until then we have not lived. + +"Come, Eric, let us go down; the moon is up and the music has begun +again," she said. + +He rose silently and stepped down upon the ladder, putting his arm +about her to help her. That arm could have thrown Thor's hammer out +in the cornfields yonder, yet it scarcely touched her, and his hand +trembled as it had done in the dance. His face was level with hers +now and the moonlight fell sharply upon it. All her life she had +searched the faces of men for the look that lay in his eyes. She +knew that that look had never shone for her before, would never +shine for her on earth again, that such love comes to one only in +dreams or in impossible places like this, unattainable always. This +was Love's self, in a moment it would die. Stung by the agonized +appeal that emanated from the man's whole being, she leaned forward +and laid her lips on his. Once, twice and again she heard the deep +respirations rattle in his throat while she held them there, and the +riotous force under her heart became an engulfing weakness. He drew +her up to him until he felt all the resistance go out of her body, +until every nerve relaxed and yielded. When she drew her face back +from his, it was white with fear. + +"Let us go down, oh, my God! let us go down!" she muttered. And the +drunken stars up yonder seemed reeling to some appointed doom as she +clung to the rounds of the ladder. All that she was to know of love +she had left upon his lips. + +"The devil is loose again," whispered Olaf Oleson, as he saw Eric +dancing a moment later, his eyes blazing. + +But Eric was thinking with an almost savage exultation of the time +when he should pay for this. Ah, there would be no quailing then! If +ever a soul went fearlessly, proudly down to the gates infernal, his +should go. For a moment he fancied he was there already, treading +down the tempest of flame, hugging the fiery hurricane to his +breast. He wondered whether in ages gone, all the countless years of +sinning in which men had sold and lost and flung their souls away, +any man had ever so cheated Satan, had ever bartered his soul for so +great a price. + +It seemed but a little while till dawn. + +The carriage was brought to the door and Wyllis Elliot and his +sister said good-by. She could not meet Eric's eyes as she gave him +her hand, but as he stood by the horse's head, just as the carriage +moved off, she gave him one swift glance that said, "I will not +forget." In a moment the carriage was gone. + +Eric changed his coat and plunged his head into the watertank and +went to the barn to hook up his team. As he led his horses to the +door, a shadow fell across his path, and he saw Skinner rising in +his stirrups. His rugged face was pale and worn with looking after +his wayward flock, with dragging men into the way of salvation. + +"Good-morning, Eric. There was a dance here last night?" he asked, +sternly. + +"A dance? Oh, yes, a dance," replied Eric, cheerfully. + +"Certainly you did not dance, Eric?" + +"Yes, I danced. I danced all the time." + +The minister's shoulders drooped, and an expression of profound +discouragement settled over his haggard face. There was almost +anguish in the yearning he felt for this soul. + +"Eric, I didn't look for this from you. I thought God had set his +mark on you if he ever had on any man. And it is for things like +this that you set your soul back a thousand years from God. O +foolish and perverse generation!" + +Eric drew himself up to his full height and looked off to where the +new day was gilding the corn-tassels and flooding the uplands with +light. As his nostrils drew in the breath of the dew and the +morning, something from the only poetry he had ever read flashed +across his mind, and he murmured, half to himself, with dreamy +exultation: + +"'And a day shall be as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a +day.'" + + _Cosmopolitan_, April 1900 + + + + +_The Sentimentality of William Tavener_ + + +It takes a strong woman to make any sort of success of living in the +West, and Hester undoubtedly was that. When people spoke of William +Tavener as the most prosperous farmer in McPherson County, they +usually added that his wife was a "good manager." She was an +executive woman, quick of tongue and something of an imperatrix. The +only reason her husband did not consult her about his business was +that she did not wait to be consulted. + +It would have been quite impossible for one man, within the limited +sphere of human action, to follow all Hester's advice, but in the +end William usually acted upon some of her suggestions. When she +incessantly denounced the "shiftlessness" of letting a new threshing +machine stand unprotected in the open, he eventually built a shed +for it. When she sniffed contemptuously at his notion of fencing a +hog corral with sod walls, he made a spiritless beginning on the +structure--merely to "show his temper," as she put it--but in the +end he went off quietly to town and bought enough barbed wire to +complete the fence. When the first heavy rains came on, and the pigs +rooted down the sod wall and made little paths all over it to +facilitate their ascent, he heard his wife relate with relish the +story of the little pig that built a mud house, to the minister at +the dinner table, and William's gravity never relaxed for an +instant. Silence, indeed, was William's refuge and his strength. + +William set his boys a wholesome example to respect their mother. +People who knew him very well suspected that he even admired her. He +was a hard man towards his neighbors, and even towards his sons; +grasping, determined and ambitious. + +There was an occasional blue day about the house when William went +over the store bills, but he never objected to items relating to his +wife's gowns or bonnets. So it came about that many of the foolish, +unnecessary little things that Hester bought for boys, she had +charged to her personal account. + +One spring night Hester sat in a rocking chair by the sitting room +window, darning socks. She rocked violently and sent her long needle +vigorously back and forth over her gourd, and it took only a very +casual glance to see that she was wrought up over something. William +sat on the other side of the table reading his farm paper. If he had +noticed his wife's agitation, his calm, clean-shaven face betrayed +no sign of concern. He must have noticed the sarcastic turn of her +remarks at the supper table, and he must have noticed the moody +silence of the older boys as they ate. When supper was but half over +little Billy, the youngest, had suddenly pushed back his plate and +slipped away from the table, manfully trying to swallow a sob. But +William Tavener never heeded ominous forecasts in the domestic +horizon, and he never looked for a storm until it broke. + +After supper the boys had gone to the pond under the willows in the +big cattle corral, to get rid of the dust of plowing. Hester could +hear an occasional splash and a laugh ringing clear through the +stillness of the night, as she sat by the open window. She sat +silent for almost an hour reviewing in her mind many plans of +attack. But she was too vigorous a woman to be much of a strategist, +and she usually came to her point with directness. At last she cut +her thread and suddenly put her darning down, saying emphatically: + +"William, I don't think it would hurt you to let the boys go to that +circus in town to-morrow." + +William continued to read his farm paper, but it was not Hester's +custom to wait for an answer. She usually divined his arguments and +assailed them one by one before he uttered them. + +"You've been short of hands all summer, and you've worked the boys +hard, and a man ought use his own flesh and blood as well as he does +his hired hands. We're plenty able to afford it, and it's little +enough our boys ever spend. I don't see how you can expect 'em to be +steady and hard workin', unless you encourage 'em a little. I never +could see much harm in circuses, and our boys have never been to +one. Oh, I know Jim Howley's boys get drunk an' carry on when they +go, but our boys ain't that sort, an' you know it, William. The +animals are real instructive, an' our boys don't get to see much out +here on the prairie. It was different where we were raised, but the +boys have got no advantages here, an' if you don't take care, +they'll grow up to be greenhorns." + +Hester paused a moment, and William folded up his paper, but +vouchsafed no remark. His sisters in Virginia had often said that +only a quiet man like William could ever have lived with Hester +Perkins. Secretly, William was rather proud of his wife's "gift of +speech," and of the fact that she could talk in prayer meeting as +fluently as a man. He confined his own efforts in that line to a +brief prayer at Covenant meetings. + +Hester shook out another sock and went on. + +"Nobody was ever hurt by goin' to a circus. Why, law me! I remember +I went to one myself once, when I was little. I had most forgot +about it. It was over at Pewtown, an' I remember how I had set my +heart on going. I don't think I'd ever forgiven my father if he +hadn't taken me, though that red clay road was in a frightful way +after the rain. I mind they had an elephant and six poll parrots, +an' a Rocky Mountain lion, an' a cage of monkeys, an' two camels. +My! but they were a sight to me then!" + +Hester dropped the black sock and shook her head and smiled at the +recollection. She was not expecting anything from William yet, and +she was fairly startled when he said gravely, in much the same tone +in which he announced the hymns in prayer meeting: + +"No, there was only one camel. The other was a dromedary." + +She peered around the lamp and looked at him keenly. + +"Why, William, how come you to know?" + +William folded his paper and answered with some hesitation, "I was +there, too." + +Hester's interest flashed up.--"Well, I never, William! To think of +my finding it out after all these years! Why, you couldn't have been +much bigger'n our Billy then. It seems queer I never saw you when +you was little, to remember about you. But then you Back Creek folks +never have anything to do with us Gap people. But how come you to +go? Your father was stricter with you than you are with your boys." + +"I reckon I shouldn't 'a gone," he said slowly, "but boys will do +foolish things. I had done a good deal of fox hunting the winter +before, and father let me keep the bounty money. I hired Tom Smith's +Tap to weed the corn for me, an' I slipped off unbeknownst to father +an' went to the show." + +Hester spoke up warmly: "Nonsense, William! It didn't do you no +harm, I guess. You was always worked hard enough. It must have been +a big sight for a little fellow. That clown must have just tickled +you to death." + +William crossed his knees and leaned back in his chair. + +"I reckon I could tell all that fool's jokes now. Sometimes I can't +help thinkin' about 'em in meetin' when the sermon's long. I mind I +had on a pair of new boots that hurt me like the mischief, but I +forgot all about 'em when that fellow rode the donkey. I recall I +had to take them boots off as soon as I got out of sight o' town, +and walked home in the mud barefoot." + +"O poor little fellow!" Hester ejaculated, drawing her chair nearer +and leaning her elbows on the table. "What cruel shoes they did use +to make for children. I remember I went up to Back Creek to see the +circus wagons go by. They came down from Romney, you know. The +circus men stopped at the creek to water the animals, an' the +elephant got stubborn an' broke a big limb off the yellow willow +tree that grew there by the toll house porch, an' the Scribners were +'fraid as death he'd pull the house down. But this much I saw him +do; he waded in the creek an' filled his trunk with water, and +squirted it in at the window and nearly ruined Ellen Scribner's pink +lawn dress that she had just ironed an' laid out on the bed ready to +wear to the circus." + +"I reckon that must have been a trial to Ellen," chuckled William, +"for she was mighty prim in them days." + +Hester drew her chair still nearer William's. Since the children had +begun growing up, her conversation with her husband had been almost +wholly confined to questions of economy and expense. Their +relationship had become purely a business one, like that between +landlord and tenant. In her desire to indulge her boys she had +unconsciously assumed a defensive and almost hostile attitude +towards her husband. No debtor ever haggled with his usurer more +doggedly than did Hester with her husband in behalf of her sons. The +strategic contest had gone on so long that it had almost crowded out +the memory of a closer relationship. This exchange of confidences +to-night, when common recollections took them unawares and opened +their hearts, had all the miracle of romance. They talked on and on; +of old neighbors, of old familiar faces in the valley where they had +grown up, of long forgotten incidents of their youth--weddings, +picnics, sleighing parties and baptizings. For years they had talked +of nothing else but butter and eggs and the prices of things, and +now they had as much to say to each other as people who meet after a +long separation. + +When the clock struck ten, William rose and went over to his walnut +secretary and unlocked it. From his red leather wallet he took out a +ten dollar bill and laid it on the table beside Hester. + +"Tell the boys not to stay late, an' not to drive the horses hard," +he said quietly, and went off to bed. + +Hester blew out the lamp and sat still in the dark a long time. She +left the bill lying on the table where William had placed it. She +had a painful sense of having missed something, or lost something; +she felt that somehow the years had cheated her. + +The little locust trees that grew by the fence were white with +blossoms. Their heavy odor floated in to her on the night wind and +recalled a night long ago, when the first whip-poor-Will of the +Spring was heard, and the rough, buxom girls of Hawkins Gap had held +her laughing and struggling under the locust trees, and searched in +her bosom for a lock of her sweetheart's hair, which is supposed to +be on every girl's breast when the first whip-poor-Will sings. Two +of those same girls had been her bridesmaids. Hester had been a very +happy bride. She rose and went softly into the room where William +lay. He was sleeping heavily, but occasionally moved his hand before +his face to ward off the flies. Hester went into the parlor and took +the piece of mosquito net from the basket of wax apples and pears +that her sister had made before she died. One of the boys had +brought it all the way from Virginia, packed in a tin pail, since +Hester would not risk shipping so precious an ornament by freight. +She went back to the bed room and spread the net over William's +head. + +Then she sat down by the bed and listened to his deep, regular +breathing until she heard the boys returning. She went out to meet +them and warn them not to waken their father. + +"I'll be up early to get your breakfast, boys. Your father says you +can go to the show." As she handed the money to the eldest, she felt +a sudden throb of allegiance to her husband and said sharply, "And +you be careful of that, an' don't waste it. Your father works hard +for his money." + +The boys looked at each other in astonishment and felt that they had +lost a powerful ally. + + _Library_, May 12, 1900 + + + + +_The Namesake_ + + +Seven of us, students, sat one evening in Hartwell's studio on the +Boulevard St. Michel. We were all fellow-countrymen; one from New +Hampshire, one from Colorado, another from Nevada, several from the +farm lands of the Middle West, and I myself from California. Lyon +Hartwell, though born abroad, was simply, as every one knew, "from +America." He seemed, almost more than any other one living man, to +mean all of it--from ocean to ocean. When he was in Paris, his +studio was always open to the seven of us who were there that +evening, and we intruded upon his leisure as often as we thought +permissible. + +Although we were within the terms of the easiest of all intimacies, +and although the great sculptor, even when he was more than usually +silent, was at all times the most gravely cordial of hosts, yet, on +that long remembered evening, as the sunlight died on the burnished +brown of the horse-chestnuts below the windows, a perceptible +dullness yawned through our conversation. + +We were, indeed, somewhat low in spirit, for one of our number, +Charley Bentley, was leaving us indefinitely, in response to an +imperative summons from home. To-morrow his studio, just across the +hall from Hartwell's, was to pass into other hands, and Bentley's +luggage was even now piled in discouraged resignation before his +door. The various bales and boxes seemed literally to weigh upon us +as we sat in his neighbor's hospitable rooms, drearily putting in +the time until he should leave us to catch the ten o'clock express +for Dieppe. + +The day we had got through very comfortably, for Bentley made it the +occasion of a somewhat pretentious luncheon at Maxim's. There had +been twelve of us at table, and the two young Poles were thirsty, +the Gascon so fabulously entertaining, that it was near upon five +o'clock when we put down our liqueur glasses for the last time, and +the red, perspiring waiter, having pocketed the reward of his +arduous and protracted services, bowed us affably to the door, +flourishing his napkin and brushing back the streaks of wet, black +hair from his rosy forehead. Our guests having betaken themselves +belated to their respective engagements, the rest of us returned +with Bentley--only to be confronted by the depressing array before +his door. A glance about his denuded rooms had sufficed to chill the +glow of the afternoon, and we fled across the hall in a body and +begged Lyon Hartwell to take us in. + +Bentley had said very little about it, but we all knew what it meant +to him to be called home. Each of us knew what it would mean to +himself, and each had felt something of that quickened sense of +opportunity which comes at seeing another man in any way counted out +of the race. Never had the game seemed so enchanting, the chance to +play it such a piece of unmerited, unbelievable good fortune. + +It must have been, I think, about the middle of October, for I +remember that the sycamores were almost bare in the Luxembourg +Gardens that morning, and the terrace about the queens of France +were strewn with crackling brown leaves. The fat red roses, out the +summer long on the stand of the old flower woman at the corner, had +given place to dahlias and purple asters. First glimpses of autumn +toilettes flashed from the carriages; wonderful little bonnets +nodded at one along the Champs-Elysees; and in the Quarter an +occasional feather boa, red or black or white, brushed one's coat +sleeve in the gay twilight of the early evening. The crisp, sunny +autumn air was all day full of the stir of people and carriages and +of the cheer of salutations; greetings of the students, returned +brown and bearded from their holiday, gossip of people come back +from Trouville, from St. Valery, from Dieppe, from all over Brittany +and the Norman coast. Everywhere was the joyousness of return, the +taking up again of life and work and play. + +I had felt ever since early morning that this was the saddest of all +possible seasons for saying good-by to that old, old city of youth, +and to that little corner of it on the south shore which since the +Dark Ages themselves--yes, and before--has been so peculiarly the +land of the young. + +I can recall our very postures as we lounged about Hartwell's rooms +that evening, with Bentley making occasional hurried trips to his +desolated workrooms across the hall--as if haunted by a feeling of +having forgotten something--or stopping to poke nervously at his +_perroquets_, which he had bequeathed to Hartwell, gilt cage and +all. Our host himself sat on the couch, his big, bronze-like +shoulders backed up against the window, his shaggy head, beaked +nose, and long chin cut clean against the gray light. + +Our drowsing interest, in so far as it could be said to be fixed +upon anything, was centered upon Hartwell's new figure, which stood +on the block ready to be cast in bronze, intended as a monument for +some American battlefield. He called it "The Color Sergeant." It was +the figure of a young soldier running, clutching the folds of a +flag, the staff of which had been shot away. We had known it in all +the stages of its growth, and the splendid action and feeling of the +thing had come to have a kind of special significance for the half +dozen of us who often gathered at Hartwell's rooms--though, in +truth, there was as much to dishearten one as to inflame, in the +case of a man who had done so much in a field so amazingly +difficult; who had thrown up in bronze all the restless, teeming +force of that adventurous wave still climbing westward in our own +land across the waters. We recalled his "Scout," his "Pioneer," his +"Gold Seekers," and those monuments in which he had invested one and +another of the heroes of the Civil War with such convincing dignity +and power. + +"Where in the world does he get the heat to make an idea like that +carry?" Bentley remarked morosely, scowling at the clay figure. +"Hang me, Hartwell, if I don't think it's just because you're not +really an American at all, that you can look at it like that." + +The big man shifted uneasily against the window. "Yes," he replied +smiling, "perhaps there is something in that. My citizenship was +somewhat belated and emotional in its flowering. I've half a mind to +tell you about it, Bentley." He rose uncertainly, and, after +hesitating a moment, went back into his workroom, where he began +fumbling among the litter in the corners. + +At the prospect of any sort of personal expression from Hartwell, we +glanced questioningly at one another; for although he made us feel +that he liked to have us about, we were always held at a distance by +a certain diffidence of his. There were rare occasions--when he was +in the heat of work or of ideas--when he forgot to be shy, but they +were so exceptional that no flattery was quite so seductive as being +taken for a moment into Hartwell's confidence. Even in the matter of +opinions--the commonest of currency in our circle--he was niggardly +and prone to qualify. No man ever guarded his mystery more +effectually. There was a singular, intense spell, therefore, about +those few evenings when he had broken through this excessive +modesty, or shyness, or melancholy, and had, as it were, committed +himself. + +When Hartwell returned from the back room, he brought with him an +unframed canvas which he put on an easel near his clay figure. We +drew close about it, for the darkness was rapidly coming on. Despite +the dullness of the light, we instantly recognized the boy of +Hartwell's "Color Sergeant." It was the portrait of a very handsome +lad in uniform, standing beside a charger impossibly rearing. Not +only in his radiant countenance and flashing eyes, but in every line +of his young body there was an energy, a gallantry, a joy of life, +that arrested and challenged one. + +"Yes, that's where I got the notion," Hartwell remarked, wandering +back to his seat in the window. "I've wanted to do it for years, but +I've never felt quite sure of myself. I was afraid of missing it. He +was an uncle of mine, my father's half-brother, and I was named for +him. He was killed in one of the big battles of Sixty-four, when I +was a child. I never saw him--never knew him until he had been dead +for twenty years. And then, one night, I came to know him as we +sometimes do living persons--intimately, in a single moment." + +He paused to knock the ashes out of his short pipe, refilled it, and +puffed at it thoughtfully for a few moments with his hands on his +knees. Then, settling back heavily among the cushions and looking +absently out of the window, he began his story. As he proceeded +further and further into the experience which he was trying to +convey to us, his voice sank so low and was sometimes so charged +with feeling, that I almost thought he had forgotten our presence +and was remembering aloud. Even Bentley forgot his nervousness in +astonishment and sat breathless under the spell of the man's thus +breathing his memories out into the dusk. + +"It was just fifteen years ago this last spring that I first went +home, and Bentley's having to cut away like this brings it all back +to me. + +"I was born, you know, in Italy. My father was a sculptor, though I +dare say you've not heard of him. He was one of those first fellows +who went over after Story and Powers,--went to Italy for 'Art,' +quite simply; to lift from its native bough the willing, iridescent +bird. Their story is told, informingly enough, by some of those +ingenuous marble things at the Metropolitan. My father came over +some time before the outbreak of the Civil War, and was regarded as +a renegade by his family because he did not go home to enter the +army. His half-brother, the only child of my grandfather's second +marriage, enlisted at fifteen and was killed the next year. I was +ten years old when the news of his death reached us. My mother died +the following winter, and I was sent away to a Jesuit school, while +my father, already ill himself, stayed on at Rome, chipping away at +his Indian maidens and marble goddesses, still gloomily seeking the +thing for which he had made himself the most unhappy of exiles. + +"He died when I was fourteen, but even before that I had been put to +work under an Italian sculptor. He had an almost morbid desire that +I should carry on his work, under, as he often pointed out to me, +conditions so much more auspicious. He left me in the charge of his +one intimate friend, an American gentleman in the consulate at Rome, +and his instructions were that I was to be educated there and to +live there until I was twenty-one. After I was of age, I came to +Paris and studied under one master after another until I was nearly +thirty. Then, almost for the first time, I was confronted by a duty +which was not my pleasure. + +"My grandfather's death, at an advanced age, left an invalid maiden +sister of my father's quite alone in the world. She had suffered for +years from a cerebral disease, a slow decay of the faculties which +rendered her almost helpless. I decided to go to America and, if +possible, bring her back to Paris, where I seemed on my way toward +what my poor father had wished for me. + +"On my arrival at my father's birthplace, however, I found that this +was not to be thought of. To tear this timid, feeble, shrinking +creature, doubly aged by years and illness, from the spot where she +had been rooted for a lifetime, would have been little short of +brutality. To leave her to the care of strangers seemed equally +heartless. There was clearly nothing for me to do but to remain and +wait for that slow and painless malady to run its course. I was +there something over two years. + +"My grandfather's home, his father's homestead before him, lay on +the high banks of a river in Western Pennsylvania. The little town +twelve miles down the stream, whither my great-grandfather used to +drive his ox-wagon on market days, had become, in two generations, +one of the largest manufacturing cities in the world. For hundreds +of miles about us the gentle hill slopes were honeycombed with gas +wells and coal shafts; oil derricks creaked in every valley and +meadow; the brooks were sluggish and discolored with crude +petroleum, and the air was impregnated by its searching odor. The +great glass and iron manufactories had come up and up the river +almost to our very door; their smoky exhalations brooded over us, +and their crashing was always in our ears. I was plunged into the +very incandescence of human energy. But, though my nerves tingled +with the feverish, passionate endeavor which snapped in the very air +about me, none of these great arteries seemed to feed me; this +tumultuous life did not warm me. On every side were the great muddy +rivers, the ragged mountains from which the timber was being +ruthlessly torn away, the vast tracts of wild country, and the +gulches that were like wounds in the earth; everywhere the glare of +that relentless energy which followed me like a searchlight and +seemed to scorch and consume me. I could only hide myself in the +tangled garden, where the dropping of a leaf or the whistle of a +bird was the only incident. + +"The Hartwell homestead had been sold away little by little, until +all that remained of it was garden and orchard. The house, a square +brick structure, stood in the midst of a great garden which sloped +toward the river, ending in a grassy bank which fell some forty feet +to the water's edge. The garden was now little more than a tangle of +neglected shrubbery; damp, rank, and of that intense blue-green +peculiar to vegetation in smoky places where the sun shines but +rarely, and the mists form early in the evening and hang late in the +morning. + +"I shall never forget it as I saw it first, when I arrived there in +the chill of a backward June. The long, rank grass, thick and soft +and falling in billows, was always wet until midday. The gravel +walks were bordered with great lilac-bushes, mock-orange, and +bridal-wreath. Back of the house was a neglected rose garden, +surrounded by a low stone wall over which the long suckers trailed +and matted. They had wound their pink, thorny tentacles, layer upon +layer, about the lock and the hinges of the rusty iron gate. Even +the porches of the house, and the very windows, were damp and heavy +with growth: wistaria, clematis, honeysuckle, and trumpet vine. The +garden was grown up with trees, especially that part of it which lay +above the river. The bark of the old locusts was blackened by the +smoke that crept continually up the valley, and their feathery +foliage, so merry in its movement and so yellow and joyous in its +color, seemed peculiarly precious under that somber sky. There were +sycamores and copper beeches; gnarled apple-trees, too old to bear; +and fall pear-trees, hung with a sharp, hard fruit in October; all +with a leafage singularly rich and luxuriant, and peculiarly vivid +in color. The oaks about the house had been old trees when my +great-grandfather built his cabin there, more than a century before, +and this garden was almost the only spot for miles along the river +where any of the original forest growth still survived. The smoke +from the mills was fatal to trees of the larger sort, and even these +had the look of doomed things--bent a little toward the town and +seemed to wait with head inclined before that on-coming, shrieking +force. + +"About the river, too, there was a strange hush, a tragic +submission--it was so leaden and sullen in its color, and it flowed +so soundlessly forever past our door. + +"I sat there every evening, on the high veranda overlooking it, +watching the dim outlines of the steep hills on the other shore, the +flicker of the lights on the island, where there was a boat-house, +and listening to the call of the boatmen through the mist. The mist +came as certainly as night, whitened by moonshine or starshine. The +tin water-pipes went splash, splash, with it all evening, and the +wind, when it rose at all, was little more than a sighing of the old +boughs and a troubled breath in the heavy grasses. + +"At first it was to think of my distant friends and my old life that +I used to sit there; but after awhile it was simply to watch the +days and weeks go by, like the river which seemed to carry them +away. + +"Within the house I was never at home. Month followed month, and yet +I could feel no sense of kinship with anything there. Under the roof +where my father and grandfather were born, I remained utterly +detached. The somber rooms never spoke to me, the old furniture +never seemed tinctured with race. This portrait of my boy uncle was +the only thing to which I could draw near, the only link with +anything I had ever known before. + +"There is a good deal of my father in the face, but it is my father +transformed and glorified; his hesitating discontent drowned in a +kind of triumph. From my first day in that house, I continually +turned to this handsome kinsman of mine, wondering in what terms he +had lived and had his hope; what he had found there to look like +that, to bound at one, after all those years, so joyously out of the +canvas. + +"From the timid, clouded old woman over whose life I had come to +watch, I learned that in the backyard, near the old rose garden, +there was a locust-tree which my uncle had planted. After his death, +while it was still a slender sapling, his mother had a seat built +round it, and she used to sit there on summer evenings. His grave +was under the apple-trees in the old orchard. + +"My aunt could tell me little more than this. There were days when +she seemed not to remember him at all. + +"It was from an old soldier in the village that I learned the boy's +story. Lyon was, the old man told me, but fourteen when the first +enlistment occurred, but was even then eager to go. He was in the +court-house square every evening to watch the recruits at their +drill, and when the home company was ordered off he rode into the +city on his pony to see the men board the train and to wave them +good-by. The next year he spent at home with a tutor, but when he +was fifteen he held his parents to their promise and went into the +army. He was color sergeant of his regiment and fell in a charge +upon the breastworks of a fort about a year after his enlistment. + +"The veteran showed me an account of this charge which had been +written for the village paper by one of my uncle's comrades who had +seen his part in the engagement. It seems that as his company were +running at full speed across the bottom lands toward the fortified +hill, a shell burst over them. This comrade, running beside my +uncle, saw the colors waver and sink as if falling, and looked to +see that the boy's hand and forearm had been torn away by the +exploding shrapnel. The boy, he thought, did not realize the extent +of his injury, for he laughed, shouted something which his comrade +did not catch, caught the flag in his left hand, and ran on up the +hill. They went splendidly up over the breastworks, but just as my +uncle, his colors flying, reached the top of the embankment, a +second shell carried away his left arm at the arm-pit, and he fell +over the wall with the flag settling about him. + +"It was because this story was ever present with me, because I was +unable to shake it off, that I began to read such books as my +grandfather had collected upon the Civil War. I found that this war +was fought largely by boys, that more men enlisted at eighteen than +at any other age. When I thought of those battlefields--and I +thought of them much in those days--there was always that glory of +youth above them, that impetuous, generous passion stirring the long +lines on the march, the blue battalions in the plain. The bugle, +whenever I have heard it since, has always seemed to me the very +golden throat of that boyhood which spent itself so gaily, so +incredibly. + +"I used often to wonder how it was that this uncle of mine, who +seemed to have possessed all the charm and brilliancy allotted to +his family and to have lived up its vitality in one splendid hour, +had left so little trace in the house where he was born and where he +had awaited his destiny. Look as I would, I could find no letters +from him, no clothing or books that might have been his. He had been +dead but twenty years, and yet nothing seemed to have survived +except the tree he had planted. It seemed incredible and cruel that +no physical memory of him should linger to be cherished among his +kindred,--nothing but the dull image in the brain of that aged +sister. I used to pace the garden walks in the evening, wondering +that no breath of his, no echo of his laugh, of his call to his pony +or his whistle to his dogs, should linger about those shaded paths +where the pale roses exhaled their dewy, country smell. Sometimes, +in the dim starlight, I have thought that I heard on the grasses +beside me the stir of a footfall lighter than my own, and under the +black arch of the lilacs I have fancied that he bore me company. + +"There was, I found, one day in the year for which my old aunt +waited, and which stood out from the months that were all of a +sameness to her. On the thirtieth of May she insisted that I should +bring down the big flag from the attic and run it up upon the tall +flagstaff beside Lyon's tree in the garden. Later in the morning she +went with me to carry some of the garden flowers to the grave in the +orchard,--a grave scarcely larger than a child's. + +"I had noticed, when I was hunting for the flag in the attic, a +leather trunk with my own name stamped upon it, but was unable to +find the key. My aunt was all day less apathetic than usual; she +seemed to realize more clearly who I was, and to wish me to be with +her. I did not have an opportunity to return to the attic until +after dinner that evening, when I carried a lamp up-stairs and +easily forced the lock of the trunk. I found all the things that I +had looked for; put away, doubtless, by his mother, and still +smelling faintly of lavender and rose leaves; his clothes, his +exercise books, his letters from the army, his first boots, his +riding-whip, some of his toys, even. I took them out and replaced +them gently. As I was about to shut the lid, I picked up a copy of +the AEneid, on the fly-leaf of which was written in a slanting, +boyish hand, + + Lyon Hartwell, January, 1862. + +He had gone to the wars in Sixty-three, I remembered. + +"My uncle, I gathered, was none too apt at his Latin, for the pages +were dog-eared and rubbed and interlined, the margins mottled with +pencil sketches--bugles, stacked bayonets, and artillery carriages. +In the act of putting the book down, I happened to run over the +pages to the end, and on the fly-leaf at the back I saw his name +again, and a drawing--with his initials and a date--of the Federal +flag; above it, written in a kind of arch and in the same unformed +hand: + + 'Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?' + +It was a stiff, wooden sketch, not unlike a detail from some +Egyptian inscription, but, the moment I saw it, wind and color +seemed to touch it. I caught up the book, blew out the lamp, and +rushed down into the garden. + +"I seemed, somehow, at last to have known him; to have been with him +in that careless, unconscious moment and to have known him as he was +then. + +"As I sat there in the rush of this realization, the wind began to +rise, stirring the light foliage of the locust over my head and +bringing, fresher than before, the woody odor of the pale roses that +overran the little neglected garden. Then, as it grew stronger, it +brought the sound of something sighing and stirring over my head in +the perfumed darkness. + +"I thought of that sad one of the Destinies who, as the Greeks +believed, watched from birth over those marked for a violent or +untimely death. Oh, I could see him, there in the shine of the +morning, his book idly on his knee, his flashing eyes looking +straight before him, and at his side that grave figure, hidden in +her draperies, her eyes following his, but seeing so much +farther--seeing what he never saw, that great moment at the end, +when he swayed above his comrades on the earthen wall. + +"All the while, the bunting I had run up in the morning flapped fold +against fold, heaving and tossing softly in the dark--against a sky +so black with rain clouds that I could see above me only the blur of +something in soft, troubled motion. + +"The experience of that night, coming so overwhelmingly to a man so +dead, almost rent me in pieces. It was the same feeling that artists +know when we, rarely, achieve truth in our work; the feeling of +union with some great force, of purpose and security, of being glad +that we have lived. For the first time I felt the pull of race and +blood and kindred, and felt beating within me things that had not +begun with me. It was as if the earth under my feet had grasped and +rooted me, and were pouring its essence into me. I sat there until +the dawn of morning, and all night long my life seemed to be pouring +out of me and running into the ground." + + * * * * * + +Hartwell drew a long breath that lifted his heavy shoulders, and +then let them fall again. He shifted a little and faced more +squarely the scattered, silent company before him. The darkness had +made us almost invisible to each other, and, except for the +occasional red circuit of a cigarette end traveling upward from the +arm of a chair, he might have supposed us all asleep. + +"And so," Hartwell added thoughtfully, "I naturally feel an interest +in fellows who are going home. It's always an experience." + +No one said anything, and in a moment there was a loud rap at the +door,--the concierge, come to take down Bentley's luggage and to +announce that the cab was below. Bentley got his hat and coat, +enjoined Hartwell to take good care of his _perroquets_, gave each +of us a grip of the hand, and went briskly down the long flights of +stairs. We followed him into the street, calling our good wishes, +and saw him start on his drive across the lighted city to the Gare +St. Lazare. + + _McClure's_, March 1907 + + + + +_The Enchanted Bluff_ + + +We had our swim before sundown, and while we were cooking our supper +the oblique rays of light made a dazzling glare on the white sand +about us. The translucent red ball itself sank behind the brown +stretches of corn field as we sat down to eat, and the warm layer of +air that had rested over the water and our clean sand-bar grew +fresher and smelled of the rank ironweed and sunflowers growing on +the flatter shore. The river was brown and sluggish, like any other +of the half-dozen streams that water the Nebraska corn lands. On one +shore was an irregular line of bald clay bluffs where a few +scrub-oaks with thick trunks and flat, twisted tops threw light +shadows on the long grass. The western shore was low and level, with +corn fields that stretched to the sky-line, and all along the +water's edge were little sandy coves and beaches where slim +cottonwoods and willow saplings flickered. + +The turbulence of the river in spring-time discouraged milling, and, +beyond keeping the old red bridge in repair, the busy farmers did +not concern themselves with the stream; so the Sandtown boys were +left in undisputed possession. In the autumn we hunted quail through +the miles of stubble and fodder land along the flat shore, and, +after the winter skating season was over and the ice had gone out, +the spring freshets and flooded bottoms gave us our great excitement +of the year. The channel was never the same for two successive +seasons. Every spring the swollen stream undermined a bluff to the +east, or bit out a few acres of corn field to the west and whirled +the soil away to deposit it in spumy mud banks somewhere else. When +the water fell low in midsummer, new sand-bars were thus exposed to +dry and whiten in the August sun. Sometimes these were banked so +firmly that the fury of the next freshet failed to unseat them; the +little willow seedlings emerged triumphantly from the yellow froth, +broke into spring leaf, shot up into summer growth, and with their +mesh of roots bound together the moist sand beneath them against the +batterings of another April. Here and there a cottonwood soon +glittered among them, quivering in the low current of air that, even +on breathless days when the dust hung like smoke above the wagon +road, trembled along the face of the water. + +It was on such an island, in the third summer of its yellow green, +that we built our watch-fire; not in the thicket of dancing willow +wands, but on the level terrace of fine sand which had been added +that spring; a little new bit of world, beautifully ridged with +ripple marks, and strewn with the tiny skeletons of turtles and +fish, all as white and dry as if they had been expertly cured. We +had been careful not to mar the freshness of the place, although we +often swam out to it on summer evenings and lay on the sand to rest. + +This was our last watch-fire of the year, and there were reasons why +I should remember it better than any of the others. Next week the +other boys were to file back to their old places in the Sandtown +High School, but I was to go up to the Divide to teach my first +country school in the Norwegian district. I was already homesick at +the thought of quitting the boys with whom I had always played; of +leaving the river, and going up into a windy plain that was all +windmills and corn fields and big pastures; where there was nothing +wilful or unmanageable in the landscape, no new islands, and no +chance of unfamiliar birds--such as often followed the watercourses. + +Other boys came and went and used the river for fishing or skating, +but we six were sworn to the spirit of the stream, and we were +friends mainly because of the river. There were the two Hassler +boys, Fritz and Otto, sons of the little German tailor. They were +the youngest of us; ragged boys of ten and twelve, with sunburned +hair, weather-stained faces, and pale blue eyes. Otto, the elder, +was the best mathematician in school, and clever at his books, but +he always dropped out in the spring term as if the river could not +get on without him. He and Fritz caught the fat, horned catfish and +sold them about the town, and they lived so much in the water that +they were as brown and sandy as the river itself. + +There was Percy Pound, a fat, freckled boy with chubby cheeks, who +took half a dozen boys' story-papers and was always being kept in +for reading detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip Smith, +destined by his freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in all our +games, though he walked like a timid little old man and had a funny, +cracked laugh. Tip worked hard in his father's grocery store every +afternoon, and swept it out before school in the morning. Even his +recreations were laborious. He collected cigarette cards and tin +tobacco-tags indefatigably, and would sit for hours humped up over a +snarling little scroll-saw which he kept in his attic. His dearest +possessions were some little pill-bottles that purported to contain +grains of wheat from the Holy Land, water from the Jordan and the +Dead Sea, and earth from the Mount of Olives. His father had bought +these dull things from a Baptist missionary who peddled them, and +Tip seemed to derive great satisfaction from their remote origin. + +The tall boy was Arthur Adams. He had fine hazel eyes that were +almost too reflective and sympathetic for a boy, and such a pleasant +voice that we all loved to hear him read aloud. Even when he had to +read poetry aloud at school, no one ever thought of laughing. To be +sure, he was not at school very much of the time. He was seventeen +and should have finished the High School the year before, but he was +always off somewhere with his gun. Arthur's mother was dead, and his +father, who was feverishly absorbed in promoting schemes, wanted to +send the boy away to school and get him off his hands; but Arthur +always begged off for another year and promised to study. I remember +him as a tall, brown boy with an intelligent face, always lounging +among a lot of us little fellows, laughing at us oftener than with +us, but such a soft, satisfied laugh that we felt rather flattered +when we provoked it. In after-years people said that Arthur had been +given to evil ways even as a lad, and it is true that we often saw +him with the gambler's sons and with old Spanish Fanny's boy, but if +he learned anything ugly in their company he never betrayed it to +us. We would have followed Arthur anywhere, and I am bound to say +that he led us into no worse places than the cattail marshes and the +stubble fields. These, then, were the boys who camped with me that +summer night upon the sand-bar. + +After we finished our supper we beat the willow thicket for +driftwood. By the time we had collected enough, night had fallen, +and the pungent, weedy smell from the shore increased with the +coolness. We threw ourselves down about the fire and made another +futile effort to show Percy Pound the Little Dipper. We had tried it +often before, but he could never be got past the big one. + +"You see those three big stars just below the handle, with the +bright one in the middle?" said Otto Hassler; "that's Orion's belt, +and the bright one is the clasp." I crawled behind Otto's shoulder +and sighted up his arm to the star that seemed perched upon the tip +of his steady forefinger. The Hassler boys did seine-fishing at +night, and they knew a good many stars. + +Percy gave up the Little Dipper and lay back on the sand, his hands +clasped under his head. "I can see the North Star," he announced, +contentedly, pointing toward it with his big toe. "Any one might get +lost and need to know that." + +We all looked up at it. + +"How do you suppose Columbus felt when his compass didn't point +north any more?" Tip asked. + +Otto shook his head. "My father says that there was another North +Star once, and that maybe this one won't last always. I wonder what +would happen to us down here if anything went wrong with it?" + +Arthur chuckled. "I wouldn't worry, Ott. Nothing's apt to happen to +it in your time. Look at the Milky Way! There must be lots of good +dead Indians." + +We lay back and looked, meditating, at the dark cover of the world. +The gurgle of the water had become heavier. We had often noticed a +mutinous, complaining note in it at night, quite different from its +cheerful daytime chuckle, and seeming like the voice of a much +deeper and more powerful stream. Our water had always these two +moods: the one of sunny complaisance, the other of inconsolable, +passionate regret. + +"Queer how the stars are all in sort of diagrams," remarked Otto. +"You could do most any proposition in geometry with 'em. They always +look as if they meant something. Some folks say everybody's fortune +is all written out in the stars, don't they?" + +"They believe so in the old country," Fritz affirmed. + +But Arthur only laughed at him. "You're thinking of Napoleon, +Fritzey. He had a star that went out when he began to lose battles. +I guess the stars don't keep any close tally on Sandtown folks." + +We were speculating on how many times we could count a hundred +before the evening star went down behind the corn fields, when some +one cried, "There comes the moon, and it's as big as a cart wheel!" + +We all jumped up to greet it as it swam over the bluffs behind us. +It came up like a galleon in full sail; an enormous, barbaric thing, +red as an angry heathen god. + +"When the moon came up red like that, the Aztecs used to sacrifice +their prisoners on the temple top," Percy announced. + +"Go on, Perce. You got that out of _Golden Days_. Do you believe +that, Arthur?" I appealed. + +Arthur answered, quite seriously: "Like as not. The moon was one of +their gods. When my father was in Mexico City he saw the stone where +they used to sacrifice their prisoners." + +As we dropped down by the fire again some one asked whether the +Mound-Builders were older than the Aztecs. When we once got upon the +Mound-Builders we never willingly got away from them, and we were +still conjecturing when we heard a loud splash in the water. + +"Must have been a big cat jumping," said Fritz. "They do sometimes. +They must see bugs in the dark. Look what a track the moon makes!" + +There was a long, silvery streak on the water, and where the current +fretted over a big log it boiled up like gold pieces. + +"Suppose there ever _was_ any gold hid away in this old river?" +Fritz asked. He lay like a little brown Indian, close to the fire, +his chin on his hand and his bare feet in the air. His brother +laughed at him, but Arthur took his suggestion seriously. + +"Some of the Spaniards thought there was gold up here somewhere. +Seven cities chuck full of gold, they had it, and Coronado and his +men came up to hunt it. The Spaniards were all over this country +once." + +Percy looked interested. "Was that before the Mormons went through?" + +We all laughed at this. + +"Long enough before. Before the Pilgrim Fathers, Perce. Maybe they +came along this very river. They always followed the watercourses." + +"I wonder where this river really does begin?" Tip mused. That was +an old and a favorite mystery which the map did not clearly explain. +On the map the little black line stopped somewhere in western +Kansas; but since rivers generally rose in mountains, it was only +reasonable to suppose that ours came from the Rockies. Its +destination, we knew, was the Missouri, and the Hassler boys always +maintained that we could embark at Sandtown in flood-time, follow +our noses, and eventually arrive at New Orleans. Now they took up +their old argument. "If us boys had grit enough to try it, it +wouldn't take no time to get to Kansas City and St. Joe." + +We began to talk about the places we wanted to go to. The Hassler +boys wanted to see the stock-yards in Kansas City, and Percy wanted +to see a big store in Chicago. Arthur was interlocutor and did not +betray himself. + +"Now it's your turn, Tip." + +Tip rolled over on his elbow and poked the fire, and his eyes looked +shyly out of his queer, tight little face. "My place is awful far +away. My uncle Bill told me about it." + +Tip's Uncle Bill was a wanderer, bitten with mining fever, who had +drifted into Sandtown with a broken arm, and when it was well had +drifted out again. + +"Where is it?" + +"Aw, it's down in New Mexico somewheres. There aren't no railroads +or anything. You have to go on mules, and you run out of water +before you get there and have to drink canned tomatoes." + +"Well, go on, kid. What's it like when you do get there?" + +Tip sat up and excitedly began his story. + +"There's a big red rock there that goes right up out of the sand for +about nine hundred feet. The country's flat all around it, and this +here rock goes up all by itself, like a monument. They call it the +Enchanted Bluff down there, because no white man has ever been on +top of it. The sides are smooth rock, and straight up, like a wall. +The Indians say that hundreds of years ago, before the Spaniards +came, there was a village away up there in the air. The tribe that +lived there had some sort of steps, made out of wood and bark, hung +down over the face of the bluff, and the braves went down to hunt +and carried water up in big jars swung on their backs. They kept a +big supply of water and dried meat up there, and never went down +except to hunt. They were a peaceful tribe that made cloth and +pottery, and they went up there to get out of the wars. You see, +they could pick off any war party that tried to get up their little +steps. The Indians say they were a handsome people, and they had +some sort of a queer religion. Uncle Bill thinks they were +Cliff-Dwellers who had got into trouble and left home. They weren't +fighters, anyhow. + +"One time the braves were down hunting and an awful storm came up--a +kind of waterspout--and when they got back to their rock they found +their little staircase had been all broken to pieces, and only a few +steps were left hanging away up in the air. While they were camped +at the foot of the rock, wondering what to do, a war party from the +north came along and massacred 'em to a man, with all the old folks +and women looking on from the rock. Then the war party went on south +and left the village to get down the best way they could. Of course +they never got down. They starved to death up there, and when the +war party came back on their way north, they could hear the children +crying from the edge of the bluff where they had crawled out, but +they didn't see a sign of a grown Indian, and nobody has ever been +up there since." + +We exclaimed at this dolorous legend and sat up. + +"There couldn't have been many people up there," Percy demurred. +"How big is the top, Tip?" + +"Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the rock doesn't look nearly as +tall as it is. The top's bigger than the base. The bluff is sort of +worn away for several hundred feet up. That's one reason it's so +hard to climb." + +I asked how the Indians got up, in the first place. + +"Nobody knows how they got up or when. A hunting party came along +once and saw that there was a town up there, and that was all." + +Otto rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "Of course there must be +some way to get up there. Couldn't people get a rope over someway +and pull a ladder up?" + +Tip's little eyes were shining with excitement. "I know a way. Me +and Uncle Bill talked it all over. There's a kind of rocket that +would take a rope over--life-savers use 'em--and then you could +hoist a rope-ladder and peg it down at the bottom and make it tight +with guy-ropes on the other side. I'm going to climb that there +bluff, and I've got it all planned out." + +Fritz asked what he expected to find when he got up there. + +"Bones, maybe, or the ruins of their town, or pottery, or some of +their idols. There might be 'most anything up there. Anyhow, I want +to see." + +"Sure nobody else has been up there, Tip?" Arthur asked. + +"Dead sure. Hardly anybody ever goes down there. Some hunters tried +to cut steps in the rock once, but they didn't get higher than a man +can reach. The Bluff's all red granite, and Uncle Bill thinks it's a +boulder the glaciers left. It's a queer place, anyhow. Nothing but +cactus and desert for hundreds of miles, and yet right under the +bluff there's good water and plenty of grass. That's why the bison +used to go down there." + +Suddenly we heard a scream above our fire, and jumped up to see a +dark, slim bird floating southward far above us--a whooping-crane, +we knew by her cry and her long neck. We ran to the edge of the +island, hoping we might see her alight, but she wavered southward +along the rivercourse until we lost her. The Hassler boys declared +that by the look of the heavens it must be after midnight, so we +threw more wood on our fire, put on our jackets, and curled down in +the warm sand. Several of us pretended to doze, but I fancy we were +really thinking about Tip's Bluff and the extinct people. Over in +the wood the ring-doves were calling mournfully to one another, and +once we heard a dog bark, far away. "Somebody getting into old +Tommy's melon patch," Fritz murmured, sleepily, but nobody answered +him. By and by Percy spoke out of the shadow. + +"Say, Tip, when you go down there will you take me with you?" + +"Maybe." + +"Suppose one of us beats you down there, Tip?" + +"Whoever gets to the Bluff first has got to promise to tell the rest +of us exactly what he finds," remarked one of the Hassler boys, and +to this we all readily assented. + +Somewhat reassured, I dropped off to sleep. I must have dreamed +about a race for the Bluff, for I awoke in a kind of fear that other +people were getting ahead of me and that I was losing my chance. I +sat up in my damp clothes and looked at the other boys, who lay +tumbled in uneasy attitudes about the dead fire. It was still dark, +but the sky was blue with the last wonderful azure of night. The +stars glistened like crystal globes, and trembled as if they shone +through a depth of clear water. Even as I watched, they began to +pale and the sky brightened. Day came suddenly, almost +instantaneously. I turned for another look at the blue night, and it +was gone. Everywhere the birds began to call, and all manner of +little insects began to chirp and hop about in the willows. A breeze +sprang up from the west and brought the heavy smell of ripened corn. +The boys rolled over and shook themselves. We stripped and plunged +into the river just as the sun came up over the windy bluffs. + +When I came home to Sandtown at Christmas time, we skated out to our +island and talked over the whole project of the Enchanted Bluff, +renewing our resolution to find it. + + * * * * * + +Although that was twenty years ago, none of us have ever climbed the +Enchanted Bluff. Percy Pound is a stockbroker in Kansas City and +will go nowhere that his red touring-car cannot carry him. Otto +Hassler went on the railroad and lost his foot braking; after which +he and Fritz succeeded their father as the town tailors. + +Arthur sat about the sleepy little town all his life--he died before +he was twenty-five. The last time I saw him, when I was home on one +of my college vacations, he was sitting in a steamer-chair under a +cottonwood tree in the little yard behind one of the two Sandtown +saloons. He was very untidy and his hand was not steady, but when he +rose, unabashed, to greet me, his eyes were as clear and warm as +ever. When I had talked with him for an hour and heard him laugh +again, I wondered how it was that when Nature had taken such pains +with a man, from his hands to the arch of his long foot, she had +ever lost him in Sandtown. He joked about Tip Smith's Bluff, and +declared he was going down there just as soon as the weather got +cooler; he thought the Grand Canyon might be worth while, too. + +I was perfectly sure when I left him that he would never get beyond +the high plank fence and the comfortable shade of the cottonwood. +And, indeed, it was under that very tree that he died one summer +morning. + +Tip Smith still talks about going to New Mexico. He married a +slatternly, unthrifty country girl, has been much tied to a +perambulator, and has grown stooped and gray from irregular meals +and broken sleep. But the worst of his difficulties are now over, +and he has, as he says, come into easy water. When I was last in +Sandtown I walked home with him late one moonlight night, after he +had balanced his cash and shut up his store. We took the long way +around and sat down on the schoolhouse steps, and between us we +quite revived the romance of the lone red rock and the extinct +people. Tip insists that he still means to go down there, but he +thinks now he will wait until his boy, Bert, is old enough to go +with him. Bert has been let into the story, and thinks of nothing +but the Enchanted Bluff. + + _Harper's_, April 1909 + + + + +_The Joy of Nelly Deane_ + + +Nell and I were almost ready to go on for the last act of "Queen +Esther," and we had for the moment got rid of our three patient +dressers, Mrs. Dow, Mrs. Freeze, and Mrs. Spinny. Nell was peering +over my shoulder into the little cracked looking-glass that Mrs. Dow +had taken from its nail on her kitchen wall and brought down to the +church under her shawl that morning. When she realized that we were +alone, Nell whispered to me in the quick, fierce way she had: + +"Say, Peggy, won't you go up and stay with me to-night? Scott +Spinny's asked to take me home, and I don't want to walk up with him +alone." + +"I guess so, if you'll ask my mother." + +"Oh, I'll fix her!" Nell laughed, with a toss of her head which +meant that she usually got what she wanted, even from people much +less tractable than my mother. + +In a moment our tiring-women were back again. The three old +ladies--at least they seemed old to us--fluttered about us, more +agitated than we were ourselves. It seemed as though they would +never leave off patting Nell and touching her up. They kept trying +things this way and that, never able in the end to decide which way +was best. They wouldn't hear to her using rouge, and as they +powdered her neck and arms, Mrs. Freeze murmured that she hoped we +wouldn't get into the habit of using such things. Mrs. Spinny +divided her time between pulling up and tucking down the "illusion" +that filled in the square neck of Nelly's dress. She didn't like +things much low, she said; but after she had pulled it up, she stood +back and looked at Nell thoughtfully through her glasses. While the +excited girl was reaching for this and that, buttoning a slipper, +pinning down a curl, Mrs. Spinny's smile softened more and more +until, just before _Esther_ made her entrance, the old lady tiptoed +up to her and softly tucked the illusion down as far as it would go. + +"She's so pink; it seems a pity not," she whispered apologetically +to Mrs. Dow. + +Every one admitted that Nelly was the prettiest girl in Riverbend, +and the gayest--oh, the gayest! When she was not singing, she was +laughing. When she was not laid up with a broken arm, the outcome of +a foolhardy coasting feat, or suspended from school because she ran +away at recess to go buggy-riding with Guy Franklin, she was sure to +be up to mischief of some sort. Twice she broke through the ice and +got soused in the river because she never looked where she skated or +cared what happened so long as she went fast enough. After the +second of these duckings our three dressers declared that she was +trying to be a Baptist despite herself. + +Mrs. Spinny and Mrs. Freeze and Mrs. Dow, who were always hovering +about Nelly, often whispered to me their hope that she would +eventually come into our church and not "go with the Methodists"; +her family were Wesleyans. But to me these artless plans of theirs +never wholly explained their watchful affection. They had good +daughters themselves,--except Mrs. Spinny, who had only the sullen +Scott,--and they loved their plain girls and thanked God for them. +But they loved Nelly differently. They were proud of her pretty +figure and yellow-brown eyes, which dilated so easily and sparkled +with a kind of golden effervescence. They were always making pretty +things for her, always coaxing her to come to the sewing-circle, +where she knotted her thread, and put in the wrong sleeve, and +laughed and chattered and said a great many things that she should +not have said, and somehow always warmed their hearts. I think they +loved her for her unquenchable joy. + +All the Baptist ladies liked Nell, even those who criticized her +most severely, but the three who were first in fighting the battles +of our little church, who held it together by their prayers and the +labor of their hands, watched over her as they did over Mrs. Dow's +century-plant before it blossomed. They looked for her on Sunday +morning and smiled at her as she hurried, always a little late, up +to the choir. When she rose and stood behind the organ and sang +"There Is a Green Hill," one could see Mrs. Dow and Mrs. Freeze +settle back in their accustomed seats and look up at her as if she +had just come from that hill and had brought them glad tidings. + +It was because I sang contralto, or, as we said, alto, in the +Baptist choir that Nell and I became friends. She was so gay and +grown up, so busy with parties and dances and picnics, that I would +scarcely have seen much of her had we not sung together. She liked +me better than she did any of the older girls, who tried clumsily to +be like her, and I felt almost as solicitous and admiring as did +Mrs. Dow and Mrs. Spinny. I think even then I must have loved to see +her bloom and glow, and I loved to hear her sing, in "The Ninety and +Nine," + + But one was out on the hills away + +in her sweet, strong voice. Nell had never had a singing lesson, but +she had sung from the time she could talk, and Mrs. Dow used fondly +to say that it was singing so much that made her figure so pretty. + +After I went into the choir it was found to be easier to get Nelly +to choir practice. If I stopped outside her gate on my way to church +and coaxed her, she usually laughed, ran in for her hat and jacket, +and went along with me. The three old ladies fostered our +friendship, and because I was "quiet," they esteemed me a good +influence for Nelly. This view was propounded in a sewing-circle +discussion and, leaking down to us through our mothers, greatly +amused us. Dear old ladies! It was so manifestly for what Nell was +that they loved her, and yet they were always looking for +"influences" to change her. + +The "Queen Esther" performance had cost us three months of hard +practice, and it was not easy to keep Nell up to attending the +tedious rehearsals. Some of the boys we knew were in the chorus of +Assyrian youths, but the solo cast was made up of older people, and +Nell found them very poky. We gave the cantata in the Baptist church +on Christmas eve, "to a crowded house," as the Riverbend "Messenger" +truly chronicled. The country folk for miles about had come in +through a deep snow, and their teams and wagons stood in a long row +at the hitch-bars on each side of the church door. It was certainly +Nelly's night, for however much the tenor--he was her schoolmaster, +and naturally thought poorly of her--might try to eclipse her in his +dolorous solos about the rivers of Babylon, there could be no doubt +as to whom the people had come to hear--and to see. + +After the performance was over, our fathers and mothers came back to +the dressing-rooms--the little rooms behind the baptistry where the +candidates for baptism were robed--to congratulate us, and Nell +persuaded my mother to let me go home with her. This arrangement may +not have been wholly agreeable to Scott Spinny, who stood glumly +waiting at the baptistry door; though I used to think he dogged +Nell's steps not so much for any pleasure he got from being with her +as for the pleasure of keeping other people away. Dear little Mrs. +Spinny was perpetually in a state of humiliation on account of his +bad manners, and she tried by a very special tenderness to make up +to Nelly for the remissness of her ungracious son. + +Scott was a spare, muscular fellow, good-looking, but with a face so +set and dark that I used to think it very like the castings he sold. +He was taciturn and domineering, and Nell rather liked to provoke +him. Her father was so easy with her that she seemed to enjoy being +ordered about now and then. That night, when every one was praising +her and telling her how well she sang and how pretty she looked, +Scott only said, as we came out of the dressing-room: + +"Have you got your high shoes on?" + +"No; but I've got rubbers on over my low ones. Mother doesn't care." + +"Well, you just go back and put 'em on as fast as you can." + +Nell made a face at him and ran back, laughing. Her mother, fat, +comfortable Mrs. Deane, was immensely amused at this. + +"That's right, Scott," she chuckled. "You can do enough more with +her than I can. She walks right over me an' Jud." + +Scott grinned. If he was proud of Nelly, the last thing he wished to +do was to show it. When she came back he began to nag again. "What +are you going to do with all those flowers? They'll freeze stiff as +pokers." + +"Well, there won't none of _your_ flowers freeze, Scott Spinny, so +there!" Nell snapped. She had the best of him that time, and the +Assyrian youths rejoiced. They were most of them high-school boys, +and the poorest of them had "chipped in" and sent all the way to +Denver for _Queen Esther's_ flowers. There were bouquets from half a +dozen townspeople, too, but none from Scott. Scott was a prosperous +hardware merchant and notoriously penurious, though he saved his +face, as the boys said, by giving liberally to the church. + +"There's no use freezing the fool things, anyhow. You get me some +newspapers, and I'll wrap 'em up." Scott took from his pocket a +folded copy of the Riverbend "Messenger" and began laboriously to +wrap up one of the bouquets. When we left the church door he bore +three large newspaper bundles, carrying them as carefully as if they +had been so many newly frosted wedding-cakes, and left Nell and me +to shift for ourselves as we floundered along the snow-burdened +sidewalk. + +Although it was after midnight, lights were shining from many of the +little wooden houses, and the roofs and shrubbery were so deep in +snow that Riverbend looked as if it had been tucked down into a warm +bed. The companies of people, all coming from church, tramping this +way and that toward their homes and calling "Good night" and "Merry +Christmas" as they parted company, all seemed to us very unusual and +exciting. + +When we got home, Mrs. Deane had a cold supper ready, and Jud Deane +had already taken off his shoes and fallen to on his fried chicken +and pie. He was so proud of his pretty daughter that he must give +her her Christmas presents then and there, and he went into the +sleeping-chamber behind the dining-room and from the depths of his +wife's closet brought out a short sealskin jacket and a round cap +and made Nelly put them on. + +Mrs. Deane, who sat busy between a plate of spice cake and a tray +piled with her famous whipped-cream tarts, laughed inordinately at +his behavior. + +"Ain't he worse than any kid you ever see? He's been running to that +closet like a cat shut away from her kittens. I wonder Nell ain't +caught on before this. I did think he'd make out now to keep 'em +till Christmas morning; but he's never made out to keep anything +yet." + +That was true enough, and fortunately Jud's inability to keep +anything seemed always to present a highly humorous aspect to his +wife. Mrs. Deane put her heart into her cooking, and said that so +long as a man was a good provider she had no cause to complain. +Other people were not so charitable toward Jud's failing. I remember +how many strictures were passed upon that little sealskin and how he +was censured for his extravagance. But what a public-spirited thing, +after all, it was for him to do! How, the winter through, we all +enjoyed seeing Nell skating on the river or running about the town +with the brown collar turned up about her bright cheeks and her hair +blowing out from under the round cap! "No seal," Mrs. Dow said, +"would have begrudged it to her. Why should we?" This was at the +sewing-circle, when the new coat was under grave discussion. + +At last Nelly and I got up-stairs and undressed, and the pad of +Jud's slippered feet about the kitchen premises--where he was +carrying up from the cellar things that might freeze--ceased. He +called "Good night, daughter," from the foot of the stairs, and the +house grew quiet. But one is not a prima donna the first time for +nothing, and it seemed as if we could not go to bed. Our light must +have burned long after every other in Riverbend was out. The muslin +curtains of Nell's bed were drawn back; Mrs. Deane had turned down +the white counterpane and taken off the shams and smoothed the +pillows for us. But their fair plumpness offered no temptation to +two such hot young heads. We could not let go of life even for a +little while. We sat and talked in Nell's cozy room, where there was +a tiny, white fur rug--the only one in Riverbend--before the bed; +and there were white sash curtains, and the prettiest little desk +and dressing-table I had ever seen. It was a warm, gay little room, +flooded all day long with sunlight from east and south windows that +had climbing-roses all about them in summer. About the dresser were +photographs of adoring high-school boys; and one of Guy Franklin, +much groomed and barbered, in a dress-coat and a boutonniere. I +never liked to see that photograph there. The home boys looked +properly modest and bashful on the dresser, but he seemed to be +staring impudently all the time. + +I knew nothing definite against Guy, but in Riverbend all +"traveling-men" were considered worldly and wicked. He traveled for +a Chicago dry-goods firm, and our fathers didn't like him because he +put extravagant ideas into our mothers' heads. He had very smooth +and nattering ways, and he introduced into our simple community a +great variety of perfumes and scented soaps, and he always reminded +me of the merchants in Caesar, who brought into Gaul "those things +which effeminate the mind," as we translated that delightfully easy +passage. + +Nell was silting before the dressing-table in her nightgown, holding +the new fur coat and rubbing her cheek against it, when I saw a +sudden gleam of tears in her eyes. "You know, Peggy," she said in +her quick, impetuous way, "this makes me feel bad. I've got a secret +from my daddy." + +I can see her now, so pink and eager, her brown hair in two springy +braids down her back, and her eyes shining with tears and with +something even softer and more tremulous. + +"I'm engaged, Peggy," she whispered, "really and truly." + +She leaned forward, unbuttoning her nightgown, and there on her +breast, hung by a little gold chain about her neck, was a diamond +ring--Guy Franklin's solitaire; every one in Riverbend knew it well. + +"I'm going to live in Chicago, and take singing lessons, and go to +operas, and do all those nice things--oh, everything! I know you +don't like him, Peggy, but you know you _are_ a kid. You'll see how +it is yourself when you grow up. He's so _different_ from our boys, +and he's just terribly in love with me. And then, Peggy,"--flushing +all down over her soft shoulders,--"I'm awfully fond of him, too. +Awfully." + +"Are you, Nell, truly?" I whispered. She seemed so changed to me by +the warm light in her eyes and that delicate suffusion of color. I +felt as I did when I got up early on picnic mornings in summer, and +saw the dawn come up in the breathless sky above the river meadows +and make all the cornfields golden. + +"Sure I do, Peggy; don't look so solemn. It's nothing to look that +way about, kid. It's nice." She threw her arms about me suddenly and +hugged me. + +"I hate to think about your going so far away from us all, Nell." + +"Oh, you'll love to come and visit me. Just you wait." + +She began breathlessly to go over things Guy Franklin had told her +about Chicago, until I seemed to see it all looming up out there +under the stars that kept watch over our little sleeping town. We +had neither of us ever been to a city, but we knew what it would be +like. We heard it throbbing like great engines, and calling to us, +that far-away world. Even after we had opened the windows and +scurried into bed, we seemed to feel a pulsation across all the +miles of snow. The winter silence trembled with it, and the air was +full of something new that seemed to break over us in soft waves. In +that snug, warm little bed I had a sense of imminent change and +danger. I was somehow afraid for Nelly when I heard her breathing so +quickly beside me, and I put my arm about her protectingly as we +drifted toward sleep. + + * * * * * + +In the following spring we were both graduated from the Riverbend +high school, and I went away to college. My family moved to Denver, +and during the next four years I heard very little of Nelly Deane. +My life was crowded with new people and new experiences, and I am +afraid I held her little in mind. I heard indirectly that Jud Deane +had lost what little property he owned in a luckless venture in +Cripple Creek, and that he had been able to keep his house in +Riverbend only through the clemency of his creditors. Guy Franklin +had his route changed and did not go to Riverbend any more. He +married the daughter of a rich cattle-man out near Long Pine, and +ran a dry-goods store of his own. Mrs. Dow wrote me a long letter +about once a year, and in one of these she told me that Nelly was +teaching in the sixth grade in the Riverbend school. + +"Dear Nelly does not like teaching very well. The children try her, +and she is so pretty it seems a pity for her to be tied down to +uncongenial employment. Scott is still very attentive, and I have +noticed him look up at the window of Nelly's room in a very +determined way as he goes home to dinner. Scott continues +prosperous; he has made money during these hard times and now owns +both our hardware stores. He is close, but a very honorable fellow. +Nelly seems to hold off, but I think Mrs. Spinny has hopes. Nothing +would please her more. If Scott were more careful about his +appearance, it would help. He of course gets black about his +business, and Nelly, you know, is very dainty. People do say his +mother does his courting for him, she is so eager. If only Scott +does not turn out hard and penurious like his father! We must all +have our schooling in this life, but I don't want Nelly's to be too +severe. She is a dear girl, and keeps her color." + +Mrs. Dow's own schooling had been none too easy. Her husband had +long been crippled with rheumatism, and was bitter and faultfinding. +Her daughters had married poorly, and one of her sons had fallen +into evil ways. But her letters were always cheerful, and in one of +them she gently remonstrated with me because I "seemed inclined to +take a sad view of life." + +In the winter vacation of my senior year I stopped on my way home to +visit Mrs. Dow. The first thing she told me when I got into her old +buckboard at the station was that "Scott had at last prevailed," and +that Nelly was to marry him in the spring. As a preliminary step, +Nelly was about to join the Baptist church. "Just think, you will be +here for her baptizing! How that will please Nelly! She is to be +immersed to-morrow night." + +I met Scott Spinny in the post-office that morning, and he gave me a +hard grip with one black hand. There was something grim and +saturnine about his powerful body and bearded face and his strong, +cold hands. I wondered what perverse fate had driven him for eight +years to dog the footsteps of a girl whose charm was due to +qualities naturally distasteful to him. It still seems strange to me +that in easy-going Riverbend, where there were so many boys who +could have lived contentedly enough with my little grasshopper, it +was the pushing ant who must have her and all her careless ways. + +By a kind of unformulated etiquette one did not call upon candidates +for baptism on the day of the ceremony, so I had my first glimpse of +Nelly that evening. The baptistry was a cemented pit directly under +the pulpit rostrum, over which we had our stage when we sang "Queen +Esther." I sat through the sermon somewhat nervously. After the +minister, in his long, black gown, had gone down into the water and +the choir had finished singing, the door from the dressing-room +opened, and, led by one of the deacons, Nelly came down the steps +into the pool. Oh, she looked so little and meek and chastened! Her +white cashmere robe clung about her, and her brown hair was brushed +straight back and hung in two soft braids from a little head bent +humbly. As she stepped down into the water I shivered with the cold +of it, and I remembered sharply how much I had loved her. She went +down until the water was well above her waist, and stood white and +small, with her hands crossed on her breast, while the minister said +the words about being buried with Christ in baptism. Then, lying in +his arm, she disappeared under the dark water. "It will be like that +when she dies," I thought, and a quick pain caught my heart. The +choir began to sing "Washed in the Blood of the Lamb" as she rose +again, the door behind the baptistry opened, revealing those three +dear guardians, Mrs. Dow, Mrs. Freeze, and Mrs. Spinny, and she went +up into their arms. + +I went to see Nell next day, up in the little room of many memories. +Such a sad, sad visit! She seemed changed--a little embarrassed and +quietly despairing. We talked of many of the old Riverbend girls and +boys, but she did not mention Guy Franklin or Scott Spinny, except +to say that her father had got work in Scott's hardware store. She +begged me, putting her hands on my shoulders with something of her +old impulsiveness, to come and stay a few days with her. But I was +afraid--afraid of what she might tell me and of what I might say. +When I sat in that room with all her trinkets, the foolish harvest +of her girlhood, lying about, and the white curtains and the little +white rug, I thought of Scott Spinny with positive terror and could +feel his hard grip on my hand again. I made the best excuse I could +about having to hurry on to Denver; but she gave me one quick look, +and her eyes ceased to plead. I saw that she understood me +perfectly. We had known each other so well. Just once, when I got up +to go and had trouble with my veil, she laughed her old merry laugh +and told me there were some things I would never learn, for all my +schooling. + +The next day, when Mrs. Dow drove me down to the station to catch +the morning train for Denver, I saw Nelly hurrying to school with +several books under her arm. She had been working up her lessons at +home, I thought. She was never quick at her books, dear Nell. + + * * * * * + +It was ten years before I again visited Riverbend. I had been in +Rome for a long time, and had fallen into bitter homesickness. One +morning, sitting among the dahlias and asters that bloom so bravely +upon those gigantic heaps of earth-red ruins that were once the +palaces of the Caesars, I broke the seal of one of Mrs. Dow's long +yearly letters. It brought so much sad news that I resolved then and +there to go home to Riverbend, the only place that had ever really +been home to me. Mrs. Dow wrote me that her husband, after years of +illness, had died in the cold spell last March. "So good and patient +toward the last," she wrote, "and so afraid of giving extra +trouble." There was another thing she saved until the last. She +wrote on and on, dear woman, about new babies and village +improvements, as if she could not bear to tell me; and then it came: + +"You will be sad to hear that two months ago our dear Nelly left us. +It was a terrible blow to us all. I cannot write about it yet, I +fear. I wake up every morning feeling that I ought to go to her. She +went three days after her little boy was born. The baby is a fine +child and will live, I think, in spite of everything. He and her +little girl, now eight years old, whom she named Margaret, after +you, have gone to Mrs. Spinny's. She loves them more than if they +were her own. It seems as if already they had made her quite young +again. I wish you could see Nelly's children." + +Ah, that was what I wanted, to see Nelly's children! The wish came +aching from my heart along with the bitter homesick tears; along +with a quick, torturing recollection that flashed upon me, as I +looked about and tried to collect myself, of how we two had sat in +our sunny seat in the corner of the old bare school-room one +September afternoon and learned the names of the seven hills +together. In that place, at that moment, after so many years, how it +all came back to me--the warm sun on my back, the chattering girl +beside me, the curly hair, the laughing yellow eyes, the stubby +little finger on the page! I felt as if even then, when we sat in +the sun with our heads together, it was all arranged, written out +like a story, that at this moment I should be sitting among the +crumbling bricks and drying grass, and she should be lying in the +place I knew so well, on that green hill far away. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Dow sat with her Christmas sewing in the familiar sitting-room, +where the carpet and the wall-paper and the table-cover had all +faded into soft, dull colors, and even the chromo of Hagar and +Ishmael had been toned to the sobriety of age. In the bay-window the +tall wire flower-stand still bore its little terraces of potted +plants, and the big fuchsia and the Martha Washington geranium had +blossomed for Christmas-tide. Mrs. Dow herself did not look greatly +changed to me. Her hair, thin ever since I could remember it, was +now quite white, but her spare, wiry little person had all its old +activity, and her eyes gleamed with the old friendliness behind her +silver-bowed glasses. Her gray house-dress seemed just like those +she used to wear when I ran in after school to take her angel-food +cake down to the church supper. + +The house sat on a hill, and from behind the geraniums I could see +pretty much all of Riverbend, tucked down in the soft snow, and the +air above was full of big, loose flakes, falling from a gray sky +which betokened settled weather. Indoors the hard-coal burner made a +tropical temperature, and glowed a warm orange from its isinglass +sides. We sat and visited, the two of us, with a great sense of +comfort and completeness. I had reached Riverbend only that morning, +and Mrs. Dow, who had been haunted by thoughts of shipwreck and +suffering upon wintry seas, kept urging me to draw nearer to the +fire and suggesting incidental refreshment. We had chattered all +through the winter morning and most of the afternoon, taking up one +after another of the Riverbend girls and boys, and agreeing that we +had reason to be well satisfied with most of them. Finally, after a +long pause in which I had listened to the contented ticking of the +clock and the crackle of the coal, I put the question I had until +then held back: + +"And now, Mrs. Dow, tell me about the one we loved best of all. +Since I got your letter I've thought of her every day. Tell me all +about Scott and Nelly." + +The tears flashed behind her glasses, and she smoothed the little +pink bag on her knee. + +"Well, dear, I'm afraid Scott proved to be a hard man, like his +father. But we must remember that Nelly always had Mrs. Spinny. I +never saw anything like the love there was between those two. After +Nelly lost her own father and mother, she looked to Mrs. Spinny for +everything. When Scott was too unreasonable, his mother could 'most +always prevail upon him. She never lifted a hand to fight her own +battles with Scott's father, but she was never afraid to speak up +for Nelly. And then Nelly took great comfort of her little girl. +Such a lovely child!" + +"Had she been very ill before the little baby came?" + +"No, Margaret; I'm afraid 't was all because they had the wrong +doctor. I feel confident that either Doctor Tom or Doctor Jones +could have brought her through. But, you see, Scott had offended +them both, and they'd stopped trading at his store, so he would have +young Doctor Fox, a boy just out of college and a stranger. He got +scared and didn't know what to do. Mrs. Spinny felt he wasn't doing +right, so she sent for Mrs. Freeze and me. It seemed like Nelly had +got discouraged. Scott would move into their big new house before +the plastering was dry, and though 't was summer, she had taken a +terrible cold that seemed to have drained her, and she took no +interest in fixing the place up. Mrs. Spinny had been down with her +back again and wasn't able to help, and things was just anyway. We +won't talk about that, Margaret; I think 't would hurt Mrs. Spinny +to have you know. She nearly died of mortification when she sent for +us, and blamed her poor back. We did get Nelly fixed up nicely +before she died. I prevailed upon Doctor Tom to come in at the last, +and it 'most broke his heart. 'Why, Mis' Dow,' he said, 'if you'd +only have come and told me how 't was, I'd have come and carried her +right off in my arms.'" + +"Oh, Mrs. Dow," I cried, "then it needn't have been?" + +Mrs. Dow dropped her needle and clasped her hands quickly. "We +mustn't look at it that way, dear," she said tremulously and a +little sternly; "we mustn't let ourselves. We must just feel that +our Lord wanted her _then_, and took her to Himself. When it was all +over, she did look so like a child of God, young and trusting, like +she did on her baptizing night, you remember?" + +I felt that Mrs. Dow did not want to talk any more about Nelly then, +and, indeed, I had little heart to listen; so I told her I would go +for a walk, and suggested that I might stop at Mrs. Spinny's to see +the children. + +Mrs. Dow looked up thoughtfully at the clock. "I doubt if you'll +find little Margaret there now. It's half-past four, and she'll have +been out of school an hour and more. She'll be most likely coasting +on Lupton's Hill. She usually makes for it with her sled the minute +she is out of the school-house door. You know, it's the old hill +where you all used to slide. If you stop in at the church about six +o'clock, you'll likely find Mrs. Spinny there with the baby. I +promised to go down and help Mrs. Freeze finish up the tree, and +Mrs. Spinny said she'd run in with the baby, if 't wasn't too +bitter. She won't leave him alone with the Swede girl. She's like a +young woman with her first." + +Lupton's Hill was at the other end of town, and when I got there the +dusk was thickening, drawing blue shadows over the snowy fields. +There were perhaps twenty children creeping up the hill or whizzing +down the packed sled-track. When I had been watching them for some +minutes, I heard a lusty shout, and a little red sled shot past me +into the deep snow-drift beyond. The child was quite buried for a +moment, then she struggled out and stood dusting the snow from her +short coat and red woolen comforter. She wore a brown fur cap, which +was too big for her and of an old-fashioned shape, such as girls +wore long ago, but I would have known her without the cap. Mrs. Dow +had said a beautiful child, and there would not be two like this in +Riverbend. She was off before I had time to speak to her, going up +the hill at a trot, her sturdy little legs plowing through the +trampled snow. When she reached the top she never paused to take +breath, but threw herself upon her sled and came down with a whoop +that was quenched only by the deep drift at the end. + +"Are you Margaret Spinny?" I asked as she struggled out in a cloud +of snow. + +"Yes, 'm." She approached me with frank curiosity, pulling her +little sled behind her. "Are you the strange lady staying at Mrs. +Dow's?" I nodded, and she began to look my clothes over with +respectful interest. + +"Your grandmother is to be at the church at six o'clock, isn't she?" + +"Yes, 'm." + +"Well, suppose we walk up there now. It's nearly six, and all the +other children are going home." She hesitated, and looked up at the +faintly gleaming track on the hill-slope. "Do you want another +slide? Is that it?" I asked. + +"Do you mind?" she asked shyly. + +"No. I'll wait for you. Take your time; don't run." + +Two little boys were still hanging about the slide, and they cheered +her as she came down, her comforter streaming in the wind. + +"Now," she announced, getting up out of the drift, "I'll show you +where the church is." + +"Shall I tie your comforter again?" + +"No, 'm, thanks. I'm plenty warm." She put her mittened hand +confidingly in mine and trudged along beside me. + +Mrs. Dow must have heard us tramping up the snowy steps of the +church, for she met us at the door. Every one had gone except the +old ladies. A kerosene lamp flickered over the Sunday-school chart, +with the lesson-picture of the Wise Men, and the little barrel-stove +threw out a deep glow over the three white heads that bent above the +baby. There the three friends sat, patting him, and smoothing his +dress, and playing with his hands, which made theirs look so brown. + +"You ain't seen nothing finer in all your travels," said Mrs. +Spinny, and they all laughed. + +They showed me his full chest and how strong his back was; had me +feel the golden fuzz on his head, and made him look at me with his +round, bright eyes. He laughed and reared himself in my arms as I +took him up and held him close to me. He was so warm and tingling +with life, and he had the flush of new beginnings, of the new +morning and the new rose. He seemed to have come so lately from his +mother's heart! It was as if I held her youth and all her young joy. +As I put my cheek down against his, he spied a pink flower in my +hat, and making a gleeful sound, he lunged at it with both fists. + +"Don't let him spoil it," murmured Mrs. Spinny. "He loves color +so--like Nelly." + + _Century_, October 1911 + + + + +_The Bohemian Girl_ + + +The Trans-continental Express swung along the windings of the Sand +River Valley, and in the rear seat of the observation car a young +man sat greatly at his ease, not in the least discomfited by the +fierce sunlight which beat in upon his brown face and neck and +strong back. There was a look of relaxation and of great passivity +about his broad shoulders, which seemed almost too heavy until he +stood up and squared them. He wore a pale flannel shirt and a blue +silk necktie with loose ends. His trousers were wide and belted at +the waist, and his short sack-coat hung open. His heavy shoes had +seen good service. His reddish-brown hair, like his clothes, had a +foreign cut. He had deep-set, dark blue eyes under heavy reddish +eyebrows. His face was kept clean only by close shaving, and even +the sharpest razor left a glint of yellow in the smooth brown of his +skin. His teeth and the palms of his hands were very white. His +head, which looked hard and stubborn, lay indolently in the green +cushion of the wicker chair, and as he looked out at the ripe summer +country a teasing, not unkindly smile played over his lips. Once, as +he basked thus comfortably, a quick light flashed in his eyes, +curiously dilating the pupils, and his mouth became a hard, straight +line, gradually relaxing into its former smile of rather kindly +mockery. He told himself, apparently, that there was no point in +getting excited; and he seemed a master hand at taking his ease when +he could. Neither the sharp whistle of the locomotive nor the +brakeman's call disturbed him. It was not until after the train had +stopped that he rose, put on a Panama hat, took from the rack a +small valise and a flute-case, and stepped deliberately to the +station platform. The baggage was already unloaded, and the stranger +presented a check for a battered sole-leather steamer-trunk. + +"Can you keep it here for a day or two?" he asked the agent. "I may +send for it, and I may not." + +"Depends on whether you like the country, I suppose?" demanded the +agent in a challenging tone. + +"Just so." + +The agent shrugged his shoulders, looked scornfully at the small +trunk, which was marked "N.E.," and handed out a claim check without +further comment. The stranger watched him as he caught one end of +the trunk and dragged it into the express room. The agent's manner +seemed to remind him of something amusing. "Doesn't seem to be a +very big place," he remarked, looking about. + +"It's big enough for us," snapped the agent, as he banged the trunk +into a corner. + +That remark, apparently, was what Nils Ericson had wanted. He +chuckled quietly as he took a leather strap from his pocket and +swung his valise around his shoulder. Then he settled his Panama +securely on his head, turned up his trousers, tucked the flute-case +under his arm, and started off across the fields. He gave the town, +as he would have said, a wide berth, and cut through a great fenced +pasture, emerging, when he rolled under the barbed wire at the +farther corner, upon a white dusty road which ran straight up from +the river valley to the high prairies, where the ripe wheat stood +yellow and the tin roofs and weather-cocks were twinkling in the +fierce sunlight. By the time Nils had done three miles, the sun was +sinking and the farm-wagons on their way home from town came +rattling by, covering him with dust and making him sneeze. When one +of the farmers pulled up and offered to give him a lift, he +clambered in willingly. The driver was a thin, grizzled old man with +a long lean neck and a foolish sort of beard, like a goat's. "How +fur ye goin'?" he asked, as he clucked to his horses and started +off. + +"Do you go by the Ericson place?" + +"Which Ericson?" The old man drew in his reins as if he expected to +stop again. + +"Preacher Ericson's." + +"Oh, the Old Lady Ericson's!" He turned and looked at Nils. "La, me! +If you're goin' out there you might 'a' rid out in the automobile. +That's a pity, now. The Old Lady Ericson was in town with her auto. +You might 'a' heard it snortin' anywhere about the post-office er +the butcher-shop." + +"Has she a motor?" asked the stranger absently. + +"'Deed an' she has! She runs into town every night about this time +for her mail and meat for supper. Some folks say she's afraid her +auto won't get exercise enough, but I say that's jealousy." + +"Aren't there any other motors about here?" + +"Oh, yes! we have fourteen in all. But nobody else gets around like +the Old Lady Ericson. She's out, rain er shine, over the whole +county, chargin' into town and out amongst her farms, an' up to her +sons' places. Sure you ain't goin' to the wrong place?" He craned +his neck and looked at Nils' flute-case with eager curiosity. "The +old woman ain't got any piany that I knows on. Olaf, he has a grand. +His wife's musical; took lessons in Chicago." + +"I'm going up there to-morrow," said Nils imperturbably. He saw that +the driver took him for a piano-tuner. + +"Oh, I see!" The old man screwed up his eyes mysteriously. He was a +little dashed by the stranger's non-communicativeness, but he soon +broke out again. + +"I'm one o' Mis' Ericson's tenants. Look after one of her places. I +did own the place myself oncet, but I lost it a while back, in the +bad years just after the World's Fair. Just as well, too, I say. +Lets you out o' payin' taxes. The Ericsons do own most of the county +now. I remember the old preacher's fav'rite text used to be, 'To +them that hath shall be given.' They've spread something +wonderful--run over this here country like bindweed. But I ain't one +that begretches it to 'em. Folks is entitled to what they kin git; +and they're hustlers. Olaf, he's in the Legislature now, and a +likely man fur Congress. Listen, if that ain't the old woman comin' +now. Want I should stop her?" + +Nils shook his head. He heard the deep chug-chug of a motor +vibrating steadily in the clear twilight behind them. The pale +lights of the car swam over the hill, and the old man slapped his +reins and turned clear out of the road, ducking his head at the +first of three angry snorts from behind. The motor was running at a +hot, even speed, and passed without turning an inch from its course. +The driver was a stalwart woman who sat at ease in the front seat +and drove her car bareheaded. She left a cloud of dust and a trail +of gasoline behind her. Her tenant threw back his head and sneezed. + +"Whew! I sometimes say I'd as lief be _before_ Mrs. Ericson as +behind her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets +another soul touch that car. Puts it into commission herself every +morning, and keeps it tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I never +stop work for a drink o' water that I don't hear her a-churnin' up +the road. I reckon her darter-in-laws never sets down easy nowadays. +Never know when she'll pop in. Mis' Otto, she says to me: 'We're so +afraid that thing'll blow up and do Ma some injury yet, she's so +turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I wouldn't stew, Mis' Otto; the old +lady'll drive that car to the funeral of every darter-in-law she's +got.' That was after the old woman had jumped a turrible bad +culvert." + +The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying. Just now he +was experiencing something very much like homesickness, and he was +wondering what had brought it about. The mention of a name or two, +perhaps; the rattle of a wagon along a dusty road; the rank, +resinous smell of sunflowers and ironweed, which the night damp +brought up from the draws and low places; perhaps, more than all, +the dancing lights of the motor that had plunged by. He squared his +shoulders with a comfortable sense of strength. + +The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady upgrade. +The country, receding from the rough river valley, swelled more and +more gently, as if it had been smoothed out by the wind. On one of +the last of the rugged ridges, at the end of a branch road, stood a +grim square house with a tin roof and double porches. Behind the +house stretched a row of broken, wind-racked poplars, and down the +hill-slope to the left straggled the sheds and stables. The old man +stopped his horses where the Ericsons' road branched across a dry +sand creek that wound about the foot of the hill. + +"That's the old lady's place. Want I should drive in?" + +"No, thank you. I'll roll out here. Much obliged to you. Good +night." + +His passenger stepped down over the front wheel, and the old man +drove on reluctantly, looking back as if he would like to see how +the stranger would be received. + +As Nils was crossing the dry creek he heard the restive tramp of a +horse coming toward him down the hill. Instantly he flashed out of +the road and stood behind a thicket of wild plum bushes that grew in +the sandy bed. Peering through the dusk, he saw a light horse, under +tight rein, descending the hill at a sharp walk. The rider was a +slender woman--barely visible against the dark hillside--wearing an +old-fashioned derby hat and a long riding-skirt. She sat lightly in +the saddle, with her chin high, and seemed to be looking into the +distance. As she passed the plum thicket her horse snuffed the air +and shied. She struck him, pulling him in sharply, with an angry +exclamation, "_Blazne!_" in Bohemian. Once in the main road, she let +him out into a lope, and they soon emerged upon the crest of high +land, where they moved along the skyline, silhouetted against the +band of faint color that lingered in the west. This horse and rider, +with their free, rhythmical gallop, were the only moving things to +be seen on the face of the flat country. They seemed, in the last +sad light of evening, not to be there accidentally, but as an +inevitable detail of the landscape. + +Nils watched them until they had shrunk to a mere moving speck +against the sky, then he crossed the sand creek and climbed the +hill. When he reached the gate the front of the house was dark, but +a light was shining from the side windows. The pigs were squealing +in the hog corral, and Nils could see a tall boy, who carried two +big wooden buckets, moving about among them. Half way between the +barn and the house, the windmill wheezed lazily. Following the path +that ran around to the back porch, Nils stopped to look through the +screen door into the lamp-lit kitchen. The kitchen was the largest +room in the house; Nils remembered that his older brothers used to +give dances there when he was a boy. Beside the stove stood a little +girl with two light yellow braids and a broad, flushed face, peering +anxiously into a frying-pan. In the dining-room beyond, a large, +broad-shouldered woman was moving about the table. She walked with +an active, springy step. Her face was heavy and florid, almost +without wrinkles, and her hair was black at seventy. Nils felt proud +of her as he watched her deliberate activity; never a momentary +hesitation, or a movement that did not tell. He waited until she +came out into the kitchen and, brushing the child aside, took her +place at the stove. Then he tapped on the screen door and entered. + +"It's nobody but Nils, Mother. I expect you weren't looking for me." + +Mrs. Ericson turned away from the stove and stood staring at him. +"Bring the lamp, Hilda, and let me look." + +Nils laughed and unslung his valise. "What's the matter, Mother? +Don't you know me?" + +Mrs. Ericson put down the lamp. "You must be Nils. You don't look +very different, anyway." + +"Nor you, Mother. You hold your own. Don't you wear glasses yet?" + +"Only to read by. Where's your trunk, Nils?" + +"Oh, I left that in town. I thought it might not be convenient for +you to have company so near threshing-time." + +"Don't be foolish, Nils." Mrs. Ericson turned back to the stove. "I +don't thresh now. I hitched the wheat land onto the next farm and +have a tenant. Hilda, take some hot water up to the company room, +and go call little Eric." + +The tow-haired child, who had been standing in mute amazement, took +up the tea-kettle and withdrew, giving Nils a long, admiring look +from the door of the kitchen stairs. + +"Who's the youngster?" Nils asked, dropping down on the bench behind +the kitchen stove. + +"One of your Cousin Henrik's." + +"How long has Cousin Henrik been dead?" + +"Six years. There are two boys. One stays with Peter and one with +Anders. Olaf is their guardeen." + +There was a clatter of pails on the porch, and a tall, lanky boy +peered wonderingly in through the screen door. He had a fair, gentle +face and big gray eyes, and wisps of soft yellow hair hung down +under his cap. Nils sprang up and pulled him into the kitchen, +hugging him and slapping him on the shoulders. "Well, if it isn't my +kid! Look at the size of him! Don't you know me, Eric?" + +The boy reddened under his sunburn and freckles, and hung his head. +"I guess it's Nils," he said shyly. + +"You're a good guesser," laughed Nils, giving the lad's hand a +swing. To himself he was thinking: "That's why the little girl +looked so friendly. He's taught her to like me. He was only six when +I went away, and he's remembered for twelve years." + +Eric stood fumbling with his cap and smiling. "You look just like I +thought you would," he ventured. + +"Go wash your hands, Eric," called Mrs. Ericson. "I've got cob corn +for supper, Nils. You used to like it. I guess you don't get much of +that in the old country. Here's Hilda; she'll take you up to your +room. You'll want to get the dust off you before you eat." + +Mrs. Ericson went into the dining-room to lay another plate, and the +little girl came up and nodded to Nils as if to let him know that +his room was ready. He put out his hand and she took it, with a +startled glance up at his face. Little Eric dropped his towel, threw +an arm about Nils and one about Hilda, gave them a clumsy squeeze, +and then stumbled out to the porch. + +During supper Nils heard exactly how much land each of his eight +grown brothers farmed, how their crops were coming on, and how much +live stock they were feeding. His mother watched him narrowly as she +talked. "You've got better looking, Nils," she remarked abruptly, +whereupon he grinned and the children giggled. Eric, although he was +eighteen and as tall as Nils, was always accounted a child, being +the last of so many sons. His face seemed childlike, too, Nils +thought, and he had the open, wandering eyes of a little boy. All +the others had been men at his age. + +After supper Nils went out to the front porch and sat down on the +step to smoke a pipe. Mrs. Ericson drew a rocking-chair up near him +and began to knit busily. It was one of the few old-world customs +she had kept up, for she could not bear to sit with idle hands. + +"Where's little Eric, Mother?" + +"He's helping Hilda with the dishes. He does it of his own will; I +don't like a boy to be too handy about the house." + +"He seems like a nice kid." + +"He's very obedient." + +Nils smiled a little in the dark. It was just as well to shift the +line of conversation. "What are you knitting there, Mother?" + +"Baby stockings. The boys keep me busy." Mrs. Ericson chuckled and +clicked her needles. + +"How many grandchildren have you?" + +"Only thirty-one now. Olaf lost his three. They were sickly, like +their mother." + +"I supposed he had a second crop by this time!" + +"His second wife has no children. She's too proud. She tears about +on horseback all the time. But she'll get caught up with, yet. She +sets herself very high, though nobody knows what for. They were low +enough Bohemians she came of. I never thought much of Bohemians; +always drinking." + +Nils puffed away at his pipe in silence, and Mrs. Ericson knitted +on. In a few moments she added grimly: "She was down here to-night, +just before you came. She'd like to quarrel with me and come between +me and Olaf, but I don't give her the chance. I suppose you'll be +bringing a wife home some day." + +"I don't know. I've never thought much about it." + +"Well, perhaps it's best as it is," suggested Mrs. Ericson +hopefully. "You'd never be contented tied down to the land. There +was roving blood in your father's family, and it's come out in you. +I expect your own way of life suits you best." Mrs. Ericson had +dropped into a blandly agreeable tone which Nils well remembered. It +seemed to amuse him a good deal and his white teeth flashed behind +his pipe. His mother's strategies had always diverted him, even when +he was a boy--they were so flimsy and patent, so illy proportioned +to her vigor and force. "They've been waiting to see which way I'd +jump," he reflected. He felt that Mrs. Ericson was pondering his +case deeply as she sat clicking her needles. + +"I don't suppose you've ever got used to steady work," she went on +presently. "Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's a +pity you didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your +father picked up a good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times, +and I expect maybe he'd have give you a farm. It's too bad you put +off comin' back so long, for I always thought he meant to do +something by you." + +Nils laughed and shook the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd have missed a +lot if I had come back then. But I'm sorry I didn't get back to see +father." + +"Well, I suppose we have to miss things at one end or the other. +Perhaps you are as well satisfied with your own doings, now, as +you'd have been with a farm," said Mrs. Ericson reassuringly. + +"Land's a good thing to have," Nils commented, as he lit another +match and sheltered it with his hand. + +His mother looked sharply at his face until the match burned out. +"Only when you stay on it!" she hastened to say. + +Eric came round the house by the path just then, and Nils rose, with +a yawn. "Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will take a little +tramp before bed-time. It will make me sleep." + +"Very well; only don't stay long. I'll sit up and wait for you. I +like to lock up myself." + +Nils put his hand on Eric's shoulder, and the two tramped down the +hill and across the sand creek into the dusty highroad beyond. +Neither spoke. They swung along at an even gait, Nils puffing at his +pipe. There was no moon, and the white road and the wide fields lay +faint in the starlight. Over everything was darkness and thick +silence, and the smell of dust and sunflowers. The brothers followed +the road for a mile or more without finding a place to sit down. +Finally Nils perched on a stile over the wire fence, and Eric sat on +the lower step. + +"I began to think you never would come back, Nils," said the boy +softly. + +"Didn't I promise you I would?" + +"Yes; but people don't bother about promises they make to babies. +Did you really know you were going away for good when you went to +Chicago with the cattle that time?" + +"I thought it very likely, if I could make my way." + +"I don't see how you did it, Nils. Not many fellows could." Eric +rubbed his shoulder against his brother's knee. + +"The hard thing was leaving home--you and father. It was easy +enough, once I got beyond Chicago. Of course I got awful homesick; +used to cry myself to sleep. But I'd burned my bridges." + +"You had always wanted to go, hadn't you?" + +"Always. Do you still sleep in our little room? Is that cottonwood +still by the window?" + +Eric nodded eagerly and smiled up at his brother in the gray +darkness. + +"You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering when +they rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me about the +sea. Sometimes they said names out of the geography books. In a high +wind they had a desperate sound, like something trying to tear +loose." + +"How funny, Nils," said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his hand. +"That tree still talks like that, and 'most always it talks to me +about you." + +They sat a while longer, watching the stars. At last Eric whispered +anxiously: "Hadn't we better go back now? Mother will get tired +waiting for us." They rose and took a short cut home, through the +pasture. + + +II + +The next morning Nils woke with the first flood of light that came +with dawn. The white-plastered walls of his room reflected the glare +that shone through the thin window-shades, and he found it +impossible to sleep. He dressed hurriedly and slipped down the hall +and up the back stairs to the half-story room which he used to share +with his little brother. Eric, in a skimpy night-shirt, was sitting +on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes, his pale yellow hair +standing up in tufts all over his head. When he saw Nils, he +murmured something confusedly and hustled his long legs into his +trousers. "I didn't expect you'd be up so early, Nils," he said, as +his head emerged from his blue shirt. + +"Oh, you thought I was a dude, did you?" Nils gave him a playful tap +which bent the tall boy up like a clasp-knife. "See here; I must +teach you to box." Nils thrust his hands into his pockets and walked +about. "You haven't changed things much up here. Got most of my old +traps, haven't you?" + +He took down a bent, withered piece of sapling that hung over the +dresser. "If this isn't the stick Lou Sandberg killed himself with!" + +The boy looked up from his shoe-lacing. + +"Yes; you never used to let me play with that. Just how did he do +it, Nils? You were with father when he found Lou, weren't you?" + +"Yes. Father was going off to preach somewhere, and, as we drove +along, Lou's place looked sort of forlorn, and we thought we'd stop +and cheer him up. When we found him father said he'd been dead a +couple days. He'd tied a piece of binding twine round his neck, made +a noose in each end, fixed the nooses over the ends of a bent stick, +and let the stick spring straight; strangled himself." + +"What made him kill himself such a silly way?" + +The simplicity of the boy's question set Nils laughing. He clapped +little Eric on the shoulder. "What made him such a silly as to kill +himself at all, I should say!" + +"Oh, well! But his hogs had the cholera, and all up and died on him, +didn't they?" + +"Sure they did; but he didn't have cholera; and there were plenty of +hogs left in the world, weren't there?" + +"Well, but, if they weren't his, how could they do him any good?" +Eric asked, in astonishment. + +"Oh, scat! He could have had lots of fun with other people's hogs. +He was a chump, Lou Sandberg. To kill yourself for a pig--think of +that, now!" Nils laughed all the way downstairs, and quite +embarrassed little Eric, who fell to scrubbing his face and hands at +the tin basin. While he was patting his wet hair at the kitchen +looking-glass, a heavy tread sounded on the stairs. The boy dropped +his comb. "Gracious, there's Mother. We must have talked too long." +He hurried out to the shed, slipped on his overalls, and disappeared +with the milking-pails. + +Mrs. Ericson came in, wearing a clean white apron, her black hair +shining from the application of a wet brush. + +"Good morning, Mother. Can't I make the fire for you?" + +"No, thank you, Nils. It's no trouble to make a cob fire, and I like +to manage the kitchen stove myself." Mrs. Ericson paused with a +shovel full of ashes in her hand. "I expect you will be wanting to +see your brothers as soon as possible. I'll take you up to Anders' +place this morning. He's threshing, and most of our boys are over +there." + +"Will Olaf be there?" + +Mrs. Ericson went on taking out the ashes, and spoke between +shovels. "No; Olaf's wheat is all in, put away in his new barn. He +got six thousand bushel this year. He's going to town to-day to get +men to finish roofing his barn." + +"So Olaf is building a new barn?" Nils asked absently. + +"Biggest one in the county, and almost done. You'll likely be here +for the barn-raising. He's going to have a supper and a dance as +soon as everybody's done threshing. Says it keeps the voters in a +good humor. I tell him that's all nonsense; but Olaf has a long head +for politics." + +"Does Olaf farm all Cousin Henrik's land?" + +Mrs. Ericson frowned as she blew into the faint smoke curling up +about the cobs. "Yes; he holds it in trust for the children, Hilda +and her brothers. He keeps strict account of everything he raises on +it, and puts the proceeds out at compound interest for them." + +Nils smiled as he watched the little flames shoot up. The door of +the back stairs opened, and Hilda emerged, her arms behind her, +buttoning up her long gingham apron as she came. He nodded to her +gaily, and she twinkled at him out of her little blue eyes, set far +apart over her wide cheek-bones. + +"There, Hilda, you grind the coffee--and just put in an extra +handful; I expect your Cousin Nils likes his strong," said Mrs. +Ericson, as she went out to the shed. + +Nils turned to look at the little girl, who gripped the +coffee-grinder between her knees and ground so hard that her two +braids bobbed and her face flushed under its broad spattering of +freckles. He noticed on her middle finger something that had not +been there last night, and that had evidently been put on for +company: a tiny gold ring with a clumsily set garnet stone. As her +hand went round and round he touched the ring with the tip of his +finger, smiling. + +Hilda glanced toward the shed door through which Mrs. Ericson had +disappeared. "My Cousin Clara gave me that," she whispered +bashfully. "She's Cousin Olaf's wife." + + +III + +Mrs. Olaf Ericson--Clara Vavrika, as many people still called +her--was moving restlessly about her big bare house that morning. +Her husband had left for the county town before his wife was out of +bed--her lateness in rising was one of the many things the Ericson +family had against her. Clara seldom came downstairs before eight +o'clock, and this morning she was even later, for she had dressed +with unusual care. She put on, however, only a tight-fitting black +dress, which people thereabouts thought very plain. She was a tall, +dark woman of thirty, with a rather sallow complexion and a touch of +dull salmon red in her cheeks, where the blood seemed to burn under +her brown skin. Her hair, parted evenly above her low forehead, was +so black that there were distinctly blue lights in it. Her black +eyebrows were delicate half-moons and her lashes were long and +heavy. Her eyes slanted a little, as if she had a strain of Tartar +or gypsy blood, and were sometimes full of fiery determination and +sometimes dull and opaque. Her expression was never altogether +amiable; was often, indeed, distinctly sullen, or, when she was +animated, sarcastic. She was most attractive in profile, for then +one saw to advantage her small, well-shaped head and delicate ears, +and felt at once that here was a very positive, if not an altogether +pleasing, personality. + +The entire management of Mrs. Olaf's household devolved upon her +aunt, Johanna Vavrika, a superstitious, doting woman of fifty. When +Clara was a little girl her mother died, and Johanna's life had been +spent in ungrudging service to her niece. Clara, like many +self-willed and discontented persons, was really very apt, without +knowing it, to do as other people told her, and to let her destiny +be decided for her by intelligences much below her own. It was her +Aunt Johanna who had humored and spoiled her in her girlhood, who +had got her off to Chicago to study piano, and who had finally +persuaded her to marry Olaf Ericson as the best match she would be +likely to make in that part of the country. Johanna Vavrika had been +deeply scarred by smallpox in the old country. She was short and +fat, homely and jolly and sentimental. She was so broad, and took +such short steps when she walked, that her brother, Joe Vavrika, +always called her his duck. She adored her niece because of her +talent, because of her good looks and masterful ways, but most of +all because of her selfishness. + +Clara's marriage with Olaf Ericson was Johanna's particular triumph. +She was inordinately proud of Olaf's position, and she found a +sufficiently exciting career in managing Clara's house, in keeping +it above the criticism of the Ericsons, in pampering Olaf to keep him +from finding fault with his wife, and in concealing from every one +Clara's domestic infelicities. While Clara slept of a morning, +Johanna Vavrika was bustling about, seeing that Olaf and the men had +their breakfast, and that the cleaning or the butter-making or the +washing was properly begun by the two girls in the kitchen. Then, at +about eight o'clock, she would take Clara's coffee up to her, and chat +with her while she drank it, telling her what was going on in the +house. Old Mrs. Ericson frequently said that her daughter-in-law would +not know what day of the week it was if Johanna did not tell her +every morning. Mrs. Ericson despised and pitied Johanna, but did not +wholly dislike her. The one thing she hated in her daughter-in-law +above everything else was the way in which Clara could come it over +people. It enraged her that the affairs of her son's big, barnlike +house went on as well as they did, and she used to feel that in this +world we have to wait over-long to see the guilty punished. "Suppose +Johanna Vavrika died or got sick?" the old lady used to say to Olaf. +"Your wife wouldn't know where to look for her own dish-cloth." Olaf +only shrugged his shoulders. The fact remained that Johanna did not +die, and, although Mrs. Ericson often told her she was looking +poorly, she was never ill. She seldom left the house, and she slept +in a little room off the kitchen. No Ericson, by night or day, could +come prying about there to find fault without her knowing it. Her +one weakness was that she was an incurable talker, and she sometimes +made trouble without meaning to. + +This morning Clara was tying a wine-colored ribbon about her throat +when Johanna appeared with her coffee. After putting the tray on a +sewing-table, she began to make Clara's bed, chattering the while in +Bohemian. + +"Well, Olaf got off early, and the girls are baking. I'm going down +presently to make some poppy-seed bread for Olaf. He asked for prune +preserves at breakfast, and I told him I was out of them, and to +bring some prunes and honey and cloves from town." + +Clara poured her coffee. "Ugh! I don't see how men can eat so much +sweet stuff. In the morning, too!" + +Her aunt chuckled knowingly. "Bait a bear with honey, as we say in +the old country." + +"Was he cross?" her niece asked indifferently. + +"Olaf? Oh, no! He was in fine spirits. He's never cross if you know +how to take him. I never knew a man to make so little fuss about +bills. I gave him a list of things to get a yard long, and he didn't +say a word; just folded it up and put it in his pocket." + +"I can well believe he didn't say a word," Clara remarked with a +shrug. "Some day he'll forget how to talk." + +"Oh, but they say he's a grand speaker in the Legislature. He knows +when to keep quiet. That's why he's got such influence in politics. +The people have confidence in him." Johanna beat up a pillow and +held it under her fat chin while she slipped on the case. Her niece +laughed. + +"Maybe we could make people believe we were wise, Aunty, if we held +our tongues. Why did you tell Mrs. Ericson that Norman threw me +again last Saturday and turned my foot? She's been talking to Olaf." + +Johanna fell into great confusion. "Oh, but, my precious, the old +lady asked for you, and she's always so angry if I can't give an +excuse. Anyhow, she needn't talk; she's always tearing up something +with that motor of hers." + +When her aunt clattered down to the kitchen, Clara went to dust the +parlor. Since there was not much there to dust, this did not take +very long. Olaf had built the house new for her before their +marriage, but her interest in furnishing it had been short-lived. It +went, indeed, little beyond a bath-tub and her piano. They had +disagreed about almost every other article of furniture, and Clara +had said she would rather have her house empty than full of things +she didn't want. The house was set in a hillside, and the west +windows of the parlor looked out above the kitchen yard thirty feet +below. The east windows opened directly into the front yard. At one +of the latter, Clara, while she was dusting, heard a low whistle. +She did not turn at once, but listened intently as she drew her +cloth slowly along the round of a chair. Yes, there it was: + + "_I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls,_" + +She turned and saw Nils Ericson laughing in the sunlight, his hat in +his hand, just outside the window. As she crossed the room he leaned +against the wire screen. "Aren't you at all surprised to see me, +Clara Vavrika?" + +"No; I was expecting to see you. Mother Ericson telephoned Olaf last +night that you were here." + +Nils squinted and gave a long whistle. "Telephoned? That must have +been while Eric and I were out walking. Isn't she enterprising? Lift +this screen, won't you?" + +Clara lifted the screen, and Nils swung his leg across the +window-sill. As he stepped into the room she said: "You didn't think +you were going to get ahead of your mother, did you?" + +He threw his hat on the piano. "Oh, I do sometimes. You see, I'm +ahead of her now. I'm supposed to be in Anders' wheat-field. But, as +we were leaving, Mother ran her car into a soft place beside the +road and sank up to the hubs. While they were going for horses to +pull her out, I cut away behind the stacks and escaped." Nils +chuckled. Clara's dull eyes lit up as she looked at him admiringly. + +"You've got them guessing already. I don't know what your mother +said to Olaf over the telephone, but he came back looking as if he'd +seen a ghost, and he didn't go to bed until a dreadful hour--ten +o'clock, I should think. He sat out on the porch in the dark like a +graven image. It had been one of his talkative days, too." They both +laughed, easily and lightly, like people who have laughed a great +deal together; but they remained standing. + +"Anders and Otto and Peter looked as if they had seen ghosts, too, +over in the threshing-field. What's the matter with them all?" + +Clara gave him a quick, searching look. "Well, for one thing, +they've always been afraid you have the other will." + +Nils looked interested. "The other will?" + +"Yes. A later one. They knew your father made another, but they +never knew what he did with it. They almost tore the old house to +pieces looking for it. They always suspected that he carried on a +clandestine correspondence with you, for the one thing he would do +was to get his own mail himself. So they thought he might have sent +the new will to you for safekeeping. The old one, leaving everything +to your mother, was made long before you went away, and it's +understood among them that it cuts you out--that she will leave all +the property to the others. Your father made the second will to +prevent that. I've been hoping you had it. It would be such fun to +spring it on them." Clara laughed mirthfully, a thing she did not +often do now. + +Nils shook his head reprovingly. "Come, now, you're malicious." + +"No, I'm not. But I'd like something to happen to stir them all up, +just for once. There never was such a family for having nothing ever +happen to them but dinner and threshing. I'd almost be willing to +die, just to have a funeral. _You_ wouldn't stand it for three +weeks." + +Nils bent over the piano and began pecking at the keys with the +finger of one hand. "I wouldn't? My dear young lady, how do you know +what I can stand? _You_ wouldn't wait to find out." + +Clara flushed darkly and frowned. "I didn't believe you would ever +come back--" she said defiantly. + +"Eric believed I would, and he was only a baby when I went away. +However, all's well that ends well, and I haven't come back to be a +skeleton at the feast. We mustn't quarrel. Mother will be here with +a search-warrant pretty soon." He swung round and faced her, +thrusting his hands into his coat pockets. "Come, you ought to be +glad to see me, if you want something to happen. I'm something, even +without a will. We can have a little fun, can't we? I think we can!" + +She echoed him, "I think we can!" They both laughed and their eyes +sparkled. Clara Vavrika looked ten years younger than when she had +put the velvet ribbon about her throat that morning. + +"You know, I'm so tickled to see mother," Nils went on. "I didn't +know I was so proud of her. A regular pile-driver. How about little +pigtails, down at the house? Is Olaf doing the square thing by those +children?" + +Clara frowned pensively. "Olaf has to do something that looks like +the square thing, now that he's a public man!" She glanced drolly at +Nils. "But he makes a good commission out of it. On Sundays they all +get together here and figure. He lets Peter and Anders put in big +bills for the keep of the two boys, and he pays them out of the +estate. They are always having what they call accountings. Olaf gets +something out of it, too. I don't know just how they do it, but it's +entirely a family matter, as they say. And when the Ericsons say +that--" Clara lifted her eyebrows. + +Just then the angry _honk-honk_ of an approaching motor sounded from +down the road. Their eyes met and they began to laugh. They laughed +as children do when they can not contain themselves, and can not +explain the cause of their mirth to grown people, but share it +perfectly together. When Clara Vavrika sat down at the piano after +he was gone, she felt that she had laughed away a dozen years. She +practised as if the house were burning over her head. + +When Nils greeted his mother and climbed into the front seat of the +motor beside her, Mrs. Ericson looked grim, but she made no comment +upon his truancy until she had turned her car and was retracing her +revolutions along the road that ran by Olaf's big pasture. Then she +remarked dryly: + +"If I were you I wouldn't see too much of Olaf's wife while you are +here. She's the kind of woman who can't see much of men without +getting herself talked about. She was a good deal talked about +before he married her." + +"Hasn't Olaf tamed her?" Nils asked indifferently. + +Mrs. Ericson shrugged her massive shoulders. "Olaf don't seem to +have much luck, when it comes to wives. The first one was meek +enough, but she was always ailing. And this one has her own way. He +says if he quarreled with her she'd go back to her father, and then +he'd lose the Bohemian vote. There are a great many Bohunks in this +district. But when you find a man under his wife's thumb you can +always be sure there's a soft spot in him somewhere." + +Nils thought of his own father, and smiled. "She brought him a good +deal of money, didn't she, besides the Bohemian vote?" + +Mrs. Ericson sniffed. "Well, she has a fair half section in her own +name, but I can't see as that does Olaf much good. She will have a +good deal of property some day, if old Vavrika don't marry again. +But I don't consider a saloonkeeper's money as good as other +people's money." + +Nils laughed outright. "Come, Mother, don't let your prejudices +carry you that far. Money's money. Old Vavrika's a mighty decent +sort of saloonkeeper. Nothing rowdy about him." + +Mrs. Ericson spoke up angrily: "Oh, I know you always stood up for +them! But hanging around there when you were a boy never did you any +good, Nils, nor any of the other boys who went there. There weren't +so many after her when she married Olaf, let me tell you. She knew +enough to grab her chance." + +Nils settled back in his seat. "Of course I liked to go there, +Mother, and you were always cross about it. You never took the +trouble to find out that it was the one jolly house in this country +for a boy to go to. All the rest of you were working yourselves to +death, and the houses were mostly a mess, full of babies and washing +and flies. Oh, it was all right--I understand that; but you are +young only once, and I happened to be young then. Now, Vavrika's was +always jolly. He played the violin, and I used to take my flute, and +Clara played the piano, and Johanna used to sing Bohemian songs. She +always had a big supper for us--herrings and pickles and poppyseed +bread, and lots of cake and preserves. Old Joe had been in the army +in the old country, and he could tell lots of good stories. I can +see him cutting bread, at the head of the table, now. I don't know +what I'd have done when I was a kid if it hadn't been for the +Vavrikas, really." + +"And all the time he was taking money that other people had worked +hard in the fields for," Mrs. Ericson observed. + +"So do the circuses, Mother, and they're a good thing. People ought +to get fun for some of their money. Even father liked old Joe." + +"Your father," Mrs. Ericson said grimly, "liked everybody." + +As they crossed the sand creek and turned into her own place, Mrs. +Ericson observed, "There's Olaf's buggy. He's stopped on his way +from town." Nils shook himself and prepared to greet his brother, +who was waiting on the porch. + +Olaf was a big, heavy Norwegian, slow of speech and movement. His +head was large and square, like a block of wood. When Nils, at a +distance, tried to remember what his brother looked like, he could +recall only his heavy head, high forehead, large nostrils, and +pale-blue eyes, set far apart. Olaf's features were rudimentary: the +thing one noticed was the face itself, wide and flat and pale, +devoid of any expression, betraying his fifty years as little as it +betrayed anything else, and powerful by reason of its very +stolidness. When Olaf shook hands with Nils he looked at him from +under his light eyebrows, but Nils felt that no one could ever say +what that pale look might mean. The one thing he had always felt in +Olaf was a heavy stubbornness, like the unyielding stickiness of wet +loam against the plow. He had always found Olaf the most difficult +of his brothers. + +"How do you do, Nils? Expect to stay with us long?" + +"Oh, I may stay forever," Nils answered gaily. "I like this country +better than I used to." + +"There's been some work put into it since you left," Olaf remarked. + +"Exactly. I think it's about ready to live in now--and I'm about +ready to settle down." Nils saw his brother lower his big head. +("Exactly like a bull," he thought.) "Mother's been persuading me to +slow down now, and go in for farming," he went on lightly. + +Olaf made a deep sound in his throat. "Farming ain't learned in a +day," he brought out, still looking at the ground. + +"Oh, I know! But I pick things up quickly." Nils had not meant to +antagonize his brother, and he did not know now why he was doing it. +"Of course," he went on, "I shouldn't expect to make a big success, +as you fellows have done. But then, I'm not ambitious. I won't want +much. A little land, and some cattle, maybe." + +Olaf still stared at the ground, his head down. He wanted to ask +Nils what he had been doing all these years, that he didn't have a +business somewhere he couldn't afford to leave; why he hadn't more +pride than to come back with only a little sole-leather trunk to +show for himself, and to present himself as the only failure in the +family. He did not ask one of these questions, but he made them all +felt distinctly. + +"Humph!" Nils thought. "No wonder the man never talks, when he can +butt his ideas into you like that without ever saying a word. I +suppose he uses that kind of smokeless powder on his wife all the +time. But I guess she has her innings." He chuckled, and Olaf looked +up. "Never mind me, Olaf. I laugh without knowing why, like little +Eric. He's another cheerful dog." + +"Eric," said Olaf slowly, "is a spoiled kid. He's just let his +mother's best cow go dry because he don't milk her right. I was +hoping you'd take him away somewhere and put him into business. If +he don't do any good among strangers, he never will." This was a +long speech for Olaf, and as he finished it he climbed into his +buggy. + +Nils shrugged his shoulders. "Same old tricks," he thought. "Hits +from behind you every time. What a whale of a man!" He turned and +went round to the kitchen, where his mother was scolding little Eric +for letting the gasoline get low. + + +IV + +Joe Vavrika's saloon was not in the county-seat, where Olaf and Mrs. +Ericson did their trading, but in a cheerfuller place, a little +Bohemian settlement which lay at the other end of the county, ten +level miles north of Olaf's farm. Clara rode up to see her father +almost every day. Vavrika's house was, so to speak, in the back yard +of his saloon. The garden between the two buildings was inclosed by +a high board fence as tight as a partition, and in summer Joe kept +beer-tables and wooden benches among the gooseberry bushes under his +little cherry tree. At one of these tables Nils Ericson was seated +in the late afternoon, three days after his return home. Joe had +gone in to serve a customer, and Nils was lounging on his elbows, +looking rather mournfully into his half-emptied pitcher, when he +heard a laugh across the little garden. Clara, in her riding-habit, +was standing at the back door of the house, under the grapevine +trellis that old Joe had grown there long ago. Nils rose. + +"Come out and keep your father and me company. We've been gossiping +all afternoon. Nobody to bother us but the flies." + +She shook her head. "No, I never come out here any more. Olaf +doesn't like it. I must live up to my position, you know." + +"You mean to tell me you never come out and chat with the boys, as +you used to? He _has_ tamed you! Who keeps up these flower-beds?" + +"I come out on Sundays, when father is alone, and read the Bohemian +papers to him. But I am never here when the bar is open. What have +you two been doing?" + +"Talking, as I told you. I've been telling him about my travels. I +find I can't talk much at home, not even to Eric." + +Clara reached up and poked with her riding-whip at a white moth that +was fluttering in the sunlight among the vine leaves. "I suppose you +will never tell me about all those things." + +"Where can I tell them? Not in Olaf's house, certainly. What's the +matter with our talking here?" He pointed persuasively with his hat +to the bushes and the green table, where the flies were singing +lazily above the empty beer-glasses. + +Clara shook her head weakly. "No, it wouldn't do. Besides, I am +going now." + +"I'm on Eric's mare. Would you be angry if I overtook you?" + +Clara looked back and laughed. "You might try and see. I can leave +you if I don't want you. Eric's mare can't keep up with Norman." + +Nils went into the bar and attempted to pay his score. Big Joe, six +feet four, with curly yellow hair and mustache, clapped him on the +shoulder. "Not a God-damn a your money go in my drawer, you hear? +Only next time you bring your flute, te-te-te-te-te-ty." Joe wagged +his fingers in imitation of the flute-player's position. "My Clara, +she come all-a-time Sundays an' play for me. She not like to play at +Ericson's place." He shook his yellow curls and laughed. "Not a +God-damn a fun at Ericson's. You come a Sunday. You like-a fun. No +forget de flute." Joe talked very rapidly and always tumbled over +his English. He seldom spoke it to his customers, and had never +learned much. + +Nils swung himself into the saddle and trotted to the west end of +the village, where the houses and gardens scattered into +prairie-land and the road turned south. Far ahead of him, in the +declining light, he saw Clara Vavrika's slender figure, loitering on +horseback. He touched his mare with the whip, and shot along the +white, level road, under the reddening sky. When he overtook Olaf's +wife he saw that she had been crying. "What's the matter, Clara +Vavrika?" he asked kindly. + +"Oh, I get blue sometimes. It was awfully jolly living there with +father. I wonder why I ever went away." + +Nils spoke in a low, kind tone that he sometimes used with women: +"That's what I've been wondering these many years. You were the last +girl in the country I'd have picked for a wife for Olaf. What made +you do it, Clara?" + +"I suppose I really did it to oblige the neighbors"--Clara tossed +her head. "People were beginning to wonder." + +"To wonder?" + +"Yes--why I didn't get married. I suppose I didn't like to keep them +in suspense. I've discovered that most girls marry out of +consideration for the neighborhood." + +Nils bent his head toward her and his white teeth flashed. "I'd have +gambled that one girl I knew would say, 'Let the neighborhood be +damned.'" + +Clara shook her head mournfully. "You see, they have it on you, +Nils; that is, if you're a woman. They say you're beginning to go +off. That's what makes us get married: we can't stand the laugh." + +Nils looked sidewise at her. He had never seen her head droop +before. Resignation was the last thing he would have expected of +her. "In your case, there wasn't something else?" + +"Something else?" + +"I mean, you didn't do it to spite somebody? Somebody who didn't +come back?" + +Clara drew herself up. "Oh, I never thought you'd come back. Not +after I stopped writing to you, at least. _That_ was all over, long +before I married Olaf." + +"It never occurred to you, then, that the meanest thing you could do +to me was to marry Olaf?" + +Clara laughed. "No; I didn't know you were so fond of Olaf." + +Nils smoothed his horse's mane with his glove. "You know, Clara +Vavrika, you are never going to stick it out. You'll cut away some +day, and I've been thinking you might as well cut away with me." + +Clara threw up her chin. "Oh, you don't know me as well as you +think. I won't cut away. Sometimes, when I'm with father, I feel +like it. But I can hold out as long as the Ericsons can. They've +never got the best of me yet, and one can live, so long as one isn't +beaten. If I go back to father, it's all up with Olaf in politics. +He knows that, and he never goes much beyond sulking. I've as much +wit as the Ericsons. I'll never leave them unless I can show them a +thing or two." + +"You mean unless you can come it over them?" + +"Yes--unless I go away with a man who is cleverer than they are, and +who has more money." + +Nils whistled. "Dear me, you are demanding a good deal. The +Ericsons, take the lot of them, are a bunch to beat. But I should +think the excitement of tormenting them would have worn off by this +time." + +"It has, I'm afraid," Clara admitted mournfully. + +"Then why don't you cut away? There are more amusing games than this +in the world. When I came home I thought it might amuse me to bully +a few quarter sections out of the Ericsons; but I've almost decided +I can get more fun for my money somewhere else." + +Clara took in her breath sharply. "Ah, you have got the other will! +That was why you came home!" + +"No, it wasn't. I came home to see how you were getting on with +Olaf." + +Clara struck her horse with the whip, and in a bound she was far +ahead of him. Nils dropped one word, "Damn!" and whipped after her; +but she leaned forward in her saddle and fairly cut the wind. Her +long riding-skirt rippled in the still air behind her. The sun was +just sinking behind the stubble in a vast, clear sky, and the +shadows drew across the fields so rapidly that Nils could scarcely +keep in sight the dark figure on the road. When he overtook her he +caught her horse by the bridle. Norman reared, and Nils was +frightened for her; but Clara kept her seat. + +"Let me go, Nils Ericson!" she cried. "I hate you more than any of +them. You were created to torture me, the whole tribe of you--to +make me suffer in every possible way." + +She struck her horse again and galloped away from him. Nils set his +teeth and looked thoughtful. He rode slowly home along the deserted +road, watching the stars come out in the clear violet sky. They +flashed softly into the limpid heavens, like jewels let fall into +clear water. They were a reproach, he felt, to a sordid world. As he +turned across the sand creek, he looked up at the North Star and +smiled, as if there were an understanding between them. His mother +scolded him for being late for supper. + + +V + +On Sunday afternoon Joe Vavrika, in his shirt-sleeves and +carpet-slippers, was sitting in his garden, smoking a long-tasseled +porcelain pipe with a hunting scene painted on the bowl. Clara sat +under the cherry tree, reading aloud to him from the weekly Bohemian +papers. She had worn a white muslin dress under her riding-habit, +and the leaves of the cherry tree threw a pattern of sharp shadows +over her skirt. The black cat was dozing in the sunlight at her +feet, and Joe's dachshund was scratching a hole under the scarlet +geraniums and dreaming of badgers. Joe was filling his pipe for the +third time since dinner, when he heard a knocking on the fence. He +broke into a loud guffaw and unlatched the little door that led into +the street. He did not call Nils by name, but caught him by the hand +and dragged him in. Clara stiffened and the color deepened under her +dark skin. Nils, too, felt a little awkward. He had not seen her +since the night when she rode away from him and left him alone on +the level road between the fields. Joe dragged him to the wooden +bench beside the green table. + +"You bring de flute," he cried, tapping the leather case under Nils' +arm. "Ah, das-a good! Now we have some liddle fun like old times. I +got somet'ing good for you." Joe shook his finger at Nils and winked +his blue eyes, a bright clear eye, full of fire, though the tiny +blood-vessels on the ball were always a little distended. "I got +somet'ing for you from"--he paused and waved his hand--"Hongarie. +You know Hongarie? You wait!" He pushed Nils down on the bench, and +went through the back door of his saloon. + +Nils looked at Clara, who sat frigidly with her white skirts drawn +tight about her. "He didn't tell you he had asked me to come, did +he? He wanted a party and proceeded to arrange it. Isn't he fun? +Don't be cross; let's give him a good time." + +Clara smiled and shook out her skirt. "Isn't that like father? And +he has sat here so meekly all day. Well, I won't pout. I'm glad you +came. He doesn't have very many good times now any more. There are +so few of his kind left. The second generation are a tame lot." + +Joe came back with a flask in one hand and three wine-glasses caught +by the stems between the fingers of the other. These he placed on +the table with an air of ceremony, and, going behind Nils, held the +flask between him and the sun, squinting into it admiringly. "You +know dis, Tokai? A great friend of mine, he bring dis to me, a +present out of Hongarie. You know how much it cost, dis wine? Chust +so much what it weigh in gold. Nobody but de nobles drink him in +Bohemie. Many, many years I save him up, dis Tokai." Joe whipped out +his official cork-screw and delicately removed the cork. "De old man +die what bring him to me, an' dis wine he lay on his belly in my +cellar an' sleep. An' now," carefully pouring out the heavy yellow +wine, "an' now he wake up; and maybe he wake us up, too!" He carried +one of the glasses to his daughter and presented it with great +gallantry. + +Clara shook her head, but, seeing her father's disappointment, +relented. "You taste it first. I don't want so much." + +Joe sampled it with a beatific expression, and turned to Nils. "You +drink him slow, dis wine. He very soft, but he go down hot. You +see!" + +After a second glass Nils declared that he couldn't take any more +without getting sleepy. "Now get your fiddle, Vavrika," he said as +he opened his flute-case. + +But Joe settled back in his wooden rocker and wagged his big +carpet-slipper. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! No play fiddle now any more: +too much ache in de finger," waving them, "all-a-time rheumatiz. You +play de flute, te-tety-te-tety-te. Bohemie songs." + +"I've forgotten all the Bohemian songs I used to play with you and +Johanna. But here's one that will make Clara pout. You remember how +her eyes used to snap when we called her the Bohemian Girl?" Nils +lifted his flute and began "When Other Lips and Other Hearts," and +Joe hummed the air in a husky baritone, waving his carpet-slipper. +"Oh-h-h, das-a fine music," he cried, clapping his hands as Nils +finished. "Now 'Marble Halls, Marble Halls'! Clara, you sing him." + +Clara smiled and leaned back in her chair, beginning softly: + + "_I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls, + With vassals and serfs at my knee,_" + +and Joe hummed like a big bumble-bee. + +"There's one more you always played," Clara said quietly; "I +remember that best." She locked her hands over her knee and began +"The Heart Bowed Down," and sang it through without groping for the +words. She was singing with a good deal of warmth when she came to +the end of the old song: + + "_For memory is the only friend + That grief can call its own._" + +Joe flashed out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose, shaking +his head. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Too sad, too sad! I not like-a dat. +Play quick somet'ing gay now." + +Nils put his lips to the instrument, and Joe lay back in his chair, +laughing and singing, "Oh, Evelina, Sweet Evelina!" Clara laughed, +too. Long ago, when she and Nils went to high school, the model +student of their class was a very homely girl in thick spectacles. +Her name was Evelina Oleson; she had a long, swinging walk which +somehow suggested the measure of that song, and they used +mercilessly to sing it at her. + +"Dat ugly Oleson girl, she teach in de school," Joe gasped, "an' she +still walk chust like dat, yup-a, yup-a, yup-a, chust like a camel +she go! Now, Nils, we have some more li'l drink. Oh, +yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-_yes!_ Dis time you haf to drink, and Clara +she haf to, so she show she not jealous. So, we all drink to your +girl. You not tell her name, eh? No-no-no, I no make you tell. She +pretty, eh? She make good sweetheart? I bet!" Joe winked and lifted +his glass. "How soon you get married?" + +Nils screwed up his eyes. "That I don't know. When she says." + +Joe threw out his chest. "Das-a way boys talks. No way for mans. +Mans say, 'You come to de church, an' get a hurry on you.' Das-a way +mans talks." + +"Maybe Nils hasn't got enough to keep a wife," put in Clara +ironically. "How about that, Nils?" she asked him frankly, as if she +wanted to know. + +Nils looked at her coolly, raising one eyebrow. "Oh, I can keep her, +all right." + +"The way she wants to be kept?" + +"With my wife, I'll decide that," replied Nils calmly. "I'll give +her what's good for her." + +Clara made a wry face. "You'll give her the strap, I expect, like +old Peter Oleson gave his wife." + +"When she needs it," said Nils lazily, locking his hands behind his +head and squinting up through the leaves of the cherry tree. "Do you +remember the time I squeezed the cherries all over your clean dress, +and Aunt Johanna boxed my ears for me? My gracious, weren't you mad! +You had both hands full of cherries, and I squeezed 'em and made the +juice fly all over you. I liked to have fun with you; you'd get so +mad." + +"We _did_ have fun, didn't we? None of the other kids ever had so +much fun. We knew how to play." + +Nils dropped his elbows on the table and looked steadily across at +her. "I've played with lots of girls since, but I haven't found one +who was such good fun." + +Clara laughed. The late afternoon sun was shining full in her face, +and deep in the back of her eyes there shone something fiery, like +the yellow drops of Tokai in the brown glass bottle. "Can you still +play, or are you only pretending?" + +"I can play better than I used to, and harder." + +"Don't you ever work, then?" She had not intended to say it. It +slipped out because she was confused enough to say just the wrong +thing. + +"I work between times." Nils' steady gaze still beat upon her. +"Don't you worry about my working, Mrs. Ericson. You're getting like +all the rest of them." He reached his brown, warm hand across the +table and dropped it on Clara's, which was cold as an icicle. "Last +call for play, Mrs. Ericson!" Clara shivered, and suddenly her hands +and cheeks grew warm. Her fingers lingered in his a moment, and they +looked at each other earnestly. Joe Vavrika had put the mouth of the +bottle to his lips and was swallowing the last drops of the Tokai, +standing. The sun, just about to sink behind his shop, glistened on +the bright glass, on his flushed face and curly yellow hair. "Look," +Clara whispered; "that's the way I want to grow old." + + +VI + +On the day of Olaf Ericson's barn-raising, his wife, for once in a +way, rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and frying +and boiling and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it was not +until the day before the party was to take place that Clara showed +any interest in it. Then she was seized with one of her fitful +spasms of energy, and took the wagon and little Eric and spent the +day on Plum Creek, gathering vines and swamp goldenrod to decorate +the barn. + +By four o'clock in the afternoon buggies and wagons began to arrive +at the big unpainted building in front of Olaf's house. When Nils +and his mother came at five, there were more than fifty people in +the barn, and a great drove of children. On the ground floor stood +six long tables, set with the crockery of seven flourishing Ericson +families, lent for the occasion. In the middle of each table was a +big yellow pumpkin, hollowed out and filled with woodbine. In one +corner of the barn, behind a pile of green-and-white-striped +watermelons, was a circle of chairs for the old people; the younger +guests sat on bushel measures or barbed-wire spools, and the +children tumbled about in the haymow. The box-stalls Clara had +converted into booths. The framework was hidden by goldenrod and +sheaves of wheat, and the partitions were covered with wild +grapevines full of fruit. At one of these Johanna Vavrika watched +over her cooked meats, enough to provision an army; and at the next +her kitchen girls had ranged the ice-cream freezers, and Clara was +already cutting pies and cakes against the hour of serving. At the +third stall, little Hilda, in a bright pink lawn dress, dispensed +lemonade throughout the afternoon. Olaf, as a public man, had +thought it inadvisable to serve beer in his barn; but Joe Vavrika +had come over with two demijohns concealed in his buggy, and after +his arrival the wagon-shed was much frequented by the men. + +"Hasn't Cousin Clara fixed things lovely?" little Hilda whispered, +when Nils went up to her stall and asked for lemonade. + +Nils leaned against the booth, talking to the excited little girl +and watching the people. The barn faced the west, and the sun, +pouring in at the big doors, filled the whole interior with a golden +light, through which filtered fine particles of dust from the +haymow, where the children were romping. There was a great +chattering from the stall where Johanna Vavrika exhibited to the +admiring women her platters heaped with fried chicken, her roasts of +beef, boiled tongues, and baked hams with cloves stuck in the crisp +brown fat and garnished with tansy and parsley. The older women, +having assured themselves that there were twenty kinds of cake, not +counting cookies, and three dozen fat pies, repaired to the corner +behind the pile of watermelons, put on their white aprons, and fell +to their knitting and fancy-work. They were a fine company of old +women, and a Dutch painter would have loved to find them there +together, where the sun made bright patches on the floor and sent +long, quivering shafts of gold through the dusky shade up among the +rafters. There were fat, rosy old women who looked hot in their best +black dresses; spare, alert old women with brown, dark-veined hands; +and several of almost heroic frame, not less massive than old Mrs. +Ericson herself. Few of them wore glasses, and old Mrs. Svendsen, a +Danish woman, who was quite bald, wore the only cap among them. Mrs. +Oleson, who had twelve big grandchildren, could still show two +braids of yellow hair as thick as her own wrists. Among all these +grandmothers there were more brown heads than white. They all had a +pleased, prosperous air, as if they were more than satisfied with +themselves and with life. Nils, leaning against Hilda's +lemonade-stand, watched them as they sat chattering in four +languages, their fingers never lagging behind their tongues. + +"Look at them over there," he whispered, detaining Clara as she +passed him. "Aren't they the Old Guard? I've just counted thirty +hands. I guess they've wrung many a chicken's neck and warmed many a +boy's jacket for him in their time." + +In reality he fell into amazement when he thought of the Herculean +labors those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of the cows they +had milked, the butter they had made, the gardens they had planted, +the children and grandchildren they had tended, the brooms they had +worn out, the mountains of food they had cooked. It made him dizzy. +Clara Vavrika smiled a hard, enigmatical smile at him and walked +rapidly away. Nils' eyes followed her white figure as she went +toward the house. He watched her walking alone in the sunlight, +looked at her slender, defiant shoulders and her little hard-set +head with its coils of blue-black hair. "No," he reflected; "she'd +never be like them, not if she lived here a hundred years. She'd +only grow more bitter. You can't tame a wild thing; you can only +chain it. People aren't all alike. I mustn't lose my nerve." He gave +Hilda's pigtail a parting tweak and set out after Clara. "Where to?" +he asked, as he came upon her in the kitchen. + +"I'm going to the cellar for preserves." + +"Let me go with you. I never get a moment alone with you. Why do you +keep out of my way?" + +Clara laughed. "I don't usually get in anybody's way." + +Nils followed her down the stairs and to the far corner of the +cellar, where a basement window let in a stream of light. From a +swinging shelf Clara selected several glass jars, each labeled in +Johanna's careful hand. Nils took up a brown flask. "What's this? It +looks good." + +"It is. It's some French brandy father gave me when I was married. +Would you like some? Have you a corkscrew? I'll get glasses." + +When she brought them, Nils took them from her and put them down on +the window-sill. "Clara Vavrika, do you remember how crazy I used to +be about you?" + +Clara shrugged her shoulders. "Boys are always crazy about somebody +or other. I dare say some silly has been crazy about Evelina Oleson. +You got over it in a hurry." + +"Because I didn't come back, you mean? I had to get on, you know, +and it was hard sledding at first. Then I heard you'd married Olaf." + +"And then you stayed away from a broken heart," Clara laughed. + +"And then I began to think about you more than I had since I first +went away. I began to wonder if you were really as you had seemed to +me when I was a boy. I thought I'd like to see. I've had lots of +girls, but no one ever pulled me the same way. The more I thought +about you, the more I remembered how it used to be--like hearing a +wild tune you can't resist, calling you out at night. It had been a +long while since anything had pulled me out of my boots, and I +wondered whether anything ever could again." Nils thrust his hands +into his coat pockets and squared his shoulders, as his mother +sometimes squared hers, as Olaf, in a clumsier manner, squared his. +"So I thought I'd come back and see. Of course the family have tried +to do me, and I rather thought I'd bring out father's will and make +a fuss. But they can have their old land; they've put enough sweat +into it." He took the flask and filled the two glasses carefully to +the brim. "I've found out what I want from the Ericsons. Drink +_skoal_, Clara." He lifted his glass, and Clara took hers with +downcast eyes. "Look at me, Clara Vavrika. _Skoal!_" + +She raised her burning eyes and answered fiercely: "_Skoal!_" + + * * * * * + +The barn supper began at six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious +hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole +fried chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole +custard pies, and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the +last crumb. There was even a cooky contest among the children, and +one thin, slablike Bohemian boy consumed sixteen and won the prize, +a ginger-bread pig which Johanna Vavrika had carefully decorated +with red candies and burnt sugar. Fritz Sweiheart, the German +carpenter, won in the pickle contest, but he disappeared soon after +supper and was not seen for the rest of the evening. Joe Vavrika +said that Fritz could have managed the pickles all right, but he had +sampled the demijohn in his buggy too often before sitting down to +the table. + +While the supper was being cleared away the two fiddlers began to +tune up for the dance. Clara was to accompany them on her old +upright piano, which had been brought down from her father's. By +this time Nils had renewed old acquaintances. Since his interview +with Clara in the cellar, he had been busy telling all the old women +how young they looked, and all the young ones how pretty they were, +and assuring the men that they had here the best farm-land in the +world. He had made himself so agreeable that old Mrs. Ericson's +friends began to come up to her and tell how lucky she was to get +her smart son back again, and please to get him to play his flute. +Joe Vavrika, who could still play very well when he forgot that he +had rheumatism, caught up a fiddle from Johnny Oleson and played a +crazy Bohemian dance tune that set the wheels going. When he dropped +the bow every one was ready to dance. + +Olaf, in a frock-coat and a solemn made-up necktie, led the grand +march with his mother. Clara had kept well out of _that_ by sticking +to the piano. She played the march with a pompous solemnity which +greatly amused the prodigal son, who went over and stood behind her. + +"Oh, aren't you rubbing it into them, Clara Vavrika? And aren't you +lucky to have me here, or all your wit would be thrown away." + +"I'm used to being witty for myself. It saves my life." + +The fiddles struck up a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by +leading out Evelina Oleson, the homely school-teacher. His next +partner was a very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an +heiress, had not been asked for the first dance, but had stood +against the wall in her tight, high-heeled shoes, nervously +fingering a lace handkerchief. She was soon out of breath, so Nils +led her, pleased and panting, to her seat, and went over to the +piano, from which Clara had been watching his gallantry. "Ask Olena +Yenson," she whispered. "She waltzes beautifully." + +Olena, too, was rather inconveniently plump, handsome in a smooth, +heavy way, with a fine color and good-natured, sleepy eyes. She was +redolent of violet sachet powder, and had warm, soft, white hands, +but she danced divinely, moving as smoothly as the tide coming in. +"There, that's something like," Nils said as he released her. +"You'll give me the next waltz, won't you? Now I must go and dance +with my little cousin." + +Hilda was greatly excited when Nils went up to her stall and held +out his arm. Her little eyes sparkled, but she declared that she +could not leave her lemonade. Old Mrs. Ericson, who happened along +at this moment, said she would attend to that, and Hilda came out, +as pink as her pink dress. The dance was a schottische, and in a +moment her yellow braids were fairly standing on end. "Bravo!" Nils +cried encouragingly. "Where did you learn to dance so nicely?" + +"My Cousin Clara taught me," the little girl panted. + +Nils found Eric sitting with a group of boys who were too awkward or +too shy to dance, and told him that he must dance the next waltz +with Hilda. + +The boy screwed up his shoulders. "Aw, Nils, I can't dance. My feet +are too big; I look silly." + +"Don't be thinking about yourself. It doesn't matter how boys look." + +Nils had never spoken to him so sharply before, and Eric made haste +to scramble out of his corner and brush the straw from his coat. + +Clara nodded approvingly. "Good for you, Nils. I've been trying to +get hold of him. They dance very nicely together; I sometimes play +for them." + +"I'm obliged to you for teaching him. There's no reason why he +should grow up to be a lout." + +"He'll never be that. He's more like you than any of them. Only he +hasn't your courage." From her slanting eyes Clara shot forth one of +those keen glances, admiring and at the same time challenging, which +she seldom bestowed on any one, and which seemed to say, "Yes, I +admire you, but I am your equal." + +Clara was proving a much better host than Olaf, who, once the supper +was over, seemed to feel no interest in anything but the lanterns. +He had brought a locomotive headlight from town to light the revels, +and he kept skulking about it as if he feared the mere light from it +might set his new barn on fire. His wife, on the contrary, was +cordial to every one, was animated and even gay. The deep salmon +color in her cheeks burned vividly, and her eyes were full of life. +She gave the piano over to the fat Swedish heiress, pulled her +father away from the corner where he sat gossiping with his cronies, +and made him dance a Bohemian dance with her. In his youth Joe had +been a famous dancer, and his daughter got him so limbered up that +every one sat round and applauded them. The old ladies were +particularly delighted, and made them go through the dance again. +From their corner where they watched and commented, the old women +kept time with their feet and hands, and whenever the fiddles struck +up a new air old Mrs. Svendsen's white cap would begin to bob. + +Clara was waltzing with little Eric when Nils came up to them, +brushed his brother aside, and swung her out among the dancers. +"Remember how we used to waltz on rollers at the old skating-rink in +town? I suppose people don't do that any more. We used to keep it up +for hours. You know, we never did moon around as other boys and +girls did. It was dead serious with us from the beginning. When we +were most in love with each other, we used to fight. You were always +pinching people; your fingers were like little nippers. A regular +snapping-turtle, you were. Lord, how you'd like Stockholm! Sit out +in the streets in front of cafes and talk all night in summer. Just +like a reception--officers and ladies and funny English people. +Jolliest people in the world, the Swedes, once you get them going. +Always drinking things--champagne and stout mixed, half-and-half; +serve it out of big pitchers, and serve plenty. Slow pulse, you +know; they can stand a lot. Once they light up, they're glow-worms, +I can tell you." + +"All the same, you don't really like gay people." + +"_I_ don't?" + +"No; I could see that when you were looking at the old women there +this afternoon. They're the kind you really admire, after all; women +like your mother. And that's the kind you'll marry." + +"Is it, Miss Wisdom? You'll see who I'll marry, and she won't have a +domestic virtue to bless herself with. She'll be a snapping-turtle, +and she'll be a match for me. All the same, they're a fine bunch of +old dames over there. You admire them yourself." + +"No, I don't; I detest them." + +"You won't, when you look back on them from Stockholm or Budapest. +Freedom settles all that. Oh, but you're the real Bohemian Girl, +Clara Vavrika!" Nils laughed down at her sullen frown and began +mockingly to sing: + + "_Oh, how could a poor gypsy maiden like me + Expect the proud bride of a baron to be?_" + +Clara clutched his shoulder. "Hush, Nils; every one is looking at +you." + +"I don't care. They can't gossip. It's all in the family, as the +Ericsons say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony amongst +them. Besides, we'll give them something to talk about when we hit +the trail. Lord, it will be a godsend to them! They haven't had +anything so interesting to chatter about since the grasshopper year. +It'll give them a new lease of life. And Olaf won't lose the +Bohemian vote, either. They'll have the laugh on him so that they'll +vote two apiece. They'll send him to Congress. They'll never forget +his barn party, or us. They'll always remember us as we're dancing +together now. We're making a legend. Where's my waltz, boys?" he +called as they whirled past the fiddlers. + +The musicians grinned, looked at each other, hesitated, and began a +new air; and Nils sang with them, as the couples fell from a quick +waltz to a long, slow glide: + + "_When other lips and other hearts + Their tale of love shall tell, + In language whose excess imparts + The power they feel so well,_" + +The old women applauded vigorously. "What a gay one he is, that +Nils!" And old Mrs. Svendsen's cap lurched dreamily from side to +side to the flowing measure of the dance. + + "_Of days that have as ha-a-p-py been, + And you'll remember me._" + + +VII + +The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped fields lay +yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp +black shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was a +deep, crystalline blue, and the stars were few and faint. Everything +seemed to have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, under the great, +golden, tender, midsummer moon. The splendor of it seemed to +transcend human life and human fate. The senses were too feeble to +take it in, and every time one looked up at the sky one felt unequal +to it, as if one were sitting deaf under the waves of a great river +of melody. Near the road, Nils Ericson was lying against a straw +stack in Olaf's wheat-field. His own life seemed strange and +unfamiliar to him, as if it were something he had read about, or +dreamed, and forgotten. He lay very still, watching the white road +that ran in front of him, lost itself among the fields, and then, at +a distance, reappeared over a little hill. At last, against this +white band he saw something moving rapidly, and he got up and walked +to the edge of the field. "She is passing the row of poplars now," +he thought. He heard the padded beat of hoofs along the dusty road, +and as she came into sight he stepped out and waved his arms. Then, +for fear of frightening the horse, he drew back and waited. Clara +had seen him, and she came up at a walk. Nils took the horse by the +bit and stroked his neck. + +"What are you doing out so late, Clara Vavrika? I went to the house, +but Johanna told me you had gone to your father's." + +"Who can stay in the house on a night like this? Aren't you out +yourself?" + +"Ah, but that's another matter." + +Nils turned the horse into the field. + +"What are you doing? Where are you taking Norman?" + +"Not far, but I want to talk to you to-night; I have something to +say to you. I can't talk to you at the house, with Olaf sitting +there on the porch, weighing a thousand tons." + +Clara laughed. "He won't be sitting there now. He's in bed by this +time, and asleep--weighing a thousand tons." + +Nils plodded on across the stubble. "Are you really going to spend +the rest of your life like this, night after night, summer after +summer? Haven't you anything better to do on a night like this than +to wear yourself and Norman out tearing across the country to your +father's and back? Besides, your father won't live forever, you +know. His little place will be shut up or sold, and then you'll have +nobody but the Ericsons. You'll have to fasten down the hatches for +the winter then." + +Clara moved her head restlessly. "Don't talk about that. I try never +to think of it. If I lost father I'd lose everything, even my hold +over the Ericsons." + +"Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose your race, +everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a good deal of it +now." + +"Of what?" + +"Of your love of life, your capacity for delight." + +Clara put her hands up to her face. "I haven't, Nils Ericson, I +haven't! Say anything to me but that. I won't have it!" she declared +vehemently. + +Nils led the horse up to a straw stack, and turned to Clara, looking +at her intently, as he had looked at her that Sunday afternoon at +Vavrika's. "But why do you fight for that so? What good is the power +to enjoy, if you never enjoy? Your hands are cold again; what are +you afraid of all the time? Ah, you're afraid of losing it; that's +what's the matter with you! And you will, Clara Vavrika, you will! +When I used to know you--listen; you've caught a wild bird in your +hand, haven't you, and felt its heart beat so hard that you were +afraid it would shatter its little body to pieces? Well, you used to +be just like that, a slender, eager thing with a wild delight inside +you. That is how I remembered you. And I come back and find you--a +bitter woman. This is a perfect ferret fight here; you live by +biting and being bitten. Can't you remember what life used to be? +Can't you remember that old delight? I've never forgotten it, or +known its like, on land or sea." + +He drew the horse under the shadow of the straw stack. Clara felt +him take her foot out of the stirrup, and she slid softly down into +his arms. He kissed her slowly. He was a deliberate man, but his +nerves were steel when he wanted anything. Something flashed out +from him like a knife out of a sheath. Clara felt everything +slipping away from her; she was flooded by the summer night. He +thrust his hand into his pocket, and then held it out at arm's +length. "Look," he said. The shadow of the straw stack fell sharp +across his wrist, and in the palm of his hand she saw a silver +dollar shining. "That's my pile," he muttered; "will you go with +me?" + +Clara nodded, and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. + +Nils took a deep breath. "Will you go with me to-night?" + +"Where?" she whispered softly. + +"To town, to catch the midnight flyer." + +Clara lifted her head and pulled herself together. "Are you crazy, +Nils? We couldn't go away like that." + +"That's the only way we ever will go. You can't sit on the bank and +think about it. You have to plunge. That's the way I've always done, +and it's the right way for people like you and me. There's nothing +so dangerous as sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, +and you can let it slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing +easier. Most people do that. You'd be better off tramping the roads +with me than you are here." Nils held back her head and looked into +her eyes. "But I'm not that kind of a tramp, Clara. You won't have +to take in sewing. I'm with a Norwegian shipping line; came over on +business with the New York offices, but now I'm going straight back +to Bergen. I expect I've got as much money as the Ericsons. Father +sent me a little to get started. They never knew about that. There, +I hadn't meant to tell you; I wanted you to come on your own nerve." + +Clara looked off across the fields. "It isn't that, Nils, but +something seems to hold me. I'm afraid to pull against it. It comes +out of the ground, I think." + +"I know all about that. One has to tear loose. You're not needed +here. Your father will understand; he's made like us. As for Olaf, +Johanna will take better care of him than ever you could. It's now +or never, Clara Vavrika. My bag's at the station; I smuggled it +there yesterday." + +Clara clung to him and hid her face against his shoulder. "Not +to-night," she whispered. "Sit here and talk to me to-night. I don't +want to go anywhere to-night. I may never love you like this again." + +Nils laughed through his teeth. "You can't come that on me. That's +not my way, Clara Vavrika. Eric's mare is over there behind the +stacks, and I'm off on the midnight. It's good-by, or off across the +world with me. My carriage won't wait. I've written a letter to +Olaf; I'll mail it in town. When he reads it he won't bother us--not +if I know him. He'd rather have the land. Besides, I could demand an +investigation of his administration of Cousin Henrik's estate, and +that would be bad for a public man. You've no clothes, I know; but +you can sit up to-night, and we can get everything on the way. +Where's your old dash, Clara Vavrika? What's become of your Bohemian +blood? I used to think you had courage enough for anything. Where's +your nerve--what are you waiting for?" + +Clara drew back her head, and he saw the slumberous fire in her +eyes. "For you to say one thing, Nils Ericson." + +"I never say that thing to any woman, Clara Vavrika." He leaned +back, lifted her gently from the ground, and whispered through his +teeth: "But I'll never, never let you go, not to any man on earth +but me! Do you understand me? Now, wait here." + +Clara sank down on a sheaf of wheat and covered her face with her +hands. She did not know what she was going to do--whether she would +go or stay. The great, silent country seemed to lay a spell upon +her. The ground seemed to hold her as if by roots. Her knees were +soft under her. She felt as if she could not bear separation from +her old sorrows, from her old discontent. They were dear to her, +they had kept her alive, they were a part of her. There would be +nothing left of her if she were wrenched away from them. Never could +she pass beyond that sky-line against which her restlessness had +beat so many times. She felt as if her soul had built itself a nest +there on that horizon at which she looked every morning and every +evening, and it was dear to her, inexpressibly dear. She pressed her +fingers against her eyeballs to shut it out. Beside her she heard +the tramping of horses in the soft earth. Nils said nothing to her. +He put his hands under her arms and lifted her lightly to her +saddle. Then he swung himself into his own. + +"We shall have to ride fast to catch the midnight train. A last +gallop, Clara Vavrika. Forward!" + +There was a start, a thud of hoofs along the moonlit road, two dark +shadows going over the hill; and then the great, still land +stretched untroubled under the azure night. Two shadows had passed. + + +VIII + +A year after the flight of Olaf Ericson's wife, the night train was +steaming across the plains of Iowa. The conductor was hurrying +through one of the day-coaches, his lantern on his arm, when a lank, +fair-haired boy sat up in one of the plush seats and tweaked him by +the coat. + +"What is the next stop, please, sir?" + +"Red Oak, Iowa. But you go through to Chicago, don't you?" He looked +down, and noticed that the boy's eyes were red and his face was +drawn, as if he were in trouble. + +"Yes. But I was wondering whether I could get off at the next place +and get a train back to Omaha." + +"Well, I suppose you could. Live in Omaha?" + +"No. In the western part of the State. How soon do we get to Red +Oak?" + +"Forty minutes. You'd better make up your mind, so I can tell the +baggageman to put your trunk off." + +"Oh, never mind about that! I mean, I haven't got any," the boy +added, blushing. + +"Run away," the conductor thought, as he slammed the coach door +behind him. + +Eric Ericson crumpled down in his seat and put his brown hand to his +forehead. He had been crying, and he had had no supper, and his head +was aching violently. "Oh, what shall I do?" he thought, as he +looked dully down at his big shoes. "Nils will be ashamed of me; I +haven't got any spunk." + +Ever since Nils had run away with his brother's wife, life at home +had been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected +him of complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and fault-finding, +constantly wounding the boy's pride; and Olaf was always getting her +against him. + +Joe Vavrika heard often from his daughter. Clara had always been +fond of her father, and happiness made her kinder. She wrote him +long accounts of the voyage to Bergen, and of the trip she and Nils +took through Bohemia to the little town where her father had grown +up and where she herself was born. She visited all her kinsmen +there, and sent her father news of his brother, who was a priest; of +his sister, who had married a horse-breeder--of their big farm and +their many children. These letters Joe always managed to read to +little Eric. They contained messages for Eric and Hilda. Clara sent +presents, too, which Eric never dared to take home and which poor +little Hilda never even saw, though she loved to hear Eric tell +about them when they were out getting the eggs together. But Olaf +once saw Eric coming out of Vavrika's house,--the old man had never +asked the boy to come into his saloon,--and Olaf went straight to +his mother and told her. That night Mrs. Ericson came to Eric's room +after he was in bed and made a terrible scene. She could be very +terrifying when she was really angry. She forbade him ever to speak +to Vavrika again, and after that night she would not allow him to go +to town alone. So it was a long while before Eric got any more news +of his brother. But old Joe suspected what was going on, and he +carried Clara's letters about in his pocket. One Sunday he drove out +to see a German friend of his, and chanced to catch sight of Eric, +sitting by the cattle-pond in the big pasture. They went together +into Fritz Oberlies' barn, and read the letters and talked things +over. Eric admitted that things were getting hard for him at home. +That very night old Joe sat down and laboriously penned a statement +of the case to his daughter. + +Things got no better for Eric. His mother and Olaf felt that, +however closely he was watched, he still, as they said, "heard." +Mrs. Ericson could not admit neutrality. She had sent Johanna +Vavrika packing back to her brother's, though Olaf would much rather +have kept her than Anders' eldest daughter, whom Mrs. Ericson +installed in her place. He was not so high-handed as his mother, and +he once sulkily told her that she might better have taught her +granddaughter to cook before she sent Johanna away. Olaf could have +borne a good deal for the sake of prunes spiced in honey, the secret +of which Johanna had taken away with her. + +At last two letters came to Joe Vavrika: one from Nils, inclosing a +postal order for money to pay Eric's passage to Bergen, and one from +Clara, saying that Nils had a place for Eric in the offices of his +company, that he was to live with them, and that they were only +waiting for him to come. He was to leave New York on one of the +boats of Nils' own line; the captain was one of their friends, and +Eric was to make himself known at once. + +Nils' directions were so explicit that a baby could have followed +them, Eric felt. And here he was, nearing Red Oak, Iowa, and rocking +backward and forward in despair. Never had he loved his brother so +much, and never had the big world called to him so hard. But there +was a lump in his throat which would not go down. Ever since +nightfall he had been tormented by the thought of his mother, alone +in that big house that had sent forth so many men. Her unkindness +now seemed so little, and her loneliness so great. He remembered +everything she had ever done for him: how frightened she had been +when he tore his hand in the corn-sheller, and how she wouldn't let +Olaf scold him. When Nils went away he didn't leave his mother all +alone, or he would never have gone. Eric felt sure of that. + +The train whistled. The conductor came in, smiling not unkindly. +"Well, young man, what are you going to do? We stop at Red Oak in +three minutes." + +"Yes, thank you. I'll let you know." The conductor went out, and the +boy doubled up with misery. He couldn't let his one chance go like +this. He felt for his breast pocket and crackled Nils' kind letter +to give him courage. He didn't want Nils to be ashamed of him. The +train stopped. Suddenly he remembered his brother's kind, twinkling +eyes, that always looked at you as if from far away. The lump in his +throat softened. "Ah, but Nils, Nils would _understand_!" he +thought. "That's just it about Nils; he always understands." + +A lank, pale boy with a canvas telescope stumbled off the train to +the Red Oak siding, just as the conductor called, "All aboard!" + + * * * * * + +The next night Mrs. Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden +rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to bed +and had cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was in her +lap, but her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an +hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the +Ericsons and the mountains can sit. The house was dark, and there +was no sound but the croaking of the frogs down in the pond of the +little pasture. + +Eric did not come home by the road, but across the fields, where no +one could see him. He set his telescope down softly in the kitchen +shed, and slipped noiselessly along the path to the front porch. He +sat down on the step without saying anything. Mrs. Ericson made no +sign, and the frogs croaked on. At last the boy spoke timidly. + +"I've come back, Mother." + +"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. + +Eric leaned over and picked up a little stick out of the grass. + +"How about the milking?" he faltered. + +"That's been done, hours ago." + +"Who did you get?" + +"Get? I did it myself. I can milk as good as any of you." + +Eric slid along the step nearer to her. "Oh, Mother, why did you?" +he asked sorrowfully. "Why didn't you get one of Otto's boys?" + +"I didn't want anybody to know I was in need of a boy," said Mrs. +Ericson bitterly. She looked straight in front of her and her mouth +tightened. "I always meant to give you the home farm," she added. + +The boy started and slid closer. "Oh, Mother," he faltered, "I don't +care about the farm. I came back because I thought you might be +needing me, maybe." He hung his head and got no further. + +"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly +and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, +pale hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled +his heart. + + _McClure's_, August 1912 + + + + +_Consequences_ + + +Henry Eastman, a lawyer, aged forty, was standing beside the +Flatiron building in a driving November rainstorm, signaling +frantically for a taxi. It was six-thirty, and everything on wheels +was engaged. The streets were in confusion about him, the sky was in +turmoil above him, and the Flatiron building, which seemed about to +blow down, threw water like a mill-shoot. Suddenly, out of the +brutal struggle of men and cars and machines and people tilting at +each other with umbrellas, a quiet, well-mannered limousine paused +before him, at the curb, and an agreeable, ruddy countenance +confronted him through the open window of the car. + +"Don't you want me to pick you up, Mr. Eastman? I'm running directly +home now." + +Eastman recognized Kier Cavenaugh, a young man of pleasure, who +lived in the house on Central Park South, where he himself had an +apartment. + +"Don't I?" he exclaimed, bolting into the car. "I'll risk getting +your cushions wet without compunction. I came up in a taxi, but I +didn't hold it. Bad economy. I thought I saw your car down on +Fourteenth Street about half an hour ago." + +The owner of the car smiled. He had a pleasant, round face and round +eyes, and a fringe of smooth, yellow hair showed under the rim of +his soft felt hat. "With a lot of little broilers fluttering into +it? You did. I know some girls who work in the cheap shops down +there. I happened to be down-town and I stopped and took a load of +them home. I do sometimes. Saves their poor little clothes, you +know. Their shoes are never any good." + +Eastman looked at his rescuer. "Aren't they notoriously afraid of +cars and smooth young men?" he inquired. + +Cavenaugh shook his head. "They know which cars are safe and which +are chancy. They put each other wise. You have to take a bunch at a +time, of course. The Italian girls can never come along; their men +shoot. The girls understand, all right; but their fathers don't. One +gets to see queer places, sometimes, taking them home." + +Eastman laughed drily. "Every time I touch the circle of your +acquaintance, Cavenaugh, it's a little wider. You must know New York +pretty well by this time." + +"Yes, but I'm on my good behavior below Twenty-third Street," the +young man replied with simplicity. "My little friends down there +would give me a good character. They're wise little girls. They have +grand ways with each other, a romantic code of loyalty. You can find +a good many of the lost virtues among them." + +The car was standing still in a traffic block at Fortieth Street, +when Cavenaugh suddenly drew his face away from the window and +touched Eastman's arm. "Look, please. You see that hansom with the +bony gray horse--driver has a broken hat and red flannel around his +throat. Can you see who is inside?" + +Eastman peered out. The hansom was just cutting across the line, and +the driver was making a great fuss about it, bobbing his head and +waving his whip. He jerked his dripping old horse into Fortieth +Street and clattered off past the Public Library grounds toward +Sixth Avenue. "No, I couldn't see the passenger. Someone you know?" + +"Could you see whether there was a passenger?" Cavenaugh asked. + +"Why, yes. A man, I think. I saw his elbow on the apron. No driver +ever behaves like that unless he has a passenger." + +"Yes, I may have been mistaken," Cavenaugh murmured absent-mindedly. +Ten minutes or so later, after Cavenaugh's car had turned off Fifth +Avenue into Fifty-eighth Street, Eastman exclaimed, "There's your +same cabby, and his cart's empty. He's headed for a drink now, I +suppose." The driver in the broken hat and the red flannel neck +cloth was still brandishing the whip over his old gray. He was +coming from the west now, and turned down Sixth Avenue, under the +elevated. + +Cavenaugh's car stopped at the bachelor apartment house between +Sixth and Seventh Avenues where he and Eastman lived, and they went +up in the elevator together. They were still talking when the lift +stopped at Cavenaugh's floor, and Eastman stepped out with him and +walked down the hall, finishing his sentence while Cavenaugh found +his latch-key. When he opened the door, a wave of fresh cigarette +smoke greeted them. Cavenaugh stopped short and stared into his +hallway. "Now how in the devil--!" he exclaimed angrily. + +"Someone waiting for you? Oh, no, thanks. I wasn't coming in. I have +to work to-night. Thank you, but I couldn't." Eastman nodded and +went up the two flights to his own rooms. + +Though Eastman did not customarily keep a servant he had this winter +a man who had been lent to him by a friend who was abroad. Rollins +met him at the door and took his coat and hat. + +"Put out my dinner clothes, Rollins, and then get out of here until +ten o'clock. I've promised to go to a supper to-night. I shan't be +dining. I've had a late tea and I'm going to work until ten. You may +put out some kumiss and biscuit for me." + +Rollins took himself off, and Eastman settled down at the big table +in his sitting-room. He had to read a lot of letters submitted as +evidence in a breach of contract case, and before he got very far he +found that long paragraphs in some of the letters were written in +German. He had a German dictionary at his office, but none here. +Rollins had gone, and anyhow, the bookstores would be closed. He +remembered having seen a row of dictionaries on the lower shelf of +one of Cavenaugh's bookcases. Cavenaugh had a lot of books, though +he never read anything but new stuff. Eastman prudently turned down +his student's lamp very low--the thing had an evil habit of +smoking--and went down two flights to Cavenaugh's door. + +The young man himself answered Eastman's ring. He was freshly +dressed for the evening, except for a brown smoking jacket, and his +yellow hair had been brushed until it shone. He hesitated as he +confronted his caller, still holding the door knob, and his round +eyes and smooth forehead made their best imitation of a frown. When +Eastman began to apologize, Cavenaugh's manner suddenly changed. He +caught his arm and jerked him into the narrow hall. "Come in, come +in. Right along!" he said excitedly. "Right along," he repeated as +he pushed Eastman before him into his sitting-room. "Well I'll--" he +stopped short at the door and looked about his own room with an air +of complete mystification. The back window was wide open and a +strong wind was blowing in. Cavenaugh walked over to the window and +stuck out his head, looking up and down the fire escape. When he +pulled his head in, he drew down the sash. + +"I had a visitor I wanted you to see," he explained with a nervous +smile. "At least I thought I had. He must have gone out that way," +nodding toward the window. + +"Call him back. I only came to borrow a German dictionary, if you +have one. Can't stay. Call him back." + +Cavenaugh shook his head despondently. "No use. He's beat it. +Nowhere in sight." + +"He must be active. Has he left something?" Eastman pointed to a +very dirty white glove that lay on the floor under the window. + +"Yes, that's his." Cavenaugh reached for his tongs, picked up the +glove, and tossed it into the grate, where it quickly shriveled on +the coals. Eastman felt that he had happened in upon something +disagreeable, possibly something shady, and he wanted to get away at +once. Cavenaugh stood staring at the fire and seemed stupid and +dazed; so he repeated his request rather sternly, "I think I've seen +a German dictionary down there among your books. May I have it?" + +Cavenaugh blinked at him. "A German dictionary? Oh, possibly! Those +were my father's. I scarcely know what there is." He put down the +tongs and began to wipe his hands nervously with his handkerchief. + +Eastman went over to the bookcase behind the Chesterfield, opened +the door, swooped upon the book he wanted and stuck it under his +arm. He felt perfectly certain now that something shady had been +going on in Cavenaugh's rooms, and he saw no reason why he should +come in for any hang-over. "Thanks. I'll send it back to-morrow," he +said curtly as he made for the door. + +Cavenaugh followed him. "Wait a moment. I wanted you to see him. You +did see his glove," glancing at the grate. + +Eastman laughed disagreeably. "I saw a glove. That's not evidence. Do +your friends often use that means of exit? Somewhat inconvenient." + +Cavenaugh gave him a startled glance. "Wouldn't you think so? For an +old man, a very rickety old party? The ladders are steep, you know, +and rusty." He approached the window again and put it up softly. In +a moment he drew his head back with a jerk. He caught Eastman's arm +and shoved him toward the window. "Hurry, please. Look! Down there." +He pointed to the little patch of paved court four flights down. + +The square of pavement was so small and the walls about it were so +high, that it was a good deal like looking down a well. Four tall +buildings backed upon the same court and made a kind of shaft, with +flagstones at the bottom, and at the top a square of dark blue with +some stars in it. At the bottom of the shaft Eastman saw a black +figure, a man in a caped coat and a tall hat stealing cautiously +around, not across the square of pavement, keeping close to the dark +wall and avoiding the streak of light that fell on the flagstones +from a window in the opposite house. Seen from that height he was of +course fore-shortened and probably looked more shambling and +decrepit than he was. He picked his way along with exaggerated care +and looked like a silly old cat crossing a wet street. When he +reached the gate that led into an alley way between two buildings, +he felt about for the latch, opened the door a mere crack, and then +shot out under the feeble lamp that burned in the brick arch over +the gateway. The door closed after him. + +"He'll get run in," Eastman remarked curtly, turning away from the +window. "That door shouldn't be left unlocked. Any crook could come +in. I'll speak to the janitor about it, if you don't mind," he added +sarcastically. + +"Wish you would." Cavenaugh stood brushing down the front of his +jacket, first with his right hand and then with his left. "You saw +him, didn't you?" + +"Enough of him. Seems eccentric. I have to see a lot of buggy +people. They don't take me in any more. But I'm keeping you and I'm +in a hurry myself. Good night." + +Cavenaugh put out his hand detainingly and started to say something; +but Eastman rudely turned his back and went down the hall and out of +the door. He had never felt anything shady about Cavenaugh before, +and he was sorry he had gone down for the dictionary. In five +minutes he was deep in his papers; but in the half hour when he was +loafing before he dressed to go out, the young man's curious +behavior came into his mind again. + +Eastman had merely a neighborly acquaintance with Cavenaugh. He had +been to a supper at the young man's rooms once, but he didn't +particularly like Cavenaugh's friends; so the next time he was +asked, he had another engagement. He liked Cavenaugh himself, if for +nothing else than because he was so cheerful and trim and ruddy. A +good complexion is always at a premium in New York, especially when +it shines reassuringly on a man who does everything in the world to +lose it. It encourages fellow mortals as to the inherent vigor of +the human organism and the amount of bad treatment it will stand +for. "Footprints that perhaps another," etc. + +Cavenaugh, he knew, had plenty of money. He was the son of a +Pennsylvania preacher, who died soon after he discovered that his +ancestral acres were full of petroleum, and Kier had come to New +York to burn some of the oil. He was thirty-two and was still at it; +spent his life, literally, among the breakers. His motor hit the +Park every morning as if it were the first time ever. He took people +out to supper every night. He went from restaurant to restaurant, +sometimes to half-a-dozen in an evening. The head waiters were his +hosts and their cordiality made him happy. They made a life-line for +him up Broadway and down Fifth Avenue. Cavenaugh was still fresh and +smooth, round and plump, with a lustre to his hair and white teeth +and a clear look in his round eyes. He seemed absolutely unwearied +and unimpaired; never bored and never carried away. + +Eastman always smiled when he met Cavenaugh in the entrance hall, +serenely going forth to or returning from gladiatorial combats with +joy, or when he saw him rolling smoothly up to the door in his car +in the morning after a restful night in one of the remarkable new +roadhouses he was always finding. Eastman had seen a good many young +men disappear on Cavenaugh's route, and he admired this young man's +endurance. + +To-night, for the first time, he had got a whiff of something +unwholesome about the fellow--bad nerves, bad company, something on +hand that he was ashamed of, a visitor old and vicious, who must +have had a key to Cavenaugh's apartment, for he was evidently there +when Cavenaugh returned at seven o'clock. Probably it was the same +man Cavenaugh had seen in the hansom. He must have been able to let +himself in, for Cavenaugh kept no man but his chauffeur; or perhaps +the janitor had been instructed to let him in. In either case, and +whoever he was, it was clear enough that Cavenaugh was ashamed of +him and was mixing up in questionable business of some kind. + +Eastman sent Cavenaugh's book back by Rollins, and for the next few +weeks he had no word with him beyond a casual greeting when they +happened to meet in the hall or the elevator. One Sunday morning +Cavenaugh telephoned up to him to ask if he could motor out to a +roadhouse in Connecticut that afternoon and have supper; but when +Eastman found there were to be other guests he declined. + + * * * * * + +On New Year's eve Eastman dined at the University Club at six +o'clock and hurried home before the usual manifestations of insanity +had begun in the streets. When Rollins brought his smoking coat, he +asked him whether he wouldn't like to get off early. + +"Yes, sir. But won't you be dressing, Mr. Eastman?" he inquired. + +"Not to-night." Eastman handed him a bill. "Bring some change in the +morning. There'll be fees." + +Rollins lost no time in putting everything to rights for the night, +and Eastman couldn't help wishing that he were in such a hurry to be +off somewhere himself. When he heard the hall door close softly, he +wondered if there were any place, after all, that he wanted to go. +From his window he looked down at the long lines of motors and taxis +waiting for a signal to cross Broadway. He thought of some of their +probable destinations and decided that none of those places pulled +him very hard. The night was warm and wet, the air was drizzly. +Vapor hung in clouds about the _Times_ Building, half hid the top of +it, and made a luminous haze along Broadway. While he was looking +down at the army of wet, black carriage-tops and their reflected +headlights and tail-lights, Eastman heard a ring at his door. He +deliberated. If it were a caller, the hall porter would have +telephoned up. It must be the janitor. When he opened the door, +there stood a rosy young man in a tuxedo, without a coat or hat. + +"Pardon. Should I have telephoned? I half thought you wouldn't be +in." + +Eastman laughed. "Come in, Cavenaugh. You weren't sure whether you +wanted company or not, eh, and you were trying to let chance decide +it? That was exactly my state of mind. Let's accept the verdict." +When they emerged from the narrow hall into his sitting-room, he +pointed out a seat by the fire to his guest. He brought a tray of +decanters and soda bottles and placed it on his writing table. + +Cavenaugh hesitated, standing by the fire. "Sure you weren't +starting for somewhere?" + +"Do I look it? No, I was just making up my mind to stick it out +alone when you rang. Have one?" he picked up a tall tumbler. + +"Yes, thank you. I always do." + +Eastman chuckled. "Lucky boy! So will I. I had a very early dinner. +New York is the most arid place on holidays," he continued as he +rattled the ice in the glasses. "When one gets too old to hit the +rapids down there, and tired of gobbling food to heathenish dance +music, there is absolutely no place where you can get a chop and +some milk toast in peace, unless you have strong ties of blood +brotherhood on upper Fifth Avenue. But you, why aren't you starting +for somewhere?" + +The young man sipped his soda and shook his head as he replied: + +"Oh, I couldn't get a chop, either. I know only flashy people, of +course." He looked up at his host with such a grave and candid +expression that Eastman decided there couldn't be anything very +crooked about the fellow. His smooth cheeks were positively +cherubic. + +"Well, what's the matter with them? Aren't they flashing to-night?" + +"Only the very new ones seem to flash on New Year's eve. The older +ones fade away. Maybe they are hunting a chop, too." + +"Well"--Eastman sat down--"holidays do dash one. I was just about to +write a letter to a pair of maiden aunts in my old home town, +up-state; old coasting hill, snow-covered pines, lights in the +church windows. That's what you've saved me from." + +Cavenaugh shook himself. "Oh, I'm sure that wouldn't have been good +for you. Pardon me," he rose and took a photograph from the +bookcase, a handsome man in shooting clothes. "Dudley, isn't it? Did +you know him well?" + +"Yes. An old friend. Terrible thing, wasn't it? I haven't got over +the jolt yet." + +"His suicide? Yes, terrible! Did you know his wife?" + +"Slightly. Well enough to admire her very much. She must be terribly +broken up. I wonder Dudley didn't think of that." + +Cavenaugh replaced the photograph carefully, lit a cigarette, and +standing before the fire began to smoke. "Would you mind telling me +about him? I never met him, but of course I'd read a lot about him, +and I can't help feeling interested. It was a queer thing." + +Eastman took out his cigar case and leaned back in his deep chair. +"In the days when I knew him best he hadn't any story, like the +happy nations. Everything was properly arranged for him before he +was born. He came into the world happy, healthy, clever, straight, +with the right sort of connections and the right kind of fortune, +neither too large nor too small. He helped to make the world an +agreeable place to live in until he was twenty-six. Then he married +as he should have married. His wife was a Californian, educated +abroad. Beautiful. You have seen her picture?" + +Cavenaugh nodded. "Oh, many of them." + +"She was interesting, too. Though she was distinctly a person of the +world, she had retained something, just enough of the large Western +manner. She had the habit of authority, of calling out a special +train if she needed it, of using all our ingenious mechanical +contrivances lightly and easily, without over-rating them. She and +Dudley knew how to live better than most people. Their house was the +most charming one I have ever known in New York. You felt freedom +there, and a zest of life, and safety--absolute sanctuary--from +everything sordid or petty. A whole society like that would justify +the creation of man and would make our planet shine with a soft, +peculiar radiance among the constellations. You think I'm putting it +on thick?" + +The young man sighed gently. "Oh, no! One has always felt there must +be people like that. I've never known any." + +"They had two children, beautiful ones. After they had been married +for eight years, Rosina met this Spaniard. He must have amounted to +something. She wasn't a flighty woman. She came home and told Dudley +how matters stood. He persuaded her to stay at home for six months +and try to pull up. They were both fair-minded people, and I'm as +sure as if I were the Almighty, that she did try. But at the end of +the time, Rosina went quietly off to Spain, and Dudley went to hunt +in the Canadian Rockies. I met his party out there. I didn't know +his wife had left him and talked about her a good deal. I noticed +that he never drank anything, and his light used to shine through +the log chinks of his room until all hours, even after a hard day's +hunting. When I got back to New York, rumors were creeping about. +Dudley did not come back. He bought a ranch in Wyoming, built a big +log house and kept splendid dogs and horses. One of his sisters went +out to keep house for him, and the children were there when they +were not in school. He had a great many visitors, and everyone who +came back talked about how well Dudley kept things going. + +"He put in two years out there. Then, last month, he had to come +back on business. A trust fund had to be settled up, and he was +administrator. I saw him at the club; same light, quick step, same +gracious handshake. He was getting gray, and there was something +softer in his manner; but he had a fine red tan on his face and said +he found it delightful to be here in the season when everything is +going hard. The Madison Avenue house had been closed since Rosina +left it. He went there to get some things his sister wanted. That, +of course, was the mistake. He went alone, in the afternoon, and +didn't go out for dinner--found some sherry and tins of biscuit in +the sideboard. He shot himself sometime that night. There were +pistols in his smoking-room. They found burnt out candles beside him +in the morning. The gas and electricity were shut off. I suppose +there, in his own house, among his own things, it was too much for +him. He left no letters." + +Cavenaugh blinked and brushed the lapel of his coat. "I suppose," he +said slowly, "that every suicide is logical and reasonable, if one +knew all the facts." + +Eastman roused himself. "No, I don't think so. I've known too many +fellows who went off like that--more than I deserve, I think--and +some of them were absolutely inexplicable. I can understand Dudley; +but I can't see why healthy bachelors, with money enough, like +ourselves, need such a device. It reminds me of what Dr. Johnson +said, that the most discouraging thing about life is the number of +fads and hobbies and fake religions it takes to put people through a +few years of it." + +"Dr. Johnson? The specialist? Oh, the old fellow!" said Cavenaugh +imperturbably. "Yes, that's interesting. Still, I fancy if one knew +the facts--Did you know about Wyatt?" + +"I don't think so." + +"You wouldn't, probably. He was just a fellow about town who spent +money. He wasn't one of the _forestieri_, though. Had connections +here and owned a fine old place over on Staten Island. He went in +for botany, and had been all over, hunting things; rusts, I believe. +He had a yacht and used to take a gay crowd down about the South +Seas, botanizing. He really did botanize, I believe. I never knew +such a spender--only not flashy. He helped a lot of fellows and he +was awfully good to girls, the kind who come down here to get a +little fun, who don't like to work and still aren't really tough, +the kind you see talking hard for their dinner. Nobody knows what +becomes of them, or what they get out of it, and there are hundreds +of new ones every year. He helped dozens of 'em; it was he who got +me curious about the little shop girls. Well, one afternoon when his +tea was brought, he took prussic acid instead. He didn't leave any +letters, either; people of any taste don't. They wouldn't leave any +material reminder if they could help it. His lawyers found that he +had just $314.72 above his debts when he died. He had planned to +spend all his money, and then take his tea; he had worked it out +carefully." + +Eastman reached for his pipe and pushed his chair away from the +fire. "That looks like a considered case, but I don't think +philosophical suicides like that are common. I think they usually +come from stress of feeling and are really, as the newspapers call +them, desperate acts; done without a motive. You remember when Anna +Karenina was under the wheels, she kept saying, 'Why am I here?'" + +Cavenaugh rubbed his upper lip with his pink finger and made an effort +to wrinkle his brows. "May I, please?" reaching for the whiskey. +"But have you," he asked, blinking as the soda flew at him, "have +you ever known, yourself, cases that were really inexplicable?" + +"A few too many. I was in Washington just before Captain Jack Purden +was married and I saw a good deal of him. Popular army man, fine +record in the Philippines, married a charming girl with lots of +money; mutual devotion. It was the gayest wedding of the winter, and +they started for Japan. They stopped in San Francisco for a week and +missed their boat because, as the bride wrote back to Washington, +they were too happy to move. They took the next boat, were both good +sailors, had exceptional weather. After they had been out for two +weeks, Jack got up from his deck chair one afternoon, yawned, put +down his book, and stood before his wife. 'Stop reading for a moment +and look at me.' She laughed and asked him why. 'Because you happen +to be good to look at.' He nodded to her, went back to the stern and +was never seen again. Must have gone down to the lower deck and +slipped overboard, behind the machinery. It was the luncheon hour, +not many people about; steamer cutting through a soft green sea. +That's one of the most baffling cases I know. His friends raked up +his past, and it was as trim as a cottage garden. If he'd so much as +dropped an ink spot on his fatigue uniform, they'd have found it. He +wasn't emotional or moody; wasn't, indeed, very interesting; simply +a good soldier, fond of all the pompous little formalities that make +up a military man's life. What do you make of that, my boy?" + +Cavenaugh stroked his chin. "It's very puzzling, I admit. Still, if +one knew everything----" + +"But we do know everything. His friends wanted to find something to +help them out, to help the girl out, to help the case of the human +creature." + +"Oh, I don't mean things that people could unearth," said Cavenaugh +uneasily. "But possibly there were things that couldn't be found +out." + +Eastman shrugged his shoulders. "It's my experience that when there +are 'things' as you call them, they're very apt to be found. There +is no such thing as a secret. To make any move at all one has to +employ human agencies, employ at least one human agent. Even when +the pirates killed the men who buried their gold for them, the bones +told the story." + +Cavenaugh rubbed his hands together and smiled his sunny smile. + +"I like that idea. It's reassuring. If we can have no secrets, it +means that we can't, after all, go so far afield as we might," he +hesitated, "yes, as we might." + +Eastman looked at him sourly. "Cavenaugh, when you've practised law +in New York for twelve years, you find that people can't go far in +any direction, except--" He thrust his forefinger sharply at the +floor. "Even in that direction, few people can do anything out of +the ordinary. Our range is limited. Skip a few baths, and we become +personally objectionable. The slightest carelessness can rot a man's +integrity or give him ptomaine poisoning. We keep up only by +incessant cleansing operations, of mind and body. What we call +character, is held together by all sorts of tacks and strings and +glue." + +Cavenaugh looked startled. "Come now, it's not so bad as that, is +it? I've always thought that a serious man, like you, must know a +lot of Launcelots." When Eastman only laughed, the younger man +squirmed about in his chair. He spoke again hastily, as if he were +embarrassed. "Your military friend may have had personal +experiences, however, that his friends couldn't possibly get a line +on. He may accidentally have come to a place where he saw himself in +too unpleasant a light. I believe people can be chilled by a draft +from outside, somewhere." + +"Outside?" Eastman echoed. "Ah, you mean the far outside! Ghosts, +delusions, eh?" + +Cavenaugh winced. "That's putting it strong. Why not say tips from +the outside? Delusions belong to a diseased mind, don't they? There +are some of us who have no minds to speak of, who yet have had +experiences. I've had a little something in that line myself and I +don't look it, do I?" + +Eastman looked at the bland countenance turned toward him. "Not +exactly. What's your delusion?" + +"It's not a delusion. It's a haunt." + +The lawyer chuckled. "Soul of a lost Casino girl?" + +"No; an old gentleman. A most unattractive old gentleman, who +follows me about." + +"Does he want money?" + +Cavenaugh sat up straight. "No. I wish to God he wanted +anything--but the pleasure of my society! I'd let him clean me out +to be rid of him. He's a real article. You saw him yourself that +night when you came to my rooms to borrow a dictionary, and he went +down the fire-escape. You saw him down in the court." + +"Well, I saw somebody down in the court, but I'm too cautious to +take it for granted that I saw what you saw. Why, anyhow, should I +see your haunt? If it was your friend I saw, he impressed me +disagreeably. How did you pick him up?" + +Cavenaugh looked gloomy. "That was queer, too. Charley Burke and I +had motored out to Long Beach, about a year ago, sometime in +October, I think. We had supper and stayed until late. When we were +coming home, my car broke down. We had a lot of girls along who had +to get back for morning rehearsals and things; so I sent them all +into town in Charley's car, and he was to send a man back to tow me +home. I was driving myself, and didn't want to leave my machine. We +had not taken a direct road back; so I was stuck in a lonesome, +woody place, no houses about. I got chilly and made a fire, and was +putting in the time comfortably enough, when this old party steps +up. He was in shabby evening clothes and a top hat, and had on his +usual white gloves. How he got there, at three o'clock in the +morning, miles from any town or railway, I'll leave it to you to +figure out. _He_ surely had no car. When I saw him coming up to the +fire, I disliked him. He had a silly, apologetic walk. His teeth +were chattering, and I asked him to sit down. He got down like a +clothes-horse folding up. I offered him a cigarette, and when he +took off his gloves I couldn't help noticing how knotted and spotty +his hands were. He was asthmatic, and took his breath with a wheeze. +'Haven't you got anything--refreshing in there?' he asked, nodding +at the car. When I told him I hadn't, he sighed. 'Ah, you young +fellows are greedy. You drink it all up. You drink it all up, all +up--up!' he kept chewing it over." + +Cavenaugh paused and looked embarrassed again. "The thing that was +most unpleasant is difficult to explain. The old man sat there by +the fire and leered at me with a silly sort of admiration that +was--well, more than humiliating. 'Gay boy, gay dog!' he would +mutter, and when he grinned he showed his teeth, worn and +yellow--shells. I remembered that it was better to talk casually to +insane people; so I remarked carelessly that I had been out with a +party and got stuck. + +"'Oh yes, I remember,' he said, 'Flora and Lottie and Maybelle and +Marcelline, and poor Kate.' + +"He had named them correctly; so I began to think I had been hitting +the bright waters too hard. + +"Things I drank never had seemed to make me woody; but you can never +tell when trouble is going to hit you. I pulled my hat down and +tried to look as uncommunicative as possible; but he kept croaking +on from time to time, like this: 'Poor Kate! Splendid arms, but dope +got her. She took up with Eastern religions after she had her hair +dyed. Got to going to a Swami's joint, and smoking opium. Temple of +the Lotus, it was called, and the police raided it.' + +"This was nonsense, of course; the young woman was in the pink of +condition. I let him rave, but I decided that if something didn't +come out for me pretty soon, I'd foot it across Long Island. There +wasn't room enough for the two of us. I got up and took another try +at my car. He hopped right after me. + +"'Good car,' he wheezed, 'better than the little Ford.' + +"I'd had a Ford before, but so has everybody; that was a safe guess. + +"'Still,' he went on, 'that run in from Huntington Bay in the rain +wasn't bad. Arrested for speeding, he-he.' + +"It was true I had made such a run, under rather unusual +circumstances, and had been arrested. When at last I heard my +life-boat snorting up the road, my visitor got up, sighed, and +stepped back into the shadow of the trees. I didn't wait to see what +became of him, you may believe. That was visitation number one. What +do you think of it?" + +Cavenaugh looked at his host defiantly. Eastman smiled. + +"I think you'd better change your mode of life, Cavenaugh. Had many +returns?" he inquired. + +"Too many, by far." The young man took a turn about the room and +came back to the fire. Standing by the mantel he lit another +cigarette before going on with his story: + +"The second visitation happened in the street, early in the evening, +about eight o'clock. I was held up in a traffic block before the +Plaza. My chauffeur was driving. Old Nibbs steps up out of the +crowd, opens the door of my car, gets in and sits down beside me. He +had on wilted evening clothes, same as before, and there was some +sort of heavy scent about him. Such an unpleasant old party! A +thorough-going rotter; you knew it at once. This time he wasn't +talkative, as he had been when I first saw him. He leaned back in +the car as if he owned it, crossed his hands on his stick and looked +out at the crowd--sort of hungrily. + +"I own I really felt a loathing compassion for him. We got down the +avenue slowly. I kept looking out at the mounted police. But what +could I do? Have him pulled? I was afraid to. I was awfully afraid +of getting him into the papers. + +"'I'm going to the New Astor,' I said at last. 'Can I take you +anywhere?' + +"'No, thank you,' says he. 'I get out when you do. I'm due on West +44th. I'm dining to-night with Marcelline--all that is left of her!' + +"He put his hand to his hat brim with a grewsome salute. Such a +scandalous, foolish old face as he had! When we pulled up at the +Astor, I stuck my hand in my pocket and asked him if he'd like a +little loan. + +"'No, thank you, but'--he leaned over and whispered, ugh!--'but save +a little, save a little. Forty years from now--a little--comes in +handy. Save a little.' + +"His eyes fairly glittered as he made his remark. I jumped out. I'd +have jumped into the North River. When he tripped off, I asked my +chauffeur if he'd noticed the man who got into the car with me. He +said he knew someone was with me, but he hadn't noticed just when he +got in. Want to hear any more?" + +Cavenaugh dropped into his chair again. His plump cheeks were a +trifle more flushed than usual, but he was perfectly calm. Eastman +felt that the young man believed what he was telling him. + +"Of course I do. It's very interesting. I don't see quite where you +are coming out though." + +Cavenaugh sniffed. "No more do I. I really feel that I've been put +upon. I haven't deserved it any more than any other fellow of my +kind. Doesn't it impress you disagreeably?" + +"Well, rather so. Has anyone else seen your friend?" + +"You saw him." + +"We won't count that. As I said, there's no certainty that you and I +saw the same person in the court that night. Has anyone else had a +look in?" + +"People sense him rather than see him. He usually crops up when I'm +alone or in a crowd on the street. He never approaches me when I'm +with people I know, though I've seen him hanging about the doors of +theatres when I come out with a party; loafing around the stage +exit, under a wall; or across the street, in a doorway. To be frank, +I'm not anxious to introduce him. The third time, it was I who came +upon him. In November my driver, Harry, had a sudden attack of +appendicitis. I took him to the Presbyterian Hospital in the car, +early in the evening. When I came home, I found the old villain in +my rooms. I offered him a drink, and he sat down. It was the first +time I had seen him in a steady light, with his hat off. + +"His face is lined like a railway map, and as to color--Lord, what a +liver! His scalp grows tight to his skull, and his hair is dyed +until it's perfectly dead, like a piece of black cloth." + +Cavenaugh ran his fingers through his own neatly trimmed thatch, and +seemed to forget where he was for a moment. + +"I had a twin brother, Brian, who died when we were sixteen. I have +a photograph of him on my wall, an enlargement from a kodak of him, +doing a high jump, rather good thing, full of action. It seemed to +annoy the old gentleman. He kept looking at it and lifting his +eyebrows, and finally he got up, tip-toed across the room, and +turned the picture to the wall. + +"'Poor Brian! Fine fellow, but died young,' says he. + +"Next morning, there was the picture, still reversed." + +"Did he stay long?" Eastman asked interestedly. + +"Half an hour, by the clock." + +"Did he talk?" + +"Well, he rambled." + +"What about?" + +Cavenaugh rubbed his pale eyebrows before answering. + +"About things that an old man ought to want to forget. His +conversation is highly objectionable. Of course he knows me like a +book; everything I've ever done or thought. But when he recalls +them, he throws a bad light on them, somehow. Things that weren't +much off color, look rotten. He doesn't leave one a shred of +self-respect, he really doesn't. That's the amount of it." The young +man whipped out his handkerchief and wiped his face. + +"You mean he really talks about things that none of your friends +know?" + +"Oh, dear, yes! Recalls things that happened in school. Anything +disagreeable. Funny thing, he always turns Brian's picture to the +wall." + +"Does he come often?" + +"Yes, oftener, now. Of course I don't know how he gets in +down-stairs. The hall boys never see him. But he has a key to my +door. I don't know how he got it, but I can hear him turn it in the +lock." + +"Why don't you keep your driver with you, or telephone for me to +come down?" + +"He'd only grin and go down the fire escape as he did before. He's +often done it when Harry's come in suddenly. Everybody has to be +alone sometimes, you know. Besides, I don't want anybody to see him. +He has me there." + +"But why not? Why do you feel responsible for him?" + +Cavenaugh smiled wearily. "That's rather the point, isn't it? Why do +I? But I absolutely do. That identifies him, more than his knowing +all about my life and my affairs." + +Eastman looked at Cavenaugh thoughtfully. "Well, I should advise you +to go in for something altogether different and new, and go in for +it hard; business, engineering, metallurgy, something this old +fellow wouldn't be interested in. See if you can make him remember +logarithms." + +Cavenaugh sighed. "No, he has me there, too. People never really +change; they go on being themselves. But I would never make much +trouble. Why can't they let me alone, damn it! I'd never hurt +anybody, except, perhaps----" + +"Except your old gentleman, eh?" Eastman laughed. "Seriously, +Cavenaugh, if you want to shake him, I think a year on a ranch would +do it. He would never be coaxed far from his favorite haunts. He +would dread Montana." + +Cavenaugh pursed up his lips. "So do I!" + +"Oh, you think you do. Try it, and you'll find out. A gun and a +horse beats all this sort of thing. Besides losing your haunt, you'd +be putting ten years in the bank for yourself. I know a good ranch +where they take people, if you want to try it." + +"Thank you. I'll consider. Do you think I'm batty?" + +"No, but I think you've been doing one sort of thing too long. You +need big horizons. Get out of this." + +Cavenaugh smiled meekly. He rose lazily and yawned behind his hand. +"It's late, and I've taken your whole evening." He strolled over to +the window and looked out. "Queer place, New York; rough on the +little fellows. Don't you feel sorry for them, the girls especially? +I do. What a fight they put up for a little fun! Why, even that old +goat is sorry for them, the only decent thing he kept." + +Eastman followed him to the door and stood in the hall, while +Cavenaugh waited for the elevator. When the car came up Cavenaugh +extended his pink, warm hand. "Good night." + +The cage sank and his rosy countenance disappeared, his round-eyed +smile being the last thing to go. + + * * * * * + +Weeks passed before Eastman saw Cavenaugh again. One morning, just +as he was starting for Washington to argue a case before the Supreme +Court, Cavenaugh telephoned him at his office to ask him about the +Montana ranch he had recommended; said he meant to take his advice +and go out there for the spring and summer. + +When Eastman got back from Washington, he saw dusty trunks, just up +from the trunk room, before Cavenaugh's door. Next morning, when he +stopped to see what the young man was about, he found Cavenaugh in +his shirt sleeves, packing. + +"I'm really going; off to-morrow night. You didn't think it of me, +did you?" he asked gaily. + +"Oh, I've always had hopes of you!" Eastman declared. "But you are +in a hurry, it seems to me." + +"Yes, I am in a hurry." Cavenaugh shot a pair of leggings into one +of the open trunks. "I telegraphed your ranch people, used your +name, and they said it would be all right. By the way, some of my +crowd are giving a little dinner for me at Rector's to-night. +Couldn't you be persuaded, as it's a farewell occasion?" Cavenaugh +looked at him hopefully. + +Eastman laughed and shook his head. "Sorry, Cavenaugh, but that's +too gay a world for me. I've got too much work lined up before me. I +wish I had time to stop and look at your guns, though. You seem to +know something about guns. You've more than you'll need, but nobody +can have too many good ones." He put down one of the revolvers +regretfully. "I'll drop in to see you in the morning, if you're up." + +"I shall be up, all right. I've warned my crowd that I'll cut away +before midnight." + +"You won't, though," Eastman called back over his shoulder as he +hurried down-stairs. + +The next morning, while Eastman was dressing, Rollins came in +greatly excited. + +"I'm a little late, sir. I was stopped by Harry, Mr. Cavenaugh's +driver. Mr. Cavenaugh shot himself last night, sir." + +Eastman dropped his vest and sat down on his shoe-box. "You're +drunk, Rollins," he shouted. "He's going away to-day!" + +"Yes, sir. Harry found him this morning. Ah, he's quite dead, sir. +Harry's telephoned for the coroner. Harry don't know what to do with +the ticket." + +Eastman pulled on his coat and ran down the stairway. Cavenaugh's +trunks were strapped and piled before the door. Harry was walking up +and down the hall with a long green railroad ticket in his hand and +a look of complete stupidity on his face. + +"What shall I do about this ticket, Mr. Eastman?" he whispered. "And +what about his trunks? He had me tell the transfer people to come +early. They may be here any minute. Yes, sir. I brought him home in +the car last night, before twelve, as cheerful as could be." + +"Be quiet, Harry. Where is he?" + +"In his bed, sir." + +Eastman went into Cavenaugh's sleeping-room. When he came back to +the sitting-room, he looked over the writing table; railway folders, +time-tables, receipted bills, nothing else. He looked up for the +photograph of Cavenaugh's twin brother. There it was, turned to the +wall. Eastman took it down and looked at it; a boy in track clothes, +half lying in the air, going over the string shoulders first, above +the heads of a crowd of lads who were running and cheering. The face +was somewhat blurred by the motion and the bright sunlight. Eastman +put the picture back, as he found it. Had Cavenaugh entertained his +visitor last night, and had the old man been more convincing than +usual? "Well, at any rate, he's seen to it that the old man can't +establish identity. What a soft lot they are, fellows like poor +Cavenaugh!" Eastman thought of his office as a delightful place. + + _McClure's_, November 1915 + + + + +_The Bookkeeper's Wife_ + + +Nobody but the janitor was stirring about the offices of the Remsen +Paper Company, and still Percy Bixby sat at his desk, crouched on +his high stool and staring out at the tops of the tall buildings +flushed with the winter sunset, at the hundreds of windows, so many +rectangles of white electric light, flashing against the broad waves +of violet that ebbed across the sky. His ledgers were all in their +places, his desk was in order, his office coat on its peg, and yet +Percy's smooth, thin face wore the look of anxiety and strain which +usually meant that he was behind in his work. He was trying to +persuade himself to accept a loan from the company without the +company's knowledge. As a matter of fact, he had already accepted +it. His books were fixed, the money, in a black-leather bill-book, +was already inside his waistcoat pocket. + +He had still time to change his mind, to rectify the false figures +in his ledger, and to tell Stella Brown that they couldn't possibly +get married next month. There he always halted in his reasoning, and +went back to the beginning. + +The Remsen Paper Company was a very wealthy concern, with easy, +old-fashioned working methods. They did a longtime credit business +with safe customers, who never thought of paying up very close on +their large indebtedness. From the payments on these large accounts +Percy had taken a hundred dollars here and two hundred there until +he had made up the thousand he needed. So long as he stayed by the +books himself and attended to the mail-orders he couldn't possibly +be found out. He could move these little shortages about from +account to account indefinitely. He could have all the time he +needed to pay back the deficit, and more time than he needed. + +Although he was so far along in one course of action, his mind still +clung resolutely to the other. He did not believe he was going to do +it. He was the least of a sharper in the world. Being scrupulously +honest even in the most trifling matters was a pleasure to him. He +was the sort of young man that Socialists hate more than they hate +capitalists. He loved his desk, he loved his books, which had no +handwriting in them but his own. He never thought of resenting the +fact that he had written away in those books the good red years +between twenty-one and twenty-seven. He would have hated to let any +one else put so much as a pen-scratch in them. He liked all the boys +about the office; his desk, worn smooth by the sleeves of his alpaca +coat; his rulers and inks and pens and calendars. He had a great +pride in working economics, and he always got so far ahead when +supplies were distributed that he had drawers full of pencils and +pens and rubber bands against a rainy day. + +Percy liked regularity: to get his work done on time, to have his +half-day off every Saturday, to go to the theater Saturday night, to +buy a new necktie twice a month, to appear in a new straw hat on the +right day in May, and to know what was going on in New York. He read +the morning and evening papers coming and going on the elevated, and +preferred journals of approximate reliability. He got excited about +ballgames and elections and business failures, was not above an +interest in murders and divorce scandals, and he checked the news +off as neatly as he checked his mail-orders. In short, Percy Bixby +was like the model pupil who is satisfied with his lessons and his +teachers and his holidays, and who would gladly go to school all his +life. He had never wanted anything outside his routine until he +wanted Stella Brown to marry him, and that had upset everything. + +It wasn't, he told himself for the hundredth time, that she was +extravagant. Not a bit of it. She was like all girls. Moreover, she +made good money, and why should she marry unless she could better +herself? The trouble was that he had lied to her about his salary. +There were a lot of fellows rushing Mrs. Brown's five daughters, and +they all seemed to have fixed on Stella as first choice and this or +that one of the sisters as second. Mrs. Brown thought it proper to +drop an occasional hint in the presence of these young men to the +effect that she expected Stella to "do well." It went without saying +that hair and complexion like Stella's could scarcely be expected to +do poorly. Most of the boys who went to the house and took the girls +out in a bunch to dances and movies seemed to realize this. They +merely wanted a whirl with Stella before they settled down to one of +her sisters. It was tacitly understood that she came too high for +them. Percy had sensed all this through those slumbering instincts +which awake in us all to befriend us in love or in danger. + +But there was one of his rivals, he knew, who was a man to be +reckoned with. Charley Greengay was a young salesman who wore +tailor-made clothes and spotted waistcoats, and had a necktie for +every day in the month. His air was that of a young man who is out +for things that come high and who is going to get them. Mrs. Brown +was ever and again dropping a word before Percy about how the girl +that took Charley would have her flat furnished by the best +furniture people, and her china-closet stocked with the best ware, +and would have nothing to worry about but nicks and scratches. It +was because he felt himself pitted against this pulling power of +Greengay's that Percy had brazenly lied to Mrs. Brown, and told her +that his salary had been raised to fifty a week, and that now he +wanted to get married. + +When he threw out this challenge to Mother Brown, Percy was getting +thirty-five dollars a week, and he knew well enough that there were +several hundred thousand young men in New York who would do his work +as well as he did for thirty. + +These were the factors in Percy's present situation. He went over +them again and again as he sat stooping on his tall stool. He had +quite lost track of time when he heard the janitor call good night +to the watchman. Without thinking what he was doing, he slid into +his overcoat, caught his hat, and rushed out to the elevator, which +was waiting for the janitor. The moment the car dropped, it occurred +to him that the thing was decided without his having made up his +mind at all. The familiar floors passed him, ten, nine, eight, +seven. By the time he reached the fifth, there was no possibility of +going back; the click of the drop-lever seemed to settle that. The +money was in his pocket. Now, he told himself as he hurried out into +the exciting clamor of the street, he was not going to worry about +it any more. + + * * * * * + +When Percy reached the Browns' flat on 123d Street that evening he +felt just the slightest chill in Stella's greeting. He could make +that all right, he told himself, as he kissed her lightly in the +dark three-by-four entrance-hall. Percy's courting had been +prosecuted mainly in the Bronx or in winged pursuit of a Broadway +car. When he entered the crowded sitting-room he greeted Mrs. Brown +respectfully and the four girls playfully. They were all piled on +one couch, reading the continued story in the evening paper, and +they didn't think it necessary to assume more formal attitudes for +Percy. They looked up over the smeary pink sheets of paper, and +handed him, as Percy said, the same old jolly: + +"Hullo, Perc'! Come to see me, ain't you? So flattered!" + +"Any sweet goods on you, Perc'? Anything doing in the bong-bong line +to-night?" + +"Look at his new neckwear! Say, Perc', remember me. That tie would +go lovely with my new tailored waist." + +"Quit your kiddin', girls!" called Mrs. Brown, who was drying +shirt-waists on the dining-room radiator. "And, Percy, mind the rugs +when you're steppin' round among them gum-drops." + +Percy fired his last shot at the recumbent figures, and followed +Stella into the dining-room, where the table and two large +easy-chairs formed, in Mrs. Brown's estimation, a proper background +for a serious suitor. + +"I say, Stell'," he began as he walked about the table with his +hands in his pockets, "seems to me we ought to begin buying our +stuff." She brightened perceptibly. "Ah," Percy thought, "so that +_was_ the trouble!" "To-morrow's Saturday; why can't we make an +afternoon of it?" he went on cheerfully. "Shop till we're tired, +then go to Houtin's for dinner, and end up at the theater." + +As they bent over the lists she had made of things needed, Percy +glanced at her face. She was very much out of her sisters' class and +out of his, and he kept congratulating himself on his nerve. He was +going in for something much too handsome and expensive and +distinguished for him, he felt, and it took courage to be a plunger. +To begin with, Stella was the sort of girl who had to be well +dressed. She had pale primrose hair, with bluish tones in it, very +soft and fine, so that it lay smooth however she dressed it, and +pale-blue eyes, with blond eyebrows and long, dark lashes. She would +have been a little too remote and languid even for the fastidious +Percy had it not been for her hard, practical mouth, with lips that +always kept their pink even when the rest of her face was pale. Her +employers, who at first might be struck by her indifference, +understood that anybody with that sort of mouth would get through +the work. + +After the shopping-lists had been gone over, Percy took up the +question of the honeymoon. Stella said she had been thinking of +Atlantic City. Percy met her with firmness. Whatever happened, he +couldn't leave his books now. + +"I want to do my traveling right here on Forty-second Street, with a +high-price show every night," he declared. He made out an itinerary, +punctuated by theaters and restaurants, which Stella consented to +accept as a substitute for Atlantic City. + +"They give your fellows a week off when they're married, don't +they?" she asked. + +"Yes, but I'll want to drop into the office every morning to look +after my mail. That's only businesslike." + +"I'd like to have you treated as well as the others, though." Stella +turned the rings about on her pale hand and looked at her polished +finger-tips. + +"I'll look out for that. What do you say to a little walk, Stell'?" +Percy put the question coaxingly. When Stella was pleased with him +she went to walk with him, since that was the only way in which +Percy could ever see her alone. When she was displeased, she said +she was too tired to go out. To-night she smiled at him +incredulously, and went to put on her hat and gray fur piece. + +Once they were outside, Percy turned into a shadowy side street that +was only partly built up, a dreary waste of derricks and foundation +holes, but comparatively solitary. Stella liked Percy's steady, +sympathetic silences; she was not a chatterbox herself. She often +wondered why she was going to marry Bixby instead of Charley +Greengay. She knew that Charley would go further in the world. +Indeed, she had often coolly told herself that Percy would never go +very far. But, as she admitted with a shrug, she was "weak to +Percy." In the capable New York stenographer, who estimated values +coldly and got the most for the least outlay, there was something +left that belonged to another kind of woman--something that liked +the very things in Percy that were not good business assets. However +much she dwelt upon the effectiveness of Greengay's dash and color +and assurance, her mind always came back to Percy's neat little +head, his clean-cut face, and warm, clear, gray eyes, and she liked +them better than Charley's fullness and blurred floridness. Having +reckoned up their respective chances with no doubtful result, she +opposed a mild obstinacy to her own good sense. "I guess I'll take +Percy, _anyway_," she said simply, and that was all the good her +clever business brain did her. + + * * * * * + +Percy spent a night of torment, lying tense on his bed in the dark, +and figuring out how long it would take him to pay back the money he +was advancing to himself. Any fool could do it in five years, he +reasoned, but he was going to do it in three. The trouble was that +his expensive courtship had taken every penny of his salary. With +competitors like Charley Greengay, you had to spend money or drop +out. Certain birds, he reflected ruefully, are supplied with more +attractive plumage when they are courting, but nature hadn't been so +thoughtful for men. When Percy reached the office in the morning he +climbed on his tall stool and leaned his arms on his ledger. He was +so glad to feel it there that he was faint and weak-kneed. + + * * * * * + +Oliver Remsen, Junior, had brought new blood into the Remsen Paper +Company. He married shortly after Percy Bixby did, and in the five +succeeding years he had considerably enlarged the company's business +and profits. He had been particularly successful in encouraging +efficiency and loyalty in the employees. From the time he came into +the office he had stood for shorter hours, longer holidays, and a +generous consideration of men's necessities. He came out of college +on the wave of economic reform, and he continued to read and think a +good deal about how the machinery of labor is operated. He knew more +about the men who worked for him than their mere office records. + +Young Remsen was troubled about Percy Bixby because he took no +summer vacations--always asked for the two weeks' extra pay instead. +Other men in the office had skipped a vacation now and then, but +Percy had stuck to his desk for five years, had tottered to his +stool through attacks of grippe and tonsilitis. He seemed to have +grown fast to his ledger, and it was to this that Oliver objected. +He liked his men to stay men, to look like men and live like men. He +remembered how alert and wide-awake Bixby had seemed to him when he +himself first came into the office. He had picked Bixby out as the +most intelligent and interested of his father's employees, and since +then had often wondered why he never seemed to see chances to forge +ahead. Promotions, of course, went to the men who went after them. +When Percy's baby died, he went to the funeral, and asked Percy to +call on him if he needed money. Once when he chanced to sit down by +Bixby on the elevated and found him reading Bryce's "American +Commonwealth," he asked him to make use of his own large office +library. Percy thanked him, but he never came for any books. Oliver +wondered whether his bookkeeper really tried to avoid him. + +One evening Oliver met the Bixbys in the lobby of a theater. He +introduced Mrs. Remsen to them, and held them for some moments in +conversation. When they got into their motor, Mrs. Remsen said: + +"Is that little man afraid of you, Oliver? He looked like a scared +rabbit." + +Oliver snapped the door, and said with a shade of irritation: + +"I don't know what's the matter with him. He's the fellow I've told +you about who never takes a vacation. I half believe it's his wife. +She looks pitiless enough for anything." + +"She's very pretty of her kind," mused Mrs. Remsen, "but rather +chilling. One can see that she has ideas about elegance." + +"Rather unfortunate ones for a bookkeeper's wife. I surmise that +Percy felt she was overdressed, and that made him awkward with me. +I've always suspected that fellow of good taste." + +After that, when Remsen passed the counting-room and saw Percy +screwed up over his ledger, he often remembered Mrs. Bixby, with her +cold, pale eyes and long lashes, and her expression that was +something between indifference and discontent. She rose behind +Percy's bent shoulders like an apparition. + +One spring afternoon Remsen was closeted in his private office with +his lawyer until a late hour. As he came down the long hall in the +dusk he glanced through the glass partition into the counting-room, +and saw Percy Bixby huddled up on his tall stool, though it was too +dark to work. Indeed, Bixby's ledger was closed, and he sat with his +two arms resting on the brown cover. He did not move a muscle when +young Remsen entered. + +"You are late, Bixby, and so am I," Oliver began genially as he +crossed to the front of the room and looked out at the lighted +windows of other tall buildings. "The fact is, I've been doing +something that men have a foolish way of putting off. I've been +making my will." + +"Yes, sir." Percy brought it out with a deep breath. + +"Glad to be through with it," Oliver went on. "Mr. Melton will bring +the paper back to-morrow, and I'd like to ask you to be one of the +witnesses." + +"I'd be very proud, Mr. Remsen." + +"Thank you, Bixby. Good night." Remsen took up his hat just as Percy +slid down from his stool. + +"Mr. Remsen, I'm told you're going to have the books gone over." + +"Why, yes, Bixby. Don't let that trouble you. I'm taking in a new +partner, you know, an old college friend. Just because he is a +friend, I insist upon all the usual formalities. But it is a +formality, and I'll guarantee the expert won't make a scratch on +your books. Good night. You'd better be coming, too." Remsen had +reached the door when he heard "Mr. Remsen!" in a desperate voice +behind him. He turned, and saw Bixby standing uncertainly at one end +of the desk, his hand still on his ledger, his uneven shoulders +drooping forward and his head hanging as if he were seasick. Remsen +came back and stood at the other end of the long desk. It was too +dark to see Bixby's face clearly. + +"What is it, Bixby?" + +"Mr. Remsen, five years ago, just before I was married, I falsified +the books a thousand dollars, and I used the money." Percy leaned +forward against his desk, which took him just across the chest. + +"What's that, Bixby?" Young Remsen spoke in a tone of polite +surprise. He felt painfully embarrassed. + +"Yes, sir. I thought I'd get it all paid back before this. I've put +back three hundred, but the books are still seven hundred out of +true. I've played the shortages about from account to account these +five years, but an expert would find 'em in twenty-four hours." + +"I don't just understand how--" Oliver stopped and shook his head. + +"I held it out of the Western remittances, Mr. Remsen. They were +coming in heavy just then. I was up against it. I hadn't saved +anything to marry on, and my wife thought I was getting more money +than I was. Since we've been married, I've never had the nerve to +tell her. I could have paid it all back if it hadn't been for the +unforeseen expenses." + +Remsen sighed. + +"Being married is largely unforeseen expenses, Percy. There's only +one way to fix this up: I'll give you seven hundred dollars in cash +to-morrow, and you can give me your personal note, with the +understanding that I hold ten dollars a week out of your pay-check +until it is paid. I think you ought to tell your wife exactly how +you are fixed, though. You can't expect her to help you much when +she doesn't know." + + * * * * * + +That night Mrs. Bixby was sitting in their flat, waiting for her +husband. She was dressed for a bridge party, and often looked with +impatience from her paper to the Mission clock, as big as a coffin +and with nothing but two weights dangling in its hollow framework. +Percy had been loath to buy the clock when they got their furniture, +and he had hated it ever since. Stella had changed very little since +she came into the flat a bride. Then she wore her hair in a +Floradora pompadour; now she wore it hooded close about her head +like a scarf, in a rather smeary manner, like an Impressionist's +brush-work. She heard her husband come in and close the door softly. +While he was taking off his hat in the narrow tunnel of a hall, she +called to him: + +"I hope you've had something to eat down-town. You'll have to dress +right away." Percy came in and sat down. She looked up from the +evening paper she was reading. "You've no time to sit down. We must +start in fifteen minutes." + +He shaded his eyes from the glaring overhead light. + +"I'm afraid I can't go anywhere to-night. I'm all in." + +Mrs. Bixby rattled her paper, and turned from the theatrical page to +the fashions. + +"You'll feel better after you dress. We won't stay late." + +Her even persistence usually conquered her husband. She never forgot +anything she had once decided to do. Her manner of following it up +grew more chilly, but never weaker. To-night there was no spring in +Percy. He closed his eyes and replied without moving: + +"I can't go. You had better telephone the Burks we aren't coming. I +have to tell you something disagreeable." + +Stella rose. + +"I certainly am not going to disappoint the Burks and stay at home +to talk about anything disagreeable." + +"You're not very sympathetic, Stella." + +She turned away. + +"If I were, you'd soon settle down into a pretty dull proposition. +We'd have no social life now if I didn't keep at you." + +Percy roused himself a little. + +"Social life? Well, we'll have to trim that pretty close for a +while. I'm in debt to the company. We've been living beyond our +means ever since we were married." + +"We can't live on less than we do," Stella said quietly. "No use in +taking that up again." + +Percy sat up, clutching the arms of his chair. + +"We'll have to take it up. I'm seven hundred dollars short, and the +books are to be audited to-morrow. I told young Remsen and he's +going to take my note and hold the money out of my pay-checks. He +could send me to jail, of course." + +Stella turned and looked down at him with a gleam of interest. + +"Oh, you've been playing solitaire with the books, have you? And +he's found you out! I hope I'll never see that man again. Sugar +face!" She said this with intense acrimony. Her forehead flushed +delicately, and her eyes were full of hate. Young Remsen was not her +idea of a "business man." + +Stella went into the other room. When she came back she wore her +evening coat and carried long gloves and a black scarf. This she +began to arrange over her hair before the mirror above the false +fireplace. Percy lay inert in the Morris chair and watched her. Yes, +he understood; it was very difficult for a woman with hair like that +to be shabby and to go without things. Her hair made her +conspicuous, and it had to be lived up to. It had been the deciding +factor in his fate. + +Stella caught the lace over one ear with a large gold hairpin. She +repeated this until she got a good effect. Then turning to Percy, +she began to draw on her gloves. + +"I'm not worrying any, because I'm going back into business," she +said firmly. "I meant to, anyway, if you didn't get a raise the +first of the year. I have the offer of a good position, and we can +live in an apartment hotel." + +Percy was on his feet in an instant. + +"I won't have you grinding in any office. That's flat." + +Stella's lower lip quivered in a commiserating smile. "Oh, I won't +lose my health. Charley Greengay's a partner in his concern now, and +he wants a private secretary." + +Percy drew back. + +"You can't work for Greengay. He's got too bad a reputation. You've +more pride than that, Stella." + +The thin sweep of color he knew so well went over Stella's face. + +"His business reputation seems to be all right," she commented, +working the kid on with her left hand. + +"What if it is?" Percy broke out. "He's the cheapest kind of a +skate. He gets into scrapes with the girls in his own office. The +last one got into the newspapers, and he had to pay the girl a wad." + +"He don't get into scrapes with his books, anyway, and he seems to +be able to stand getting into the papers. I excuse Charley. His +wife's a pill." + +"I suppose you think he'd have been all right if he'd married you," +said Percy, bitterly. + +"Yes, I do." Stella buttoned her glove with an air of finishing +something, and then looked at Percy without animosity. "Charley and +I both have sporty tastes, and we like excitement. You might as well +live in Newark if you're going to sit at home in the evening. You +oughtn't to have married a business woman; you need somebody +domestic. There's nothing in this sort of life for either of us." + +"That means, I suppose, that you're going around with Greengay and +his crowd?" + +"Yes, that's my sort of crowd, and you never did fit into it. You're +too intellectual. I've always been proud of you, Percy. You're +better style than Charley, but that gets tiresome. You will never +burn much red fire in New York, now, will you?" + +Percy did not reply. He sat looking at the minute-hand of the +eviscerated Mission clock. His wife almost never took the trouble to +argue with him. + +"You're old style, Percy," she went on. "Of course everybody marries +and wishes they hadn't, but nowadays people get over it. Some women +go ahead on the quiet, but I'm giving it to you straight. I'm going +to work for Greengay. I like his line of business, and I meet people +well. Now I'm going to the Burks'." + +Percy dropped his hands limply between his knees. + +"I suppose," he brought out, "the real trouble is that you've +decided my earning power is not very great." + +"That's part of it, and part of it is you're old-fashioned." Stella +paused at the door and looked back. "What made you rush me, anyway, +Percy?" she asked indulgently. "What did you go and pretend to be a +spender and get tied up with me for?" + +"I guess everybody wants to be a spender when he's in love," Percy +replied. + +Stella shook her head mournfully. + +"No, you're a spender or you're not. Greengay has been broke three +times, fired, down and out, black-listed. But he's always come back, +and he always will. You will never be fired, but you'll always be +poor." She turned and looked back again before she went out. + + * * * * * + +Six months later Bixby came to young Oliver Remsen one afternoon and +said he would like to have twenty dollars a week held out of his pay +until his debt was cleared off. + +Oliver looked up at his sallow employee and asked him how he could +spare as much as that. + +"My expenses are lighter," Bixby replied. "My wife has gone into +business with a ready-to-wear firm. She is not living with me any +more." + +Oliver looked annoyed, and asked him if nothing could be done to +readjust his domestic affairs. Bixby said no; they would probably +remain as they were. + +"But where are you living, Bixby? How have you arranged things?" the +young man asked impatiently. + +"I'm very comfortable. I live in a boarding-house and have my own +furniture. There are several fellows there who are fixed the same +way. Their wives went back into business, and they drifted apart." + +With a baffled expression Remsen stared at the uneven shoulders +under the skin-fitting alpaca desk coat as his bookkeeper went out. +He had meant to do something for Percy, but somehow, he reflected, +one never did do anything for a fellow who had been stung as hard as +that. + + _Century_, May 1916 + + + + +_Ardessa_ + + +The grand-mannered old man who sat at a desk in the reception-room +of "The Outcry" offices to receive visitors and incidentally to keep +the time-book of the employees, looked up as Miss Devine entered at +ten minutes past ten and condescendingly wished him good morning. He +bowed profoundly as she minced past his desk, and with an +indifferent air took her course down the corridor that led to the +editorial offices. Mechanically he opened the flat, black book at +his elbow and placed his finger on D, running his eye along the line +of figures after the name Devine. "It's banker's hours she keeps, +indeed," he muttered. What was the use of entering so capricious a +record? Nevertheless, with his usual preliminary flourish he wrote +10:10 under this, the fourth day of May. + +The employee who kept banker's hours rustled on down the corridor to +her private room, hung up her lavender jacket and her trim spring +hat, and readjusted her side combs by the mirror inside her closet +door. Glancing at her desk, she rang for an office boy, and reproved +him because he had not dusted more carefully and because there were +lumps in her paste. When he disappeared with the paste-jar, she sat +down to decide which of her employer's letters he should see and +which he should not. + +Ardessa was not young and she was certainly not handsome. The +coquettish angle at which she carried her head was a mannerism +surviving from a time when it was more becoming. She shuddered at +the cold candor of the new business woman, and was insinuatingly +feminine. + +Ardessa's employer, like young Lochinvar, had come out of the West, +and he had done a great many contradictory things before he became +proprietor and editor of "The Outcry." Before he decided to go to +New York and make the East take notice of him, O'Mally had acquired +a punctual, reliable silver-mine in South Dakota. This silent friend +in the background made his journalistic success comparatively easy. +He had figured out, when he was a rich nobody in Nevada, that the +quickest way to cut into the known world was through the +printing-press. He arrived in New York, bought a highly respectable +publication, and turned it into a red-hot magazine of protest, which +he called "The Outcry." He knew what the West wanted, and it proved +to be what everybody secretly wanted. In six years he had done the +thing that had hitherto seemed impossible: built up a national +weekly, out on the news-stands the same day in New York and San +Francisco; a magazine the people howled for, a moving-picture film +of their real tastes and interests. + +O'Mally bought "The Outcry" to make a stir, not to make a career, +but he had got built into the thing more than he ever intended. It +had made him a public man and put him into politics. He found the +publicity game diverting, and it held him longer than any other game +had ever done. He had built up about him an organization of which he +was somewhat afraid and with which he was vastly bored. On his staff +there were five famous men, and he had made every one of them. At +first it amused him to manufacture celebrities. He found he could +take an average reporter from the daily press, give him a "line" to +follow, a trust to fight, a vice to expose,--this was all in that +good time when people were eager to read about their own +wickedness,--and in two years the reporter would be recognized as an +authority. Other people--Napoleon, Disraeli, Sarah Bernhardt--had +discovered that advertising would go a long way; but Marcus O'Mally +discovered that in America it would go all the way--as far as you +wished to pay its passage. Any human countenance, plastered in +three-sheet posters from sea to sea, would be revered by the +American people. The strangest thing was that the owners of these +grave countenances, staring at their own faces on newsstands and +billboards, fell to venerating themselves; and even he, O'Mally, was +more or less constrained by these reputations that he had created +out of cheap paper and cheap ink. + +Constraint was the last thing O'Mally liked. The most engaging and +unusual thing about the man was that he couldn't be fooled by the +success of his own methods, and no amount of "recognition" could +make a stuffed shirt of him. No matter how much he was advertised as +a great medicine-man in the councils of the nation, he knew that he +was a born gambler and a soldier of fortune. He left his dignified +office to take care of itself for a good many months of the year +while he played about on the outskirts of social order. He liked +being a great man from the East in rough-and-tumble Western cities +where he had once been merely an unconsidered spender. + +O'Mally's long absences constituted one of the supreme advantages of +Ardessa Devine's position. When he was at his post her duties were +not heavy, but when he was giving balls in Goldfield, Nevada, she +lived an ideal life. She came to the office every day, indeed, to +forward such of O'Mally's letters as she thought best, to attend to +his club notices and tradesmen's bills, and to taste the sense of +her high connections. The great men of the staff were all about her, +as contemplative as Buddhas in their private offices, each +meditating upon the particular trust or form of vice confided to his +care. Thus surrounded, Ardessa had a pleasant sense of being at the +heart of things. It was like a mental massage, exercise without +exertion. She read and she embroidered. Her room was pleasant, and +she liked to be seen at ladylike tasks and to feel herself a +graceful contrast to the crude girls in the advertising and +circulation departments across the hall. The younger stenographers, +who had to get through with the enormous office correspondence, and +who rushed about from one editor to another with wire baskets full +of letters, made faces as they passed Ardessa's door and saw her +cool and cloistered, daintily plying her needle. But no matter how +hard the other stenographers were driven, no one, not even one of +the five oracles of the staff, dared dictate so much as a letter to +Ardessa. Like a sultan's bride, she was inviolate in her lord's +absence; she had to be kept for him. + +Naturally the other young women employed in "The Outcry" offices +disliked Miss Devine. They were all competent girls, trained in the +exacting methods of modern business, and they had to make good every +day in the week, had to get through with a great deal of work or +lose their position. O'Mally's private secretary was a mystery to +them. Her exemptions and privileges, her patronizing remarks, formed +an exhaustless subject of conversation at the lunch-hour. Ardessa +had, indeed, as they knew she must have, a kind of "purchase" on her +employer. + +When O'Mally first came to New York to break into publicity, he +engaged Miss Devine upon the recommendation of the editor whose +ailing publication he bought and rechristened. That editor was a +conservative, scholarly gentleman of the old school, who was +retiring because he felt out of place in the world of brighter, +breezier magazines that had been flowering since the new century +came in. He believed that in this vehement world young O'Mally would +make himself heard and that Miss Devine's training in an editorial +office would be of use to him. + +When O'Mally first sat down at a desk to be an editor, all the cards +that were brought in looked pretty much alike to him. Ardessa was at +his elbow. She had long been steeped in literary distinctions and in +the social distinctions which used to count for much more than they +do now. She knew all the great men, all the nephews and clients of +great men. She knew which must be seen, which must be made welcome, +and which could safely be sent away. She could give O'Mally on the +instant the former rating in magazine offices of nearly every name +that was brought in to him. She could give him an idea of the man's +connections, of the price his work commanded, and insinuate whether +he ought to be met with the old punctiliousness or with the new +joviality. She was useful in explaining to her employer the +significance of various invitations, and the standing of clubs and +associations. At first she was virtually the social mentor of the +bullet-headed young Westerner who wanted to break into everything, +the solitary person about the office of the humming new magazine who +knew anything about the editorial traditions of the eighties and +nineties which, antiquated as they now were, gave an editor, as +O'Mally said, a background. + +Despite her indolence, Ardessa was useful to O'Mally as a social +reminder. She was the card catalogue of his ever-changing personal +relations. O'Mally went in for everything and got tired of +everything; that was why he made a good editor. After he was through +with people, Ardessa was very skilful in covering his retreat. She +read and answered the letters of admirers who had begun to bore him. +When great authors, who had been dined and feted the month before, +were suddenly left to cool their heels in the reception-room, thrown +upon the suave hospitality of the grand old man at the desk, it was +Ardessa who went out and made soothing and plausible explanations as +to why the editor could not see them. She was the brake that checked +the too-eager neophyte, the emollient that eased the severing of +relationships, the gentle extinguisher of the lights that failed. +When there were no longer messages of hope and cheer to be sent to +ardent young writers and reformers, Ardessa delivered, as sweetly as +possible, whatever messages were left. + +In handling these people with whom O'Mally was quite through, +Ardessa had gradually developed an industry which was immensely +gratifying to her own vanity. Not only did she not crush them; she +even fostered them a little. She continued to advise them in the +reception-room and "personally" received their manuscripts long +after O'Mally had declared that he would never read another line +they wrote. She let them outline their plans for stories and +articles to her, promising to bring these suggestions to the +editor's attention. She denied herself to nobody, was gracious even +to the Shakspere-Bacon man, the perpetual-motion man, the +travel-article man, the ghosts which haunt every magazine office. +The writers who had had their happy hour of O'Mally's favor kept +feeling that Ardessa might reinstate them. She answered their +letters of inquiry in her most polished and elegant style, and even +gave them hints as to the subjects in which the restless editor was +or was not interested at the moment: she feared it would be useless +to send him an article on "How to Trap Lions," because he had just +bought an article on "Elephant-Shooting in Majuba Land," etc. + +So when O'Mally plunged into his office at 11:30 on this, the fourth +day of May, having just got back from three-days' fishing, he found +Ardessa in the reception-room, surrounded by a little court of +discards. This was annoying, for he always wanted his stenographer +at once. Telling the office boy to give her a hint that she was +needed, he threw off his hat and topcoat and began to race through +the pile of letters Ardessa had put on his desk. When she entered, +he did not wait for her polite inquiries about his trip, but broke +in at once. + +"What is that fellow who writes about phossy jaw still hanging round +here for? I don't want any articles on phossy jaw, and if I did, I +wouldn't want his." + +"He has just sold an article on the match industry to 'The New Age,' +Mr. O'Mally," Ardessa replied as she took her seat at the editor's +right. + +"Why does he have to come and tell us about it? We've nothing to do +with 'The New Age.' And that prison-reform guy, what's he loafing +about for?" + +Ardessa bridled. + +"You remember, Mr. O'Mally, he brought letters of introduction from +Governor Harper, the reform Governor of Mississippi." + +O'Mally jumped up, kicking over his waste-basket in his impatience. + +"That was months ago. I went through his letters and went through him, +too. He hasn't got anything we want. I've been through with Governor +Harper a long while. We're asleep at the switch in here. And let me +tell you, if I catch sight of that causes-of-blindness-in-babies +woman around here again, I'll do something violent. Clear them out, +Miss Devine! Clear them out! We need a traffic policeman in this +office. Have you got that article on 'Stealing Our National Water +Power' ready for me?" + +"Mr. Gerrard took it back to make modifications. He gave it to me at +noon on Saturday, just before the office closed. I will have it +ready for you to-morrow morning, Mr. O'Mally, if you have not too +many letters for me this afternoon," Ardessa replied pointedly. + +"Holy Mike!" muttered O'Mally, "we need a traffic policeman for the +staff, too. Gerrard's modified that thing half a dozen times +already. Why don't they get accurate information in the first +place?" + +He began to dictate his morning mail, walking briskly up and down +the floor by way of giving his stenographer an energetic example. +Her indolence and her ladylike deportment weighed on him. He wanted +to take her by the elbows and run her around the block. He didn't +mind that she loafed when he was away, but it was becoming harder +and harder to speed her up when he was on the spot. He knew his +correspondence was not enough to keep her busy, so when he was in +town he made her type his own breezy editorials and various articles +by members of his staff. + +Transcribing editorial copy is always laborious, and the only way to +make it easy is to farm it out. This Ardessa was usually clever +enough to do. When she returned to her own room after O'Mally had +gone out to lunch, Ardessa rang for an office boy and said +languidly, "James, call Becky, please." + +In a moment a thin, tense-faced Hebrew girl of eighteen or nineteen +came rushing in, carrying a wire basket full of typewritten sheets. +She was as gaunt as a plucked spring chicken, and her cheap, gaudy +clothes might have been thrown on her. She looked as if she were +running to catch a train and in mortal dread of missing it. While +Miss Devine examined the pages in the basket, Becky stood with her +shoulders drawn up and her elbows drawn in, apparently trying to +hide herself in her insufficient open-work waist. Her wild, black +eyes followed Miss Devine's hands desperately. Ardessa sighed. + +"This seems to be very smeary copy again, Becky. You don't keep your +mind on your work, and so you have to erase continually." + +Becky spoke up in wailing self-vindication. + +"It ain't that, Miss Devine. It's so many hard words he uses that I +have to be at the dictionary all the time. Look! Look!" She produced +a bunch of manuscript faintly scrawled in pencil, and thrust it +under Ardessa's eyes. "He don't write out the words at all. He just +begins a word, and then makes waves for you to guess." + +"I see you haven't always guessed correctly, Becky," said Ardessa, +with a weary smile. "There are a great many words here that would +surprise Mr. Gerrard, I am afraid." + +"And the inserts," Becky persisted. "How is anybody to tell where +they go, Miss Devine? It's mostly inserts; see, all over the top and +sides and back." + +Ardessa turned her head away. + +"Don't claw the pages like that, Becky. You make me nervous. Mr. +Gerrard has not time to dot his i's and cross his t's. That is what +we keep copyists for. I will correct these sheets for you,--it would +be terrible if Mr. O'Mally saw them,--and then you can copy them +over again. It must be done by to-morrow morning, so you may have to +work late. See that your hands are clean and dry, and then you will +not smear it." + +"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Miss Devine. Will you tell the janitor, +please, it's all right if I have to stay? He was cross because I was +here Saturday afternoon doing this. He said it was a holiday, and +when everybody else was gone I ought to--" + +"That will do, Becky. Yes, I will speak to the janitor for you. You +may go to lunch now." + +Becky turned on one heel and then swung back. + +"Miss Devine," she said anxiously, "will it be all right if I get +white shoes for now?" + +Ardessa gave her kind consideration. + +"For office wear, you mean? No, Becky. With only one pair, you could +not keep them properly clean; and black shoes are much less +conspicuous. Tan, if you prefer." + +Becky looked down at her feet. They were too large, and her skirt +was as much too short as her legs were too long. + +"Nearly all the girls I know wear white shoes to business," she +pleaded. + +"They are probably little girls who work in factories or department +stores, and that is quite another matter. Since you raise the +question, Becky, I ought to speak to you about your new waist. Don't +wear it to the office again, please. Those cheap open-work waists +are not appropriate in an office like this. They are all very well +for little chorus girls." + +"But Miss Kalski wears expensive waists to business more open than +this, and jewelry--" + +Ardessa interrupted. Her face grew hard. + +"Miss Kalski," she said coldly, "works for the business department. +You are employed in the editorial offices. There is a great +difference. You see, Becky, I might have to call you in here at any +time when a scientist or a great writer or the president of a +university is here talking over editorial matters, and such clothes +as you have on to-day would make a bad impression. Nearly all our +connections are with important people of that kind, and we ought to +be well, but quietly, dressed." + +"Yes, Miss Devine. Thank you," Becky gasped and disappeared. Heaven +knew she had no need to be further impressed with the greatness of +"The Outcry" office. During the year and a half she had been there +she had never ceased to tremble. She knew the prices all the authors +got as well as Miss Devine did, and everything seemed to her to be +done on a magnificent scale. She hadn't a good memory for long +technical words, but she never forgot dates or prices or initials or +telephone numbers. + +Becky felt that her job depended on Miss Devine, and she was so glad +to have it that she scarcely realized she was being bullied. +Besides, she was grateful for all that she had learned from Ardessa; +Ardessa had taught her to do most of the things that she was +supposed to do herself. Becky wanted to learn, she had to learn; +that was the train she was always running for. Her father, Isaac +Tietelbaum, the tailor, who pressed Miss Devine's skirts and kept +her ladylike suits in order, had come to his client two years ago +and told her he had a bright girl just out of a commercial high +school. He implored Ardessa to find some office position for his +daughter. Ardessa told an appealing story to O'Mally, and brought +Becky into the office, at a salary of six dollars a week, to help +with the copying and to learn business routine. When Becky first +came she was as ignorant as a young savage. She was rapid at her +shorthand and typing, but a Kafir girl would have known as much +about the English language. Nobody ever wanted to learn more than +Becky. She fairly wore the dictionary out. She dug up her old school +grammar and worked over it at night. She faithfully mastered Miss +Devine's fussy system of punctuation. + +There were eight children at home, younger than Becky, and they were +all eager to learn. They wanted to get their mother out of the three +dark rooms behind the tailor shop and to move into a flat up-stairs, +where they could, as Becky said, "live private." The young +Tietelbaums doubted their father's ability to bring this change +about, for the more things he declared himself ready to do in his +window placards, the fewer were brought to him to be done. "Dyeing, +Cleaning, Ladies' Furs Remodeled"--it did no good. + +Rebecca was out to "improve herself," as her father had told her she +must. Ardessa had easy way with her. It was one of those rare +relationships from which both persons profit. The more Becky could +learn from Ardessa, the happier she was; and the more Ardessa could +unload on Becky, the greater was her contentment. She easily broke +Becky of the gum-chewing habit, taught her to walk quietly, to +efface herself at the proper moment, and to hold her tongue. Becky +had been raised to eight dollars a week; but she didn't care half so +much about that as she did about her own increasing efficiency. The +more work Miss Devine handed over to her the happier she was, and +the faster she was able to eat it up. She tested and tried herself +in every possible way. She now had full confidence that she would +surely one day be a high-priced stenographer, a real "business +woman." + +Becky would have corrupted a really industrious person, but a +bilious temperament like Ardessa's couldn't make even a feeble stand +against such willingness. Ardessa had grown soft and had lost the +knack of turning out work. Sometimes, in her importance and +serenity, she shivered. What if O'Mally should die, and she were +thrust out into the world to work in competition with the brazen, +competent young women she saw about her everywhere? She believed +herself indispensable, but she knew that in such a mischanceful +world as this the very powers of darkness might rise to separate her +from this pearl among jobs. + +When Becky came in from lunch she went down the long hall to the +wash-room, where all the little girls who worked in the advertising +and circulation departments kept their hats and jackets. There were +shelves and shelves of bright spring hats, piled on top of one +another, all as stiff as sheet-iron and trimmed with gay flowers. At +the marble wash-stand stood Rena Kalski, the right bower of the +business manager, polishing her diamond rings with a nail-brush. + +"Hullo, kid," she called over her shoulder to Becky. "I've got a +ticket for you for Thursday afternoon." + +Becky's black eyes glowed, but the strained look on her face drew +tighter than ever. + +"I'll never ask her, Miss Kalski," she said rapidly. "I don't dare. +I have to stay late to-night again; and I know she'd be hard to +please after, if I was to try to get off on a week-day. I thank you, +Miss Kalski, but I'd better not." + +Miss Kalski laughed. She was a slender young Hebrew, handsome in an +impudent, Tenderloin sort of way, with a small head, reddish-brown +almond eyes, a trifle tilted, a rapacious mouth, and a beautiful +chin. + +"Ain't you under that woman's thumb, though! Call her bluff. She +isn't half the prima donna she thinks she is. On my side of the hall +we know who's who about this place." + +The business and editorial departments of "The Outcry" were +separated by a long corridor and a great contempt. Miss Kalski dried +her rings with tissue-paper and studied them with an appraising eye. + +"Well, since you're such a 'fraidy-calf,'" she went on, "maybe I can +get a rise out of her myself. Now I've got you a ticket out of that +shirt-front, I want you to go. I'll drop in on Devine this +afternoon." + +When Miss Kalski went back to her desk in the business manager's +private office, she turned to him familiarly, but not impertinently. + +"Mr. Henderson, I want to send a kid over in the editorial +stenographers' to the Palace Thursday afternoon. She's a nice kid, +only she's scared out of her skin all the time. Miss Devine's her +boss, and she'll be just mean enough not to let the young one off. +Would you say a word to her?" + +The business manager lit a cigar. + +"I'm not saying words to any of the high-brows over there. Try it +out with Devine yourself. You're not bashful." + +Miss Kalski shrugged her shoulders and smiled. + +"Oh, very well." She serpentined out of the room and crossed the +Rubicon into the editorial offices. She found Ardessa typing +O'Mally's letters and wearing a pained expression. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Devine," she said carelessly. "Can we borrow +Becky over there for Thursday afternoon? We're short." + +Miss Devine looked piqued and tilted her head. + +"I don't think it's customary, Miss Kalski, for the business +department to use our people. We never have girls enough here to do +the work. Of course if Mr. Henderson feels justified--" + +"Thanks awfully, Miss Devine,"--Miss Kalski interrupted her with the +perfectly smooth, good-natured tone which never betrayed a hint of +the scorn every line of her sinuous figure expressed,--"I will tell +Mr. Henderson. Perhaps we can do something for you some day." +Whether this was a threat, a kind wish, or an insinuation, no mortal +could have told. Miss Kalski's face was always suggesting insolence +without being quite insolent. As she returned to her own domain she +met the cashier's head clerk in the hall. "That Devine woman's a +crime," she murmured. The head clerk laughed tolerantly. + +That afternoon as Miss Kalski was leaving the office at 5:15, on her +way down the corridor she heard a typewriter clicking away in the +empty, echoing editorial offices. She looked in, and found Becky +bending forward over the machine as if she were about to swallow it. + +"Hello, kid. Do you sleep with that?" she called. She walked up to +Becky and glanced at her copy. "What do you let 'em keep you up +nights over that stuff for?" she asked contemptuously. "The world +wouldn't suffer if that stuff never got printed." + +Rebecca looked up wildly. Not even Miss Kalski's French pansy hat or +her ear-rings and landscape veil could loosen Becky's tenacious mind +from Mr. Gerrard's article on water power. She scarcely knew what +Miss Kalski had said to her, certainly not what she meant. + +"But I must make progress already, Miss Kalski," she panted. + +Miss Kalski gave her low, siren laugh. + +"I should say you must!" she ejaculated. + + * * * * * + +Ardessa decided to take her vacation in June, and she arranged that +Miss Milligan should do O'Mally's work while she was away. Miss +Milligan was blunt and noisy, rapid and inaccurate. It would be just +as well for O'Mally to work with a coarse instrument for a time; he +would be more appreciative, perhaps, of certain qualities to which +he had seemed insensible of late. Ardessa was to leave for East +Hampton on Sunday, and she spent Saturday morning instructing her +substitute as to the state of the correspondence. At noon O'Mally +burst into her room. All the morning he had been closeted with a new +writer of mystery-stories just over from England. + +"Can you stay and take my letters this afternoon, Miss Devine? You +'re not leaving until to-morrow." + +Ardessa pouted, and tilted her head at the angle he was tired of. + +"I'm sorry, Mr. O'Mally, but I've left all my shopping for this +afternoon. I think Becky Tietelbaum could do them for you. I will +tell her to be careful." + +"Oh, all right." O'Mally bounced out with a reflection of Ardessa's +disdainful expression on his face. Saturday afternoon was always a +half-holiday, to be sure, but since she had weeks of freedom when he +was away--However-- + +At two o'clock Becky Tietelbaum appeared at his door, clad in the +sober office suit which Miss Devine insisted she should wear, her +note-book in her hand, and so frightened that her fingers were cold +and her lips were pale. She had never taken dictation from the +editor before. It was a great and terrifying occasion. + +"Sit down," he said encouragingly. He began dictating while he shook +from his bag the manuscripts he had snatched away from the amazed +English author that morning. Presently he looked up. + +"Do I go too fast?" + +"No, sir," Becky found strength to say. + +At the end of an hour he told her to go and type as many of the +letters as she could while he went over the bunch of stuff he had +torn from the Englishman. He was with the Hindu detective in an +opium den in Shanghai when Becky returned and placed a pile of +papers on his desk. + +"How many?" he asked, without looking up. + +"All you gave me, sir." + +"All, so soon? Wait a minute and let me see how many mistakes." He +went over the letters rapidly, signing them as he read. "They seem +to be all right. I thought you were the girl that made so many +mistakes." + +Rebecca was never too frightened to vindicate herself. + +"Mr. O'Mally, sir, I don't make mistakes with letters. It's only +copying the articles that have so many long words, and when the +writing isn't plain, like Mr. Gerrard's. I never make many mistakes +with Mr. Johnson's articles, or with yours I don't." + +O'Mally wheeled round in his chair, looked with curiosity at her +long, tense face, her black eyes, and straight brows. + +"Oh, so you sometimes copy articles, do you? How does that happen?" + +"Yes, sir. Always Miss Devine gives me the articles to do. It's good +practice for me." + +"I see." O'Mally shrugged his shoulders. He was thinking that he +could get a rise out of the whole American public any day easier +than he could get a rise out of Ardessa. "What editorials of mine +have you copied lately, for instance?" + +Rebecca blazed out at him, reciting rapidly: + +"Oh, 'A Word about the Rosenbaums,' 'Useless Navy-Yards,' 'Who +Killed Cock Robin'--" + +"Wait a minute." O'Mally checked her flow. "What was that one +about--Cock Robin?" + +"It was all about why the secretary of the interior dismissed--" + +"All right, all right. Copy those letters, and put them down the +chute as you go out. Come in here for a minute on Monday morning." + +Becky hurried home to tell her father that she had taken the +editor's letters and had made no mistakes. On Monday she learned +that she was to do O'Mally's work for a few days. He disliked Miss +Milligan, and he was annoyed with Ardessa for trying to put her over +on him when there was better material at hand. With Rebecca he got +on very well; she was impersonal, unreproachful, and she fairly +panted for work. Everything was done almost before he told her what +he wanted. She raced ahead with him; it was like riding a good +modern bicycle after pumping along on an old hard tire. + +On the day before Miss Devine's return O'Mally strolled over for a +chat with the business office. + +"Henderson, your people are taking vacations now, I suppose? Could +you use an extra girl?" + +"If it's that thin black one, I can." + +O'Mally gave him a wise smile. + +"It isn't. To be honest, I want to put one over on you. I want you +to take Miss Devine over here for a while and speed her up. I can't +do anything. She's got the upper hand of me. I don't want to fire +her, you understand, but she makes my life too difficult. It's my +fault, of course. I've pampered her. Give her a chance over here; +maybe she'll come back. You can be firm with 'em, can't you?" + +Henderson glanced toward the desk where Miss Kalski's lightning eye +was skimming over the printing-house bills that he was supposed to +verify himself. + +"Well, if I can't, I know who can," he replied, with a chuckle. + +"Exactly," O'Mally agreed. "I'm counting on the force of Miss +Kalski's example. Miss Devine's all right, Miss Kalski, but she +needs regular exercise. She owes it to her complexion. I can't +discipline people." + +Miss Kalski's only reply was a low, indulgent laugh. + +O'Mally braced himself on the morning of Ardessa's return. He told +the waiter at his club to bring him a second pot of coffee and to +bring it hot. He was really afraid of her. When she presented +herself at his office at 10:30 he complimented her upon her tan and +asked about her vacation. Then he broke the news to her. + +"We want to make a few temporary changes about here, Miss Devine, +for the summer months. The business department is short of help. +Henderson is going to put Miss Kalski on the books for a while to +figure out some economies for him, and he is going to take you over. +Meantime I'll get Becky broken in so that she could take your work +if you were sick or anything." + +Ardessa drew herself up. + +"I've not been accustomed to commercial work, Mr. O'Mally. I've no +interest in it, and I don't care to brush up in it." + +"Brushing up is just what we need, Miss Devine." O'Mally began +tramping about his room expansively. "I'm going to brush everybody +up. I'm going to brush a few people out; but I want you to stay with +us, of course. You belong here. Don't be hasty now. Go to your room +and think it over." + +Ardessa was beginning to cry, and O'Mally was afraid he would lose +his nerve. He looked out of the window at a new sky-scraper that was +building, while she retired without a word. + +At her own desk Ardessa sat down breathless and trembling. The one +thing she had never doubted was her unique value to O'Mally. She +had, as she told herself, taught him everything. She would say a few +things to Becky Tietelbaum, and to that pigeon-breasted tailor, her +father, too! The worst of it was that Ardessa had herself brought it +all about; she could see that clearly now. She had carefully trained +and qualified her successor. Why had she ever civilized Becky? Why +had she taught her manners and deportment, broken her of the +gum-chewing habit, and made her presentable? In her original state +O'Mally would never have put up with her, no matter what her +ability. + +Ardessa told herself that O'Mally was notoriously fickle; Becky +amused him, but he would soon find out her limitations. The wise +thing, she knew, was to humor him; but it seemed to her that she +could not swallow her pride. Ardessa grew yellower within the hour. +Over and over in her mind she bade O'Mally a cold adieu and minced +out past the grand old man at the desk for the last time. But each +exit she rehearsed made her feel sorrier for herself. She thought +over all the offices she knew, but she realized that she could never +meet their inexorable standards of efficiency. + +While she was bitterly deliberating, O'Mally himself wandered in, +rattling his keys nervously in his pocket. He shut the door behind +him. + +"Now, you're going to come through with this all right, aren't you, +Miss Devine? I want Henderson to get over the notion that my people +over here are stuck up and think the business department are old +shoes. That's where we get our money from, as he often reminds me. +You'll be the best-paid girl over there; no reduction, of course. +You don't want to go wandering off to some new office where +personality doesn't count for anything." He sat down confidentially +on the edge of her desk. "Do you, now, Miss Devine?" + +Ardessa simpered tearfully as she replied. + +"Mr. O'Mally," she brought out, "you'll soon find that Becky is not +the sort of girl to meet people for you when you are away. I don't +see how you can think of letting her." + +"That's one thing I want to change, Miss Devine. You're too +soft-handed with the has-beens and the never-was-ers. You're too +much of a lady for this rough game. Nearly everybody who comes in +here wants to sell us a gold-brick, and you treat them as if they +were bringing in wedding presents. Becky is as rough as sandpaper, +and she'll clear out a lot of dead wood." O'Mally rose, and tapped +Ardessa's shrinking shoulder. "Now, be a sport and go through with +it, Miss Devine. I'll see that you don't lose. Henderson thinks +you'll refuse to do his work, so I want you to get moved in there +before he comes back from lunch. I've had a desk put in his office +for you. Miss Kalski is in the bookkeeper's room half the time now." + +Rena Kalski was amazed that afternoon when a line of office boys +entered, carrying Miss Devine's effects, and when Ardessa herself +coldly followed them. After Ardessa had arranged her desk, Miss +Kalski went over to her and told her about some matters of routine +very good-naturedly. Ardessa looked pretty badly shaken up, and Rena +bore no grudges. + +"When you want the dope on the correspondence with the paper men, +don't bother to look it up. I've got it all in my head, and I can +save time for you. If he wants you to go over the printing bills +every week, you'd better let me help you with that for a while. I +can stay almost any afternoon. It's quite a trick to figure out the +plates and over-time charges till you get used to it. I've worked +out a quick method that saves trouble." + +When Henderson came in at three he found Ardessa, chilly, but civil, +awaiting his instructions. He knew she disapproved of his tastes and +his manners, but he didn't mind. What interested and amused him was +that Rena Kalski, whom he had always thought as cold-blooded as an +adding-machine, seemed to be making a hair-mattress of herself to +break Ardessa's fall. + +At five o'clock, when Ardessa rose to go, the business manager said +breezily: + +"See you at nine in the morning, Miss Devine. We begin on the +stroke." + +Ardessa faded out of the door, and Miss Kalski's slender back +squirmed with amusement. + +"I never thought to hear such words spoken," she admitted; "but I +guess she'll limber up all right. The atmosphere is bad over there. +They get moldy." + + * * * * * + +After the next monthly luncheon of the heads of departments, O'Mally +said to Henderson, as he feed the coat-boy: + +"By the way, how are you making it with the bartered bride?" + +Henderson smashed on his Panama as he said: + +"Any time you want her back, don't be delicate." + +But O'Mally shook his red head and laughed. + +"Oh, I'm no Indian giver!" + + _Century_, May 1918 + + + + +_Her Boss_ + + +Paul Wanning opened the front door of his house in Orange, closed it +softly behind him, and stood looking about the hall as he drew off +his gloves. + +Nothing was changed there since last night, and yet he stood gazing +about him with an interest which a long-married man does not often +feel in his own reception hall. The rugs, the two pillars, the +Spanish tapestry chairs, were all the same. The Venus di Medici +stood on her column as usual and there, at the end of the hall +(opposite the front door), was the full-length portrait of Mrs. +Wanning, maturely blooming forth in an evening gown, signed with the +name of a French painter who seemed purposely to have made his +signature indistinct. Though the signature was largely what one paid +for, one couldn't ask him to do it over. + +In the dining room the colored man was moving about the table set +for dinner, under the electric cluster. The candles had not yet been +lighted. Wanning watched him with a homesick feeling in his heart. +They had had Sam a long while, twelve years, now. His warm hall, the +lighted dining-room, the drawing room where only the flicker of the +wood fire played upon the shining surfaces of many objects--they +seemed to Wanning like a haven of refuge. It had never occurred to +him that his house was too full of things. He often said, and he +believed, that the women of his household had "perfect taste." He +had paid for these objects, sometimes with difficulty, but always +with pride. He carried a heavy life-insurance and permitted himself +to spend most of the income from a good law practise. He wished, +during his life-time, to enjoy the benefits of his wife's +discriminating extravagance. + +Yesterday Wanning's doctor had sent him to a specialist. Today the +specialist, after various laboratory tests, had told him most +disconcerting things about the state of very necessary, but hitherto +wholly uninteresting, organs of his body. + +The information pointed to something incredible; insinuated that his +residence in this house was only temporary; that he, whose time was so +full, might have to leave not only his house and his office and his +club, but a world with which he was extremely well satisfied--the +only world he knew anything about. + +Wanning unbuttoned his overcoat, but did not take it off. He stood +folding his muffler slowly and carefully. What he did not understand +was, how he could go while other people stayed. Sam would be moving +about the table like this, Mrs. Wanning and her daughters would be +dressing upstairs, when he would not be coming home to dinner any +more; when he would not, indeed, be dining anywhere. + +Sam, coming to turn on the parlor lights, saw Wanning and stepped +behind him to take his coat. + +"Good evening, Mr. Wanning, sah, excuse me. You entahed so quietly, +sah, I didn't heah you." + +The master of the house slipped out of his coat and went languidly +upstairs. + +He tapped at the door of his wife's room, which stood ajar. + +"Come in, Paul," she called from her dressing table. + +She was seated, in a violet dressing gown, giving the last touches to +her coiffure, both arms lifted. They were firm and white, like her neck +and shoulders. She was a handsome woman of fifty-five,--still a +woman, not an old person, Wanning told himself, as he kissed her +cheek. She was heavy in figure, to be sure, but she had kept, on the +whole, presentable outlines. Her complexion was good, and she wore +less false hair than either of her daughters. + +Wanning himself was five years older, but his sandy hair did not +show the gray in it, and since his mustache had begun to grow white +he kept it clipped so short that it was unobtrusive. His fresh skin +made him look younger than he was. Not long ago he had overheard the +stenographers in his law office discussing the ages of their +employers. They had put him down at fifty, agreeing that his two +partners must be considerably older than he--which was not the case. +Wanning had an especially kindly feeling for the little new girl, a +copyist, who had exclaimed that "Mr. Wanning couldn't be fifty; he +seemed so boyish!" + +Wanning lingered behind his wife, looking at her in the mirror. + +"Well, did you tell the girls, Julia?" he asked, trying to speak +casually. + +Mrs. Wanning looked up and met his eyes in the glass. "The girls?" + +She noticed a strange expression come over his face. + +"About your health, you mean? Yes, dear, but I tried not to alarm +them. They feel dreadfully. I'm going to have a talk with Dr. Seares +myself. These specialists are all alarmists, and I've often heard of +his frightening people." + +She rose and took her husband's arm, drawing him toward the +fireplace. + +"You are not going to let this upset you, Paul? If you take care of +yourself, everything will come out all right. You have always been +so strong. One has only to look at you." + +"Did you," Wanning asked, "say anything to Harold?" + +"Yes, of course. I saw him in town today, and he agrees with me that +Seares draws the worst conclusions possible. He says even the young +men are always being told the most terrifying things. Usually they +laugh at the doctors and do as they please. You certainly don't look +like a sick man, and you don't feel like one, do you?" + +She patted his shoulder, smiled at him encouragingly, and rang for +the maid to come and hook her dress. + +When the maid appeared at the door, Wanning went out through the +bathroom to his own sleeping chamber. He was too much dispirited to +put on a dinner coat, though such remissness was always noticed. He +sat down and waited for the sound of the gong, leaving his door +open, on the chance that perhaps one of his daughters would come in. + +When Wanning went down to dinner he found his wife already at her +chair, and the table laid for four. + +"Harold," she explained, "is not coming home. He has to attend a +first night in town." + +A moment later their two daughters entered, obviously "dressed." +They both wore earrings and masses of hair. The daughters' names +were Roma and Florence,--Roma, Firenze, one of the young men who +came to the house often, but not often enough, had called them. +Tonight they were going to a rehearsal of "The Dances of the +Nations,"--a benefit performance in which Miss Roma was to lead the +Spanish dances, her sister the Grecian. + +The elder daughter had often been told that her name suited her +admirably. She looked, indeed, as we are apt to think the +unrestrained beauties of later Rome must have looked,--but as their +portrait busts emphatically declare they did not. Her head was +massive, her lips full and crimson, her eyes large and heavy-lidded, +her forehead low. At costume balls and in living pictures she was +always Semiramis, or Poppea, or Theodora. Barbaric accessories +brought out something cruel and even rather brutal in her handsome +face. The men who were attracted to her were somehow afraid of her. + +Florence was slender, with a long, graceful neck, a restless head, +and a flexible mouth--discontent lurked about the corners of it. Her +shoulders were pretty, but her neck and arms were too thin. Roma was +always struggling to keep within a certain weight--her chin and +upper arms grew persistently more solid--and Florence was always +striving to attain a certain weight. Wanning used sometimes to +wonder why these disconcerting fluctuations could not go the other +way; why Roma could not melt away as easily as did her sister, who +had to be sent to Palm Beach to save the precious pounds. + +"I don't see why you ever put Rickie Allen in charge of the English +country dances," Florence said to her sister, as they sat down. "He +knows the figures, of course, but he has no real style." + +Roma looked annoyed. Rickie Allen was one of the men who came to the +house almost often enough. + +"He is absolutely to be depended upon, that's why," she said firmly. + +"I think he is just right for it, Florence," put in Mrs. Wanning. +"It's remarkable he should feel that he can give up the time; such a +busy man. He must be very much interested in the movement." + +Florence's lip curled drolly under her soup spoon. She shot an +amused glance at her mother's dignity. + +"Nothing doing," her keen eyes seemed to say. + +Though Florence was nearly thirty and her sister a little beyond, +there was, seriously, nothing doing. With so many charms and so much +preparation, they never, as Florence vulgarly said, quite pulled it +off. They had been rushed, time and again, and Mrs. Wanning had +repeatedly steeled herself to bear the blow. But the young men went +to follow a career in Mexico or the Philippines, or moved to +Yonkers, and escaped without a mortal wound. + +Roma turned graciously to her father. + +"I met Mr. Lane at the Holland House today, where I was lunching +with the Burtons, father. He asked about you, and when I told him +you were not so well as usual, he said he would call you up. He +wants to tell you about some doctor he discovered in Iowa, who cures +everything with massage and hot water. It sounds freakish, but Mr. +Lane is a very clever man, isn't he?" + +"Very," assented Wanning. + +"I should think he must be!" sighed Mrs. Wanning. "How in the world +did he make all that money, Paul? He didn't seem especially +promising years ago, when we used to see so much of them." + +"Corporation business. He's attorney for the P. L. and G.," murmured +her husband. + +"What a pile he must have!" Florence watched the old negro's slow +movements with restless eyes. "Here is Jenny, a Contessa, with a +glorious palace in Genoa that her father must have bought her. +Surely Aldrini had nothing. Have you seen the baby count's pictures, +Roma? They're very cunning. I should think you'd go to Genoa and +visit Jenny." + +"We must arrange that, Roma. It's such an opportunity." Though Mrs. +Wanning addressed her daughter, she looked at her husband. "You +would get on so well among their friends. When Count Aldrini was +here you spoke Italian much better than poor Jenny. I remember when +we entertained him, he could scarcely say anything to her at all." + +Florence tried to call up an answering flicker of amusement upon her +sister's calm, well-bred face. She thought her mother was rather +outdoing herself tonight,--since Aldrini had at least managed to say +the one important thing to Jenny, somehow, somewhere. Jenny Lane had +been Roma's friend and schoolmate, and the Count was an ephemeral +hope in Orange. Mrs. Wanning was one of the first matrons to declare +that she had no prejudices against foreigners, and at the dinners +that were given for the Count, Roma was always put next him to act +as interpreter. + +Roma again turned to her father. + +"If I were you, dear, I would let Mr. Lane tell me about his doctor. +New discoveries are often made by queer people." + +Roma's voice was low and sympathetic; she never lost her dignity. + +Florence asked if she might have her coffee in her room, while she +dashed off a note, and she ran upstairs humming "Bright Lights" and +wondering how she was going to stand her family until the summer +scattering. Why could Roma never throw off her elegant reserve and +call things by their names? She sometimes thought she might like her +sister, if she would only come out in the open and howl about her +disappointments. + +Roma, drinking her coffee deliberately, asked her father if they +might have the car early, as they wanted to pick up Mr. Allen and +Mr. Rydberg on their way to rehearsal. + +Wanning said certainly. Heaven knew he was not stingy about his car, +though he could never quite forget that in his day it was the young +men who used to call for the girls when they went to rehearsals. + +"You are going with us, Mother?" Roma asked as they rose. + +"I think so dear. Your father will want to go to bed early, and I +shall sleep better if I go out. I am going to town tomorrow to pour +tea for Harold. We must get him some new silver, Paul. I am quite +ashamed of his spoons." + +Harold, the only son, was a playwright--as yet "unproduced"--and he +had a studio in Washington Square. + +A half-hour later, Wanning was alone in his library. He would not +permit himself to feel aggrieved. What was more commendable than a +mother's interest in her children's pleasures? Moreover, it was his +wife's way of following things up, of never letting die grass grow +under her feet, that had helped to push him along in the world. She +was more ambitious than he,--that had been good for him. He was +naturally indolent, and Julia's childlike desire to possess material +objects, to buy what other people were buying, had been the spur +that made him go after business. It had, moreover, made his house +the attractive place he believed it to be. + +"Suppose," his wife sometimes said to him when the bills came in +from Celeste or Mme. Blanche, "suppose you had homely daughters; how +would you like that?" + +He wouldn't have liked it. When he went anywhere with his three +ladies, Wanning always felt very well done by. He had no complaint +to make about them, or about anything. That was why it seemed so +unreasonable--He felt along his back incredulously with his hand. +Harold, of course, was a trial; but among all his business friends, +he knew scarcely one who had a promising boy. + +The house was so still that Wanning could hear a faint, metallic +tinkle from the butler's pantry. Old Sam was washing up the silver, +which he put away himself every night. + +Wanning rose and walked aimlessly down the hall and out through the +dining-room. + +"Any Apollinaris on ice, Sam? I'm not feeling very well tonight." + +The old colored man dried his hands. + +"Yessah, Mistah Wanning. Have a little rye with it, sah?" + +"No, thank you, Sam. That's one of the things I can't do any more. +I've been to see a big doctor in the city, and he tells me there's +something seriously wrong with me. My kidneys have sort of gone back +on me." + +It was a satisfaction to Wanning to name the organ that had betrayed +him, while all the rest of him was so sound. + +Sam was immediately interested. He shook his grizzled head and +looked full of wisdom. + +"Don't seem like a gen'leman of such a temperate life ought to have +anything wrong thar, sah." + +"No, it doesn't, does it?" + +Wanning leaned against the china closet and talked to Sam for nearly +half an hour. The specialist who condemned him hadn't seemed half so +much interested. There was not a detail about the examination and +the laboratory tests in which Sam did not show the deepest concern. +He kept asking Wanning if he could remember "straining himself" when +he was a young man. + +"I've knowed a strain like that to sleep in a man for yeahs and +yeahs, and then come back on him, 'deed I have," he said, +mysteriously. "An' again, it might be you got a floatin' kidney, +sah. Aftah dey once teah loose, dey sometimes don't make no trouble +for quite a while." + +When Wanning went to his room he did not go to bed. He sat up until +he heard the voices of his wife and daughters in the hall below. His +own bed somehow frightened him. In all the years he had lived in +this house he had never before looked about his room, at that bed, +with the thought that he might one day be trapped there, and might +not get out again. He had been ill, of course, but his room had +seemed a particularly pleasant place for a sick man; sunlight, +flowers,--agreeable, well-dressed women coming in and out. + +Now there was something sinister about the bed itself, about its +position, and its relation to the rest of the furniture. + + +II + +The next morning, on his way downtown, Wanning got off the subway +train at Astor Place and walked over to Washington Square. He +climbed three flights of stairs and knocked at his son's studio. +Harold, dressed, with his stick and gloves in his hand, opened the +door. He was just going over to the Brevoort for breakfast. He +greeted his father with the cordial familiarity practised by all the +"boys" of his set, clapped him on the shoulder and said in his +light, tonsilitis voice: + +"Come in, Governor, how delightful! I haven't had a call from you in +a long time." + +He threw his hat and gloves on the writing table. He was a perfect +gentleman, even with his father. + +Florence said the matter with Harold was that he had heard people +say he looked like Byron, and stood for it. + +What Harold would stand for in such matters was, indeed, the best +definition of him. When he read his play "The Street Walker" in +drawing rooms and one lady told him it had the poetic symbolism of +Tchekhov, and another said that it suggested the biting realism of +Brieux, he never, in his most secret thoughts, questioned the acumen +of either lady. Harold's speech, even if you heard it in the next +room and could not see him, told you that he had no sense of the +absurd,--a throaty staccato, with never a downward inflection, +trustfully striving to please. + +"Just going out?" his father asked. "I won't keep you. Your mother +told you I had a discouraging session with Seares?" + +"So awfully sorry you've had this bother, Governor; just as sorry as +I can be. No question about it's coming out all right, but it's a +downright nuisance, your having to diet and that sort of thing. And +I suppose you ought to follow directions, just to make us all feel +comfortable, oughtn't you?" Harold spoke with fluent sympathy. + +Wanning sat down on the arm of a chair and shook his head. "Yes, +they do recommend a diet, but they don't promise much from it." + +Harold laughed precipitately. "Delicious! All doctors are, aren't +they? So profound and oracular! The medicine-man; it's quite the +same idea, you see; with tom-toms." + +Wanning knew that Harold meant something subtle,--one of the +subtleties which he said were only spoiled by being explained--so he +came bluntly to one of the issues he had in mind. + +"I would like to see you settled before I quit the harness, Harold." + +Harold was absolutely tolerant. + +He took out his cigarette case and burnished it with his +handkerchief. + +"I perfectly understand your point of view, dear Governor, but +perhaps you don't altogether get mine. Isn't it so? I am settled. +What you mean by being settled, would unsettle me, completely. I'm +cut out for just such an existence as this; to live four floors up +in an attic, get my own breakfast, and have a charwoman to do for +me. I should be awfully bored with an establishment. I'm quite +content with a little diggings like this." + +Wanning's eyes fell. Somebody had to pay the rent of even such +modest quarters as contented Harold, but to say so would be rude, +and Harold himself was never rude. Wanning did not, this morning, +feel equal to hearing a statement of his son's uncommercial ideals. + +"I know," he said hastily. "But now we're up against hard facts, my +boy. I did not want to alarm your mother, but I've had a time limit +put on me, and it's not a very long one." + +Harold threw away the cigarette he had just lighted in a burst of +indignation. + +"That's the sort of thing I consider criminal, Father, absolutely +criminal! What doctor has a right to suggest such a thing? Seares +himself may be knocked out tomorrow. What have laboratory tests got +to do with a man's will to live? The force of that depends upon his +entire personality, not on any organ or pair of organs." + +Harold thrust his hands in his pockets and walked up and down, very +much stirred. "Really, I have a very poor opinion of scientists. +They ought to be made serve an apprenticeship in art, to get some +conception of the power of human motives. Such brutality!" + +Harold's plays dealt with the grimmest and most depressing matters, +but he himself was always agreeable, and he insisted upon high +cheerfulness as the correct tone of human intercourse. + +Wanning rose and turned to go. There was, in Harold, simply no +reality, to which one could break through. The young man took up his +hat and gloves. + +"Must you go? Let me step along with you to the sub. The walk will +do me good." + +Harold talked agreeably all the way to Astor Place. His father heard +little of what he said, but he rather liked his company and his wish +to be pleasant. + +Wanning went to his club for luncheon, meaning to spend the +afternoon with some of his friends who had retired from business and +who read the papers there in the empty hours between two and seven. +He got no satisfaction, however. When he tried to tell these men of +his present predicament, they began to describe ills of their own in +which he could not feel interested. Each one of them had a +treacherous organ of which he spoke with animation, almost with +pride, as if it were a crafty business competitor whom he was +constantly outwitting. Each had a doctor, too, for whom he was +ardently soliciting business. They wanted either to telephone their +doctor and make an appointment for Wanning, or to take him then and +there to the consulting room. When he did not accept these +invitations, they lost interest in him and remembered engagements. +He called a taxi and returned to the offices of McQuiston, Wade, and +Wanning. + +Settled at his desk, Wanning decided that he would not go home to +dinner, but would stay at the office and dictate a long letter to an +old college friend who lived in Wyoming. He could tell Douglas Brown +things that he had not succeeded in getting to any one else. Brown, +out in the Wind River mountains, couldn't defend himself, couldn't +slap Wanning on the back and tell him to gather up the sunbeams. + +He called up his house in Orange to say that he would not be home +until late. Roma answered the telephone. He spoke mournfully, but +she was not disturbed by it. + +"Very well, Father. Don't get too tired," she said in her well +modulated voice. + +When Wanning was ready to dictate his letter, he looked out from his +private office into the reception room and saw that his stenographer +in her hat and gloves, and furs of the newest cut, was just leaving. + +"Goodnight, Mr. Wanning," she said, drawing down her dotted veil. + +Had there been important business letters to be got off on the night +mail, he would have felt that he could detain her, but not for +anything personal. Miss Doane was an expert legal stenographer, and +she knew her value. The slightest delay in dispatching office +business annoyed her. Letters that were not signed until the next +morning awoke her deepest contempt. She was scrupulous in +professional etiquette, and Wanning felt that their relations, +though pleasant, were scarcely cordial. + +As Miss Doane's trim figure disappeared through the outer door, +little Annie Wooley, the copyist, came in from the stenographers' +room. Her hat was pinned over one ear, and she was scrambling into +her coat as she came, holding her gloves in her teeth and her +battered handbag in the fist that was already through a sleeve. + +"Annie, I wanted to dictate a letter. You were just leaving, weren't +you?" + +"Oh, I don't mind!" she answered cheerfully, and pulling off her old +coat, threw it on a chair. "I'll get my book." + +She followed him into his room and sat down by a table,--though she +wrote with her book on her knee. + +Wanning had several times kept her after office hours to take his +private letters for him, and she had always been good-natured about +it. On each occasion, when he gave her a dollar to get her dinner, +she protested, laughing, and saying that she could never eat so much +as that. + +She seemed a happy sort of little creature, didn't pout when she was +scolded, and giggled about her own mistakes in spelling. She was +plump and undersized, always dodging under the elbows of taller +people and clattering about on high heels, much run over. She had +bright black eyes and fuzzy black hair in which, despite Miss +Doane's reprimands, she often stuck her pencil. She was the girl who +couldn't believe that Wanning was fifty, and he had liked her ever +since he overheard that conversation. + +Tilting back his chair--he never assumed this position when he +dictated to Miss Doane--Wanning began: "To Mr. D. E. Brown, South +Forks, Wyoming." + +He shaded his eyes with his hand and talked off a long letter to +this man who would be sorry that his mortal frame was breaking up. +He recalled to him certain fine months they had spent together on +the Wind River when they were young men, and said he sometimes +wished that like D. E. Brown, he had claimed his freedom in a big +country where the wheels did not grind a man as hard as they did in +New York. He had spent all these years hustling about and getting +ready to live the way he wanted to live, and now he had a puncture +the doctors couldn't mend. What was the use of it? + +Wanning's thoughts were fixed on the trout streams and the great +silver-firs in the canyons of the Wind River Mountains, when he was +disturbed by a soft, repeated sniffling. He looked out between his +fingers. Little Annie, carried away by his eloquence, was fairly +panting to make dots and dashes fast enough, and she was sopping her +eyes with an unpresentable, end-of-the-day handkerchief. + +Wanning rambled on in his dictation. Why was she crying? What did it +matter to her? He was a man who said good-morning to her, who +sometimes took an hour of the precious few she had left at the end +of the day and then complained about her bad spelling. When the +letter was finished, he handed her a new two dollar bill. + +"I haven't got any change tonight; and anyhow, I'd like you to eat a +whole lot. I'm on a diet, and I want to see everybody else eat." + +Annie tucked her notebook under her arm and stood looking at the +bill which she had not taken up from the table. + +"I don't like to be paid for taking letters to your friends, Mr. +Wanning," she said impulsively. "I can run personal letters off +between times. It ain't as if I needed the money," she added +carelessly. + +"Get along with you! Anybody who is eighteen years old and has a +sweet tooth needs money, all they can get." + +Annie giggled and darted out with the bill in her hand. + +Wanning strolled aimlessly after her into the reception room. + +"Let me have that letter before lunch tomorrow, please, and be sure +that nobody sees it." He stopped and frowned. "I don't look very +sick, do I?" + +"I should say you don't!" Annie got her coat on after considerable +tugging. "Why don't you call in a specialist? My mother called a +specialist for my father before he died." + +"Oh, is your father dead?" + +"I should say he is! He was a painter by trade, and he fell off a +seventy-foot stack into the East River. Mother couldn't get anything +out of the company, because he wasn't buckled. He lingered for four +months, so I know all about taking care of sick people. I was +attending business college then, and sick as he was, he used to give +me dictation for practise. He made us all go into professions; the +girls, too. He didn't like us to just run." + +Wanning would have liked to keep Annie and hear more about her +family, but it was nearly seven o'clock, and he knew he ought, in +mercy, to let her go. She was the only person to whom he had talked +about his illness who had been frank and honest with him, who had +looked at him with eyes that concealed nothing. When he broke the +news of his condition to his partners that morning, they shut him +off as if he were uttering indecent ravings. All day they had met +him with a hurried, abstracted manner. McQuiston and Wade went out +to lunch together, and he knew what they were thinking, perhaps +talking, about. Wanning had brought into the firm valuable business, +but he was less enterprising than either of his partners. + + +III + +In the early summer Wanning's family scattered. Roma swallowed her +pride and sailed for Genoa to visit the Contessa Jenny. Harold went +to Cornish to be in an artistic atmosphere. Mrs. Wanning and +Florence took a cottage at York Harbor where Wanning was supposed to +join them whenever he could get away from town. He did not often get +away. He felt most at ease among his accustomed surroundings. He +kept his car in the city and went back and forth from his office to +the club where he was living. Old Sam, his butler, came in from +Orange every night to put his clothes in order and make him +comfortable. + +Wanning began to feel that he would not tire of his office in a +hundred years. Although he did very little work, it was pleasant to +go down town every morning when the streets were crowded, the sky +clear, and the sunshine bright. From the windows of his private +office he could see the harbor and watch the ocean liners come down +the North River and go out to sea. + +While he read his mail, he often looked out and wondered why he had +been so long indifferent to that extraordinary scene of human +activity and hopefulness. How had a short-lived race of beings the +energy and courage valiantly to begin enterprises which they could +follow for only a few years; to throw up towers and build +sea-monsters and found great businesses, when the frailest of the +materials with which they worked, the paper upon which they wrote, +the ink upon their pens, had more permanence in this world than +they? All this material rubbish lasted. The linen clothing and +cosmetics of the Egyptians had lasted. It was only the human flame +that certainly, certainly went out. Other things had a fighting +chance; they might meet with mishap and be destroyed, they might +not. But the human creature who gathered and shaped and hoarded and +foolishly loved these things, he had no chance--absolutely none. +Wanning's cane, his hat, his topcoat, might go from beggar to beggar +and knock about in this world for another fifty years or so; but not +he. + +In the late afternoon he never hurried to leave his office now. +Wonderful sunsets burned over the North River, wonderful stars +trembled up among the towers; more wonderful than anything he could +hurry away to. One of his windows looked directly down upon the +spire of Old Trinity, with the green churchyard and the pale +sycamores far below. Wanning often dropped into the church when he +was going out to lunch; not because he was trying to make his peace +with Heaven, but because the church was old and restful and +familiar, because it and its gravestones had sat in the same place +for a long while. He bought flowers from the street boys and kept +them on his desk, which his partners thought strange behavior, and +which Miss Doane considered a sign that he was failing. + +But there were graver things than bouquets for Miss Doane and the +senior partner to ponder over. + +The senior partner, McQuiston, in spite of his silvery hair and +mustache and his important church connections, had rich natural +taste for scandal.--After Mr. Wade went away for his vacation, in +May, Wanning took Annie Wooley out of the copying room, put her at a +desk in his private office, and raised her pay to eighteen dollars a +week, explaining to McQuiston that for the summer months he would +need a secretary. This explanation satisfied neither McQuiston nor +Miss Doane. + +Annie was also paid for overtime, and although Wanning attended to +very little of the office business now, there was a great deal of +overtime. Miss Doane was, of course, 'above' questioning a chit like +Annie; but what was he doing with his time and his new secretary, +she wanted to know? + +If anyone had told her that Wanning was writing a book, she would +have said bitterly that it was just like him. In his youth Wanning +had hankered for the pen. When he studied law, he had intended to +combine that profession with some tempting form of authorship. Had +he remained a bachelor, he would have been an unenterprising +literary lawyer to the end of his days. It was his wife's +restlessness and her practical turn of mind that had made him a +money-getter. His illness seemed to bring back to him the illusions +with which he left college. + +As soon as his family were out of the way and he shut up the Orange +house, he began to dictate his autobiography to Annie Wooley. It was +not only the story of his life, but an expression of all his +theories and opinions, and a commentary on the fifty years of events +which he could remember. + +Fortunately, he was able to take great interest in this undertaking. +He had the happiest convictions about the clear-cut style he was +developing and his increasing felicity in phrasing. He meant to +publish the work handsomely, at his own expense and under his own +name. He rather enjoyed the thought of how greatly disturbed Harold +would be. He and Harold differed in their estimates of books. All +the solid works which made up Wanning's library, Harold considered +beneath contempt. Anybody, he said, could do that sort of thing. + +When Wanning could not sleep at night, he turned on the light beside +his bed and made notes on the chapter he meant to dictate the next +day. + +When he returned to the office after lunch, he gave instructions +that he was not to be interrupted by telephone calls, and shut +himself up with his secretary. + +After he had opened all the windows and taken off his coat, he fell +to dictating. He found it a delightful occupation, the solace of +each day. Often he had sudden fits of tiredness; then he would lie +down on the leather sofa and drop asleep, while Annie read "The +Leopard's Spots" until he awoke. + +Like many another business man Wanning had relied so long on +stenographers that the operation of writing with a pen had become +laborious to him. When he undertook it, he wanted to cut everything +short. But walking up and down his private office, with the strong +afternoon sun pouring in at his windows, a fresh air stirring, all +the people and boats moving restlessly down there, he could say +things he wanted to say. It was like living his life over again. + +He did not miss his wife or his daughters. He had become again the +mild, contemplative youth he was in college, before he had a +profession and a family to grind for, before the two needs which +shape our destiny had made of him pretty much what they make of +every man. + +At five o'clock Wanning sometimes went out for a cup of tea and took +Annie along. He felt dull and discouraged as soon as he was alone. +So long as Annie was with him, he could keep a grip on his own +thoughts. They talked about what he had just been dictating to her. +She found that he liked to be questioned, and she tried to be +greatly interested in it all. + +After tea, they went back to the office. Occasionally Wanning lost +track of time and kept Annie until it grew dark. He knew he had old +McQuiston guessing, but he didn't care. One day the senior partner +came to him with a reproving air. + +"I am afraid Miss Doane is leaving us, Paul. She feels that Miss +Wooley's promotion is irregular." + +"How is that any business of hers, I'd like to know? She has all my +legal work. She is always disagreeable enough about doing anything +else." + +McQuiston's puffy red face went a shade darker. + +"Miss Doane has a certain professional pride; a strong feeling for +office organization. She doesn't care to fill an equivocal position. +I don't know that I blame her. She feels that there is something not +quite regular about the confidence you seem to place in this +inexperienced young woman." + +Wanning pushed back his chair. + +"I don't care a hang about Miss Doane's sense of propriety. I need a +stenographer who will carry out my instructions. I've carried out +Miss Doane's long enough. I've let that schoolma'am hector me for +years. She can go when she pleases." + +That night McQuiston wrote to his partner that things were in a bad +way, and they would have to keep an eye on Wanning. He had been seen +at the theatre with his new stenographer. + +That was true. Wanning had several times taken Annie to the Palace +on Saturday afternoon. When all his acquaintances were off motoring +or playing golf, when the down-town offices and even the streets +were deserted, it amused him to watch a foolish show with a +delighted, cheerful little person beside him. + +Beyond her generosity, Annie had no shining merits of character, but +she had the gift of thinking well of everything, and wishing well. +When she was there Wanning felt as if there were someone who cared +whether this was a good or a bad day with him. Old Sam, too, was +like that. While the old black man put him to bed and made him +comfortable, Wanning could talk to him as he talked to little Annie. +Even if he dwelt upon his illness, in plain terms, in detail, he did +not feel as if he were imposing on them. + +People like Sam and Annie admitted misfortune,--admitted it almost +cheerfully. Annie and her family did not consider illness or any of +its hard facts vulgar or indecent. It had its place in their scheme +of life, as it had not in that of Wanning's friends. + +Annie came out of a typical poor family of New York. Of eight +children, only four lived to grow up. In such families the stream of +life is broad enough, but runs shallow. In the children, vitality is +exhausted early. The roots do not go down into anything very strong. +Illness and deaths and funerals, in her own family and in those of +her friends, had come at frequent intervals in Annie's life. Since +they had to be, she and her sisters made the best of them. There was +something to be got out of funerals, even, if they were managed +right. They kept people in touch with old friends who had moved +uptown, and revived kindly feelings. + +Annie had often given up things she wanted because there was +sickness at home, and now she was patient with her boss. What he +paid her for overtime work by no means made up to her what she lost. + +Annie was not in the least thrifty, nor were any of her sisters. She +had to make a living, but she was not interested in getting all she +could for her time, or in laying up for the future. Girls like Annie +know that the future is a very uncertain thing, and they feel no +responsibility about it. The present is what they have--and it is +all they have. If Annie missed a chance to go sailing with the +plumber's son on Saturday afternoon, why, she missed it. As for the +two dollars her boss gave her, she handed them over to her mother. +Now that Annie was getting more money, one of her sisters quit a job +she didn't like and was staying at home for a rest. That was all +promotion meant to Annie. + +The first time Annie's boss asked her to work on Saturday afternoon, +she could not hide her disappointment. He suggested that they might +knock off early and go to a show, or take a run in his car, but she +grew tearful and said it would be hard to make her family +understand. Wanning thought perhaps he could explain to her mother. +He called his motor and took Annie home. + +When his car stopped in front of the tenement house on Eighth +Avenue, heads came popping out of the windows for six storys up, and +all the neighbor women, in dressing sacks and wrappers, gazed down +at the machine and at the couple alighting from it. A motor meant a +wedding or the hospital. + +The plumber's son, Willy Steen, came over from the corner saloon to +see what was going on, and Annie introduced him at the doorstep. + +Mrs. Wooley asked Wanning to come into the parlor and invited him to +have a chair of ceremony between the folding bed and the piano. + +Annie, nervous and tearful, escaped to the dining-room--the cheerful +spot where the daughters visited with each other and with their +friends. The parlor was a masked sleeping chamber and store room. + +The plumber's son sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. Wooley, as if he +were accustomed to share in the family councils. Mrs. Wooley waited +expectant and kindly. She looked the sensible, hard-working woman +that she was, and one could see she hadn't lived all her life on +Eighth Avenue without learning a great deal. + +Wanning explained to her that he was writing a book which he wanted +to finish during the summer months when business was not so heavy. +He was ill and could not work regularly. His secretary would have to +take his dictation when he felt able to give it; must, in short, be +a sort of companion to him. He would like to feel that she could go +out in his car with him, or even to the theater, when he felt like +it. It might have been better if he had engaged a young man for this +work, but since he had begun it with Annie, he would like to keep +her if her mother was willing. + +Mrs. Wooley watched him with friendly, searching eyes. She glanced +at Willy Steen, who, wise in such distinctions, had decided that +there was nothing shady about Annie's boss. He nodded his sanction. + +"I don't want my girl to conduct herself in any such way as will +prejudice her, Mr. Wanning," she said thoughtfully. "If you've got +daughters, you know how that is. You've been liberal with Annie, and +it's a good position for her. It's right she should go to business +every day, and I want her to do her work right, but I like to have +her home after working hours. I always think a young girl's time is +her own after business hours, and I try not to burden them when they +come home. I'm willing she should do your work as suits you, if it's +her wish; but I don't like to press her. The good times she misses +now, it's not you nor me, sir, that can make them up to her. These +young things has their feelings." + +"Oh, I don't want to press her, either," Wanning said hastily. "I +simply want to know that you understand the situation. I've made her +a little present in my will as a recognition that she is doing more +for me than she is paid for." + +"That's something above me, sir. We'll hope there won't be no +question of wills for many years yet," Mrs. Wooley spoke heartily. +"I'm glad if my girl can be of any use to you, just so she don't +prejudice herself." + +The plumber's son rose as if the interview were over. + +"It's all right, Mama Wooley, don't you worry," he said. + +He picked up his canvas cap and turned to Wanning. "You see, Annie +ain't the sort of girl that would want to be spotted circulating +around with a monied party her folks didn't know all about. She'd +lose friends by it." + +After this conversation Annie felt a great deal happier. She was +still shy and a trifle awkward with poor Wanning when they were +outside the office building, and she missed the old freedom of her +Saturday afternoons. But she did the best she could, and Willy Steen +tried to make it up to her. + +In Annie's absence he often came in of an afternoon to have a cup of +tea and a sugar-bun with Mrs. Wooley and the daughter who was +"resting." As they sat at the dining-room table, they discussed +Annie's employer, his peculiarities, his health, and what he had +told Mrs. Wooley about his will. + +Mrs. Wooley said she sometimes felt afraid he might disinherit his +children, as rich people often did, and make talk; but she hoped for +the best. Whatever came to Annie, she prayed it might not be in the +form of taxable property. + + +IV + +Late in September Wanning grew suddenly worse. His family hurried +home, and he was put to bed in his house in Orange. He kept asking +the doctors when he could get back to the office, but he lived only +eight days. + +The morning after his father's funeral, Harold went to the office to +consult Wanning's partners and to read the will. Everything in the +will was as it should be. There were no surprises except a codicil +in the form of a letter to Mrs. Wanning, dated July 8th, requesting +that out of the estate she should pay the sum of one thousand +dollars to his stenographer, Annie Wooley, "in recognition of her +faithful services." + +"I thought Miss Doane was my father's stenographer," Harold +exclaimed. + +Alec McQuiston looked embarrassed and spoke in a low, guarded tone. + +"She was, for years. But this spring,--" he hesitated. + +McQuiston loved a scandal. He leaned across his desk toward Harold. + +"This spring your father put this little girl, Miss Wooley, a +copyist, utterly inexperienced, in Miss Doane's place. Miss Doane +was indignant and left us. The change made comment here in the +office. It was slightly--No, I will be frank with you, Harold, it +was very irregular." + +Harold also looked grave. "What could my father have meant by such a +request as this to my mother?" + +The silver haired senior partner flushed and spoke as if he were +trying to break something gently. + +"I don't understand it, my boy. But I think, indeed I prefer to +think, that your father was not quite himself all this summer. A man +like your father does not, in his right senses, find pleasure in the +society of an ignorant, common little girl. He does not make a +practise of keeping her at the office after hours, often until eight +o'clock, or take her to restaurants and to the theater with him; +not, at least, in a slanderous city like New York." + +Harold flinched before McQuiston's meaning gaze and turned aside in +pained silence. He knew, as a dramatist, that there are dark +chapters in all men's lives, and this but too clearly explained why +his father had stayed in town all summer instead of joining his +family. + +McQuiston asked if he should ring for Annie Wooley. + +Harold drew himself up. "No. Why should I see her? I prefer not to. +But with your permission, Mr. McQuiston, I will take charge of this +request to my mother. It could only give her pain, and might awaken +doubts in her mind." + +"We hardly know," murmured the senior partner, "where an +investigation would lead us. Technically, of course, I cannot agree +with you. But if, as one of the executors of the will, you wish to +assume personal responsibility for this bequest, under the +circumstances--irregularities beget irregularities." + +"My first duty to my father," said Harold, "is to protect my +mother." + +That afternoon McQuiston called Annie Wooley into his private office +and told her that her services would not be needed any longer, and +that in lieu of notice the clerk would give her two weeks' salary. + +"Can I call up here for references?" Annie asked. + +"Certainly. But you had better ask for me, personally. You must know +there has been some criticism of you here in the office, Miss +Wooley." + +"What about?" Annie asked boldly. + +"Well, a young girl like you cannot render so much personal service +to her employer as you did to Mr. Wanning without causing +unfavorable comment. To be blunt with you, for your own good, my +dear young lady, your services to your employer should terminate in +the office, and at the close of office hours. Mr. Wanning was a very +sick man and his judgment was at fault, but you should have known +what a girl in your station can do and what she cannot do." + +The vague discomfort of months flashed up in little Annie. She had +no mind to stand by and be lectured without having a word to say for +herself. + +"Of course he was sick, poor man!" she burst out. "Not as anybody +seemed much upset about it. I wouldn't have given up my +half-holidays for anybody if they hadn't been sick, no matter what +they paid me. There wasn't anything in it for me." + +McQuiston raised his hand warningly. + +"That will do, young lady. But when you get another place, remember +this: it is never your duty to entertain or to provide amusement for +your employer." + +He gave Annie a look which she did not clearly understand, although +she pronounced him a nasty old man as she hustled on her hat and +jacket. + +When Annie reached home she found Willy Steen sitting with her +mother and sister at the dining-room table. This was the first day +that Annie had gone to the office since Wanning's death, and her +family awaited her return with suspense. + +"Hello yourself," Annie called as she came in and threw her handbag +into an empty armchair. + +"You're off early, Annie," said her mother gravely. "Has the will +been read?" + +"I guess so. Yes, I know it has. Miss Wilson got it out of the safe +for them. The son came in. He's a pill." + +"Was nothing said to you, daughter?" + +"Yes, a lot. Please give me some tea, mother." Annie felt that her +swagger was failing. + +"Don't tantalize us, Ann," her sister broke in. "Didn't you get +anything?" + +"I got the mit, all right. And some back talk from the old man that +I'm awful sore about." + +Annie dashed away the tears and gulped her tea. + +Gradually her mother and Willy drew the story from her. Willy +offered at once to go to the office building and take his stand +outside the door and never leave it until he had punched old Mr. +McQuiston's face. He rose as if to attend to it at once, but Mrs. +Wooley drew him to his chair again and patted his arm. + +"It would only start talk and get the girl in trouble, Willy. When +it's lawyers, folks in our station is helpless. I certainly believed +that man when he sat here; you heard him yourself. Such a gentleman +as he looked." + +Willy thumped his great fist, still in punching position, down on +his knee. + +"Never you be fooled again, Mama Wooley. You'll never get anything +out of a rich guy that he ain't signed up in the courts for. Rich is +tight. There's no exceptions." + +Annie shook her head. + +"I didn't want anything out of him. He was a nice, kind man, and he +had his troubles, I guess. He wasn't tight." + +"Still," said Mrs. Wooley sadly, "Mr. Wanning had no call to hold +out promises. I hate to be disappointed in a gentleman. You've had +confining work for some time, daughter; a rest will do you good." + + _Smart Set_, October 1919 + + + + +PART II + +REVIEWS AND ESSAYS + + + + +_Mark Twain_ + + +If there is anything which should make an American sick and +disgusted at the literary taste of his country, and almost swerve +his allegiance to his flag it is that controversy between Mark Twain +and Max O'Rell, in which the Frenchman proves himself a wit and a +gentleman and the American shows himself little short of a clown and +an all around tough. The squabble arose apropos of Paul Bourget's +new book on America, "Outre Mer," a book which deals more fairly and +generously with this country than any book yet written in a foreign +tongue. Mr. Clemens did not like the book, and like all men of his +class, and limited mentality, he cannot criticise without becoming +personal and insulting. He cannot be scathing without being a +blackguard. He tried to demolish a serious and well considered work +by publishing a scurrilous, slangy and loosely written article about +it. In this article Mr. Clemens proves very little against Mr. +Bourget and a very great deal against himself. He demonstrates +clearly that he is neither a scholar, a reader or a man of letters +and very little of a gentleman. His ignorance of French literature +is something appalling. Why, in these days it is as necessary for a +literary man to have a wide knowledge of the French masterpieces as +it is for him to have read Shakespeare or the Bible. What man who +pretends to be an author can afford to neglect those models of style +and composition. George Meredith, Thomas Hardy and Henry James +excepted, the great living novelists are Frenchmen. + +Mr. Clemens asks what the French sensualists can possibly teach the +great American people about novel writing or morality? Well, it +would not seriously hurt the art of the classic author of "Puddin' +Head Wilson" to study Daudet, De Maupassant, Hugo and George Sand, +whatever it might do to his morals. Mark Twain is a humorist of a +kind. His humor is always rather broad, so broad that the polite +world can justly call it coarse. He is not a reader nor a thinker +nor a man who loves art of any kind. He is a clever Yankee who has +made a "good thing" out of writing. He has been published in the +North American Review and in the Century, but he is not and never +will be a part of literature. The association and companionship of +cultured men has given Mark Twain a sort of professional veneer, but +it could not give him fine instincts or nice discriminations or +elevated tastes. His works are pure and suitable for children, just +as the work of most shallow and mediocre fellows. House dogs and +donkeys make the most harmless and chaste companions for young +innocence in the world. Mark Twain's humor is of the kind that +teamsters use in bantering with each other, and his laugh is the +gruff "haw-haw" of the backwoodsman. He is still the rough, awkward, +good-natured boy who swore at the deck hands on the river steamer +and chewed uncured tobacco when he was three years old. Thoroughly +likeable as a good fellow, but impossible as a man of letters. It is +an unfortunate feature of American literature that a hostler with +some natural cleverness and a great deal of assertion receives the +same recognition as a standard American author that a man like +Lowell does. The French academy is a good thing after all. It at +least divides the sheep from the goats and gives a sheep the +consolation of knowing that he is a sheep. + +It is rather a pity that Paul Bourget should have written "Outre +Mer," thoroughly creditable book though it is. Mr. Bourget is a +novelist, and he should not content himself with being an essayist, +there are far too many of them in the world already. He can develop +strong characters, invent strong situations, he can write the truth +and he should not drift into penning opinions and platitudes. When +God has made a man a creator, it is a great mistake for him to turn +critic. It is rather an insult to God and certainly a very great +wrong to man. + + _Nebraska State Journal_, May 5, 1895 + + +I got a letter last week from a little boy just half-past seven who +had just read "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer." He said: "If +there are any more books like them in the world, send them to me +quick." I had to humbly confess to him that if there were any others +I had not the good fortune to know of them. What a red-letter-day it +is to a boy, the day he first opens "Tom Sawyer." I would rather +sail on the raft down the Missouri again with "Huck" Finn and Jim +than go down the Nile in December or see Venice from a gondola in +May. Certainly Mark Twain is much better when he writes of his +Missouri boys than when he makes sickley romances about Joan of Arc. +And certainly he never did a better piece of work than "Prince and +Pauper." One seems to get at the very heart of old England in that +dearest of children's books, and in its pages the frail boy king, +and his gloomy sister Mary who in her day wrought so much woe for +unhappy England, and the dashing Princess Elizabeth who lived to +rule so well, seem to live again. A friend of Mr. Clemens' once told +me that he said he wrote that book so that when his little daughters +grew up they might know that their tired old jester of a father +could be serious and gentle sometimes. + + _The Home Monthly_, May 1897 + + + + +_William Dean Howells_ + + +Certainly now in his old age Mr. Howells is selecting queer titles +for his books. A while ago we had that feeble tale, "The Coast of +Bohemia," and now we have "My Literary Passions." "Passions," +literary or otherwise, were never Mr. Howells' forte and surely no +man could be further from even the coast of Bohemia. + +Apropos of "My Literary Passions" which has so long strung out in +the Ladies' Home Journal along with those thrilling articles about +how Henry Ward Beecher tied his necktie and what kind of coffee Mrs. +Hall Cain likes, why did Mr. Howells write it? Doesn't Mr. Howells +know that at one time or another every one raves over Don Quixote, +imitates Heine, worships Tourgueneff and calls Tolstoi a prophet? +Does Mr. Howells think that no one but he ever had youth and +enthusiasm and aspirations? Doesn't he know that the only thing that +makes the world worth living in at all is that once, when we are +young, we all have that great love for books and impersonal things, +all reverence and dream? We have all known the time when Porthos, +Athos and d'Artagan were vastly more real and important to us than +the folks who lived next door. We have all dwelt in that country +where Anna Karenina and the Levins were the only people who mattered +much. We have all known that intoxicating period when we thought we +"understood life," because we had read Daudet, Zola and Guy de +Maupassant, and like Mr. Howells we all looked back rather fondly +upon the time when we believed that books were the truth and art was +all. After a while books grow matter of fact like everything else +and we always think enviously of the days when they were new and +wonderful and strange. That's a part of existence. We lose our first +keen relish for literature just as we lose it for ice-cream and +confectionery. The taste grows older, wiser and more subdued. We +would all wear out of very enthusiasm if it did not. But why should +Mr. Howells tell the world this common experience in detail as +though it were his and his alone. He might as well write a detailed +account of how he had the measles and the whooping cough. It was all +right and proper for Mr. Howells to like Heine and Hugo, but, in the +words of the circus clown, "We've all been there." + + _Nebraska State Journal_, July 14, 1895 + + + + +_Edgar Allan Poe_ + + + My tantalized spirit + Here blandly reposes, + Forgetting, or never + Regretting its roses, + Its old agitations + Of myrtles and roses. + + For now, while so quietly + Lying, it fancies + A holier odor + About it, of pansies-- + A rosemary odor + Commingled with pansies. + With rue and the beautiful + Puritan pansies. + + --Edgar Allan Poe. + +The Shakespeare society of New York, which is really about the only +useful literary organization in this country, is making vigorous +efforts to redress an old wrong and atone for a long neglect. +Sunday, Sept. 22, it held a meeting at the Poe cottage on +Kingsbridge road near Fordham, for the purpose of starting an +organized movement to buy back the cottage, restore it to its +original condition and preserve it as a memorial of Poe. So it has +come at last. After helping build monuments to Shelley, Keats and +Carlyle we have at last remembered this man, the greatest of our +poets and the most unhappy. I am glad that this movement is in the +hands of American actors, for it was among them that Poe found his +best friends and warmest admirers. Some way he always seemed to +belong to the strolling Thespians who were his mother's people. + +Among all the thousands of life's little ironies that make history +so diverting, there is none more paradoxical than that Edgar Poe +should have been an American. Look at his face. Had we ever another +like it? He must have been a strange figure in his youth, among +those genial, courtly Virginians, this handsome, pale fellow, +violent in his enthusiasm, ardent in his worship, but spiritually +cold in his affections. Now playing heavily for the mere excitement +of play, now worshipping at the shrine of a woman old enough to be +his mother, merely because her voice was beautiful; now swimming six +miles up the James river against a heavy current in the glaring sun +of a June midday. He must have seemed to them an unreal figure, a +sort of stage man who was wandering about the streets with his mask +and buskins on, a theatrical figure who had escaped by some strange +mischance into the prosaic daylight. His speech and actions were +unconsciously and sincerely dramatic, always as though done for +effect. He had that nervous, egotistic, self-centered nature common +to stage children who seem to have been dazzled by the footlights +and maddened by the applause before they are born. It was in his +blood. With the exception of two women who loved him, lived for him, +died for him, he went through life friendless, misunderstood, with +that dense, complete, hopeless misunderstanding which, as Amiel +said, is the secret of that sad smile upon the lips of the great. +Men tried to befriend him, but in some way or other he hurt and +disappointed them. He tried to mingle and share with other men, but +he was always shut from them by that shadow, light as gossamer but +unyielding as adamant, by which, from the beginning of the world, +art has shielded and guarded and protected her own, that +God-concealing mist in which the heroes of old were hidden, immersed +in that gloom and solitude which, if we could but know it here, is +but the shadow of God's hand as it falls upon his elect. + +We lament our dearth of great prose. With the exception of Henry +James and Hawthorne, Poe is our only master of pure prose. We lament +our dearth of poets. With the exception of Lowell, Poe is our only +great poet. Poe found short story writing a bungling makeshift. He +left it a perfect art. He wrote the first perfect short stories in +the English language. He first gave the short story purpose, method, +and artistic form. In a careless reading one can not realize the +wonderful literary art, the cunning devices, the masterly effects +that those entrancing tales conceal. They are simple and direct +enough to delight us when we are children, subtle and artistic +enough to be our marvel when we are old. To this day they are the +wonder and admiration of the French, who are the acknowledged +masters of craft and form. How in his wandering, laborious life, +bound to the hack work of the press and crushed by an ever-growing +burden of want and debt, did he ever come upon all this deep and +mystical lore, this knowledge of all history, of all languages, of +all art, this penetration into the hidden things of the East? As +Steadman says, "The self training of genius is always a marvel." The +past is spread before us all and most of us spend our lives in +learning those things which we do not need to know, but genius +reaches out instinctively and takes only the vital detail, by some +sort of spiritual gravitation goes directly to the right thing. + +Poe belonged to the modern French school of decorative and +discriminating prose before it ever existed in France. He rivalled +Gautier, Flaubert and de Maupassant before they were born. He +clothed his tales in a barbaric splendor and persuasive unreality +never before heard of in English. No such profusion of color, +oriental splendor of detail, grotesque combinations and mystical +effects had ever before been wrought into language. There are tales +as grotesque, as monstrous, unearthly as the stone griffens and +gargoyles that are cut up among the unvisited niches and towers of +Notre Dame, stories as poetic and delicately beautiful as the golden +lace work chased upon an Etruscan ring. He fitted his words together +as the Byzantine jewelers fitted priceless stones. He found the +inner harmony and kinship of words. Where lived another man who +could blend the beautiful and the horrible, the gorgeous and the +grotesque in such intricate and inexplicable fashion? Who could +delight you with his noun and disgust you with his verb, thrill you +with his adjective and chill you with his adverb, make you run the +whole gamut of human emotions in a single sentence? Sitting in that +miserable cottage at Fordham he wrote of the splendor of dream +palaces beyond the dreams of art. He hung those grimy walls with +dream tapestries, paved those narrow halls with black marble and +polished onyx, and into those low-roofed chambers he brought all the +treasured imagery of fancy, from the "huge carvings of untutored +Egypt" to "mingled and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange +convolute censers, together with multitudinous, flaring and +flickering tongues of purple and violet fire." Hungry and ragged he +wrote of Epicurean feasts and luxury that would have beggared the +purpled pomp of pagan Rome and put Nero and his Golden House to +shame. + +And this mighty master of the organ of language, who knew its every +stop and pipe, who could awaken at will the thin silver tones of its +slenderest reeds or the solemn cadence of its deepest thunder, who +could make it sing like a flute or roar like a cataract, he was born +into a country without a literature. He was of that ornate school +which usually comes last in a national literature, and he came +first. American taste had been vitiated by men like Griswold and N. +P. Willis until it was at the lowest possible ebb. Willis was +considered a genius, that is the worst that could possibly be said. +In the North a new race of great philosophers was growing up, but +Poe had neither their friendship nor encouragement. He went indeed, +sometimes, to the chilly _salon_ of Margaret Fuller, but he was +always a discord there. He was a mere artist and he had no business +with philosophy, he had no theories as to the "higher life" and the +"true happiness." He had only his unshapen dreams that battled with +him in dark places, the unborn that struggled in his brain for +birth. What time has an artist to learn the multiplication table or +to talk philosophy? He was not afraid of them. He laughed at Willis, +and flung Longfellow's lie in his teeth, the lie the rest of the +world was twenty years in finding. He scorned the obtrusive learning +of the transcendentalists and he disliked their hard talkative +women. He left them and went back to his dream women, his +_Berenice_, his _Ligeia_, his _Marchesa Aphrodite_, pale and cold as +the mist maidens of the North, sad as the Norns who weep for human +woe. + +The tragedy of Poe's life was not alcohol, but hunger. He died when +he was forty, when his work was just beginning. Thackeray had not +touched his great novels at forty, George Eliot was almost unknown +at that age. Hugo, Goethe, Hawthorne, Lowell and Dumas all did their +great work after they were forty years old. Poe never did his great +work. He could not endure the hunger. This year the Drexel Institute +has put over sixty thousand dollars into a new edition of Poe's +poems and stories. He himself never got six thousand for them +altogether. If one of the great and learned institutions of the land +had invested one tenth of that amount in the living author forty +years ago we should have had from him such works as would have made +the name of this nation great. But he sold "The Masque of the Red +Death" for a few dollars, and now the Drexel Institute pays a +publisher thousands to publish it beautifully. It is enough to make +Satan laugh until his ribs ache, and all the little devils laugh and +heap on fresh coals. I don't wonder they hate humanity. It's so +dense, so hopelessly stupid. + +Only a few weeks before Poe's death he said he had never had time or +opportunity to make a serious effort. All his tales were merely +experiments, thrown off when his day's work as a journalist was +over, when he should have been asleep. All those voyages into the +mystical unknown, into the gleaming, impalpable kingdom of pure +romance from which he brought back such splendid trophies, were but +experiments. He was only getting his tools into shape getting ready +for his great effort, the effort that never came. + +Bread seems a little thing to stand in the way of genius, but it +can. The simple sordid facts were these, that in the bitterest +storms of winter Poe seldom wrote by a fire, that after he was +twenty-five years old he never knew what it was to have enough to +eat without dreading tomorrow's hunger. Chatterton had only himself +to sacrifice, but Poe saw the woman he loved die of want before his +very eyes, die smiling and begging him not to give up his work. They +saw the depths together in those long winter nights when she lay in +that cold room, wrapped in Poe's only coat, he, with one hand +holding hers, and with the other dashing off some of the most +perfect masterpieces of English prose. And when he would wince and +turn white at her coughing, she would always whisper: "Work on, my +poet, and when you have finished read it to me. I am happy when I +listen." O, the devotion of women and the madness of art! They are +the two most awesome things on earth, and surely this man knew both +to the full. + +I have wondered so often how he did it. How he kept his purpose +always clean and his taste always perfect. How it was that hard +labor never wearied nor jaded him, never limited his imagination, +that the jarring clamor about him never drowned the fine harmonies +of his fancy. His discrimination remained always delicate, and from +the constant strain of toil his fancy always rose strong and +unfettered. Without encouragement or appreciation of any sort, +without models or precedents he built up that pure style of his that +is without peer in the language, that style of which every sentence +is a drawing by Vedder. Elizabeth Barrett and a few great artists +over in France knew what he was doing, they knew that in literature +he was making possible a new heaven and a new earth. But he never +knew that they knew it. He died without the assurance that he was or +ever would be understood. And yet through all this, with the whole +world of art and letters against him, betrayed by his own people, he +managed to keep that lofty ideal of perfect work. What he suffered +never touched or marred his work, but it wrecked his character. +Poe's character was made by his necessity. He was a liar and an +egotist; a man who had to beg for bread at the hands of his +publishers and critics could be nothing but a liar, and had he not +had the insane egotism and conviction of genius, he would have +broken down and written the drivelling trash that his countrymen +delighted to read. Poe lied to his publishers sometimes, there is no +doubt of that, but there were two to whom he was never false, his +wife and his muse. He drank sometimes too, when for very ugly and +relentless reasons he could not eat. And then he forgot what he +suffered. For Bacchus is the kindest of the gods after all. When +Aphrodite has fooled us and left us and Athene has betrayed us in +battle, then poor tipsy Bacchus, who covers his head with vine +leaves where the curls are getting thin, holds out his cup to us and +says, "forget." It's poor consolation, but he means it well. + +The Transcendentalists were good conversationalists, that in fact +was their principal accomplishment. They used to talk a great deal +of genius, that rare and capricious spirit that visits earth so +seldom, that is wooed by so many, and won by so few. They had grand +theories that all men should be poets, that the visits of that rare +spirit should be made as frequent and universal as afternoon calls. +O, they had plans to make a whole generation of little geniuses. But +she only laughed her scornful laughter, that deathless lady of the +immortals, up in her echoing chambers that are floored with dawn and +roofed with the spangled stars. And she snatched from them the only +man of their nation she had ever deigned to love, whose lips she had +touched with music and whose soul with song. In his youth she had +shown him the secrets of her beauty and his manhood had been one +pursuit of her, blind to all else, like Anchises, who on the night +that he knew the love of Venus, was struck sightless, that he might +never behold the face of a mortal woman. For Our Lady of Genius has +no care for the prayers and groans of mortals, nor for their +hecatombs sweet of savor. Many a time of old she has foiled the +plans of seers and none may entreat her or take her by force. She +favors no one nation or clime. She takes one from the millions, and +when she gives herself unto a man it is without his will or that of +his fellows, and he pays for it, dear heaven, he pays! + + "The sun comes forth and many reptiles spawn, + He sets and each ephemeral insect then + Is gathered unto death without a dawn, + And the immortal stars awake again." + +Yes, "and the immortal stars awake again." None may thwart the +unerring justice of the gods, not even the Transcendentalists. What +matter that one man's life was miserable, that one man was broken on +the wheel? His work lives and his crown is eternal. That the work of +his age was undone, that is the pity, that the work of his youth was +done, that is the glory. The man is nothing. There are millions of +men. The work is everything. There is so little perfection. We +lament our dearth of poets when we let Poe starve. We are like the +Hebrews who stoned their prophets and then marvelled that the voice +of God was silent. We will wait a long time for another. There are +Griswold and N. P. Willis, our chosen ones, let us turn to them. +Their names are forgotten. God is just. They are, + + "Gathered unto death without a dawn. + And the immortal stars awake again." + + _The Courier_, October 12, 1895 + + +You can afford to give a little more care and attention to this +imaginative boy of yours than to any of your other children. His +nerves are more finely strung and all his life he will need your +love more than the others. Be careful to get him the books he likes +and see that they are good ones. Get him a volume of Poe's short +stories. I know many people are prejudiced against Poe because of +the story that he drank himself to death. But that myth has been +exploded long ago. Poe drank less than even the average man of his +time. No, the most artistic of all American story tellers did not +die because he drank too much, but because he ate too little. And +yet we, his own countrymen who should be so proud of him, are not +content with having starved him and wronged him while he lived, we +must even go on slandering him after he has been dead almost fifty +years. But get his works for this imaginative boy of yours and he +will tell you how great a man the author of "The Gold Bug" and "The +Masque of the Red Death" was. Children are impartial critics and +sometimes very good ones. They do not reason about a book, they just +like it or dislike it intensely, and after all that is the +conclusion of the whole matter. I am very sure that "The Fall of the +House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Black Cat" will +give this woolgathering lad of yours more pleasure than a new +bicycle could. + + _The Home Monthly_, May 1897 + + + + +_Walt Whitman_ + + +Speaking of monuments reminds one that there is more talk about a +monument to Walt Whitman, "the good, gray poet." Just why the +adjective good is always applied to Whitman it is difficult to +discover, probably because people who could not understand him at +all took it for granted that he meant well. If ever there was a poet +who had no literary ethics at all beyond those of nature, it was he. +He was neither good nor bad, any more than are the animals he +continually admired and envied. He was a poet without an exclusive +sense of the poetic, a man without the finer discriminations, +enjoying everything with the unreasoning enthusiasm of a boy. He was +the poet of the dung hill as well as of the mountains, which is +admirable in theory but excruciating in verse. In the same paragraph +he informs you that, "The pure contralto sings in the organ loft," +and that "The malformed limbs are tied to the table, what is removed +drop horribly into a pail." No branch of surgery is poetic, and that +hopelessly prosaic word "pail" would kill a whole volume of sonnets. +Whitman's poems are reckless rhapsodies over creation in general, +some times sublime, some times ridiculous. He declares that the +ocean with its "imperious waves, commanding" is beautiful, and that +the fly-specks on the walls are also beautiful. Such catholic taste +may go in science, but in poetry their results are sad. The poet's +task is usually to select the poetic. Whitman never bothers to do +that, he takes everything in the universe from fly-specks to the +fixed stars. His "Leaves of Grass" is a sort of dictionary of the +English language, and in it is the name of everything in creation +set down with great reverence but without any particular connection. + +But however ridiculous Whitman may be there is a primitive elemental +force about him. He is so full of hardiness and of the joy of life. +He looks at all nature in the delighted, admiring way in which the +old Greeks and the primitive poets did. He exults so in the red +blood in his body and the strength in his arms. He has such a +passion for the warmth and dignity of all that is natural. He has no +code but to be natural, a code that this complex world has so long +outgrown. He is sensual, not after the manner of Swinbourne and +Gautier, who are always seeking for perverted and bizarre effects on +the senses, but in the frank fashion of the old barbarians who ate +and slept and married and smacked their lips over the mead horn. He +is rigidly limited to the physical, things that quicken his pulses, +please his eyes or delight his nostrils. There is an element of +poetry in all this, but it is by no means the highest. If a joyous +elephant should break forth into song, his lay would probably be +very much like Whitman's famous "song of myself." It would have just +about as much delicacy and deftness and discriminations. He says: + +"I think I could turn and live with the animals. They are so placid +and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long. They do +not sweat and whine about their condition. They do not lie awake in +the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick +discussing their duty to God. Not one is dissatisfied nor not one is +demented with the mania of many things. Not one kneels to another +nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one is +respectable or unhappy, over the whole earth." And that is not irony +on nature, he means just that, life meant no more to him. He +accepted the world just as it is and glorified it, the seemly and +unseemly, the good and the bad. He had no conception of a difference +in people or in things. All men had bodies and were alike to him, +one about as good as another. To live was to fulfil all natural laws +and impulses. To be comfortable was to be happy. To be happy was the +ultimatum. He did not realize the existence of a conscience or a +responsibility. He had no more thought of good or evil than the +folks in Kipling's Jungle book. + +And yet there is an undeniable charm about this optimistic vagabond +who is made so happy by the warm sunshine and the smell of spring +fields. A sort of good fellowship and whole-heartedness in every +line he wrote. His veneration for things physical and material, for +all that is in water or air or land, is so real that as you read him +you think for the moment that you would rather like to live so if +you could. For the time you half believe that a sound body and a +strong arm are the greatest things in the world. Perhaps no book +shows so much as "Leaves of Grass" that keen senses do not make a +poet. When you read it you realize how spirited a thing poetry +really is and how great a part spiritual perceptions play in +apparently sensuous verse, if only to select the beautiful from the +gross. + + _Nebraska State Journal_, January 19, 1896 + + + + +_Henry James_ + + +Their mania for careless and hasty work is not confined to the +lesser men. Howells and Hardy have gone with the crowd. Now that +Stevenson is dead I can think of but one English speaking author who +is really keeping his self-respect and sticking for perfection. Of +course I refer to that mighty master of language and keen student of +human actions and motives, Henry James. In the last four years he +has published, I believe, just two small volumes, "The Lesson of the +Master" and "Terminations," and in those two little volumes of short +stories he who will may find out something of what it means to be +really an artist. The framework is perfect and the polish is +absolutely without flaw. They are sometimes a little hard, always +calculating and dispassionate, but they are perfect. I wish James +would write about modern society, about "degeneracy" and the new +woman and all the rest of it. Not that he would throw any light on +it. He seldom does; but he would say such awfully clever things +about it, and turn on so many side-lights. And then his sentences! +If his character novels were all wrong one could read him forever +for the mere beauty of his sentences. He never lets his phrases run +away with him. They are never dull and never too brilliant. He +subjects them to the general tone of his sentence and has his whole +paragraph partake of the same predominating color. You are never +startled, never surprised, never thrilled or never enraptured; +always delighted by that masterly prose that is as correct, as +classical, as calm and as subtle as the music of Mozart. + + _The Courier_, November 16, 1895 + + +It is strange that from "Felicia" down, the stage novel has never +been a success. Henry James' "Tragic Muse" is the only theatrical +novel that has a particle of the real spirit of the stage in it, a +glimpse of the enthusiasm, the devotion, the exaltation and the +sordid, the frivolous and the vulgar which are so strangely and +inextricably blended in that life of the green room. For although +Henry James cannot write plays he can write passing well of the +people who enact them. He has put into one book all those inevitable +attendants of the drama, the patronizing theatre goer who loves it +above all things and yet feels so far superior to it personally; the +old tragedienne, the queen of a dying school whose word is law and +whose judgments are to a young actor as the judgments of God; and of +course there is the girl, the aspirant, the tragic muse who beats +and beats upon those brazen doors that guard the unapproachable +until one fine morning she beats them down and comes into her +kingdom, the kingdom of unborn beauty that is to live through her. +It is a great novel, that book of the master's, so perfect as a +novel that one does not realize what a masterly study it is of the +life and ends and aims of the people who make plays live. + + _Nebraska State Journal_, March 29, 1896 + + + + +_Harold Frederic_ + + + "THE MARKET-PLACE." Harold Frederic. $1.50. New York: F. A. + Stokes & Co. Pittsburg: J. R. Weldin & Co. + +Unusual interest is attached to the posthumous work of that great +man whose career ended so prematurely and so tragically. The story +is a study in the ethics and purposes of money-getting, in the +romantic element in modern business. In it finance is presented not +as being merely the province of shrewdness, or greediness, or petty +personal gratification, but of great projects, of great +brain-battles, a field for the exercising of talent, daring, +imagination, appealing to the strength of a strong man, filling the +same place in men's lives that was once filled by the incentives of +war, kindling in man the desire for the leadership of men. The hero +of the story, "Joel Thorpe," is one of those men, huge of body, keen +of brain, with cast iron nerves, as sound a heart as most men, and a +magnificent capacity for bluff. He has lived and risked and lost in +a dozen countries, been almost within reach of fortune a dozen +times, and always missed her until, finally, in London, by promoting +a great rubber syndicate he becomes a multi-millionaire. He marries +the most beautiful and one of the most impecunious peeresses in +England and retires to his country estate. There, as a gentleman of +leisure, he loses his motive in life, loses power for lack of +opportunity, and grows less commanding even in the eyes of his wife, +who misses the uncompromising, barbaric strength which took her by +storm and won her. Finally he evolves a gigantic philanthropic +scheme of spending his money as laboriously as he made it. + +Mr. Frederic says: + + "Napoleon was the greatest man of his age--one of the + greatest men of all ages--not only in war but in a hundred + other ways. He spent the last six years of his life at St. + Helena in excellent health, with companions that he talked + freely to, and in all the extraordinarily copious reports of + his conversations there, we don't get a single sentence + worth repeating. The greatness had entirely evaporated from + him the moment he was put on an island where he had nothing + to do." + +It is very fitting that Mr. Frederic's last book should be in praise +of action, the thing that makes the world go round; of force, +however misspent, which is the sum of life as distinguished from the +inertia of death. In the forty-odd years of his life he wrote almost +as many pages as Balzac, most of it mere newspaper copy, it is true, +read and forgotten, but all of it vigorous and with the stamp of a +strong man upon it. And he played just as hard as he worked--alas, +it was the play that killed him! The young artist who illustrated +the story gave to the pictures of "Joel Thorpe" very much the look +of Harold Frederic himself, and they might almost stand for his +portraits. I fancy the young man did not select his model +carelessly. In this big, burly adventurer who took fortune and women +by storm, who bluffed the world by his prowess and fought his way to +the front with battle-ax blows, there is a great deal of Harold +Frederic, the soldier of fortune, the Utica milk boy who fought his +way from the petty slavery of a provincial newspaper to the foremost +ranks of the journalists of the world and on into literature, into +literature worth the writing. The man won his place in England much +as his hero won his, by defiance, by strong shoulder blows, by his +self-sufficiency and inexhaustible strength, and when he finished +his book he did not know that his end would be so much less glorious +than his hero's, that it would be his portion not to fall manfully +in the thick of the combat and the press of battle, but to die +poisoned in the tent of Chryseis. For who could foresee a tragedy so +needless, so blind, so brutal in its lack of dignity, or know that +such strength could perish through such insidious weakness, that so +great a man could be stung to death by a mania born in little minds? + +In point of execution and literary excellence, both "The Market +Place" and "Gloria Mundi" are vastly inferior to "The Damnation of +Theron Ware," or that exquisite London idyl, "March Hares." The +first 200 pages of "Theron Ware" are as good as anything in American +fiction, much better than most of it. They are not so much the work +of a literary artist as of a vigorous thinker, a man of strong +opinions and an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of men. The +whole work, despite its irregularities and indifference to form, is +full of brain stuff, the kind of active, healthful, masterful +intellect that some men put into politics, some into science and a +few, a very few, into literature. Both "Gloria Mundi" and "The +Market Place" bear unmistakable evidences of the slack rein and the +hasty hand. Both of them contain considerable padding, the stamp of +the space writer. They are imperfectly developed, and are not packed +with ideas like his earlier novels. Their excellence is in flashes; +it is not the searching, evenly distributed light which permeates +his more careful work. There were, as we know too well, good reasons +why Mr. Frederic should work hastily. He needed a large income and +he worked heroically, writing many thousands of words a day to +obtain it. From the experience of the ages we have learned to expect +to find, coupled with great strength, a proportionate weakness, and +usually it devours the greater part, as the seven lean kine devoured +the seven fat in Pharaoh's vision. Achilles was a god in all his +nobler parts, but his feet were of the earth and to the earth they +held him down, and he died stung by an arrow in the heel. + + _Pittsburg Leader_, June 10, 1899 + + + + +_Kate Chopin_ + + + "THE AWAKENING." Kate Chopin. $1.25. Chicago: H. S. Stone & + Co. Pittsburg: J. R. Weldin & Co. + +A Creole "Bovary" is this little novel of Miss Chopin's. Not that +the heroine is a creole exactly, or that Miss Chopin is a +Flaubert--save the mark!--but the theme is similar to that which +occupied Flaubert. There was, indeed, no need that a second "Madame +Bovary" should be written, but an author's choice of themes is +frequently as inexplicable as his choice of a wife. It is governed +by some innate temperamental bias that cannot be diagrammed. This is +particularly so in women who write, and I shall not attempt to say +why Miss Chopin has devoted so exquisite and sensitive, +well-governed a style to so trite and sordid a theme. She writes +much better than it is ever given to most people to write, and hers +is a genuinely literary style; of no great elegance or solidity; but +light, flexible, subtle and capable of producing telling effects +directly and simply. The story she has to tell in the present +instance is new neither in matter nor treatment. "Edna Pontellier," +a Kentucky girl, who, like "Emma Bovary," had been in love with +innumerable dream heroes before she was out of short skirts, married +"Leonce Pontellier" as a sort of reaction from a vague and visionary +passion for a tragedian whose unresponsive picture she used to kiss. +She acquired the habit of liking her husband in time, and even of +liking her children. Though we are not justified in presuming that +she ever threw articles from her dressing table at them, as the +charming "Emma" had a winsome habit of doing, we are told that "she +would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart, she would +sometimes forget them." At a creole watering place, which is +admirably and deftly sketched by Miss Chopin, "Edna" met "Robert +Lebrun," son of the landlady, who dreamed of a fortune awaiting him +in Mexico while he occupied a petty clerical position in New +Orleans. "Robert" made it his business to be agreeable to his +mother's boarders, and "Edna," not being a creole, much against his +wish and will, took him seriously. "Robert" went to Mexico but found +that fortunes were no easier to make there than in New Orleans. He +returns and does not even call to pay his respects to her. She +encounters him at the home of a friend and takes him home with her. +She wheedles him into staying for dinner, and we are told she sent +the maid off "in search of some delicacy she had not thought of for +herself, and she recommended great care in the dripping of the +coffee and having the omelet done to a turn." + +Only a few pages back we were informed that the husband, "M. +Pontellier," had cold soup and burnt fish for his dinner. Such is +life. The lover of course disappointed her, was a coward and ran +away from his responsibilities before they began. He was afraid to +begin a chapter with so serious and limited a woman. She remembered +the sea where she had first met "Robert." Perhaps from the same +motive which threw "Anna Keraninna" under the engine wheels, she +threw herself into the sea, swam until she was tired and then let +go. + + "She looked into the distance, and for a moment the old + terror flamed up, then sank again. She heard her father's + voice, and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of + an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs + of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the + porch. There was a hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks + filled the air." + +"Edna Pontellier" and "Emma Bovary" are studies in the same feminine +type; one a finished and complete portrayal, the other a hasty +sketch, but the theme is essentially the same. Both women belong to +a class, not large, but forever clamoring in our ears, that demands +more romance out of life than God put into it. Mr. G. Barnard Shaw +would say that they are the victims of the over-idealization of +love. They are the spoil of the poets, the Iphigenias of sentiment. +The unfortunate feature of their disease is that it attacks only +women of brains, at least of rudimentary brains, but whose +development is one-sided; women of strong and fine intuitions, but +without the faculty of observation, comparison, reasoning about +things. Probably, for emotional people, the most convenient thing +about being able to think is that it occasionally gives them a rest +from feeling. Now with women of the "Bovary" type, this relaxation +and recreation is impossible. They are not critics of life, but, in +the most personal sense, partakers of life. They receive impressions +through the fancy. With them everything begins with fancy, and +passions rise in the brain rather than in the blood, the poor, +neglected, limited one-sided brain that might do so much better +things than badgering itself into frantic endeavors to love. For +these are the people who pay with their blood for the fine ideals of +the poets, as Marie Delclasse paid for Dumas' great creation, +"Marguerite Gauthier." These people really expect the passion of +love to fill and gratify every need of life, whereas nature only +intended that it should meet one of many demands. They insist upon +making it stand for all the emotional pleasures of life and art, +expecting an individual and self-limited passion to yield infinite +variety, pleasure and distraction, to contribute to their lives what +the arts and the pleasurable exercise of the intellect gives to less +limited and less intense idealists. So this passion, when set up +against Shakespeare, Balzac, Wagner, Raphael, fails them. They have +staked everything on one hand, and they lose. They have driven the +blood until it will drive no further, they have played their nerves +up to the point where any relaxation short of absolute annihilation +is impossible. Every idealist abuses his nerves, and every +sentimentalist brutally abuses them. And in the end, the nerves get +even. Nobody ever cheats them, really. Then "the awakening" comes. +Sometimes it comes in the form of arsenic, as it came to "Emma +Bovary," sometimes it is carbolic acid taken covertly in the police +station, a goal to which unbalanced idealism not infrequently leads. +"Edna Pontellier," fanciful and romantic to the last, chose the sea +on a summer night and went down with the sound of her first lover's +spurs in her ears, and the scent of pinks about her. And next time I +hope that Miss Chopin will devote that flexible, iridescent style of +hers to a better cause. + + _Pittsburg Leader_, July 8, 1899 + + + + +_Stephen Crane_ + + + "WAR IS KIND." Stephen Crane. $2.50. New York: F. A. Stokes + & Co. Pittsburg: J. R. Weldin & Co. + +This truly remarkable book is printed on dirty gray blotting paper, +on each page of which is a mere dot of print over a large I of +vacancy. There are seldom more than ten lines on a page, and it +would be better if most of those lines were not there at all. Either +Mr. Crane is insulting the public or insulting himself, or he has +developed a case of atavism and is chattering the primeval nonsense +of the apes. His "Black Riders," uneven as it was, was a casket of +polished masterpieces when compared with "War Is Kind." And it is +not kind at all, Mr. Crane; when it provokes such verses as these, +it is all that Sherman said it was. + +The only production in the volume that is at all coherent is the +following, from which the book gets its title: + + Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind, + Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky, + And the affrighted steed ran on alone. + Do not weep, + War is kind. + + Hoarse booming drums of the regiment, + Little souls who thirst for fight, + These men were born to drill and die. + The unexplained glory flies above them. + Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom-- + A field where a thousand corpses lie. + + Do not weep, babe, for war is kind, + Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches, + Raged at the breast, gulped and died. + Do not weep, + War is kind. + + Swift-blazing flag of the regiment, + Eagle with crest of red and gold, + These men were born to drill and die. + Point for them the virtue of slaughter, + Make plain to them the excellence of killing, + And a field where a thousand corpses lie. + + Mother whose heart hung humble as a button + On the bright, splendid shroud of your son, + Do not weep, + War is kind. + +Of course, one may have objections to hearts hanging like humble +buttons, or to buttons being humble at all, but one should not stop +to quarrel about such trifles with a poet who can perpetrate the +following: + + Thou art my love, + And thou art the beard + On another man's face-- + Woe is me. + + Thou art my love, + And thou art a temple, + And in this temple is an altar, + And on this temple is my heart-- + Woe is me. + + Thou art my love, + And thou art a wretch. + Let these sacred love-lies choke thee. + For I am come to where I know your lies as truth + And your truth as lies-- + Woe is me. + +Now, if you please, is the object of these verses animal, mineral or +vegetable? Is the expression, "Thou art the beard on another man's +face," intended as a figure, or was it written by a barber? +Certainly, after reading this, "Simple Simon" is a ballade of +perfect form, and "Jack and Jill" or "Hickity, Pickity, My Black +Hen," are exquisite lyrics. But of the following what shall be said: + + Now let me crunch you + With full weight of affrighted love. + I doubted you + --I doubted you-- + And in this short doubting + My love grew like a genie + For my further undoing. + + Beware of my friends, + Be not in speech too civil, + For in all courtesy + My weak heart sees specters, + Mists of desire + Arising from the lips of my chosen; + Be not civil. + +This is somewhat more lucid as evincing the bard's exquisite +sensitiveness: + + Ah, God, the way your little finger moved + As you thrust a bare arm backward. + And made play with your hair + And a comb, a silly gilt comb + --Ah, God, that I should suffer + Because of the way a little finger moved. + +Mr. Crane's verselets are illustrated by some Bradley pictures, +which are badly drawn, in bad taste, and come with bad grace. On +page 33 of the book there are just two lines which seem to +completely sum up the efforts of both poet and artist: + + "My good friend," said a learned bystander, + "Your operations are mad." + +Yet this fellow Crane has written short stories equal to +some of Maupassant's. + + _Pittsburg Leader_, June 3, 1899 + + +After reading such a delightful newspaper story as Mr. Frank Norris' +"Blix," it is with assorted sensations of pain and discomfort that +one closes the covers of another newspaper novel, "Active Service," +by Stephen Crane. If one happens to have some trifling regard for +pure English, he does not come forth from the reading of this novel +unscathed. The hero of this lurid tale is a newspaper man, and he +edits the Sunday edition of the New York "Eclipse," and delights in +publishing "stories" about deformed and sightless infants. "The +office of the 'Eclipse' was at the top of an immense building on +Broadway. It was a sheer mountain to the heights of which the +interminable thunder of the streets rose faintly. The Hudson was a +broad path of silver in the distance." This leaves little doubt as +to the fortunate journal which had secured Rufus Coleman as its +Sunday editor. Mr. Coleman's days were spent in collecting yellow +sensations for his paper, and we are told that he "planned for each +edition as for a campaign." The following elevating passage is one +of the realistic paragraphs by which Mr. Crane makes the routine of +Coleman's life known to us: + + Suddenly there was a flash of light and a cage of bronze, + gilt and steel dropped magically from above. Coleman yelled + "Down!" * * * A door flew open. Coleman stepped upon the + elevator. "Well, Johnnie," he said cheerfully to the lad who + operated the machine, "is business good?" "Yes, sir, pretty + good," answered the boy, grinning. The little cage sank + swiftly. Floor after floor seemed to be rising with + marvelous speed; the whole building was winging straight + into the sky. There was soaring lights, figures and the + opalescent glow of ground glass doors marked with black + inscriptions. Other lights were springing heavenward. All + the lofty corridors rang with cries. "Up!" "Down!" "Down!" + "Up!!" The boy's hand grasped a lever and his machine obeyed + his lightest movement with sometimes an unbalancing + swiftness. + +Later, when Coleman reached the street, Mr. Crane describes the +cable cars as marching like panoplied elephants, which is rather +far, to say the least. The gentleman's nights were spent something +as follows: + + "In the restaurant he first ordered a large bottle of + champagne. The last of the wine he finished in somber mood + like an unbroken and defiant man who chews the straw that + litters his prison house. During his dinner he was + continually sending out messenger boys. He was arranging a + poker party. Through a window he watched the beautiful + moving life of upper Broadway at night, with its crowds and + clanging cable cars and its electric signs, mammoth and + glittering like the jewels of a giantess. + + "Word was brought to him that poker players were arriving. + He arose joyfully, leaving his cheese. In the broad hall, + occupied mainly by miscellaneous people and actors, all deep + in leather chairs, he found some of his friends waiting. + They trooped upstairs to Coleman's rooms, where, as a + preliminary, Coleman began to hurl books and papers from the + table to the floor. A boy came with drinks. Most of the men, + in order to prepare for the game, removed their coats and + cuffs and drew up the sleeves of their shirts. The electric + globes shed a blinding light upon the table. The sound of + clinking chips arose; the elected banker spun the cards, + careless and dextrous." + +The atmosphere of the entire novel is just that close and +enervating. Every page is like the next morning taste of a champagne +supper, and is heavy with the smell of stale cigarettes. There is no +fresh air in the book and no sunlight, only the "blinding light shed +by the electric globes." If the life of New York newspaper men is as +unwholesome and sordid as this, Mr. Crane, who has experienced it, +ought to be sadly ashamed to tell it. Next morning when Coleman went +for breakfast in the grill room of his hotel he ordered eggs on +toast and a pint of champagne for breakfast and discoursed affably +to the waiter. + + "May be you had a pretty lively time last night, Mr. + Coleman?" + + "Yes, Pat," answered Coleman. "I did. It was all because of + an unrequitted affection, Patrick." The man stood near, a + napkin over his arm. Coleman went on impressively. "The ways + of the modern lover are strange. Now, I, Patrick, am a + modern lover, and when, yesterday, the dagger of + disappointment was driven deep into my heart, I immediately + played poker as hard as I could, and incidentally got + loaded. This is the modern point of view. I understand on + good authority that in old times lovers used to languish. + That is probably a lie, but at any rate we do not, in these + times, languish to any great extent. We get drunk. Do you + understand Patrick?" + + The waiter was used to a harangue at Coleman's breakfast + time. He placed his hand over his mouth and giggled. + "Yessir." + + "Of course," continued Coleman, thoughtfully. "It might be + pointed out by uneducated persons that it is difficult to + maintain a high standard of drunkenness for the adequate + length of time, but in the series of experiments which I am + about to make, I am sure I can easily prove them to be in + the wrong." + + "I am sure, sir," said the waiter, "the young ladies would + not like to be hearing you talk this way." + + "Yes; no doubt, no doubt. The young ladies have still quite + medieval ideas. They don't understand. They still prefer + lovers to languish." + + "At any rate, sir, I don't see that your heart is sure + enough broken. You seem to take it very easy." + + "Broken!" cried Coleman. "Easy? Man, my heart is in + fragments. Bring me another small bottle." + +After this Coleman went to Greece to write up the war for the +"Eclipse," and incidentally to rescue his sweetheart from the hands +of the Turks and make "copy" of it. Very valid arguments might be +advanced that the lady would have fared better with the Turks. On +the voyage Coleman spent all his days and nights in the card room +and avoided the deck, since fresh air was naturally disagreeable to +him. For all that he saw of Greece or that Mr. Crane's readers see +of Greece Coleman might as well have stayed in the card room of the +steamer, or in the card room of his New York hotel for that matter. +Wherever he goes he carries the atmosphere of the card room with him +and the "blinding glare of the electrics." In Greece he makes love +when he has leisure, but he makes "copy" much more ardently, and on +the whole is quite as lurid and sordid and showy as his worst Sunday +editions. Some good bits of battle descriptions there are, of the +"Red Badge of Courage" order, but one cannot make a novel of clever +descriptions of earthworks and poker games. The book concerns itself +not with large, universal interests or principles, but with a yellow +journalist grinding out yellow copy in such a wooden fashion that +the Sunday "Eclipse" must have been even worse than most. In spite +of the fact that Mr. Crane has written some of the most artistic +short stories in the English language, I begin to wonder whether, +blinded by his youth and audacity, two qualities which the American +people love, we have not taken him too seriously. It is a grave +matter for a man in good health and with a bank account to have +written a book so coarse and dull and charmless as "Active Service." +Compared with this "War was kind," indeed. + + _Pittsburg Leader_, November 11, 1899 + + + + +_Frank Norris_ + + +A new and a great book has been written. The name of it is +"McTeague, a Story of San Francisco," and the man who wrote it is +Mr. Frank Norris. The great presses of the country go on year after +year grinding out commonplace books, just as each generation goes on +busily reproducing its own mediocrity. When in this enormous output +of ink and paper, these thousands of volumes that are yearly rushed +upon the shelves of the book stores, one appears which contains both +power and promise, the reader may be pardoned some enthusiasm. +Excellence always surprises: we are never quite prepared for it. In +the case of "McTeague, a Story of San Francisco," it is even more +surprising than usual. In the first place the title is not alluring, +and not until you have read the book, can you know that there is an +admirable consistency in the stiff, uncompromising commonplaceness +of that title. In the second place the name of the author is as yet +comparatively unfamiliar, and finally the book is dedicated to a +member of the Harvard faculty, suggesting that whether it be a story +of San Francisco or Dawson City, it must necessarily be vaporous, +introspective and chiefly concerned with "literary" impressions. Mr. +Norris is, indeed, a "Harvard man," but that he is a good many other +kinds of a man is self-evident. His book is, in the language of Mr. +Norman Hapgood, the work of "a large human being, with a firm +stomach, who knows and loves the people." + +In a novel of such high merit as this, the subject matter is the +least important consideration. Every newspaper contains the +essential material for another "Comedie Humaine." In this case +"McTeague," the central figure, happens to be a dentist practicing +in a little side street of San Francisco. The novel opens with this +description of him: + + "It was Sunday, and, according to his custom on that day, + McTeague took his dinner at two in the afternoon at the car + conductor's coffee joint on Polk street. He had a thick, + gray soup, heavy, underdone meat, very hot, on a cold plate; + two kinds of vegetables; and a sort of suet pudding, full of + strong butter and sugar. Once in his office, or, as he + called it on his sign-board, 'Dental Parlors,' he took off + his coat and shoes, unbuttoned his vest, and, having crammed + his little stove with coke, he lay back in his operating + chair at the bay window, reading the paper, drinking steam + beer, and smoking his huge porcelain pipe while his food + digested; crop-full, stupid and warm." + +McTeague had grown up in a mining camp in the mountains. He +remembered the years he had spent there trundling heavy cars of ore +in and out of the tunnel under the direction of his father. For +thirteen days out of each fortnight his father was a steady, +hard-working shift-boss of the mine. Every other Sunday he became an +irresponsible animal, a beast, a brute, crazed with alcohol. His +mother cooked for the miners. Her one ambition was that her son +should enter a profession. He was apprenticed to a traveling quack +dentist and after a fashion, learned the business. + + "Then one day at San Francisco had come the news of his + mother's death; she had left him some money--not much, but + enough to set him up in business; so he had cut loose from + the charlatan and had opened his 'Dental Parlors' on Polk + street, an 'accommodation street' of small shops in the + residence quarter of the town. Here he had slowly collected + a clientele of butcher boys, shop girls, drug clerks and car + conductors. He made but few acquaintances. Polk street + called him the 'doctor' and spoke of his enormous strength. + For McTeague was a young giant, carrying his huge shock of + blonde hair six feet three inches from the ground; moving + his immense limbs, heavy with ropes of muscle, slowly, + ponderously. His hands were enormous, red, and covered with + a fell of stiff yellow hair; they were as hard as wooden + mallets, strong as vices, the hands of the old-time car boy. + Often he dispensed with forceps and extracted a refractory + tooth with his thumb and finger. His head was square-cut, + angular; the jaw salient: like that of the carnivora. + + "But for one thing McTeague would have been perfectly + contented. Just outside his window was his signboard--a + modest affair--that read: 'Doctor McTeague. Dental Parlors. + Gas Given;' but that was all. It was his ambition, his + dream, to have projecting from that corner window a huge + gilded tooth, a molar with enormous prongs, something + gorgeous and attractive. He would have it some day, but as + yet it was far beyond his means." + +Then Mr. Norris launches into a description of the street in which +"McTeague" lives. He presents that street as it is on Sunday, as it +is on working days; as it is in the early dawn when the workmen are +going out with pickaxes on their shoulders, as it is at ten o'clock +when the women are out purchasing from the small shopkeepers, as it +is at night when the shop girls are out with the soda-fountain +tenders and the motor cars dash by full of theatre-goers, and the +Salvationists sing before the saloon on the corner. In four pages he +reproduces the life in a by-street of a great city, the little +tragedy of the small shopkeeper. There are many ways of handling +environment--most of them bad. When a young author has very little +to say and no story worth telling, he resorts to environment. It is +frequently used to disguise a weakness of structure, as ladies who +paint landscapes put their cows knee-deep in water to conceal the +defective drawing of the legs. But such description as one meets +throughout Mr. Norris' book is in itself convincing proof of power, +imagination and literary skill. It is a positive and active force, +stimulating the reader's imagination, giving him an actual command, +a realizing sense of this world into which he is suddenly +transplanted. It gives to the book perspective, atmosphere, effects +of time and distance, creates the illusion of life. This power of +mature, and accurate and comprehensive description is very unusual +among the younger American writers. Most of them observe the world +through a temperament, and are more occupied with their medium than +the objects they see. And temperament is a glass which distorts most +astonishingly. But this young man sees with a clear eye, and +reproduces with a touch firm and decisive, strong almost to +brutalness. Yet this hand that can depict so powerfully the brute +strength and brute passions of a "McTeague," can deal very finely +and adroitly with the feminine element of his story. This is his +portrait of the little Swiss girl, "Trina," whom the dentist +marries: + + "Trina was very small and prettily made. Her face was round + and rather pale; her eyes long and narrow and blue, like the + half-opened eyes of a baby; her lips and the lobes of her + tiny ears were pale, a little suggestive of anaemia. But it + was to her hair that one's attention was most attracted. + Heaps and heaps of blue-black coils and braids, a royal + crown of swarthy bands, a veritable sable tiara, heavy, + abundant and odorous. All the vitality that should have + given color to her face seemed to have been absorbed by that + marvelous hair: It was the coiffure of a queen that shadowed + the temples of this little bourgeoise." + +The tragedy of the story dates from a chance, a seeming stroke of +good fortune, one of those terrible gifts of the Danai. A few weeks +before her marriage "Trina" drew $5 000 from a lottery ticket. From +that moment her passion for hoarding money becomes the dominant +theme of the story, takes command of the book and its characters. +After their marriage the dentist is disbarred from practice. They +move into a garret where she starves her husband and herself to save +that precious hoard. She sells even his office furniture, everything +but his concertina and his canary bird, with which he stubbornly +refuses to part and which are destined to become very important +accessories in the property room of the theatre where this drama is +played. This removal from their first home is to this story what +Gervaise's removal from her shop is to L'Assommoir; it is the fatal +episode of the third act, the sacrifice of self-respect, the +beginning of the end. From that time the money stands between +"Trina" and her husband. Outraged and humiliated, hating her for her +meanness, demoralized by his idleness and despair, he begins to +abuse her. The story becomes a careful and painful study of the +disintegration of this union, a penetrating and searching analysis +of the degeneration of these two souls, the woman's corroded by +greed, the man's poisoned by disappointment and hate. + +And all the while this same painful theme is placed in a lower key. +Maria, the housemaid who took care of "McTeague's" dental parlors in +his better days, was a half-crazy girl from somewhere in Central +America, she herself did not remember just where. But she had a +wonderful story about her people owning a dinner service of pure +gold with a punch bowl you could scarcely lift, which rang like a +church bell when you struck it. On the strength of this story +"Zercow," the Jew junk man, marries her, and believing that she +knows where this treasure is hidden, bullies and tortures her to +force her to disclose her secret. At last "Maria" is found with her +throat cut, and "Zercow" is picked up by the wharf with a sack full +of rusty tin cans, which in his dementia he must have thought the +fabled dinner service of gold. + +From this it is a short step to "McTeague's" crime. He kills his +wife to get possession of her money, and escapes to the mountains. +While he is on his way south, pushing toward Mexico, he is overtaken +by his murdered wife's cousin and former suitor. Both men are half +mad with thirst, and there in the desert wastes of Death's Valley, +they spring to their last conflict. The cousin falls, but before he +dies he slips a handcuff over "McTeague's" arm, and so the author +leaves his hero in the wastes of Death's Valley, a hundred miles +from water, with a dead man chained to his arm. As he stands there +the canary bird, the survivor of his happier days, to which he had +clung with stubborn affection, begins "chittering feebly in its +little gilt prison." It reminds one a little of Stevenson's use of +poor "Goddedaal's" canary in "The Wrecker." It is just such sharp, +sure strokes that bring out the high lights in a story and separate +excellence from the commonplace. They are at once dramatic and +revelatory. Lacking them, a novel which may otherwise be a good one, +lacks its chief reason for being. The fault with many worthy +attempts at fiction lies not in what they are, but in what they are +not. + +Mr. Norris' model, if he will admit that he has followed one, is +clearly no less a person than M. Zola himself. Yet there is no +discoverable trace of imitation in his book. He has simply taken a +method which has been most successfully applied in the study of +French life and applied it in studying American life, as one uses +certain algebraic formulae to solve certain problems. It is perhaps +the only truthful literary method of dealing with that part of +society which environment and heredity hedge about like the walls of +a prison. It is true that Mr. Norris now and then allows his +"method" to become too prominent, that his restraint savors of +constraint, yet he has written a true story of the people, +courageous, dramatic, full of matter and warm with life. He has +addressed himself seriously to art, and he seems to have no ambition +to be clever. His horizon is wide, his invention vigorous and bold, +his touch heavy and warm and human. This man is not limited by +literary prejudices: he sees the people as they are, he is close to +them and not afraid of their unloveliness. He has looked at truth in +the depths, among men begrimed by toil and besotted by ignorance, +and still found her fair. "McTeague" is an achievement for a young +man. It may not win at once the success which it deserves, but Mr. +Norris is one of those who can afford to wait. + + _The Courier_, April 8, 1899 + + +If you want to read a story that is all wheat and no chaff, read +"Blix." Last winter that brilliant young Californian, Mr. Norris, +published a remarkable and gloomy novel, "McTeague," a book deep in +insight, rich in promise and splendid in execution, but entirely +without charm and as disagreeable as only a great piece of work can +be. And now this gentleman, who is not yet thirty, turns around and +gives us an idyll that sings through one's brain like a summer wind +and makes one feel young enough to commit all manner of +indiscretions. It may be that Mr. Norris is desirous of showing us +his versatility and that he can follow any suit, or it may have been +a process of reaction. I believe it was after M. Zola had completed +one of his greatest and darkest novels of Parisian life that he went +down to the seaside and wrote "La Reve," a book that every girl +should read when she is eighteen, and then again when she is eighty. +Powerful and solidly built as "McTeague" is, one felt that there +method was carried almost too far, that Mr. Norris was too +consciously influenced by his French masters. But "Blix" belongs to +no school whatever, and there is not a shadow of pedantry or pride +of craft in it from cover to cover. "Blix" herself is the method, +the motives and the aim of the book. The story is an exhalation of +youth and spring; it is the work of a man who breaks loose and +forgets himself. Mr. Norris was married only last summer, and the +march from "Lohengrin" is simply sticking out all over "Blix." It is +the story of a San Francisco newspaper man and a girl. The newspaper +man "came out" in fiction, so to speak, in the drawing room of Mr. +Richard Harding Davis, and has languished under that gentleman's +chaperonage until he has come to be regarded as a fellow careful of +nothing but his toilet and his dinner. Mr. Davis' reporters all +bathed regularly and all ate nice things, but beyond that their +tastes were rather colorless. I am glad to see one red-blooded +newspaper man, in the person of "Landy Rivers," of San Francisco, +break into fiction; a real live reporter with no sentimental loyalty +for his "paper," and no Byronic poses about his vices, and no +astonishing taste about his clothes, and no money whatever, which is +the natural and normal condition of all reporters. "Blix" herself +was just a society girl, and "Landy" took her to theatres and +parties and tried to make himself believe he was in love with her. +But it wouldn't work, for "Landy" couldn't love a society girl, not +though she were as beautiful as the morning and terrible as an army +with banners, and had "round full arms," and "the skin of her face +was white and clean, except where it flushed into a most charming +pink upon her smooth, cool cheeks." For while "Landy Rivers" was at +college he had been seized with the penchant for writing short +stories, and had worshiped at the shrines of Maupassant and Kipling, +and when a man is craft mad enough to worship Maupassant truly and +know him well, when he has that tingling for technique in his +fingers, not Aphrodite herself, new risen from the waves, could +tempt him into any world where craft was not lord and king. So it +happened that their real love affair never began until one morning +when "Landy" had to go down to the wharf to write up a whaleback, +and "Blix" went along, and an old sailor told them a story and +"Blix" recognized the literary possibilities of it, and they had +lunch in a Chinese restaurant, and "Landy" because he was a +newspaper man and it was the end of the week, didn't have any change +about his clothes, and "Blix" had to pay the bill. And it was in +that green old tea house that "Landy" read "Blix" one of his +favorite yarns by Kipling, and she in a calm, off-handed way, +recognized one of the fine, technical points in it, and "Landy" +almost went to pieces for joy of her doing it. That scene in the +Chinese restaurant is one of the prettiest bits of color you'll find +to rest your eyes upon, and mighty good writing it is. I wonder, +though if when Mr. Norris adroitly mentioned the "clack and snarl" +of the banjo "Landy" played, he remembered the "silver snarling +trumpets" of Keats? After that, things went on as such things will, +and "Blix" quit the society racket and went to queer places with +"Landy," and got interested in his work, and she broke him of +wearing red neckties and playing poker, and she made him work, she +did, for she grew to realize how much that meant to him, and she +jacked him up when he didn't work, and she suggested an ending for +one of his stories that was better than his own; just this big, +splendid girl, who had never gone to college to learn how to write +novels. And so how, in the name of goodness, could he help loving +her? So one morning down by the Pacific, with "Blix" and "The Seven +Seas," it all came over "Landy," that "living was better than +reading and life was better than literature." And so it is; once, +and only once, for each of us; and that is the tune that sings and +sings through one's head when one puts the book away. + + _The Courier_, January 13, 1900 + + +AN HEIR APPARENT. + +Last winter a young Californian, Mr. Frank Norris, published a novel +with the unpretentious title, "McTeague: a Story of San Francisco." +It was a book that could not be ignored nor dismissed with a word. +There was something very unusual about it, about its solidity and +mass, the thoroughness and firmness of texture, and it came down +like a blow from a sledge hammer among the slighter and more +sprightly performances of the hour. + +The most remarkable thing about the book was its maturity and +compactness. It has none of the ear-marks of those entertaining +"young writers" whom every season produces as inevitably as its +debutantes, young men who surprise for an hour and then settle down +to producing industriously for the class with which their peculiar +trick of phrase has found favor. It was a book addressed to the +American people and to the critics of the world, the work of a young +man who had set himself to the art of authorship with an almighty +seriousness, and who had no ambition to be clever. "McTeague" was +not an experiment in style nor a pretty piece of romantic folly, it +was a true story of the people--having about it, as M. Zola would +say, "the smell of the people"--courageous, dramatic, full of matter +and warm with life. It was realism of the most uncompromising kind. +The theme was such that the author could not have expected sudden +popularity for his book, such as sometimes overtakes monstrosities +of style in these discouraging days when Knighthood is in Flower to +the extent of a quarter of a million copies, nor could he have hoped +for pressing commissions from the fire-side periodicals. The life +story of a quack dentist who sometimes extracted molars with his +fingers, who mistreated and finally murdered his wife, is not, in +itself, attractive. But, after all, the theme counts for very +little. Every newspaper contains the essential subject matter for +another _Comedie Humaine_. The important point is that a man +considerably under thirty could take up a subject so grim and +unattractive, and that, for the mere love of doing things well, he +was able to hold himself down to the task of developing it +completely, that he was able to justify this quack's existence in +literature, to thrust this hairy, blonde dentist with the "salient +jaw of the carnivora," in amongst the immortals. + +It was after M. Zola had completed one of the greatest and gloomiest +of his novels of Parisian life, that he went down by the sea and +wrote "La Reve," that tender, adolescent story of love and purity +and youth. So, almost simultaneously with "McTeague," Mr. Norris +published "Blix," another San Francisco story, as short as +"McTeague" was lengthy, as light as "McTeague" was heavy, as poetic +and graceful as "McTeague" was somber and charmless. Here is a man +worth waiting on; a man who is both realist and poet, a man who can +teach + + "Not only by a comet's rush, + But by a rose's birth." + +Yet unlike as they are, in both books the source of power is the +same, and, for that matter, it was even the same in his first book, +"Moran of the Lady Letty." Mr. Norris has dispensed with the +conventional symbols that have crept into art, with the trite, +half-truths and circumlocutions, and got back to the physical basis +of things. He has abjured tea-table psychology, and the analysis of +figures in the carpet and subtile dissections of intellectual +impotencies, and the diverting game of words and the whole +literature of the nerves. He is big and warm and sometimes brutal, +and the strength of the soil comes up to him with very little loss +in the transmission. His art strikes deep down into the roots of +life and the foundation of Things as They Are--not as we tell each +other they are at the tea-table. But he is realistic art, not +artistic realism. He is courageous, but he is without bravado. + +He sees things freshly, as though they had not been seen before, and +describes them with singular directness and vividness, not with +morbid acuteness, with a large, wholesome joy of life. Nowhere is +this more evident than in his insistent use of environment. I recall +the passage in which he describes the street in which McTeague +lives. He represents that street as it is on Sunday, as it is on +working days, as it is in the early dawn when the workmen are going +out with pickaxes on their shoulders, as it is at ten o'clock when +the women are out marketing among the small shopkeepers, as it is at +night when the shop girls are out with the soda fountain tenders and +the motor cars dash by full of theater-goers, and the Salvationists +sing before the saloon on the corner. In four pages he reproduces in +detail the life in a by-street of a great city, the little tragedy +of the small shopkeeper. There are many ways of handling +environment--most of them bad. When a young author has very little +to say and no story worth telling, he resorts to environment. It is +frequently used to disguise a weakness of structure, as ladies who +paint landscapes put their cows knee-deep in water to conceal the +defective drawing of the legs. But such description as one meets +throughout Mr. Norris' book is in itself convincing proof of power, +imagination and literary skill. It is a positive and active force, +stimulating the reader's imagination, giving him an actual command, +a realizing sense of this world into which he is suddenly +transported. It gives to the book perspective, atmosphere, effects +of time and distance, creates the illusion of life. This power of +mature and comprehensive description is very unusual among the +younger American writers. Most of them observe the world through a +temperament, and are more occupied with their medium than the +objects they watch. And temperament is a glass which distorts most +astonishingly. But this young man sees with a clear eye, and +reproduces with a touch, firm and decisive, strong almost to +brutalness. + +Mr. Norris approaches things on their physical side; his characters +are personalities of flesh before they are anything else, types +before they are individuals. Especially is this true of his women. +His Trina is "very small and prettily made. Her face was round and +rather pale; her eyes long and narrow and blue, like the half-opened +eyes of a baby; her lips and the lobes of her tiny ears were pale, a +little suggestive of anaemia. But it was to her hair that one's +attention was most attracted. Heaps and heaps of blue-black coils +and braids, a royal crown of swarthy bands, a veritable sable tiara, +heavy, abundant and odorous. All the vitality that should have given +color to her face seems to have been absorbed by that marvelous +hair. It was the coiffure of a queen that shadowed the temples of +this little bourgeoise." Blix had "round, full arms," and "the skin +of her face was white and clean, except where it flushed into a most +charming pink upon her smooth, cool cheeks." In this grasp of the +element of things, this keen, clean, frank pleasure at color and +odor and warmth, this candid admission of the negative of beauty, +which is co-existent with and inseparable from it, lie much of his +power and promise. Here is a man catholic enough to include the +extremes of physical and moral life, strong enough to handle the +crudest colors and darkest shadows. Here is a man who has an +appetite for the physical universe, who loves the rank smells of +crowded alley-ways, or the odors of boudoirs, or the delicate +perfume exhaled from a woman's skin; who is not afraid of Pan, be he +ever so shaggy, and redolent of the herd. + +Structurally, where most young novelists are weak, Mr. Norris is +very strong. He has studied the best French masters, and he has +adopted their methods quite simply, as one selects an algebraic +formula to solve his particular problem. As to his style, that is, +as expression always is, just as vigorous as his thought compels it +to be, just as vivid as his conception warrants. If God Almighty has +given a man ideas, he will get himself a style from one source or +another. Mr. Norris, fortunately, is not a conscious stylist. He has +too much to say to be exquisitely vain about his medium. He has the +kind of brain stuff that would vanquish difficulties in any +profession, that might be put to building battleships, or solving +problems of finance, or to devising colonial policies. Let us be +thankful that he has put it to literature. Let us be thankful, +moreover, that he is not introspective and that his intellect does +not devour itself, but feeds upon the great race of man, and, above +all, let us rejoice that he is not a "temperamental" artist, but +something larger, for a great brain and an assertive temperament +seldom dwell together. + +There are clever men enough in the field of American letters, and +the fault of most of them is merely one of magnitude; they are not +large enough; they travel in small orbits, they play on muted +strings. They sing neither of the combats of Atriedes nor the labors +of Cadmus, but of the tea-table and the Odyssey of the Rialto. +Flaubert said that a drop of water contained all the elements of the +sea, save one--immensity. Mr. Norris is concerned only with serious +things, he has only large ambitions. His brush is bold, his color is +taken fresh from the kindly earth, his canvas is large enough to +hold American life, the real life of the people. He has come into +the court of the troubadours singing the song of Elys, the song of +warm, full nature. He has struck the true note of the common life. +He is what Mr. Norman Hapgood said the great American dramatist must +be: "A large human being, with a firm stomach, who knows and loves +the people." + + _The Courier_, April 7, 1900 + + + + +_When I Knew Stephen Crane_ + + +It was, I think, in the spring of '94 that a slender, narrow-chested +fellow in a shabby grey suit, with a soft felt hat pulled low over +his eyes, sauntered into the office of the managing editor of the +Nebraska State Journal and introduced himself as Stephen Crane. He +stated that he was going to Mexico to do some work for the Bacheller +Syndicate and get rid of his cough, and that he would be stopping in +Lincoln for a few days. Later he explained that he was out of money +and would be compelled to wait until he got a check from the East +before he went further. I was a Junior at the Nebraska State +University at the time, and was doing some work for the State +Journal in my leisure time, and I happened to be in the managing +editor's room when Mr. Crane introduced himself. I was just off the +range; I knew a little Greek and something about cattle and a good +horse when I saw one, and beyond horses and cattle I considered +nothing of vital importance except good stories and the people who +wrote them. This was the first man of letters I had ever met in the +flesh, and when the young man announced who he was, I dropped into a +chair behind the editor's desk where I could stare at him without +being too much in evidence. + +Only a very youthful enthusiasm and a large propensity for hero +worship could have found anything impressive in the young man who +stood before the managing editor's desk. He was thin to emaciation, +his face was gaunt and unshaven, a thin dark moustache straggled on +his upper lip, his black hair grew low on his forehead and was +shaggy and unkempt. His grey clothes were much the worse for wear +and fitted him so badly it seemed unlikely he had ever been measured +for them. He wore a flannel shirt and a slovenly apology for a +necktie, and his shoes were dusty and worn gray about the toes and +were badly run over at the heel. I had seen many a tramp printer +come up the Journal stairs to hunt a job, but never one who +presented such a disreputable appearance as this story-maker man. He +wore gloves, which seemed rather a contradiction to the general +slovenliness of his attire, but when he took them off to search his +pockets for his credentials, I noticed that his hands were +singularly fine; long, white, and delicately shaped, with thin, +nervous fingers. I have seen pictures of Aubrey Beardsley's hands +that recalled Crane's very vividly. + +At that time Crane was but twenty-four, and almost an unknown man. +Hamlin Garland had seen some of his work and believed in him, and +had introduced him to Mr. Howells, who recommended him to the +Bacheller Syndicate. "The Red Badge of Courage" had been published +in the State Journal that winter along with a lot of other syndicate +matter, and the grammatical construction of the story was so faulty +that the managing editor had several times called on me to edit the +copy. In this way I had read it very carefully, and through the +careless sentence-structure I saw the wonder of that remarkable +performance. But the grammar certainly was bad. I remember one of +the reporters who had corrected the phrase "it don't" for the tenth +time remarked savagely, "If I couldn't write better English than +this, I'd quit." + +Crane spent several days in the town, living from hand to mouth and +waiting for his money. I think he borrowed a small amount from the +managing editor. He lounged about the office most of the time, and I +frequently encountered him going in and out of the cheap restaurants +on Tenth Street. When he was at the office he talked a good deal in +a wandering, absent-minded fashion, and his conversation was +uniformly frivolous. If he could not evade a serious question by a +joke, he bolted. I cut my classes to lie in wait for him, confident +that in some unwary moment I could trap him into serious +conversation, that if one burned incense long enough and ardently +enough, the oracle would not be dumb. I was Maupassant mad at the +time, a malady particularly unattractive in a Junior, and I made a +frantic effort to get an expression of opinion from him on "Le +Bonheur." "Oh, you're Moping, are you?" he remarked with a sarcastic +grin, and went on reading a little volume of Poe that he carried in +his pocket. At another time I cornered him in the Funny Man's room +and succeeded in getting a little out of him. We were taught +literature by an exceedingly analytical method at the University, +and we probably distorted the method, and I was busy trying to find +the least common multiple of _Hamlet_ and the greatest common +divisor of _Macbeth_, and I began asking him whether stories were +constructed by cabalistic formulae. At length he sighed wearily and +shook his drooping shoulders, remarking: + +"Where did you get all that rot? Yarns aren't done by mathematics. +You can't do it by rule any more than you can dance by rule. You +have to have the itch of the thing in your fingers, and if you +haven't,--well, you're damned lucky, and you'll live long and +prosper, that's all."--And with that he yawned and went down the +hall. + +Crane was moody most of the time, his health was bad and he seemed +profoundly discouraged. Even his jokes were exceedingly drastic. He +went about with the tense, preoccupied, self-centered air of a man +who is brooding over some impending disaster, and I conjectured +vainly as to what it might be. Though he was seemingly entirely idle +during the few days I knew him, his manner indicated that he was in +the throes of work that told terribly on his nerves. His eyes I +remember as the finest I have ever seen, large and dark and full of +lustre and changing lights, but with a profound melancholy always +lurking deep in them. They were eyes that seemed to be burning +themselves out. + +As he sat at the desk with his shoulders drooping forward, his head +low, and his long, white fingers drumming on the sheets of copy +paper, he was as nervous as a race horse fretting to be on the +track. Always, as he came and went about the halls, he seemed like a +man preparing for a sudden departure. Now that he is dead it occurs +to me that all his life was a preparation for sudden departure. I +remember once when he was writing a letter he stopped and asked me +about the spelling of a word, saying carelessly, "I haven't time to +learn to spell." + +Then, glancing down at his attire, he added with an absent-minded +smile, "I haven't time to dress either; it takes an awful slice out +of a fellow's life." + +He said he was poor, and he certainly looked it, but four years +later when he was in Cuba, drawing the largest salary ever paid a +newspaper correspondent, he clung to this same untidy manner of +dress, and his ragged overalls and buttonless shirt were eyesores to +the immaculate Mr. Davis, in his spotless linen and neat khaki +uniform, with his Gibson chin always freshly shaven. When I first +heard of his serious illness, his old throat trouble aggravated into +consumption by his reckless exposure in Cuba, I recalled a passage +from Maeterlinck's essay, "The Pre-Destined," on those doomed to +early death: "As children, life seems nearer to them than to other +children. They appear to know nothing, and yet there is in their +eyes so profound a certainty that we feel they must know all.--In +all haste, but wisely and with minute care do they prepare +themselves to live, and this very haste is a sign upon which mothers +can scarce bring themselves to look." I remembered, too, the young +man's melancholy and his tenseness, his burning eyes, and his way of +slurring over the less important things, as one whose time is short. + +I have heard other people say how difficult it was to induce Crane +to talk seriously about his work, and I suspect that he was +particularly averse to discussions with literary men of wider +education and better equipment than himself, yet he seemed to feel +that this fuller culture was not for him. Perhaps the unreasoning +instinct which lies deep in the roots of our lives, and which guides +us all, told him that he had not time enough to acquire it. + +Men will sometimes reveal themselves to children, or to people whom +they think never to see again, more completely than they ever do to +their confreres. From the wise we hold back alike our folly and our +wisdom, and for the recipients of our deeper confidences we seldom +select our equals. The soul has no message for the friends with whom +we dine every week. It is silenced by custom and convention, and we +play only in the shallows. It selects its listeners willfully, and +seemingly delights to waste its best upon the chance wayfarer who +meets us in the highway at a fated hour. There are moments too, when +the tides run high or very low, when self-revelation is necessary to +every man, if it be only to his valet or his gardener. At such a +moment, I was with Mr. Crane. + +The hoped for revelation came unexpectedly enough. It was on the +last night he spent in Lincoln. I had come back from the theatre and +was in the Journal office writing a notice of the play. It was +eleven o'clock when Crane came in. He had expected his money to +arrive on the night mail and it had not done so, and he was out of +sorts and deeply despondent. He sat down on the ledge of the open +window that faced on the street, and when I had finished my notice I +went over and took a chair beside him. Quite without invitation on +my part, Crane began to talk, began to curse his trade from the +first throb of creative desire in a boy to the finished work of the +master. The night was oppressively warm; one of those dry winds that +are the curse of that country was blowing up from Kansas. The white, +western moonlight threw sharp, blue shadows below us. The streets +were silent at that hour, and we could hear the gurgle of the +fountain in the Post Office square across the street, and the twang +of banjos from the lower verandah of the Hotel Lincoln, where the +colored waiters were serenading the guests. The drop lights in the +office were dull under their green shades, and the telegraph sounder +clicked faintly in the next room. In all his long tirade, Crane +never raised his voice; he spoke slowly and monotonously and even +calmly, but I have never known so bitter a heart in any man as he +revealed to me that night. It was an arraignment of the wages of +life, an invocation to the ministers of hate. + +Incidentally he told me the sum he had received for "The Red Badge +of Courage," which I think was something like ninety dollars, and he +repeated some lines from "The Black Riders," which was then in +preparation. He gave me to understand that he led a double literary +life; writing in the first place the matter that pleased himself, +and doing it very slowly; in the second place, any sort of stuff +that would sell. And he remarked that his poor was just as bad as it +could possibly be. He realized, he said, that his limitations were +absolutely impassable. "What I can't do, I can't do at all, and I +can't acquire it. I only hold one trump." + +He had no settled plans at all. He was going to Mexico wholly +uncertain of being able to do any successful work there, and he +seemed to feel very insecure about the financial end of his venture. +The thing that most interested me was what he said about his slow +method of composition. He declared that there was little money in +story-writing at best, and practically none in it for him, because +of the time it took him to work up his detail. Other men, he said, +could sit down and write up an experience while the physical effect +of it, so to speak, was still upon them, and yesterday's impressions +made to-day's "copy." But when he came in from the streets to write +up what he had seen there, his faculties were benumbed, and he sat +twirling his pencil and hunting for words like a schoolboy. + +I mentioned "The Red Badge of Courage," which was written in nine +days, and he replied that, though the writing took very little time, +he had been unconsciously working the detail of the story out +through most of his boyhood. His ancestors had been soldiers, and he +had been imagining war stories ever since he was out of +knickerbockers, and in writing his first war story he had simply +gone over his imaginary campaigns and selected his favorite +imaginary experiences. He declared that his imagination was hide +bound; it was there, but it pulled hard. After he got a notion for a +story, months passed before he could get any sort of personal +contract with it, or feel any potency to handle it. "The detail of a +thing has to filter through my blood, and then it comes out like a +native product, but it takes forever," he remarked. I distinctly +remember the illustration, for it rather took hold of me. + +I have often been astonished since to hear Crane spoken of as "the +reporter in fiction," for the reportorial faculty of superficial +reception and quick transference was what he conspicuously lacked. +His first newspaper account of his shipwreck on the filibuster +"Commodore" off the Florida coast was as lifeless as the "copy" of a +police court reporter. It was many months afterwards that the +literary product of his terrible experience appeared in that +marvellous sea story "The Open Boat," unsurpassed in its vividness +and constructive perfection. + +At the close of our long conversation that night, when the copy boy +came in to take me home, I suggested to Crane that in ten years he +would probably laugh at all his temporary discomfort. Again his body +took on that strenuous tension and he clenched his hands, saying, "I +can't wait ten years, I haven't time." + +The ten years are not up yet, and he has done his work and gathered +his reward and gone. Was ever so much experience and achievement +crowded into so short a space of time? A great man dead at +twenty-nine! That would have puzzled the ancients. Edward Garnett +wrote of him in The Academy of December 17, 1899: "I cannot remember +a parallel in the literary history of fiction. Maupassant, Meredith, +Henry James, Mr. Howells and Tolstoy, were all learning their +expression at an age where Crane had achieved his and achieved it +triumphantly." He had the precocity of those doomed to die in youth. +I am convinced that when I met him he had a vague premonition of the +shortness of his working day, and in the heart of the man there was +that which said, "That thou doest, do quickly." + +At twenty-one this son of an obscure New Jersey rector, with but a +scant reading knowledge of French and no training, had rivaled in +technique the foremost craftsmen of the Latin races. In the six +years since I met him, a stranded reporter, he stood in the firing +line during two wars, knew hairbreadth 'scapes on land and sea, and +established himself as the first writer of his time in the picturing +of episodic, fragmentary life. His friends have charged him with +fickleness, but he was a man who was in the preoccupation of haste. +He went from country to country, from man to man, absorbing all that +was in them for him. He had no time to look backward. He had no +leisure for _camaraderie_. He drank life to the lees, but at the +banquet table where other men took their ease and jested over their +wine, he stood a dark and silent figure, sombre as Poe himself, not +wishing to be understood; and he took his portion in haste, with his +loins girded, and his shoes on his feet, and his staff in his hand, +like one who must depart quickly. + + _The Library_, June 23, 1900 + + + + +_On the Art of Fiction_ + + +One is sometimes asked about the "obstacles" that confront young +writers who are trying to do good work. I should say the greatest +obstacles that writers today have to get over, are the dazzling +journalistic successes of twenty years ago, stories that surprised +and delighted by their sharp photographic detail and that were +really nothing more than lively pieces of reporting. The whole aim +of that school of writing was novelty--never a very important thing +in art. They gave us, altogether, poor standards--taught us to +multiply our ideas instead of to condense them. They tried to make a +story out of every theme that occurred to them and to get returns on +every situation that suggested itself. They got returns, of a kind. +But their work, when one looks back on it, now that the novelty upon +which they counted so much is gone, is journalistic and thin. The +especial merit of a good reportorial story is that it shall be +intensely interesting and pertinent today and shall have lost its +point by tomorrow. + +Art, it seems to me, should simplify. That, indeed, is very nearly +the whole of the higher artistic process; finding what conventions +of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the +spirit of the whole--so that all that one has suppressed and cut +away is there to the reader's consciousness as much as if it were in +type on the page. Millet had done hundreds of sketches of peasants +sowing grain, some of them very complicated and interesting, but +when he came to paint the spirit of them all into one picture, "The +Sower," the composition is so simple that it seems inevitable. All +the discarded sketches that went before made the picture what it +finally became, and the process was all the time one of simplifying, +of sacrificing many conceptions good in themselves for one that was +better and more universal. + +Any first rate novel or story must have in it the strength of a +dozen fairly good stories that have been sacrificed to it. A good +workman can't be a cheap workman; he can't be stingy about wasting +material, and he cannot compromise. Writing ought either to be the +manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand--a +business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast +foods--or it should be an art, which is always a search for +something for which there is no market demand, something new and +untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with +standardized values. The courage to go on without compromise does +not come to a writer all at once--nor, for that matter, does the +ability. Both are phases of natural development. In the beginning +the artist, like his public, is wedded to old forms, old ideals, and +his vision is blurred by the memory of old delights he would like to +recapture. + + _The Borzoi_, 1920 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Collection of Stories, Reviews and +Essays, by Willa Cather + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COLLECTION OF STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 25586.txt or 25586.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/5/8/25586/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Barbara Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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