diff options
Diffstat (limited to '30023-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 30023-0.txt | 7611 |
1 files changed, 7611 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/30023-0.txt b/30023-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f67e85 --- /dev/null +++ b/30023-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7611 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30023 *** + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:-- + +1. Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + +2. Printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, + and ligature usage have been retained except the following: + Pg. 117, Ch. VII: Changed comma to period in (relation to life,) + Pg. 255, Ch. XVI: Removed ending quote in (the highest sense.") + + + + + THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE + + WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS + + + + + THE DAUGHTER + OF THE STORAGE + + AND OTHER THINGS + IN PROSE AND VERSE + + W. D. HOWELLS + + + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + Copyright, 1915, 1916, by Harper & Brothers + Printed in the United States of America + Published April, 1916 + + + + + CONTENTS + + PAGE + I. THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE 3 + II. A PRESENTIMENT 45 + III. CAPTAIN DUNLEVY'S LAST TRIP 67 + IV. THE RETURN TO FAVOR 81 + V. SOMEBODY'S MOTHER 93 + VI. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW 107 + VII. AN EXPERIENCE 117 + VIII. THE BOARDERS 127 + IX. BREAKFAST IS MY BEST MEAL 141 + X. THE MOTHER-BIRD 151 + XI. THE AMIGO 161 + XII. BLACK CROSS FARM 173 + XIII. THE CRITICAL BOOKSTORE 185 + XIV. A FEAST OF REASON 227 + XV. CITY AND COUNTRY IN THE FALL 243 + XVI. TABLE TALK 253 + XVII. THE ESCAPADE OF A GRANDFATHER 269 + XVIII. SELF-SACRIFICE: A FARCE-TRAGEDY 285 + XIX. THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 319 + + + + + THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE + + + I + +They were getting some of their things out to send into the country, +and Forsyth had left his work to help his wife look them over and +decide which to take and which to leave. The things were mostly trunks +that they had stored the fall before; there were some tables and +Colonial bureaus inherited from his mother, and some mirrors and +decorative odds and ends, which they would not want in the furnished +house they had taken for the summer. There were some canvases which +Forsyth said he would paint out and use for other subjects, but which, +when he came to look at again, he found really not so bad. The rest, +literally, was nothing but trunks; there were, of course, two or three +boxes of books. When they had been packed closely into the five-dollar +room, with the tables and bureaus and mirrors and canvases and +decorative odds and ends put carefully on top, the Forsyths thought +the effect very neat, and laughed at themselves for being proud of it. + +They spent the winter in Paris planning for the summer in America, and +now it had come May, a month which in New York is at its best, and in +the Constitutional Storage Safe-Deposit Warehouse is by no means at +its worst. The Constitutional Storage is no longer new, but when the +Forsyths were among the first to store there it was up to the latest +moment in the modern perfections of a safe-deposit warehouse. It was +strictly fire-proof; and its long, white, brick-walled, iron-doored +corridors, with their clean concrete floors, branching from a central +avenue to the tall windows north and south, offered perspectives +sculpturesquely bare, or picturesquely heaped with arriving or +departing household stuff. + +When the Forsyths went to look at it a nice young fellow from the +office had gone with them; running ahead and switching on rows of +electrics down the corridors, and then, with a wire-basketed electric +lamp, which he twirled about and held aloft and alow, showing the +dustless, sweet-smelling spaciousness of a perfect five-dollar room. +He said it would more than hold their things; and it really held them. + +Now, when the same young fellow unlocked the iron door and set it +wide, he said he would get them a man, and he got Mrs. Forsyth a gilt +armchair from some furniture going into an adjoining twenty-dollar +room. She sat down in it, and "Of course," she said, "the pieces I +want will be at the very back and the very bottom. Why don't you get +yourself a chair, too, Ambrose? What are you looking at?" + +With his eyes on the neighboring furniture he answered, "Seems to be +the wreck of a millionaire's happy home; parlor and kitchen utensils +and office furniture all in white and gold." + +"Horrors, yes!" Mrs. Forsyth said, without turning her head from +studying her trunks, as if she might divine their contents from their +outside. + +"Tata and I," her husband said, "are more interested in the +millionaire's things." Tata, it appeared, was not a dog, but a child; +the name was not the diminutive of her own name, which was Charlotte, +but a generic name for a doll, which Tata had learned from her Italian +nurse to apply to all little girls and had got applied to herself by +her father. She was now at a distance down the corridor, playing a +drama with the pieces of millionaire furniture; as they stretched away +in variety and splendor they naturally suggested personages of +princely quality, and being touched with her little forefinger tip +were capable of entering warmly into Tata's plans for them. + +Her mother looked over her shoulder toward the child. "Come here, +Tata," she called, and when Tata, having enjoined some tall mirrors to +secrecy with a frown and a shake of the head, ran to her, Mrs. Forsyth +had forgotten why she had called her. "Oh!" she said, recollecting, +"do you know which your trunk is, Tata? Can you show mamma? Can you +put your hand on it?" + +The child promptly put her hand on the end of a small box just within +her tiptoe reach, and her mother said, "I do believe she knows +everything that's in it, Ambrose! That trunk has got to be opened the +very first one!" + +The man that the young fellow said he would send showed at the far end +of the corridor, smaller than human, but enlarging himself to the +average Irish bulk as he drew near. He was given instructions and +obeyed with caressing irony Mrs. Forsyth's order to pull out Tata's +trunk first, and she found the key in a large tangle of keys, and +opened it, and had the joy of seeing everything recognized by the +owner: doll by doll, cook-stove, tin dishes, small brooms, wooden +animals on feet and wheels, birds of various plumage, a toy piano, a +dust-pan, alphabet blocks, dog's-eared linen Mother Goose books, and +the rest. Tata had been allowed to put the things away herself, and +she took them out with no apparent sense of the time passed since she +saw them last. In the changing life of her parents all times and +places were alike to her. She began to play with the things in the +storage corridor as if it were yesterday when she saw them last in the +flat. Her mother and father left her to them in the distraction of +their own trunks. Mrs. Forsyth had these spread over the space toward +the window and their lids lifted and tried to decide about them. In +the end she had changed the things in them back and forth till she +candidly owned that she no longer knew where anything at all was. + +As she raised herself for a moment's respite from the problem she saw +at the far end of the corridor a lady with two men, who increased in +size like her own man as they approached. The lady herself seemed to +decrease, though she remained of a magnificence to match the +furniture, and looked like it as to her dress of white picked out in +gold when she arrived at the twenty-dollar room next the Forsyths'. In +her advance she had been vividly played round by a little boy, who ran +forward and back and easily doubled the length of the corridor before +he came to a stand and remained with his brown eyes fixed on Tata. +Tata herself had blue eyes, which now hovered dreamily above the +things in her trunk. + +The two mothers began politely to ignore each other. She of the +twenty-dollar room directed the men who had come with her, and in a +voice of authority and appeal at once commanded and consulted them in +the disposition of her belongings. At the sound of the mixed tones +Mrs. Forsyth signaled to her husband, and, when he came within +whispering, murmured: "Pittsburg, _or_ Chicago. Did you _ever_ hear +such a Mid-Western accent!" She pretended to be asking him about +repacking the trunk before her, but the other woman was not deceived. +She was at least aware of criticism in the air of her neighbors, and +she put on greater severity with the workmen. The boy came up and +caught her skirt. "What?" she said, bending over. "No, certainly not. +I haven't time to attend to you. Go off and play. Don't I tell you no? +Well, there, then! Will you get that trunk out where I can open it? +That small one there," she said to one of the men, while the other +rested for both. She stooped to unlock the trunk and flung up the lid. +"Now if you bother me any more I will surely--" But she lost herself +short of the threat and began again to seek counsel and issue orders. + +The boy fell upon the things in the trunk, which were the things of a +boy, as those in Tata's trunk were the things of a girl, and to run +with them, one after another, to Tata and to pile them in gift on the +floor beside her trunk. He did not stop running back and forth as fast +as his short, fat legs could carry him till he had reached the bottom +of his box, chattering constantly and taking no note of the effect +with Tata. Then, as she made no response whatever to his munificence, +he began to be abashed and to look pathetically from her to her +father. + +"Oh, really, young man," Forsyth said, "we can't let you impoverish +yourself at this rate. What have you said to your benefactor, Tata? +What are you going to give _him_?" + +The children did not understand his large words, but they knew he was +affectionately mocking them. + +"Ambrose," Mrs. Forsyth said, "you mustn't let him." + +"I'm trying to think how to hinder him, but it's rather late," Forsyth +answered, and then the boy's mother joined in. + +"Indeed, indeed, if you can, it's more than I can. You're just +worrying the little girl," she said to the boy. + +"Oh no, he isn't, dear little soul," Mrs. Forsyth said, leaving her +chair and going up to the two children. She took the boy's hand in +hers. "What a kind boy! But you know my little girl mustn't take all +your playthings. If you'll give her _one_ she'll give _you_ one, and +that will be enough. You can both play with them all for the present." +She referred her suggestion to the boy's mother, and the two ladies +met at the invisible line dividing the five-dollar room from the +twenty-dollar room. + +"Oh yes, indeed," the Mid-Westerner said, willing to meet the +New-Yorker half-way. "You're taking things out, I see. I hardly know +which is the worst: taking out or putting in." + +"Well, we are just completing the experience," Mrs. Forsyth said. "I +shall be able to say better how I feel in half an hour." + +"You don't mean this is the first time you've stored? I suppose +_we've_ been in and out of storage twenty times. Not in this warehouse +exactly; we've never been here before." + +"It seems very nice," Mrs. Forsyth suggested. + +"They all do at the beginning. I suppose if we ever came to the end +they would seem nicer still. Mr. Bream's business is always taking him +away" (it appeared almost instantly that he was the international +inspector of a great insurance company's agencies in Europe and South +America), "and when I don't go with him it seems easier to break up +and go into a hotel than to go on housekeeping. I don't know that it +is, though," she questioned. "It's so hard to know what to do with the +child in a hotel." + +"Yes, but he seems the sort that you could manage with anywhere," Mrs. +Forsyth agreed and disagreed. + +His mother looked at him where he stood beaming upon Tata and again +joyfully awaiting some effect with her. But the child sat back upon +her small heels with her eyes fixed on the things in her trunk and +made no sign of having seen the heaps of his gifts. + +The Forsyths had said to each other before this that their little girl +was a queer child, and now they were not so much ashamed of her +apparent selfishness or rude indifference as they thought they were. +They made a joke of it with the boy's mother, who said she did not +believe Tata was anything but shy. She said she often told Mr. Bream +that she did wish Peter--yes, that was his name; she didn't like it +much, but it was his grandfather's; was Tata a Christian name? Oh, +just a pet name! Well, it _was_ pretty--could be broken of _his_ +ridiculous habit; most children--little boys, that was--held onto +their things so. + +Forsyth would have taken something from Tata and given it to Peter; +but his wife would not let him; and he had to content himself with +giving Peter a pencil of his own that drew red at one end and blue at +the other, and that at once drew a blue boy, that looked like Peter, +on the pavement. He told Peter not to draw a boy now, but wait till he +got home, and then be careful not to draw a blue boy with the red end. +He helped him put his things back into his trunk, and Peter seemed to +enjoy that, too. + +Tata, without rising from her seat on her heels, watched the +restitution with her dreamy eyes; she paid no attention to the blue +boy on the pavement; pictures from her father were nothing new to her. +The mothers parted with expressions of mutual esteem in spite of their +difference of accent and fortune. Mrs. Forsyth asked if she might not +kiss Peter, and did so; he ran to his mother and whispered to her; +then he ran back and gave Tata so great a hug that she fell over from +it. + +Tata did not cry, but continued as if lost in thought which she could +not break from, and that night, after she had said her prayers with +her mother, her mother thought it was time to ask her: "Tata, dear, +why did you act so to that boy to-day? Why didn't you give him +something of yours when he brought you all his things? Why did you act +so oddly?" + +Tata said something in a voice so low that her mother could not make +it out. + +"What did you say?" + +"I couldn't tell which," the child still whispered; but now her +mother's ear was at her lips. + +"How, which?" + +"To give him. The more I looked," and the whisper became a quivering +breath, "the more I couldn't tell which. And I wanted to give them +_all_ to him, but I couldn't tell whether it would be right, because +you and papa gave them to me for birthday and Christmas," and the +quivering breath broke into a sobbing grief, so that the mother had to +catch the child up to her heart. + +"Dear little tender conscience!" she said, still wiping her eyes when +she told the child's father, and they fell into a sweet, serious talk +about her before they slept. "And I was ashamed of her before that +woman! I know she misjudged her; but _we_ ought to have remembered how +fine and precious she is, and _known_ how she must have suffered, +trying to decide." + +"Yes, conscience," the father said. "And temperament, the temperament +to which decision is martyrdom." + +"And she will always have to be deciding! She'll have to decide for +you, some day, as I do now; you are very undecided, Ambrose--she gets +it from you." + + + II + +The Forsyths were afraid that Tata might want to offer Peter some gift +in reparation the next morning, and her father was quite ready, if she +said so, to put off their leaving town, and go with her to the +Constitutional Storage, which was the only address of Mrs. Bream that +he knew. But the child had either forgotten or she was contented with +her mother's comforting, and no longer felt remorse. + +One does not store the least of one's personal or household gear +without giving a hostage to storage, a pledge of allegiance impossible +to break. No matter how few things one puts in, one never takes +everything out; one puts more things in. Mrs. Forsyth went to the +warehouse with Tata in the fall before they sailed for another winter +in Paris, and added some old bits she had picked up at farm-houses in +their country drives, and they filled the room quite to the top. She +told her husband how Tata had entered into the spirit of putting back +her trunk of playthings with the hope of seeing it again in the +spring; and she added that she had now had to take a seven-fifty room +without consulting him, or else throw away the things they had brought +home. + +During the ten or twelve years that followed, the Forsyths sometimes +spent a whole winter in a hotel; sometimes they had a flat; sometimes +they had a separate dwelling. If their housing was ample, they took +almost everything out of storage; once they got down to a two-dollar +bin, and it seemed as if they really were leaving the storage +altogether. Then, if they went into a flat that was nearly all studio, +their furniture went back in a cataclysmal wave to the warehouse, +where a ten-dollar room, a twelve-dollar room, would not dam the +overflow. + +Tata, who had now outgrown her pet name, and was called Charlotte +because her mother felt she ought to be, always went with her to the +storage to help look the things over, to see the rooms emptied down to +a few boxes, or replenished to bursting. In the first years she played +about, close to her mother; as she grew older she ventured further, +and began to make friends with other little girls who had come with +their mothers. It was quite safe socially to be in the Constitutional +Storage; it gave standing; and Mrs. Forsyth fearlessly chanced +acquaintance with these mothers, who would sometimes be there whole +long mornings or afternoons, taking trunks out or putting them in. +With the trunks set into the corridors and opened for them, they would +spend the hours looking the contents over, talking to their neighbors, +or rapt in long silences when they hesitated with things held off or +up, and, after gazing absently at them, putting them back again. +Sometimes they varied the process by laying things aside for sending +home, and receipting for them at the office as "goods selected." + +They were mostly hotel people or apartment people, as Mrs. Forsyth +oftenest was herself, but sometimes they were separate-house people. +Among these there was one family, not of great rank or wealth, but +distinguished, as lifelong New-Yorkers, in a world of comers and goers +of every origin. Mrs. Forsyth especially liked them for a certain +quality, but what this quality was she could not very well say. They +were a mother with two daughters, not quite old maids, but on the way +to it, and there was very intermittently the apparently bachelor +brother of the girls; at the office Mrs. Forsyth verified her +conjecture that he was some sort of minister. One could see they were +all gentlefolks, though the girls were not of the last cry of fashion. +They were very nice to their mother, and you could tell that they must +have been coming with her for years. + +At this point in her study of them for her husband's amusement she +realized that Charlotte had been coming to the storage with her nearly +all her life, and that more and more the child had taken charge of the +uneventual inspection of the things. She was shocked to think that she +had let this happen, and now she commanded her husband to say whether +Charlotte would grow into a storage old maid like those good girls. + +Forsyth said, Probably not before her time; but he allowed it was a +point to be considered. + +Very well, then, Mrs. Forsyth said, the child should never go again; +that was all. She had strongly confirmed herself in this resolution +when one day she not only let the child go again, but she let her go +alone. The child was now between seventeen and eighteen, rather tall, +grave, pretty, with the dull brown hair that goes so well with +dreaming blue eyes, and of a stiff grace. She had not come out yet, +because she had always been out, handing cakes at her father's studio +teas long before she could remember not doing it, and later pouring +for her mother with rather a quelling air as she got toward fifteen. +During these years the family had been going and coming between Europe +and America; they did not know perfectly why, except that it was +easier than not. + +More and more there was a peculiarity in the goods selected by +Charlotte for sending home, which her mother one day noted. "How is +it, Charlotte, that you always send exactly the things I want, and +when you get your own things here you don't know whether they are what +you wanted or not?" + +"Because I don't know when I send them. I don't choose them; I can't." + +"But you choose the right things for me?" + +"No, I don't, mother. I just take what comes first, and you always +like it." + +"Now, that is nonsense, Charlotte. I can't have you telling me such a +thing as that. It's an insult to my intelligence. Do you think I don't +know my own mind?" + +"I don't know _my_ mind," the girl said, so persistently, obstinately, +stubbornly, that her mother did not pursue the subject for fear of +worse. + +She referred it to her husband, who said: "Perhaps it's like poets +never being able to remember their own poetry. I've heard it's because +they have several versions in their minds when they write and can't +remember which they've written. Charlotte has several choices in her +mind, and can't choose between her choices." + +"Well, we ought to have broken her of her indecision. Some day it will +make her very unhappy." + +"Pretty hard to break a person of her temperament," Forsyth suggested. + +"I know it!" his wife admitted, with a certain pleasure in realizing +the fact. "I don't know what we _shall_ do." + + + III + +Storage society was almost wholly feminine; in rare instances there +was a man who must have been sent in dearth of women or in an hour of +their disability. Then the man came hastily, with a porter, and either +pulled all the things out of the rooms so that he could honestly say +he had seen them, and that the thing wanted was not there; or else +merely had the doors opened, and after a glance inside resolved to +wait till his wife, or mother, or daughter could come. He agreed in +guilty eagerness with the workmen that this was the only way. + +The exception to the general rule was a young man who came one bright +spring morning when all nature suggested getting one's stuff out and +going into the country, and had the room next the Forsyths' original +five-dollar room opened. As it happened, Charlotte was at the moment +visiting this room upon her mother's charge to see whether certain old +scrim sash-curtains, which they had not needed for ages but at last +simply _must_ have, were not lurking there in a chest of general +curtainings. The Forsyths now had rooms on other floors, but their +main room was at the end of the corridor branching northward from that +where the five-dollar room was. Near this main room that nice New York +family had their rooms, and Charlotte had begun the morning in their +friendly neighborhood, going through some chests that might perhaps +have the general curtainings in them and the scrim curtains among the +rest. It had not, and she had gone to what the Forsyths called their +old ancestral five-dollar room, where that New York family continued +to project a sort of wireless chaperonage over her. But the young man +had come with a porter, and, with her own porter, Charlotte could not +feel that even a wireless chaperonage was needed, though the young man +approached with the most beaming face she thought she had ever seen, +and said he hoped he should not be in her way. She answered with a +sort of helpless reverberation of his glow, Not at all; she should +only be a moment. She wanted to say she hoped she would not be in +_his_ way, but she saved herself in time, while, with her own eyes +intent upon the façade of her room and her mind trying to lose itself +in the question which curtain-trunk the scrims might be in, she kept +the sense of his sweet eyes, the merriest eyes she had ever seen, +effulgent with good-will and apology and reverent admiration. She +blushed to think it admiration, though she liked to think it so, and +she did not snub him when the young man jumped about, neglecting his +own storage, and divining the right moments for his offers of help. +She saw that he was a little shorter than herself, that he was very +light and quick on his feet, and had a round, brown face, +clean-shaven, and a round, brown head, close shorn, from which in the +zeal of his attentions to her he had shed his straw hat onto the +window-sill. He formed a strong contrast to the contents of his +store-room, which was full, mainly, of massive white furniture picked +out in gold, and very blond. He said casually that it had been there, +off and on, since long before he could remember, and at these words an +impression, vague, inexplicable, deepened in Charlotte's mind. + +"Mother," she said, for she had now disused the earlier "mamma" in +deference to modern usage, "how old was I when we first took that +five-dollar room?" + +She asked this question after she had shown the scrim curtains she had +found and brought home with her. + +"Why? I don't know. Two or three; three or four. I should have to +count up. What makes you ask?" + +"Can a person recollect what happened when they were three or four?" + +"I should say not, decidedly." + +"Or recollect a face?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Then of course it wasn't. Mother, do you remember ever telling me +what the little boy was like who gave me all his playthings and I +couldn't decide what to give him back?" + +"What a question! Of course not! He was very brown and funny, with the +beamingest little face in the world. Rather short for his age, I +should say, though I haven't the least idea what his age was." + +"Then it was the very same little boy!" Charlotte said. + +"Who was the very same little boy?" her mother demanded. + +"The one that was there to-day; the young man, I mean," Charlotte +explained, and then she told what had happened with a want of fullness +which her mother's imagination supplied. + +"Did he say who he was? Is he coming back to-morrow or this afternoon? +Did you inquire who he was or where?" + +"What an idea, mother!" Charlotte said, grouping the several +impossibilities under one head in her answer. + +"You had a perfect right to know, if you thought he was the one." + +"But I didn't _think_ he was the one, and I don't _know_ that he is +now; and if he was, what could I do about it?" + +"That is true," Mrs. Forsyth owned. "But it's very disappointing. I've +always felt as if they ought to know it was your undecidedness and not +ungenerousness." + +Charlotte laughed a little forlornly, but she only said, "Really, +mother!" + +Mrs. Forsyth was still looking at the curtains. "Well, these are not +the scrims I wanted. You must go back. I believe I will go with you. +The sooner we have it over the better," she added, and she left the +undecided Charlotte to decide whether she meant the scrim curtains or +the young man's identity. + +It was very well, for one reason, that she decided to go with +Charlotte that afternoon. The New-Yorkers must have completed the +inspection of their trunks, for they had not come back. Their failure +to do so was the more important because the young man had come back +and was actively superintending the unpacking of his room. The +palatial furniture had all been ranged up and down the corridor, and +as fast as a trunk was got out and unlocked he went through it with +the help of the storage-men, listed its contents in a note-book with a +number, and then transferred the number and a synopsis of the record +to a tag and fastened it to the trunk, which he had put back into the +room. + +When the Forsyths arrived with the mistaken scrim curtains, he +interrupted himself with apologies for possibly being in their way; +and when Mrs. Forsyth said he was not at all in their way, he got +white-and-gold arm-chairs for her and Charlotte and put them so +conveniently near the old ancestral room that Mrs. Forsyth scarcely +needed to move hand or foot in letting Charlotte restore the wrong +curtains and search the chests for the right ones. His politeness made +way for conversation and for the almost instant exchange of +confidences between himself and Mrs. Forsyth, so that Charlotte was +free to enjoy the silence to which they left her in her labors. + +"Before I say a word," Mrs. Forsyth said, after saying some hundreds +in their mutual inculpation and exculpation, "I want to ask something, +and I hope you will excuse it to an old woman's curiosity and not +think it rude." + +At the words "old woman's" the young man gave a protesting "Oh!" and +at the word "rude" he said, "Not at all." + +"It is simply this: how long have your things been here? I ask because +we've had this room thirteen or fourteen years, and I've never seen +your room opened in that whole time." + +The young man laughed joyously. "Because it hasn't been opened in that +whole time. I was a little chap of three or four bothering round here +when my mother put the things in; I believe it was a great frolic for +me, but I'm afraid it wasn't for her. I've been told that my +activities contributed to the confusion of the things and the things +in them that she's been in ever since, and I'm here now to make what +reparation I can by listing them." + +"She'll find it a great blessing," Mrs. Forsyth said. "I wish we had +ours listed. I suppose you remember it all very vividly. It must have +been a great occasion for you seeing the things stored at that age." + +The young man beamed upon her. "Not so great as now, I'm afraid. The +fact is, I don't remember anything about it. But I've been told that I +embarrassed with my personal riches a little girl who was looking over +her doll's things." + +"Oh, indeed!" Mrs. Forsyth said, stiffly, and she turned rather +snubbingly from him and said, coldly, to Charlotte: "I think they are +in that green trunk. Have you the key?" and, stooping as her daughter +stooped, she whispered, "Really!" in condemnation and contempt. + +Charlotte showed no signs of sharing either, and Mrs. Forsyth could +not very well manage them alone. So when Charlotte said, "No, I +haven't the key, mother," and the young man burst in with, "Oh, do let +me try my master-key; it will unlock anything that isn't a Yale," Mrs. +Forsyth sank back enthroned and the trunk was thrown open. + +She then forgot what she had wanted it opened for. Charlotte said, +"They're not here, mother," and her mother said, "No, I didn't suppose +they were," and began to ask the young man about his mother. It +appeared that his father had died twelve years before, and since then +his mother and he had been nearly everywhere except at home, though +mostly in England; now they had come home to see where they should go +next or whether they should stay. + +"That would never suit my daughter," Mrs. Forsyth lugged in, partly +because the talk had gone on away from her family as long as she could +endure, and partly because Charlotte's indecision always amused her. +"She can't bear to choose." + +"Really?" the young man said. "I don't know whether I like it or not, +but I have had to do a lot of it. You mustn't think, though, that I +chose this magnificent furniture. My father bought an Italian palace +once, and as we couldn't live in it or move it we brought the +furniture here." + +"It _is_ magnificent," Mrs. Forsyth said, looking down the long +stretches of it and eying and fingering her specific throne. "I wish +my husband could see it--I don't believe he remembers it from fourteen +years ago. It looks--excuse me!--very studio." + +"Is he a painter? Not Mr. Forsyth the painter?" + +"Yes," Mrs. Forsyth eagerly admitted, but wondering how he should know +her name, without reflecting that a score of trunk-tags proclaimed it +and that she had acquired his by like means. + +"I like his things so much," he said. "I thought his three portraits +were the best things in the Salon last year." + +"Oh, you _saw_ them?" Mrs. Forsyth laughed with pleasure and pride. +"Then," as if it necessarily followed, "you must come to us some +Sunday afternoon. You'll find a number of his new portraits and some +of the subjects; they like to see themselves framed." She tried for a +card in her hand-bag, but she had none, and she said, "Have you one +of my cards, my dear?" Charlotte had, and rendered it up with a +severity lost upon her for the moment. She held it toward him. "It's +Mr. _Peter_ Bream?" she smiled upon him, and he beamed back. + +"Did you remember it from our first meeting?" + +In their cab Mrs. Forsyth said, "I don't know whether he's what you +call rather fresh or not, Charlotte, and I'm not sure that I've been +very wise. But he is so nice, and he looked so _glad_ to be asked." + +Charlotte did not reply at once, and her silent severity came to the +surface of her mother's consciousness so painfully that it was rather +a relief to have her explode, "Mother, I will thank you not to discuss +my temperament with people." + +She gave Mrs. Forsyth her chance, and her mother was so happy in being +able to say, "I won't--your _temper_, my dear," that she could add +with sincere apology: "I'm sorry I vexed you, and I won't do it +again." + + + IV + +The next day was Sunday; Peter Bream took it for some Sunday, and came +to the tea on Mrs. Forsyth's generalized invitation. She pulled her +mouth down and her eyebrows up when his card was brought in, but as +he followed hard she made a lightning change to a smile and gave him a +hand of cordial welcome. Charlotte had no choice but to welcome him, +too, and so the matter was simple for her. She was pouring, as usual, +for her mother, who liked to eliminate herself from set duties and +walk round among the actual portraits in fact and in frame and talk +about them to the potential portraits. Peter, qualified by long +sojourn in England, at once pressed himself into the service of +handing about the curate's assistant; Mrs. Forsyth electrically +explained that it was one of the first brought to New York, and that +she had got it at the Stores in London fifteen years before, and it +had often been in the old ancestral room, and was there on top of the +trunks that first day. She did not recur to the famous instance of +Charlotte's infant indecision, and Peter was safe from a snub when he +sat down by the girl's side and began to make her laugh. At the end, +when her mother asked Charlotte what they had been laughing about, she +could not tell; she said she did not know they were laughing. + +The next morning Mrs. Forsyth was paying for her Sunday tea with a +Monday headache, and more things must be got out for the country. +Charlotte had again no choice but to go alone to the storage, and yet +again no choice but to be pleasant to Peter when she found him next +door listing the contents of his mother's trunks and tagging them as +before. He dropped his work and wanted to help her. Suddenly they +seemed strangely well acquainted, and he pretended to be asked which +pieces she should put aside as goods selected, and chose them for her. +She hinted that he was shirking his own work; he said it was an +all-summer's job, but he knew her mother was in a hurry. He found the +little old trunk of her playthings, and got it down and opened it and +took out some toys as goods selected. She made him put them back, but +first he catalogued everything in it and synopsized the list on a tag +and tagged the trunk. He begged for a broken doll which he had not +listed, and Charlotte had so much of her original childish difficulty +in parting with that instead of something else that she refused it. + +It came lunch-time, and he invited her to go out to lunch with him; +and when she declined with dignity he argued that if they went to the +Woman's Exchange she would be properly chaperoned by the genius of the +place; besides, it was the only place in town where you got real +strawberry shortcake. She was ashamed of liking it all; he besought +her to let him carry her hand-bag for her, and, as he already had it, +she could not prevent him; she did not know, really, how far she +might successfully forbid him in anything. At the street door of the +apartment-house they found her mother getting out of a cab, and she +asked Peter in to lunch; so that Charlotte might as well have lunched +with him at the Woman's Exchange. + +At all storage warehouses there is a season in autumn when the +corridors are heaped with the incoming furniture of people who have +decided that they cannot pass another winter in New York and are +breaking up housekeeping to go abroad indefinitely. But in the spring, +when the Constitutional Safe-Deposit offered ample space for +thoughtful research, the meetings of Charlotte and Peter could recur +without more consciousness of the advance they were making toward the +fated issue than in so many encounters at tea or luncheon or dinner. +Mrs. Forsyth was insisting on rather a drastic overhauling of her +storage that year. Some of the things, by her command, were shifted to +and fro between the more modern rooms and the old ancestral room, and +Charlotte had to verify the removals. In deciding upon goods selected +for the country she had the help of Peter, and she helped him by +interposing some useful hesitations in the case of things he had put +aside from his mother's possessions to be sold for her by the +warehouse people. + +One day he came late and told Charlotte that his mother had suddenly +taken her passage for England, and they were sailing the next morning. +He said, as if it logically followed, that he had been in love with +her from that earliest time when she would not give him the least of +her possessions, and now he asked her if she would not promise him the +greatest. She did not like what she felt "rehearsed" in his proposal; +it was not her idea of a proposal, which ought to be spontaneous and +unpremeditated in terms; at the same time, she resented his +precipitation, which she could not deny was inevitable. + +She perceived that they were sitting side by side on two of those +white-and-gold thrones, and she summoned an indignation with the +absurdity in refusing him. She rose and said that she must go; that +she must be going; that it was quite time for her to go; and she would +not let him follow her to the elevator, as he made some offer of +doing, but left him standing among his palatial furniture like a +prince in exile. + +By the time she reached home she had been able to decide that she must +tell her mother at once. Her mother received the fact of Peter's +proposal with such transport that she did not realize the fact of +Charlotte's refusal. When this was connoted to her she could scarcely +keep her temper within the bounds of maternal tenderness. She said +she would have nothing more to do with such a girl; that there was but +one such pearl as Peter in the universe, and for Charlotte to throw +him away like that! Was it because she could not decide? Well, it +appeared that she could decide wrong quickly enough when it came to +the point. Would she leave it now to her mother? + +That Charlotte would not do, but what she did do was to write a letter +to Peter taking him back as much as rested with her; but delaying so +long in posting it, when it was written, that it reached him among the +letters sent on board and supplementarily delivered by his room +steward after all the others when the ship had sailed. The best Peter +could do in response was a jubilant Marconigram of unequaled cost and +comprehensiveness. + +His mother had meant to return in the fall, after her custom, to find +out whether she wished to spend the winter in New York or not. Before +the date for her sailing she fell sick, and Peter came sadly home +alone in the spring. Mrs. Bream's death brought Mrs. Forsyth a vain +regret; she was sorry now that she had seen so little of Mrs. Bream; +Peter's affection for her was beautiful and spoke worlds for both of +them; and they, the Forsyths, must do what they could to comfort him. + +Charlotte felt the pathos of his case peculiarly when she went to make +provision for goods selected for the summer from the old ancestral +room, and found him forlorn among his white-and-gold furniture next +door. He complained that he had no association with it except the +touching fact of his mother's helplessness with it, which he had now +inherited. The contents of the trunks were even less intimately of his +experience; he had performed a filial duty in listing their contents, +which long antedated him, and consisted mostly of palatial bric-à-brac +and the varied spoils of travel. + +He cheered up, however, in proposing to her that they should buy a +Castle in Spain and put them into it. The fancy pleased her, but +visibly she shrank from a step which it involved, so that he was, as +it were, forced to say, half jokingly, half ruefully, "I can imagine +your not caring for this rubbish or what became of it, Charlotte, but +what about the owner?" + +"The owner?" she asked, as it were somnambulantly. + +"Yes. Marrying him, say, sometime soon." + +"Oh, Peter, I couldn't." + +"Couldn't? You know that's not playing the game exactly." + +"Yes; but not--not right away?" + +"Well, I don't know much about it in my own case, but isn't it usual +to fix some approximate date? When should you think?" + +"Oh, Peter, I _can't_ think." + +"Will you let me fix it? I must go West and sell out and pull up, you +know, preparatory to never going again. We can fix the day now or we +can fix it when I come back." + +"Oh, when you come back," she entreated so eagerly that Peter said: + +"Charlotte, let me ask you one thing. Were you ever sorry you wrote me +that taking-back letter?" + +"Why, Peter, you know how I am. When I have decided something I have +undecided it. That's all." + +From gay he turned to grave. "I ought to have thought. I haven't been +fair; _I_ haven't played the game. I ought to have given you another +chance; and I haven't, have I?" + +"Why, I suppose a girl can always change," Charlotte said, +suggestively. + +"Yes, but you won't always be a girl. I've never asked you if you +wanted to change. I ask you now. Do you?" + +"How can I tell? Hadn't we better let it go as it is? Only not hurry +about--about--marrying?" + +"Certainly not hurry about marrying. I've wondered that a girl could +make up her mind to marry any given man. Haven't you ever wished that +you had not made up your mind about me?" + +"Hundreds of times. But I don't know that I meant anything by it." + +He took her hand from where it lay in her lap as again she sat on one +of the white-and-gold thrones beside him and gently pressed it. "Well, +then, let's play we have never been engaged. I'm going West to-night +to settle things up for good, and I won't be back for three or four +months, and when I come back we'll start new. I'll ask you, and you +shall say yes or no just as if you had never said either before." + +"Peter, when you talk like that!" She saw his brown, round face dimly +through her wet eyes, and she wanted to hug him for pity of him and +pride in him, but she could not decide to do it. They went out to +lunch at the Woman's Exchange, and the only regret Peter had was that +it was so long past the season of strawberry shortcake, and that +Charlotte seemed neither to talk nor to listen; she ought to have done +one or the other. + +They had left the Vaneckens busy with their summer trunks at the far +end of the northward corridor, where their wireless station had been +re-established for Charlotte's advantage, though she had not thought +of it the whole short morning long. When she came back from lunch the +Vaneckens were just brushing away the crumbs of theirs, which the son +and brother seemed to have brought in for them in a paper box; at any +rate, he was now there, making believe to help them. + +Mrs. Forsyth had promised to come, but she came so late in the +afternoon that she owned she had been grudgingly admitted at the +office, and she was rather indignant about it. By this time, without +having been West for three months, Peter had asked a question which +had apparently never been asked before, and Charlotte had as newly +answered it. "And now, mother," she said, while Mrs. Forsyth passed +from indignant to exultant, "I want to be married right away, before +Peter changes his mind about taking me West with him. Let us go home +at once. You always said I should have a home wedding." + +"What a ridiculous idea!" Mrs. Forsyth said, more to gain time than +anything else. She added, "Everything is at sixes and sevens in the +flat. There wouldn't be standing-room." A sudden thought flashed upon +her, which, because it was sudden and in keeping with her character, +she put into tentative words. "You're more at home _here_ than +anywhere else. You were almost born here. You've played about here +ever since you were a child. You first met Peter here. He proposed to +you here, and you rejected him here. He's proposed here again, and +you've accepted him, you say--" + +"Mother!" Charlotte broke in terribly upon her. "Are you suggesting +that I should be married in a storage warehouse? Well, I haven't +fallen quite so low as that yet. If I can't have a _home_ wedding, I +will have a _church_ wedding, and I will wait till doomsday for it if +necessary." + +"I don't know about doomsday," Mrs. Forsyth said, "but as far as +to-day is concerned, it's too late for a church wedding. Peter, isn't +there something about canonical hours? And isn't it past them?" + +"That's in the Episcopal Church," Peter said, and then he asked, very +politely, "Will you excuse me for a moment?" and walked away as if he +had an idea. It was apparently to join the Vaneckens, who stood in a +group at the end of their corridor, watching the restoration of the +trunks which they had been working over the whole day. He came back +with Mr. Vanecken and Mr. Vanecken's mother. He was smiling radiantly, +and they amusedly. + +"It's all right," he explained. "Mr. Vanecken is a Presbyterian +minister, and he will marry us now." + +"But not here!" Charlotte cried, feeling herself weaken. + +"No, certainly not," the dominie reassured her. "I know a church in +the next block that I can borrow for the occasion. But what about the +license?" + +It was in the day before the parties must both make application in +person, and Peter took a paper from his breast pocket. "I thought it +might be needed, sometime, and I got it on the way up, this morning." + +"Oh, how thoughtful of you, Peter!" Mrs. Forsyth moaned in admiration +otherwise inexpressible, and the rest laughed, even Charlotte, who +laughed hysterically. At the end of the corridor they met the Misses +Vanecken waiting for them, unobtrusively expectant, and they all went +down in the elevator together. Just as they were leaving the building, +which had the air of hurrying them out, Mrs. Forsyth had an +inspiration. "Good heavens!" she exclaimed, and then, in deference to +Mr. Vanecken, said, "Good gracious, I _mean_. My husband! Peter, go +right into the office and telephone Mr. Forsyth." + +"Perhaps," Mr. Vanecken said, "I had better go and see about having my +friend's church opened, in the meanwhile, and--" + +"By all means!" Mrs. Forsyth said from her mood of universal +approbation. + +But Mr. Vanecken came back looking rather queer and crestfallen. "I +find my friend has gone into the country for a few days; and I don't +quite like to get the sexton to open the church without his authority, +and-- But New York is full of churches, and we can easily find another, +with a little delay, if--" + +He looked at Peter, who looked at Charlotte, who burst out with +unprecedented determination. "No, we can't wait. I shall never marry +Peter if we do. Mother, you are right. But _must_ it be in the old +ancestral five-dollar room?" + +They all laughed except Charlotte, who was more like crying. + +"Certainly not," Mr. Vanecken said. "I've no doubt the manager--" + +He never seemed to end his sentences, and he now left this one broken +off while he penetrated the railing which fenced in the manager alone +among a group of vacated desks, frowning impatient. At some murmured +words from the dominie, he shouted, "_What!_" and then came out +radiantly smiling, and saying, "Why, certainly." He knew all the group +as old storers in the Constitutional, and called them each by name as +he shook them each by the hand. "Everything else has happened here, +and I don't see why this shouldn't. Come right into the +reception-room." + +With some paintings of biblical subjects, unclaimed from the storage, +on the walls, the place had a religious effect, and the manager +significantly looked out of it a lingering stenographer, who was +standing before a glass with two hatpins crossed in her mouth +preparatory to thrusting them through the straw. She withdrew, visibly +curious and reluctant, and then the manager offered to withdraw +himself. + +"No," Charlotte said, surprisingly initiative in these junctures, "I +don't know how it is in Mr. Vanecken's church, but, if father doesn't +come, perhaps you'll have to give me away. At any rate, you're an old +friend of the family, and I should be hurt if you didn't stay." + +She laid her hand on the manager's arm, and just as he had +protestingly and politely consented, her father arrived in a taxicab, +rather grumbling from having been obliged to cut short a sitting. When +it was all over, and the Vaneckens were eliminated, when, in fact, the +Breams had joined the Forsyths at a wedding dinner which the bride's +father had given them at Delmonico's and had precipitated themselves +into a train for Niagara ("So banal," Mrs. Forsyth said, "but I +suppose they had to go somewhere, and _we_ went to Niagara, come to +think of it, and it's on their way West"), the bride's mother remained +up late talking it all over. She took credit to herself for the whole +affair, and gave herself a great deal of just praise. But when she +said, "I do believe, if it hadn't been for me, at the last, Charlotte +would never have made up her mind," Forsyth demurred. + +"I should say Peter had a good deal to do with making up her mind for +her." + +"Yes, you might say that." + +"And for once in her life Charlotte seems to have had her mind ready +for making up." + +"Yes, you might say that, too. I believe she is going to turn out a +decided character, after all. I _never_ saw anybody so determined not +to be married in a storage warehouse." + + + + + II + + A PRESENTIMENT + + +Over our coffee in the Turkish room Minver was usually a censor of our +several foibles rather than a sharer in our philosophic speculations +and metaphysical conjectures. He liked to disable me as one +professionally vowed to the fabulous, and he had unfailing fun with +the romantic sentimentality of Rulledge, which was in fact so little +in keeping with the gross super-abundance of his person, his habitual +gluttony, and his ridiculous indolence. Minver knew very well that +Rulledge was a good fellow withal, and would willingly do any kind +action that did not seriously interfere with his comfort, or make too +heavy a draft upon his pocket. His self-indulgence, which was quite +blameless, unless surfeit is a fault, was the basis of an interest in +occult themes, which was the means of even higher diversion to Minver. +He liked to have Rulledge approach Wanhope from this side, in the +invincible persuasion that the psychologist would be interested in +these themes by the law of his science, though he had been assured +again and again that in spite of its misleading name psychology did +not deal with the soul as Rulledge supposed the soul; and Minver's +eyes lighted up with a prescience of uncommon pleasure when, late one +night, after we had vainly tried to hit it off in talk, now of this, +now of that, Rulledge asked Wanhope, abruptly as if it followed from +something before: + +"Wasn't there a great deal more said about presentiments forty or +fifty years ago than there is now?" + +Wanhope had been lapsing deeper and deeper into the hollow of his +chair; but he now pulled himself up, and turned quickly toward +Rulledge. "What made you think of that?" he asked. + +"I don't know. Why?" + +"Because I was thinking of it myself." He glanced at me, and I shook +my head. + +"Well," Minver said, "if it will leave Acton out in the cold, I'll own +that I was thinking of it, too. I was going back in my mind, for no +reason that I know of, to my childhood, when I first heard of such a +thing as a presentiment, and when I was afraid of having one. I had +the notion that presentiments ran in the family." + +"Why had you that notion?" Rulledge demanded. + +"I don't know that I proposed telling," the painter said, giving +himself to his pipe. + +"Perhaps you didn't have it," Rulledge retaliated. + +"Perhaps," Minver assented. + +Wanhope turned from the personal aspect of the matter. "It's rather +curious that we should all three have had the same thing in mind just +now; or, rather, it is not very curious. Such coincidences are really +very common. Something must have been said at dinner which suggested +it to all of us." + +"All but Acton," Minver demurred. + +"I mightn't have heard what was said," I explained. "I suppose the +passing of all that sort of sub-beliefs must date from the general +lapse of faith in personal immortality." + +"Yes, no doubt," Wanhope assented. "It is very striking how sudden the +lapse was. Everyone who experienced it in himself could date it to a +year, if not to a day. The agnosticism of scientific men was of course +all the time undermining the fabric of faith, and then it fell in +abruptly, reaching one believer after another as fast as the ground +was taken wholly or partly from under his feet. I can remember how +people once disputed whether there were such beings as guardian +spirits or not. That minor question was disposed of when it was +decided that there were no spirits at all." + +"Naturally," Minver said. "And the decay of the presentiment must have +been hastened by the failure of so many presentiments to make good." + +"The great majority of them have failed to make good, from the +beginning of time," Wanhope replied. + +"There are two kinds of presentiments," Rulledge suggested, with a +philosophic air. "The true and the untrue." + +"Like mushrooms," Minver said. "Only, the true presentiment kills, and +the true mushroom nourishes. Talking of mushrooms, they have a way in +Switzerland of preserving them in walnut oil, and they fill you with +the darkest forebodings, after you've filled yourself with the +mushrooms. There's some occult relation between the two. Think it out, +Rulledge!" + +Rulledge ignored him in turning to Wanhope. "The trouble is how to +distinguish the true from the untrue presentiment." + +"It would be interesting," Wanhope began, but Minver broke in upon him +maliciously. + +"To know how much the dyspepsia of our predecessors had to with the +prevalence of presentimentalism? I agree with you, that a better diet +has a good deal to do with the decline of the dark foreboding among +us. What I can't understand is, how a gross and reckless feeder, like +Rulledge here, doesn't go about like ancestral voices prophesying all +sorts of dreadful things." + +"That's rather cheap talk, even for you, Minver," Rulledge said. "Why +did you think presentiments ran in _your_ family?" + +"Well, there you have me, Rulledge. That's where my theory fails. I +can remember," Minver continued soberly, "the talk there used to be +about them among my people. They were serious people in an unreligious +way, or rather an unecclesiastical way. They were never spiritualists, +but I don't think there was one of them who doubted that he should +live hereafter; he might doubt that he was living here, but there was +no question of the other thing. I must say it gave a dignity to their +conversation which, when they met, as they were apt to do at one +another's houses on Sunday nights, was not of common things. One of my +uncles was a merchant, another a doctor; my father was a +portrait-painter by profession, and a sign-painter by practice. I +suppose that's where I got my knack, such as it is. The merchant was +an invalid, rather, though he kept about his business, and our people +merely recognized him as being out of health. He was what we could +call, for that day and region--the Middle West of the early fifties--a +man of unusual refinement. I suppose this was temperamental with him +largely; but he had cultivated tastes, too. I remember him as a +peculiarly gentle person, with a pensive cast of face, and the +melancholy accomplishment of playing the flute." + +"I wonder why nobody plays the flute nowadays," I mused aloud. + +"Yes, it's quite obsolete," Minver said. "They only play the flute in +the orchestras now. I always look at the man who plays it and think of +my uncle. He used to be very nice to me as a child; and he was very +fond of my father, in a sort of filial way; my father was so much +older. I can remember my young aunt; and how pretty she was as she sat +at the piano, and sang and played to his fluting. When she looked +forward at the music, her curls fell into her neck; they wore curls +then, grown-up women; and though I don't think curls are beautiful, my +aunt's beauty would have been less without them; in fact, I can't +think of her without them. + +"She was delicate, too; they were really a pair of invalids; but she +had none of his melancholy. They had had several children, who died, +one after another, and there was only one left at the time I am +speaking of. I rather wonder, now, that the thought of those poor +little ghost-cousins didn't make me uncomfortable. I was a very +superstitious boy, but I seem not to have thought of them. I played +with the little girl who was left, and I liked going to my uncle's +better than anywhere else. I preferred going in the daytime and in the +summer-time. Then my cousin and I sat in a nook of the garden and +fought violets, as we called it; hooked the wry necks of the flowers +together and twitched to see which blossom would come off first. She +was a sunny little thing, like her mother, and she had curls, like +her. I can't express the feeling I had for my aunt; she seemed the +embodiment of a world that was at once very proud and very good. I +suppose she dressed fashionably, as things went then and there; and +her style as well as her beauty fascinated me. I would have done +anything to please her, far more than to please my cousin. With her I +used to squabble, and sometimes sent her crying to her mother. Then I +always ran off home, but when I sneaked back, or was sent for to come +and play with my cousin, I was not scolded for my wickedness. + +"My uncle was more prosperous than his brothers; he lived in a much +better house than ours, and I used to be quite awe-struck by its +magnificence. He went East, as we said, twice a year to buy goods, +and he had things sent back for his house such as we never saw +elsewhere; those cask-shaped seats of blue china for the verandas, and +bamboo chairs. There were cane-bottom chairs in the sitting-room, such +as we had in our best room; in the parlor the large pieces were of +mahogany veneer, upholstered in black hair-cloth; they held me in awe. +The piano filled half the place; the windows came down to the ground, +and had Venetian blinds and lace curtains. + +"We all went in there after the Sunday night supper, and then the +fathers and mothers were apt to begin talking of those occult things +that gave me the creeps. It was after the Rochester Knockings, as they +were called, had been exposed, and so had spread like an infection +everywhere. It was as if people were waiting to have the fraud shown +up in order to believe in it." + +"That sort of thing happens," Wanhope agreed. "It's as if the seeds of +the ventilated imposture were carried atmospherically into the human +mind broadcast and a universal crop of self-delusion sprang up." + +"At any rate," Minver resumed, "instead of the gift being confined to +a few persons--a small sisterhood with detonating knee-joints--there +were rappings in every well-regulated household; all the tables +tipped; people went to sleep to the soft patter of raps on the +headboards of their beds; and girls who could not spell were occupied +in delivering messages from Socrates, Ben Franklin and Shakespeare. +Besides the physical demonstrations, there were all sorts of psychical +intimations from the world which we've now abolished." + +"Not permanently, perhaps," I suggested. + +"Well, that remains to be seen," Minver said. "It was this sort of +thing which my people valued above the other. Perhaps they were +exclusive in their tastes, and did not care for an occultism which the +crowd could share with them; though this is a conjecture too long +after the fact to have much value. As far as I can now remember, they +used to talk of the double presence of living persons, like their +being where they greatly wished to be as well as where they really +were; of clairvoyance; of what we call mind-transference, now; of +weird coincidences of all kinds; of strange experiences of their own +and of others; of the participation of animals in these experiences, +like the testimony of cats and dogs to the presence of invisible +spirits; of dreams that came true, or came near coming true; and, +above everything, of forebodings and presentiments. + +"I dare say they didn't always talk of such things, and I'm giving +possibly a general impression from a single instance; everything +remembered of childhood is as if from large and repeated occurrence. +But it must have happened more than once, for I recall that when it +came to presentiments my aunt broke it up, perhaps once only. My +cousin used to get very sleepy on the rug before the fire, and her +mother would carry her off to bed, very cross and impatient of being +kissed good night, while I was left to the brunt of the occult alone. +I could not go with my aunt and cousin, and I folded myself in my +mother's skirt, where I sat at her feet, and listened in an anguish of +drowsy terror. The talk would pass into my dreams, and the dreams +would return into the talk; and I would suffer a sort of double +nightmare, waking and sleeping." + +"Poor little devil!" Rulledge broke out. "It's astonishing how people +will go on before children, and never think of the misery they're +making for them." + +"I believe my mother thought of it," Minver returned, "but when that +sort of talk began, the witchery of it was probably too strong for +her. 'It held her like a two years' child'; I was eight that winter. I +don't know how long my suffering had gone on, when my aunt came back +and seemed to break up the talk. It had got to presentiments, and, +whether they knew that this was forbidden ground with her, or whether +she now actually said something about it, they turned to talk of other +things. I'm not telling you all this from my own memory, which deals +with only a point or two. My father and mother used to recur to it +when I was older, and I am piecing out my story from their memories. + +"My uncle, with all his temperamental pensiveness, was my aunt's stay +and cheer in the fits of depression which she paid with for her usual +gaiety. But these fits always began with some uncommon depression of +his--some effect of the forebodings he was subject to. Her opposition +to that kind of thing was purely unselfish, but certainly she dreaded +it for him as well as herself. I suppose there was a sort of conscious +silence in the others which betrayed them to her. 'Well,' she said, +laughing, 'have you been at it again? That poor child looks frightened +out of his wits.' + +"They all laughed then, and my father said, hypocritically, 'I was +just going to ask Felix whether he expected to start East this week or +next.' + +"My uncle tried to make light of what was always a heavy matter with +him. 'Well, yesterday,' he answered, 'I should have said next week; +but it's this week, now. I'm going on Wednesday.' + +"'By stage or packet?' my father asked. + +"'Oh, I shall take the canal to the lake, and get the boat for Buffalo +there,' my uncle said. + +"They went on to speak of the trip to New York, and how much easier it +was then than it used to be when you had to go by stage over the +mountains to Philadelphia and on by stage again. Now, it seemed, you +got the Erie Canal packet at Buffalo and the Hudson River steamboat at +Albany, and reached New York in four or five days, in great comfort +without the least fatigue. They had all risen and my aunt had gone out +with her sisters-in-law to help them get their wraps. When they +returned, it seemed that they had been talking of the journey, too, +for she said to my mother, laughing again, 'Well, Richard may think +it's easy; but somehow Felix never expects to get home alive.' + +"I don't think I ever heard my uncle laugh, but I can remember how he +smiled at my aunt's laughing, as he put his hand on her shoulder; I +thought it was somehow a very sad smile. On Wednesday I was allowed to +go with my aunt and cousin to see him off on the packet, which came up +from Cincinnati early in the morning; I had lain awake most of the +night, and then nearly overslept myself, and then was at the canal in +time. We made a gay parting for him, but when the boat started, and I +was gloating on the three horses making up the tow-path at a spanking +trot, under the snaky spirals of the driver's smacking whip-lash, I +caught sight of my uncle standing on the deck and smiling that sad +smile of his. My aunt was waving her handkerchief, but when she turned +away she put it to her eyes. + +"The rest of the story, such as it is, I know, almost to the very end, +from what I heard my father and mother say from my uncle's report +afterward. He told them that, when the boat started, the stress to +stay was so strong upon him that if he had not been ashamed he would +have jumped ashore and followed us home. He said that he could not +analyze his feelings; it was not yet any definite foreboding, but +simply a depression that seemed to crush him so that all his movements +were leaden, when he turned at last, and went down to breakfast in the +cabin below. The stress did not lighten with the little changes and +chances of the voyage to the lake. He was never much given to making +acquaintance with people, but now he found himself so absent-minded +that he was aware of being sometimes spoken to by friendly strangers +without replying until it was too late even to apologize. He was not +only steeped in this gloom, but he had the constant distress of the +effort he involuntarily made to trace it back to some cause or follow +it forward to some consequence. He kept trying at this, with a mind so +tensely bent to the mere horror that he could not for a moment strain +away from it. He would very willingly have occupied himself with other +things, but the anguish which the double action of his mind gave him +was such that he could not bear the effort; all he could do was to +abandon himself to his obsession. This would ease him only for a +while, though, and then he would suffer the misery of trying in vain +to escape from it. + +"He thought he must be going mad, but insanity implied some definite +delusion or hallucination, and, so far as he could make out, he had +none. He was simply crushed by a nameless foreboding. Something +dreadful was to happen, but this was all he felt; knowledge had no +part in his condition. He could not say whether he slept during the +two nights that passed before he reached Toledo, where he was to take +the lake steamer for Buffalo. He wished to turn back again, but the +relentless pressure which had kept him from turning back at the start +was as strong as ever with him. He tried to give his presentiment +direction by talking with the other passengers about a recent accident +to a lake steamer, in which several hundred lives were lost; there +had been a collision in rough weather, and one of the boats had gone +down in a few minutes. There was a sort of relief in that, but the +double action of the mind brought the same intolerable anguish again, +and he settled back for refuge under the shadow of his impenetrable +doom. This did not lift till he was well on his way from Albany to New +York by the Hudson River. The canal-boat voyage from Buffalo to Albany +had been as eventless as that to Toledo, and his lake steamer had +reached Buffalo in safety, for which it had seemed as if those lost in +the recent disaster had paid. + +"He tried to pierce his heavy cloud by argument from the security in +which he had traveled so far, but the very security had its +hopelessness. If something had happened--some slight accident--to +interrupt it, his reason, or his unreason, might have taken it for a +sign that the obscure doom, whatever it was, had been averted. + +"Up to this time he had not been able to connect his foreboding with +anything definite, and he was not afraid for himself. He was simply +without the formless hope that helps us on at every step, through good +and bad, and it was a mortal peril, which he came through safely while +scores of others were lost, that gave his presentiment direction. He +had taken the day boat from Albany, and about the middle of the +afternoon the boat, making way under a head-wind, took fire. The pilot +immediately ran her ashore, and her passengers, those that had the +courage for it, ran aft, and began jumping from the stern, but a great +many women and children were burned. My uncle was one of the first of +those who jumped, and he stood in the water, trying to save those who +came after from drowning; it was not very deep. Some of the women lost +courage for the leap, and some turned back into the flames, +remembering children they had left behind. One poor creature stood +hesitating wildly, and he called up to her to jump. At last she did +so, almost into his arms, and then she clung about him as he helped +her ashore. 'Oh,' she cried out between her sobs, 'if you have a wife +and children at home, God will take you safe back to them; you have +saved my life for my husband and little ones.' 'No,' he was conscious +of saying, 'I shall never see my wife again,' and now his foreboding +had the direction that it had wanted before. + +"From that on he simply knew that he should not get home alive, and he +waited resignedly for the time and form of his disaster. He had a sort +of peace in that. He went about his business intelligently, and from +habit carefully, but it was with a mechanical action of the mind, +something, he imagined, like the mechanical action of his body in +those organs which do their part without bidding from the will. He was +only a few days in New York, but in the course of them he got several +letters from his wife telling him that all was going well with her and +their daughter. It was before the times when you can ask and answer +questions by telegraph, and he started back, necessarily without +having heard the latest news from home. + +"He made the return trip in a sort of daze, talking, reading, eating, +and sleeping in the calm certainty of doom, and only wondering how it +would be fulfilled, and what hour of the night or day. But it is no +use my eking this out; I heard it, as I say, when I was a child, and I +am afraid that if I should try to give it with the full detail I +should take to inventing particulars." Minver paused a moment, and +then he said: "But there was one thing that impressed itself indelibly +on my memory. My uncle got back perfectly safe and well." + +"Oh!" Rulledge snorted in rude dissatisfaction. + +"What was it impressed itself on your memory?" Wanhope asked, with +scientific detachment from the story as a story. + +Minver continued to address Wanhope, without regarding Rulledge. "My +uncle told my father that some sort of psychical change, which he +could not describe, but which he was as conscious of as if it were +physical, took place within him as he came in sight of his house--" + +"Yes," Wanhope prompted. + +"He had driven down from the canal-packet in the old omnibus which +used to meet passengers and distribute them at their destinations in +town. All the way to his house he was still under the doom as regarded +himself, but bewildered that he should be getting home safe and well, +and he was refusing his escape, as it were, and then suddenly, at the +sight of the familiar house, the change within him happened. He looked +out of the omnibus window and saw a group of neighbors at his gate. As +he got out of the omnibus, my father took him by the hand, as if to +hold him back a moment. Then he said to my father, very quietly, 'You +needn't tell me: my wife is dead.'" + +There was an appreciable pause, in which we were all silent, and then +Rulledge demanded, greedily, "And was she?" + +"Really, Rulledge!" I could not help protesting. + +Minver asked him, almost compassionately and with unwonted gentleness, +as from the mood in which his reminiscence had left him: "You +suspected a hoax? She had died suddenly the night before while she and +my cousin were getting things ready to welcome my uncle home in the +morning. I'm sorry you're disappointed," he added, getting back to his +irony. + +"Whatever," Rulledge pursued, "became of the little girl?" + +"She died rather young; a great many years ago; and my uncle soon +after her." + +Rulledge went away without saying anything, but presently returned +with the sandwich which he had apparently gone for, while Wanhope was +remarking: "That want of definition in the presentiment at first, and +then its determination in the new direction by, as it were, +propinquity--it is all very curious. Possibly we shall some day +discover a law in such matters." + +Rulledge said: "How was it your boyhood was passed in the Middle West, +Minver? I always thought you were a Bostonian." + +"I was an adoptive Bostonian for a good while, until I decided to +become a native New-Yorker, so that I could always be near to you, +Rulledge. You can never know what a delicate satisfaction you are." + +Minver laughed, and we were severally restored to the wonted relations +which his story had interrupted. + + + + + III + + CAPTAIN DUNLEVY'S LAST TRIP + + + It was against the law, in such case made and provided, + Of the United States, but by the good will of the pilots + That we would some of us climb to the pilot-house after our breakfast + For a morning smoke, and find ourselves seats on the benching + Under the windows, or in the worn-smooth arm-chairs. The pilot, + Which one it was did not matter, would tilt his head round and say, + "All right!" + When he had seen who we were, and begin, or go on as from stopping + In the midst of talk that was leading up to a story, + Just before we came in, and the story, begun or beginning, + Always began or ended with some one, or something or other, + Having to do with the river. If one left the wheel to the other, + Going off watch, he would say to his partner standing behind him + With his hands stretched out for the spokes that were not given up yet, + "Captain, you can tell them the thing I was going to tell them + Better than I could, I reckon," and then the other would answer, + "Well, I don't know as I feel so sure of that, captain," and having + Recognized each other so by that courtesy title of captain + Never officially failed of without offense among pilots, + One would subside into Jim and into Jerry the other. + + It was on these terms, at least, Captain Dunn relieved Captain Davis + When we had settled ourselves one day to listen in comfort, + After some psychological subtleties we had indulged in at breakfast + Touching that weird experience every one knows when the senses + Juggle the points of the compass out of true orientation, + Changing the North to the South, and the East to the West. "Why, Jerry, + what was it + You was going to tell them?" "Oh, never _you_ mind what it _was_, Jim. + _You_ tell them something else," and so Captain Davis submitted, + While Captain Dunn, with a laugh, got away beyond reach of his protest. + Then Captain Davis, with fitting, deprecatory preamble, + Launched himself on a story that promised to be all a story + Could be expected to be, when one of those women--you know them-- + Who interrupt on any occasion or none, interrupted, + Pointed her hand, and asked, "Oh, what is that island there, captain?" + "That one, ma'am?" He gave her the name, and then the woman persisted, + "Don't say you know them all by sight!" "Yes, by sight or by feeling." + "What do you mean by feeling?" "Why, just that by daylight we see them, + And in the dark it's like as if somehow we felt them, I reckon. + Every foot of the channel and change in it, wash-out and cave-in, + Every bend and turn of it, every sand-bar and landmark, + Every island, of course, we have got to see them, or feel them." + "But if you don't?" "But we've got to." "But aren't you ever mistaken?" + "Never the second time." "Now, what do you mean, Captain Davis? + Never the second time." "Well, let me tell you a story. + It's not the one I begun, but that island you asked about yonder + Puts me in mind of it, happens to be the place where it happened, + Three years ago. I suppose no man ever knew the Ohio + Better than Captain Dunlevy, if any one else knew it like him. + Man and boy he had been pretty much his whole life on the river: + Cabin-boy first on a keelboat before the day of the steamboats, + Back in the pioneer times; and watchman then on a steamboat; + Then second mate, and then mate, and then pilot and captain and owner-- + But he was proudest, I reckon, of being about the best pilot + On the Ohio. He knew it as well as he knew his own Bible, + And I don't hardly believe that ever Captain Dunlevy + Let a single day go by without reading a chapter." + + While the pilot went on with his talk, and in regular, rhythmical motion + Swayed from one side to the other before his wheel, and we listened, + Certain typical facts of the picturesque life of the river + Won their way to our consciousness as without help of our senses. + It was along about the beginning of March, but already + In the sleepy sunshine the budding maples and willows, + Where they waded out in the shallow wash of the freshet, + Showed the dull red and the yellow green of their blossoms and catkins, + And in their tops the foremost flocks of blackbirds debated + As to which they should colonize first. The indolent house-boats + Loafing along the shore, sent up in silvery spirals + Out of their kitchen pipes the smoke of their casual breakfasts. + Once a wide tow of coal-barges, loaded clear down to the gunwales, + Gave us the slack of the current, with proper formalities shouted + By the hoarse-throated stern-wheeler that pushed the black barges + before her, + And as she passed us poured a foamy cascade from her paddles. + Then, as a raft of logs, which the spread of the barges had hidden, + River-wide, weltered in sight, with a sudden jump forward the pilot + Dropped his whole weight on the spokes of the wheel just in time to + escape it. + + "Always give those fellows," he joked, "all the leeway they ask for; + Worst kind of thing on the river you want your boat to run into. + Where had I got about Captain Dunlevy? Oh yes, I remember. + Well, when the railroads began to run away from the steamboats, + Taking the carrying trade in the very edge of the water, + It was all up with the old flush times, and Captain Dunlevy + Had to climb down with the rest of us pilots till he was only + Captain the same as any and every pilot is captain, + Glad enough, too, to be getting his hundred and twenty-five dollars + Through the months of the spring and fall while navigation was open. + Never lowered himself, though, a bit from captain and owner, + Knew his rights and yours, and never would thought of allowing + Any such thing as a liberty _from_ you or taking one _with_ you. + I had been his cub, and all that I knew of the river + Captain Dunlevy had learnt me; and if you know what the feeling + Is of a cub for the pilot that learns him the river, you'll trust me + When I tell you I felt it the highest kind of an honor + Having him for my partner; and when I came up to relieve him, + One day, here at the wheel, and actu'lly thought that I found him + Taking that island there on the left, I thought I was crazy. + No, I couldn't believe my senses, and yet I couldn't endure it. + Seeing him climb the spokes of the wheel to warp the _Kanawha_, + With the biggest trip of passengers ever she carried, + Round on the bar at the left that fairly stuck out of the water. + Well, as I said, he learnt me all that I knew of the river, + And was I to learn _him_ now which side to take of an island + When I knew he knew it like his right hand from his left hand? + My, but I hated to speak! It certainly seemed like my tongue clove, + Like the Bible says, to the roof of my mouth! But I had to. + 'Captain,' I says, and it seemed like another person was talking, + 'Do you usu'lly take that island there on the eastward?' + 'Yes,' he says, and he laughed, 'and I thought I had learnt you to do it, + When you was going up.' 'But not going _down_, did you, captain?' + 'Down?' And he whirled at me, and, without ever stopping his laughing, + Turned as white as a sheet, and his eyes fairly bulged from their + sockets. + Then he whirled back again, and looked up and down on the river, + Like he was hunting out the shape of the shore and the landmarks. + Well, I suppose the thing has happened to every one sometime, + When you find the points of the compass have swapped with each other, + And at the instant you're looking, the North and the South have changed + places. + _I_ knew what was in his mind as well as Dunlevy himself did. + Neither one of us spoke a word for nearly a minute. + Then in a kind of whisper he says, 'Take the wheel, Captain Davis!' + Let the spokes fly, and while I made a jump forwards to catch them, + Staggered into that chair--well, the very one you are in, ma'am. + Set there breathing quick, and, when he could speak, all he said was, + 'This is the end of it for me on the river, Jim Davis,' + Reached up over his head for his coat where it hung by that window, + Trembled onto his feet, and stopped in the door there a second, + Stared in hard like as if for good-by to the things he was used to, + Shut the door behind him, and never come back again through it." + While we were silent, not liking to prompt the pilot with questions, + "Well," he said, at last, "it was no use to argue. We tried it, + In the half-hearted way that people do that don't mean it. + Every one was his friend here on the _Kanawha_, and _we_ knew + It was the first time he ever had lost his bearings, but _he_ knew, + In such a thing as that, that the first and the last are the same time. + When we had got through trying our worst to persuade him, he only + Shook his head and says, 'I am done for, boys, and you know it,' + Left the boat at Wheeling, and left his life on the river-- + Left his life on the earth, you may say, for I don't call it living, + Setting there homesick at home for the wheel he can never go back to. + Reads the river-news regular; knows just the stage of the water + Up and down the whole way from Cincinnati to Pittsburg; + Follows every boat from the time she starts out in the spring-time + Till she lays up in the summer, and then again in the winter; + Wants to talk all about her and who is her captain and pilot; + Then wants to slide away to that everlastingly puzzling + Thing that happened to him that morning on the _Kanawha_ + When he lost his bearings and North and South had changed places-- + No, I don't call that living, whatever the rest of you call it." + We were silent again till that woman spoke up, "And what was it, + Captain, that kept him from going back and being a pilot?" + "Well, ma'am," after a moment the pilot patiently answered, + "_I_ don't hardly believe that I could explain it exactly." + + + + + IV + + THE RETURN TO FAVOR + + +He never, by any chance, quite kept his word, though there was a +moment in every case when he seemed to imagine doing what he said, and +he took with mute patience the rakings which the ladies gave him when +he disappointed them. + +Disappointed is not just the word, for the ladies did not really +expect him to do what he said. They pretended to believe him when he +promised, but at the bottom of their hearts they never did or could. +He was gentle-mannered and soft-spoken, and when he set his head on +one side, and said that a coat would be ready on Wednesday, or a dress +on Saturday, and repeated his promise upon the same lady's expressed +doubt, she would catch her breath and say that now she absolutely must +have it on the day named, for otherwise she would not have a thing to +put on. Then he would become very grave, and his soft tenor would +deepen to a bass of unimpeachable veracity, and he would say, "Sure, +lady, you have it." + +The lady would depart still doubting and slightly sighing, and he +would turn to the customer who was waiting to have a button sewed on, +or something like that, and ask him softly what it was he could do for +him. If the customer offered him his appreciation of the case in hand, +he would let his head droop lower, and in a yet deeper bass deplore +the doubt of the ladies as an idiosyncrasy of their sex. He would make +the customer feel that he was a favorite customer whose rights to a +perfect fidelity of word and deed must by no means be tampered with, +and he would have the button sewed on or the rip sewed up at once, and +refuse to charge anything, while the customer waited in his +shirt-sleeves in the small, stuffy shop opening directly from the +street. When he tolerantly discussed the peculiarities of ladies as a +sex, he would endure to be laughed at, "for sufferance was the badge +of all his tribe," and possibly he rather liked it. + +The favorite customer enjoyed being there when some lady came back on +the appointed Wednesday or Saturday, and the tailor came soothingly +forward and showed her into the curtained alcove where she was to try +on the garments, and then called into the inner shop for them. The +shirt-sleeved journeyman, with his unbuttoned waistcoat-front all +pins and threaded needles, would appear in his slippers with the +things barely basted together, and the tailor would take them, with an +airy courage, as if they were perfectly finished, and go in behind the +curtain where the lady was waiting in a dishabille which the favorite +customer, out of reverence for the sex, forbore to picture to himself. +Then sounds of volcanic fury would issue from the alcove. "Now, Mr. +Morrison, you have lied to me again, deliberately _lied_. Didn't I +tell you I _must_ have the things perfectly ready to-day? You see +yourself that it will be another week before I can have my things." + +"A week? Oh, madam! But I assure you--" + +"Don't talk to me any more! It's the last time I shall ever come to +you, but I suppose I can't take the work away from you as it is. +_When_ shall I have it?" + +"To-morrow. Yes, to-morrow noon. Sure!" + +"Now you know you are always out at noon. I should think you would be +ashamed." + +"If it hadn't been for sickness in the family I would have finished +your dress with my own hands. Sure I would. If you come here to-morrow +noon you find your dress all ready for you." + +"I know I won't, but I will come, and you'd _better_ have it ready." + +"Oh, sure." + +The lady then added some generalities of opprobrium with some +particular criticisms of the garments. Her voice sank into +dispassionate murmurs in these, but it rose again in her renewed sense +of the wrong done her, and when she came from the alcove she went out +of the street door purple. She reopened it to say, "Now, remember!" +before she definitely disappeared. + +"Rather a stormy session, Mr. Morrison," the customer said. + +"Something fierce," Mr. Morrison sighed. But he did not seem much +troubled, and he had one way with all his victims, no matter what mood +they came or went in. + +One day the customer was by when a kind creature timidly upbraided +him. "This is the third time you've disappointed me, Mr. Morrison. I +really wish you wouldn't promise me unless you mean to do it. I don't +think it's right for you." + +"Oh, but sure, madam! The things will be done, sure. We had a strike +on us." + +"Well, I will trust you once more," the kind creature said. + +"You can depend on me, madam, sure." + +When she was gone the customer said: "I wonder you do that sort of +thing, Mr. Morrison. You can't be surprised at their behaving rustily +with you if you never keep your word." + +"Why, I assure you there are times when I don't know where to look, +the way they go on. It is something awful. You ought to hear them +once. And now they want the wote." He rearranged some pieces of +tumbled goods at the table where the customer sat, and put together +the disheveled leaves of the fashion-papers which looked as if the +ladies had scattered them in their rage. + +One day the customer heard two ladies waiting for their +disappointments in the outer room while the tailor in the alcove was +trying to persuade a third lady that positively her things would be +sent home the next day before dark. The customer had now formed the +habit of having his own clothes made by the tailor, and his system in +avoiding disappointment was very simple. In the early fall he ordered +a spring suit, and in the late spring it was ready. He never had any +difficulty, but he was curious to learn how the ladies managed, and he +listened with all his might while these two talked. + +"I always wonder we keep coming," one of them said. + +"I'll tell you why," the other said. "Because he's cheap, and we get +things from a fourth to a third less than we can get them anywhere +else. The quality is first rate, and he's absolutely honest. And, +besides, he's a genius. The wretch has _touch_. The things have a +style, a look, a hang! Really it's something wonderful. Sure it iss," +she ended in the tailor's accent, and then they both laughed and +joined in a common sigh. + +"Well, I don't believe he means to deceive any one." + +"Oh, neither do I. I believe he expects to do everything he says. And +one can't help liking him even when he doesn't." + +"He's a good while getting through with her," the first lady said, +meaning the unseen lady in the alcove. + +"She'll be a good while longer getting through with _him_, if he +hasn't them ready the next time," the second lady said. + +But the lady in the alcove issued from it with an impredicable smile, +and the tailor came up to the others, and deferred to their wishes +with a sort of voiceless respect. + +He gave the customer a glance of good-fellowship, and said to him, +radiantly: "Your things all ready for you, this morning. As soon as +I--" + +"Oh, no hurry," the customer responded. + +"I won't be a minute," the tailor said, pulling the curtain of the +alcove aside, and then there began those sounds of objurgation and +expostulation, although the ladies had seemed so amiable before. + +The customer wondered if they did not all enjoy it; the ladies in +their patience under long trial, and the tailor in the pleasure of +practising upon it. But perhaps he did believe in the things he +promised. He might be so much a genius as to have no grasp of facts; +he might have thought that he could actually do what he said. + +The customer's question on these points found answer when one day the +tailor remarked, as it were out of a clear sky, that he had sold his +business; sold it to the slippered journeyman who used to come in his +shirt-sleeves, with his vest-front full of pins and needles, bringing +the basted garments to be tried on the ladies who had been promised +them perfectly finished. + +"He will do your clothes all right," he explained to the customer. "He +is a first-rate cutter and fitter; he knows the whole business." + +"But why--why--" the customer began. + +"I couldn't stand it. The way them ladies would talk to a person, when +you done your best to please them; it's something fierce." + +"Yes, I know. But I thought you liked it, from the way you always +promised them and never kept your word." + +"And if I hadn't promised them?" the tailor returned with some show of +feeling. "They _wanted_ me to promise them--they made me--they +wouldn't have gone away without it. Sure. Every one wanted her things +before every one. You had got to think of that." + +"But you had to think of what they would say." + +"Say? Sometimes I thought they would _hit_ me. One lady said she had a +notion to slap me once. It's no way to talk." + +"But you didn't seem to mind it." + +"I didn't mind it for a good while. Then I couldn't stand it. So I +sold." + +He shook his head sadly; but the customer had no comfort to offer him. +He asked when his clothes would be done, and the tailor told him when, +and then they were not. The new proprietor tried them on, but he would +not say just when they would be finished. + +"We have a good deal of work already for some ladies that been +disappointed. Now we try a new way. We tell people exactly what we +do." + +"Well, that's right," the customer said, but in his heart he was not +sure he liked the new way. + +The day before his clothes were promised he dropped in. From the +curtained alcove he heard low murmurs, the voice of the new proprietor +and the voice of some lady trying on, and being severely bidden not to +expect her things at a time she suggested. "No, madam. We got too much +work on hand already. These things, they will not be done before next +week." + +"I told you to-morrow," the same voice said to another lady, and the +new proprietor came out with an unfinished coat in his hand. + +"I know you did, but I thought you would be better than your word, and +so I came to-day. Well, then, to-morrow." + +"Yes, to-morrow," the new proprietor said, but he did not seem to have +liked the lady's joke. He did not look happy. + +A few weeks after that the customer came for some little alterations +in his new suit. + +In the curtained alcove he heard the murmurs of trying on, much +cheerfuller murmurs than before; the voice of a lady lifted in +gladness, in gaiety, and an incredible voice replying, "Oh, sure, +madam." + +Then the old proprietor came out in his shirt-sleeves and slippers, +with his waistcoat-front full of pins and needles, just like the new +proprietor in former days. + +"Why!" the customer exclaimed. "Have you bought back?" + +"No. I'm just here like a journeyman already. The new man he want me +to come. He don't get along very well with his way. He's all right; +he's a good man and a first-class tailor. But," and the former +proprietor looked down at the basted garment hanging over his arm, and +picked off an irrelevant thread from it, "he thinks I get along better +with the ladies." + + + + + V + + SOMEBODY'S MOTHER + + +The figure of a woman sat crouched forward on one of the lowermost +steps of the brownstone dwelling which was keeping a domestic +tradition in a street mostly gone to shops and small restaurants and +local express-offices. The house was black behind its closed shutters, +and the woman remained sitting there because no one could have come +out of its door for a year past to hunt her away. The neighborhood +policeman faltered in going by, and then he kept on. The three people +who came out of the large, old-fashioned hotel, half a block off, on +their way for dinner to a French _table d'hôte_ which they had heard +of, stopped and looked at the woman. They were a father and his son +and daughter, and it was something like a family instinct that +controlled them, in their pause before the woman crouching on the +steps. + +It was the early dusk of a December day, and the day was very chilly. +"She seems to be sick or something," the father vaguely surmised. "Or +asleep." + +The three looked at the woman, but they did nothing for a moment. They +would rather have gone on, but they waited to see if anything would +happen to release them from the spell that they seemed to have laid +upon themselves. They were conditional New-Yorkers of long sojourn, +and it was from no apparent motive that the son wore evening dress, +which his unbuttoned overcoat discovered, and an opera-hat. He would +not have dressed so for that problematical French _table d'hôte_; +probably he was going on later to some society affair. He now put in +effect the father's impulse to go closer and look at the woman. + +"She seems to be asleep," he reported. + +"Shouldn't you think she would take cold? She will get her death +there. Oughtn't we to do something?" the daughter asked, but she left +it to the father, and he said: + +"Probably somebody will come by." + +"That we could leave her to?" the daughter pursued. + +"We could do that without waiting," the son commented. + +"Well, yes," the father assented; but they did not go on. They waited, +helplessly, and then somebody came by. It was a young girl, not very +definite in the dusk, except that she was unmistakably of the working +class; she was simply dressed, though with the New York instinct for +clothes. Their having stopped there seemed to stay her involuntarily, +and after a glance in the direction of their gaze she asked the +daughter: + +"Is she sick, do you think?" + +"We don't know what's the matter. But she oughtn't to stay there." + +Something velvety in the girl's voice had made its racial quality +sensible to the ear; as she went up to the crouching woman and bent +forward over her and then turned to them, a street lamp threw its +light on her face, and they saw that she was a light shade of colored +girl. + +"She seems to be sleeping." + +"Perhaps," the son began, "she's not quite--" But he did not go on. + +The girl looked round at the others and suggested, "She must be +somebody's mother!" + +The others all felt abashed in their several sorts and degrees, but in +their several sorts and degrees they all decided that there was +something romantic, sentimental, theatrical in the girl's words, like +something out of some cheap story-paper story. + +The father wondered if that kind of thing was current among that kind +of people. He had a sort of esthetic pleasure in the character and +condition expressed by the words. + +"Well, yes," he said, "if she has children, or has had." The girl +looked at him uncertainly, and then he added, "But, of course--" + +The son went up to the woman again, and asked: "Aren't you well? Can +we do anything for you? It won't do to stay here, you know." The woman +only made a low murmur, and he said to his sister, "Suppose we get her +up." + +His sister did not come forward promptly, and the colored girl said, +"I'll help you." + +She took one arm of the woman and the son took the other, and they +lifted her, without her connivance, to her feet and kept her on them. +Then they walked her down the steps. On the level below she showed +taller than either of them; she was bundled up in different incoherent +wraps; her head was muffled, and she wore a battered bonnet at an +involuntary slant. + +"I don't know exactly what we shall do with her," the son said. + +"We ought to get her home somehow," the daughter said. + +The father proposed nothing, but the colored girl said, "If we keep +walking her along, we'll come to a policeman and we can--" + +A hoarse rumble of protest came from the muffled head of the woman, +and the girl put her ear closer. "Want to go home? Well, the policeman +will take you. We don't know where you live, and we haven't the time." + +The woman seemed to have nothing to say further, and they began +walking her westward; the colored girl supported her on one hand, and +the son, in his evening dress and opera-hat, on the other. + +The daughter followed in a vague anxiety, but the father went along, +enjoying the anomaly, and happy in his relish of that phrase, "She +must be somebody's mother." It now sounded to him like a catch from +one of those New York songs, popular in the order of life where the +mother represents what is best and holiest. He recalled a vaudeville +ballad with the refrain of "A Boy's Best Friend is his Mother," which, +when he heard it in a vaudeville theater, threatened the gallery floor +under the applauding feet of the frenzied audience. Probably this +colored girl belonged to that order of life; he wished he could know +her social circumstance and what her outlook on the greater world +might be. She seemed a kind creature, poor thing, and he respected +her. "Somebody's mother"--he liked that. + +They all walked westward, aimlessly, except that the _table d'hôte_ +where they had meant to dine was in that direction; they had heard of +it as an amusingly harmless French place, and they were fond of such +mild adventures. + +The old woman contributed nothing to the definition of their progress. +She stumbled and mumbled along, but between Seventh Avenue and Eighth +she stubbornly arrested her guardians. "She says"--the colored girl +translated some obscure avowal across her back--"she says she wants to +go home, and she lives up in Harlem." + +"Oh, well, that's good," the father said, with an optimistic +amiability. "We'd better help walk her across to Ninth Avenue and put +her on a car, and tell the conductor where to let her off." + +He was not helping walk her himself, but he enjoyed his son's doing it +in evening dress and opera-hat, with that kind colored girl on the +other side of the mother; the composition was agreeably droll. The +daughter did not like it, and she cherished the ideal of a passing +policeman to take the old woman in charge. + +No policeman passed, though great numbers of other people met them +without apparently finding anything noticeable in the spectacle which +their group presented. Among the crowds going and coming on the +avenues which they crossed scarcely any turned to look at them, or was +moved by the sense of anything odd in them. + +The old woman herself did nothing to attract public notice till they +were midway between Seventh and Eighth avenues. She mumbled something +from time to time which the colored girl interpreted to the rest as +her continued wish to go home. She was now clearer about her street +and number. The girl, as if after question of her own generous spirit, +said she did not see how _she_ could go with her; she was expected at +home herself. + +"Oh, you won't have to go with her; we'll just put her aboard the +Ninth Avenue car," the father encouraged her. He would have encouraged +any one; he was enjoying the whole affair. + +At a certain moment, for no apparent reason, the mother decided to sit +down on a door-step. It proved to be the door-step of a house where +from time to time colored people--sometimes of one sex, sometimes of +another--went in or came out. The door seemed to open directly into a +large room where dancing and dining were going on concurrently. At a +long table colored people sat eating, and behind their chairs on both +sides of the room and at the ends of the table colored couples were +waltzing. + +The effect was the more curious because, except for some almost +inaudible music, the scene passed in silence. Those who were eating +were not visibly incommoded by those revolving at their backs; the +waltzers turned softly around and around, untempted by the table now +before them, now behind them. When some of the diners or dancers came +out, they stumbled over the old woman on the door-step without minding +or stopping to inquire. Those outside, when they went in, fell over +her with like equanimity and joined the strange company within. + +The father murmured to himself the lines, + + "'Vast forms that move fantastically + To a discordant melody--'" + +with a remote trouble of mind because the words were at once so +graphic and yet so imperfectly applicable. The son and daughter +exchanged a silent wonder as long as they could bear it; then the +daughter asked the colored girl: + +"What is it?" + +"It's a boarding-house," the girl answered, simply. + +"Oh," the daughter said. + +Sounds of more decided character than before now came from the figure +on the door-step. + +"She seems to be saying something," the daughter suggested in general +terms. "What is she saying?" she asked the colored girl. + +The girl stooped over and listened. Then she answered, "She's swearing." + +"Swearing? What about? Whom is she swearing at?" + +"At me, I reckon. She says, why don't I take her home." + +"Well, why doesn't she get up, then?" + +"She says she won't." + +"We can't carry her to the car," the daughter noted. + +"Oh, why not?" the father merrily demanded. + +The daughter turned to her brother. They were both very respectful to +their father, but the son agreed with his sister when she said: "Papa +would joke about anything. But this has passed a joke. We must get +this old thing up and start her off." + +Upon experiment they could not get the old thing up, even with the +help of the kind colored girl. They had to let her be, and the colored +girl reported, after stooping over her again, "She says she can't +walk." + +"She walked here well enough," the daughter said. + +"Not _very_ well," the father amended. + +His daughter did not notice him. She said to her brother: "Well, now +you must go and find a policeman. It's strange none has gone by." + +It was also strange that still their group remained without attracting +the notice of the passers. Nobody stopped to speak or even stare; +perhaps the phenomena of that boarding-house had ceased to have +surprises for the public of the neighborhood, and they in their +momentary relation to it would naturally be without interest. + +The brother went away, leaving his sister with their father and that +kind colored creature in charge of the old woman, now more and more +quiescent on the door-step; she had ceased to swear, or even to speak. +The brother came back after a time that seemed long, and said that he +could not find a policeman anywhere, and at the same moment, as if the +officer had been following at his heels, a policeman crossed the +street from just behind him. + +The daughter ran after him, and asked if he would not come and look at +the old woman who had so steadfastly remained in their charge, and she +rapidly explained. + +"Sure, lady," the policeman said, and he turned from crossing the +street and went up to the old woman. He laid his hand on her shoulder, +and his touch seemed magical. "What's the matter? Can't you stand up?" +She stood up as if at something familiar in the voice of authority. +"Where do you live?" She gave an address altogether different from +that she had given before--a place on the next avenue, within a block +or two. "You'd better go home. You can walk, can't you?" + +"I can walk well enough," she answered in a tone of vexation, and she +made her word good by walking quite actively away in the direction she +had given. + +The kind colored girl became a part of the prevalent dark after +refusing the thanks of the others. The daughter then fervently offered +them to the policeman. + +"That's all right, lady," he said, and the incident had closed except +for her emotion at seeing him enter a police-station precisely across +the street, where they could have got a dozen policemen in a moment. + +"Well," the father said, "we might as well go to our French _table +d'hôte_ now." + +"Oh," the son said, as if that reminded him, "the place seems to be +shut." + +"Well, then, we might as well go back to the hotel," the father +decided. "I dare say we shall do quite as well there." + +On the way the young people laughed over the affair and their escape +from it, especially at the strange appearance and disappearance of the +kind colored girl, with her tag of sentiment, and at the instant +compliance of the old woman with the suggestion of the policeman. + +The father followed, turning the matter over in his mind. Did mere +motherhood hallow that old thing to the colored girl and her sort and +condition? Was there a superstition of motherhood among such people +which would endear this disreputable old thing to their affection and +reverence? Did such people hold mothers in tenderer regard than people +of larger means? Would a mother in distress or merely embarrassment +instantly appeal to their better nature as a case of want or sickness +in the neighborhood always appealed to their compassion? Would her +family now welcome the old thing home from her aberration more fondly +than the friends of one who had arrived in a carriage among them in a +good street? But, after all, how little one knew of other people! How +little one knew of one self, for that matter! How next to nothing one +knew of Somebody's Mother! It did not necessarily follow from anything +they knew of her that she was a mother at all. Her motherhood might be +the mere figment of that kind colored girl's emotional fancy. She +might be Nobody's Mother. + +When it came to this the father laughed, too. Why, anyhow, were +mothers more sacred than fathers? If they had found an old man in that +old woman's condition on those steps, would that kind colored girl +have appealed to them in his behalf as Somebody's Father? + + + + + VI + + THE FACE AT THE WINDOW + + + He had gone down at Christmas, where our host + Had opened up his house on the Maine coast, + For the week's holidays, and we were all, + On Christmas night, sitting in the great hall, + About the corner fireplace, while we told + Stories like those that people, young and old, + Have told at Christmas firesides from the first, + Till one who crouched upon the hearth, and nursed + His knees in his claspt arms, threw back his head, + And fixed our host with laughing eyes, and said, + "This is so good, here--with your hickory logs + Blazing like natural-gas ones on the dogs, + And sending out their flicker on the wall + And rafters of your mock-baronial hall, + All in fumed-oak, and on your polished floor, + And the steel-studded panels of your door-- + I think you owe the general make-believe + Some sort of story that will somehow give + A more ideal completeness to our case, + And make each several listener in his place-- + Or hers--sit up, with a real goose-flesh creeping + All over him--or her--in proper keeping + With the locality and hour and mood. + Come!" And amid the cries of "Yes!" and "Good!" + Our host laughed back; then, with a serious air, + Looked around him on our hemicycle, where + He sat midway of it. "Why," he began, + But interrupted by the other man, + He paused for him to say: "Nothing remote, + But something with the actual Yankee note + Of here and now in it!" "I'll do my best," + Our host replied, "to satisfy a guest. + What do you say to Barberry Cove? And would + Five years be too long past?" "No, both are good. + Go on!" "You noticed that big house to-day + Close to the water, and the sloop that lay, + Stripped for the winter, there, beside the pier? + Well, there she has lain just so, year after year; + And she will never leave her pier again; + But once, each spring she sailed in sun or rain, + For Bay Chaleur--or Bay Shaloor, as they + Like better to pronounce it down this way." + + "I like Shaloor myself rather the best. + But go ahead," said the exacting guest. + And with a glance around at us that said, + "Don't let me bore you!" our host went ahead. + + "Captain Gilroy built the big house, and he + Still lives there with his aging family. + He built the sloop, and when he used to come + Back from the Banks he made her more his home, + With his two boys, than the big house. The two + Counted with him a good half of her crew, + Until it happened, on the Banks, one day + The oldest boy got in a steamer's way, + And went down in his dory. In the fall + The others came without him. That was all + That showed in either one of them except + That now the father and the brother slept + Ashore, and not on board. When the spring came + They sailed for the old fishing-ground the same + As ever. Yet, not quite the same. The brother, + If you believed what folks say, kissed his mother + Good-by in going; and by general rumor, + The father, so far yielding as to humor + His daughters' weakness, rubbed his stubbly cheek + Against their lips. Neither of them would speak, + But the dumb passion of their love and grief + In so much show at parting found relief. + + "The weeks passed and the months. Sometimes they heard + At home, by letter, from the sloop, or word + Of hearsay from the fleet. But by and by + Along about the middle of July, + A time in which they had no news began, + And holding unbrokenly through August, ran + Into September. Then, one afternoon, + While the world hung between the sun and moon, + And while the mother and her girls were sitting + Together with their sewing and their knitting,-- + Before the early-coming evening's gloom + Had gathered round them in the living-room, + Helplessly wondering to each other when + They should hear something from their absent men,-- + They saw, all three, against the window-pane, + A face that came and went, and came again, + Three times, as though for each of them, about + As high up from the porch's floor without + As a man's head would be that stooped to stare + Into the room on their own level there. + Its eyes dwelt on them wistfully as if + Longing to speak with the dumb lips some grief + They could not speak. The women did not start + Or scream, though each one of them, in her heart, + Knew she was looking on no living face, + But stared, as dumb as it did, in her place." + + Here our host paused, and one sigh broke from all + Our circle whom his tale had held in thrall. + But he who had required it of him spoke + In what we others felt an ill-timed joke: + "Well, this is something like!" A girl said, "Don't!" + As if it hurt, and he said, "Well, I won't. + Go on!" And in a sort of muse our host + Said: "I suppose we all expect a ghost + Will sometimes come to us. But I doubt if we + Are moved by its coming as we thought to be. + At any rate, the women were not scared, + But, as I said, they simply sat and stared + Till the face vanished. Then the mother said, + 'It was your father, girls, and he is dead.' + But both had known him; and now all went on + Much as before till three weeks more were gone, + When, one night sitting as they sat before, + Together with their mother, at the door + They heard a fumbling hand, and on the walk + Up from the pier, the tramp and muffled talk + Of different wind-blown voices that they knew + For the hoarse voices of their father's crew. + Then the door opened, and their father stood + Before them, palpably in flesh and blood. + The mother spoke for all, her own misgiving: + 'Father, is this your ghost? Or are you living?' + 'I am alive!' 'But in this very place + We saw your face look, like a spirit's face, + There through that window, just three weeks ago, + And now you are alive!' 'I did not know + That I had come; all I know is that then + I wanted to tell you folks here that our Ben + Was dying of typhoid fever. He raved of you + So that I could not think what else to do. + He's there in Bay Shaloor!' + + "Well, that's the end." + And rising up to mend the fire our friend + Seemed trying to shun comment; but in vain: + The exacting guest came at him once again; + "You must be going to fall down, I thought, + There at the climax, when your story brought + The skipper home alive and well. But no, + You saved yourself with honor." The girl said, "Oh," + Who spoke before, "it's wonderful! But you, + How could you think of anything so true, + So delicate, as the father's wistful face + Coming there at the window in the place + Of the dead son's! And then, that quaintest touch, + Of half-apology--that he felt so much, + He _had_ to come! How perfectly New England! Well, + I hope nobody will undertake to tell + A common or garden ghost-story to-night." + + Our host had turned again, and at her light + And playful sympathy he said, "My dear, + I hope that no one will imagine here + I have been inventing in the tale that's done. + My little story's charm if it has one + Is from no skill of mine. One does not change + The course of fable from its wonted range + To such effect as I have seemed to do: + Only the fact could make my story true." + + + + + VII + + AN EXPERIENCE + + +For a long time after the event my mind dealt with the poor man in +helpless conjecture, and it has now begun to do so again for no reason +that I can assign. All that I ever heard about him was that he was +some kind of insurance man. Whether life, fire, or marine insurance I +never found out, and I am not sure that I tried to find out. + +There was something in the event which discharged him of all +obligation to define himself of this or that relation to life. He must +have had some relation to it such as we all bear, and since the +question of him has come up with me again I have tried him in several +of those relations--father, son, brother, husband--without identifying +him very satisfyingly in either. + +As I say, he seemed by what happened to be liberated from the debt we +owe in that kind to one another's curiosity, sympathy, or whatever. I +cannot say what errand it was that brought him to the place, a +strange, large, indeterminate open room, where several of us sat +occupied with different sorts of business, but, as it seems to me now, +by only a provisional right to the place. Certainly the corner +allotted to my own editorial business was of temporary assignment; I +was there until we could find a more permanent office. The man had +nothing to do with me or with the publishers; he had no manuscript, or +plan for an article which he wished to propose and to talk himself +into writing, so that he might bring it with a claim to acceptance, as +though he had been asked to write it. In fact, he did not even look of +the writing sort; and his affair with some other occupant of that +anomalous place could have been in no wise literary. Probably it was +some kind of insurance business, and I have been left with the +impression of fussiness in his conduct of it; he had to my involuntary +attention an effect of conscious unwelcome with it. + +After subjectively dealing with this impression, I ceased to notice +him, without being able to give myself to my own work. The day was +choking hot, of a damp that clung about one, and forbade one so much +effort as was needed to relieve one of one's discomfort; to pull at +one's wilted collar and loosen the linen about one's reeking neck +meant exertion which one willingly forbore; it was less suffering to +suffer passively than to suffer actively. The day was of the sort +which begins with a brisk heat, and then, with a falling breeze, +decays into mere swelter. To come indoors out of the sun was no escape +from the heat; my window opened upon a shaded alley where the air was +damper without being cooler than the air within. + +At last I lost myself in my work with a kind of humid interest in the +psychological inquiry of a contributor who was dealing with a matter +rather beyond his power. I did not think that he was fortunate in +having cast his inquiry in the form of a story; I did not think that +his contrast of love and death as the supreme facts of life was what a +subtler or stronger hand could have made it, or that the situation +gained in effectiveness from having the hero die in the very moment of +his acceptance. In his supposition that the reader would care more for +his hero simply because he had undergone that tremendous catastrophe, +the writer had omitted to make him interesting otherwise; perhaps he +could not. + +My mind began to wander from the story and not very relevantly to +employ itself with the question of how far our experiences really +affect our characters. I remembered having once classed certain +temperaments as the stuff of tragedy, and others as the stuff of +comedy, and of having found a greater cruelty in the sorrows which +light natures undergo, as unfit and disproportionate for them. +Disaster, I tacitly decided, was the fit lot of serious natures; when +it befell the frivolous it was more than they ought to have been made +to bear; it was not of their quality. Then by the mental zigzagging +which all thinking is I thought of myself and whether I was of this +make or that. If it was more creditable to be of serious stuff than +frivolous, though I had no agency in choosing, I asked myself how I +should be affected by the sight of certain things, like the common +calamities reported every day in the papers which I had hitherto +escaped seeing. By another zigzag I thought that I had never known a +day so close and stifling and humid. I then reflected upon the +comparative poverty of the French language, which I was told had only +that one word for the condition we could call by half a dozen +different names, as humid, moist, damp, sticky, reeking, sweltering, +and so on. I supposed that a book of synonyms would give even more +English adjectives; I thought of looking, but my book of synonyms was +at the back of my table, and I would have to rise for it. Then I +questioned whether the French language was so destitute of adjectives, +after all; I preferred to doubt it rather than rise. + +With no more logic than those other vagaries had, I realized that the +person who had started me in them was no longer in the room. He must +have gone outdoors, and I visualized him in the street pushing about, +crowded hither and thither, and striking against other people as he +went and came. I was glad I was not in his place; I believed I should +have fallen in a faint from the heat, as I had once almost done in New +York on a day like that. From this my mind jumped to the thought of +sudden death in general. Was it such a happy thing as people +pretended? For the person himself, yes, perhaps; but not for those +whom he had left at home, say, in the morning, and who were expecting +him at home in the evening. I granted that it was generally accepted +as the happiest death, but no one that had tried it had said so. To be +sure, one was spared a long sickness, with suffering from pain and +from the fear of death. But one had no time for making one's peace +with God, as it used to be said, and after all there might be +something in death-bed repentance, although cultivated people no +longer believed in it. Then I reverted to the family unprepared for +the sudden death: the mother, the wife, the children. I struggled to +get away from the question, but the vagaries which had lightly +dispersed themselves before clung persistently to the theme now. I +felt that it was like a bad dream. That was a promising diversion. Had +one any sort of volition in the quick changes of dreams? One was aware +of finding a certain nightmare insupportable, and of breaking from it +as by main force, and then falling into a deep, sweet sleep. Was death +something like waking from a dream such as that, which this life +largely was, and then sinking into a long, restful slumber, and +possibly never waking again? + +Suddenly I perceived that the man had come back. He might have been +there some time with his effect of fussing and his pathetic sense of +unwelcome. I had not noticed; I only knew that he stood at the +half-open door with the knob of it in his hand looking into the room +blankly. + +As he stood there he lifted his hand and rubbed it across his forehead +as if in a sort of daze from the heat. I recognized the gesture as one +very characteristic of myself; I had often rubbed my hand across my +forehead on a close, hot day like that. Then the man suddenly vanished +as if he had sunk through the floor. + +People who had not noticed that he was there noticed now that he was +not there. Some made a crooked rush toward the place where he had +been, and one of those helpful fellow-men who are first in all needs +lifted his head and mainly carried him into the wide space which the +street stairs mounted to, and laid him on the floor. It was darker, if +not cooler there, and we stood back to give him the air which he drew +in with long, deep sighs. One of us ran down the stairs to the street +for a doctor, wherever he might be found, and ran against a doctor at +the last step. + +The doctor came and knelt over the prostrate figure and felt its +pulse, and put his ear down to its heart. It, which has already in my +telling ceased to be he, drew its breath in those long suspirations +which seemed to search each more profoundly than the last the lurking +life, drawing it from the vital recesses and expelling it in those +vast sighs. + +They went on and on, and established in our consciousness the +expectation of indefinite continuance. We knew that the figure there +was without such consciousness as ours, unless it was something so +remotely withdrawn that it could not manifest itself in any signal to +our senses. There was nothing tragical in the affair, but it had a +surpassing dignity. It was as if the figure was saying something to +the life in each of us which none of us would have words to interpret, +speaking some last message from the hither side of that bourne from +which there is no returning. + +There was a clutch upon my heart which tightened with the slower and +slower succession of those awful breaths. Then one was drawn and +expelled and then another was not drawn. I waited for the breathing to +begin again, and it did not begin. The doctor rose from kneeling over +the figure that had been a man, and uttered, with a kind of +soundlessness, "Gone," and mechanically dusted his fingers with the +thumbs of each hand from their contact with what had now become all +dust forever. + +That helpfulest one among us laid a cloth over the face, and the rest +of us went away. It was finished. The man was done with the sorrow +which, in our sad human order, must now begin for those he loved and +who loved him. I tried vaguely to imagine their grief for not having +been uselessly with him at the last, and I could not. The incident +remained with me like an experience, something I had known rather than +seen. I could not alienate it by my pity and make it another's. They +whom it must bereave seemed for the time immeasurably removed from the +fact. + + + + + VIII + + THE BOARDERS + + +The boarder who had eloped was a student at the theological seminary, +and he had really gone to visit his family, so that he had a fairly +good conscience in giving this color to the fact that he was leaving +the place permanently because he could not bear it any longer. It was +a shade of deceit to connive with his room-mate for the custody of his +carpet-bag and the few socks and collars and the one shirt and summer +coat which did not visibly affect its lankness when gathered into it +from his share of the bureau-drawers; but he did not know what else to +do, and he trusted to a final forgiveness when all the facts were +considered by a merciful providence. His board was fully paid, and he +had suffered long. He argued with his room-mate that he could do no +good by remaining, and that he would have stayed if he could have +believed there was any use. Besides, the food was undermining his +health, and the room with that broken window had given him a cold +already. He had a right to go, and it was his duty to himself and the +friends who were helping him through the seminary not to get sick. + +He did not feel that he had convinced his room-mate, who took charge +of his carpet-bag and now sat with it between his feet waiting the +signal of the fugitive's surreptitious return for it. He was a +vague-looking young man, presently in charge of the "Local and +Literary" column of the one daily paper of the place, and he had just +explained to the two other boarders who were watching with him for the +event that he was not certain whether it was the supper, or the +anxiety of the situation, or just what it was that was now affecting +his digestion. + +The fellow-boarders, who sat on the edge of the bed, in default of the +one unbroken chair which their host kept for himself, as easier than a +mattress to get up from suddenly, did not take sides for or against +him in his theories of his discomfort. One of them glanced at the +broken window. + +"How do you glaze that in the daytime? You can't use the bolster +then?" + +"I'm not in, much, in the daytime." + +It was a medical student who had spoken, but he was now silent, and +the other said, after they had listened to the twitter of a piano in +the parlor under the room, "That girl's playing will be the death of +me." + +"Not if her mother's cooking isn't," the medical student, whose name +was Wallace, observed with a professional effect. + +"Why don't you prescribe something for it?" the law student suggested. + +"Which?" Wallace returned. + +"I don't believe anything could cure the playing. I must have meant +the cooking." + +"You're a promising young jurist, Blakeley. What makes you think I +could cure the cooking?" + +"Oh, I just wondered. The sick one gets paler every day. I wonder what +ails her." + +"She's not my patient." + +"Oh! Hippocratic oath. Rather fine of you, Wallace. But if she's not +your patient--" + +"Listen!" their host interrupted, sharply. After a joint silence he +added: "No. It must have been the sleet." + +"Well, Briggs," the law student said, "if it must have been the sleet, +what mustn't it have been?" + +"Oh!" Briggs explained, "I thought it was Phillips. He was to throw a +handful of gravel at the window." + +"And then you were to run down with his bag and help him to make his +escape from a friendless widow. Well, I don't know that I blame him. +If I didn't owe two weeks' board, I'd leave myself--though I hope I +shouldn't sneak away. And if Mrs. Betterson didn't owe Wallace, here, +two weeks' board, we'd walk off together arm-in-arm at high noon. I +can't understand how he ever came to advance her the money." + +Wallace rose from the bed, and kicked each leg out to dislodge the +tight trousers of the middle eighteen-fifties which had caught on the +tops of his high boots. "You're a tonguey fellow, Blakeley. But you'll +find, as you live long, that there are several things you can't +explain." + +"I'll tell you what," Blakeley said. "We'll get Mrs. Betterson to take +your loan for my debt, and we'll go at once." + +"You can propose something like that before the justice of the peace +in your first pettifogging case." + +"I believe Wallace likes to stay. And yet he must know from his +anatomical studies, better than the animals themselves, what cuts of +meat the old lady gives us. I shouldn't be so fastidious about the +cuts, if she didn't treat them all with pork gravy. Well, I mustn't be +too hard on a lone widow that I owe board to. I don't suppose his diet +had anything to do with the deep damnation of the late Betterson's +taking off. Does that stove of yours smoke, Briggs?" + +"Not when there isn't a fire in it." + +"I just asked. Wallace's stove smokes, fire or no fire. It takes +advantage of the old lady's indebtedness to him. There seem," he +added, philosophically, "to be just two occupations open to widows who +have to support themselves: millinery business for young ones, +boarding-housing for old ones. It _is_ rather restricted. What do you +suppose she puts into the mince-pies? Mince-pies are rather a mystery +at the best." + +Wallace was walking up and down the room still in some difficulty with +his trousers-legs, and kicking out from time to time to dislodge them. +"How long should you say Blakeley had been going on?" he asked Briggs. + +"You never can tell," Briggs responded. "I think he doesn't know +himself." + +"Well said, youthful scribe! With such listeners as you two, I could +go on forever. Consider yourselves clapped jovially on the back, my +gentle Briggs; I can't get up to do it from the hollow of your bed +here. As you were saying, the wonder about these elderly widows who +keep boarding-houses is the domestic dilapidation they fall into. If +they've ever known how to cook a meal or sweep a room or make a bed, +these arts desert them in the presence of their boarders. Their only +aim in life seems to be preventing the escape of their victims, and +they either let them get into debt for their board or borrow money +from them. But why do they always have daughters, and just two of +them: one beautiful, fashionable, and devoted to the piano; the other +willing to work, but pale, pathetic, and incapable of the smallest +achievement with the gridiron or the wash-board? It's a thing to make +a person want to pay up and leave, even if he's reading law. If +Wallace, here, had the spirit of a man, he would collect the money +owing him, and--" + +"Oh, stop it, Blakeley!" Wallace stormed. "I should think you'd get +tired of your talk yourself." + +"Well, as you insist--" + +Blakeley began again, but Briggs jumped to his feet and caught up +Phillips's carpet-bag, and looked wildly around. "It's gravel, this +time." + +"Well, take your hat, Briggs. It may be a prolonged struggle. But +remember that Phillips's cause is just. He's paid his board, and he +has a perfect right to leave. She has no right to prevent him. Think +of that when the fray is at its worst. But try to get him off quietly, +if you can. Deal gently with the erring, while you stand firm for +boarders' rights. Remember that Phillips is sneaking off in order to +spare her feelings and has come pretty near prevarication in the +effort. Have you got your shoes off? No; it's your rubbers on. That's +better." + +Briggs faltered with the carpet-bag in his hand. "Boys, I don't like +this. It feels--clandestine." + +"It _looks_ that way, too," Blakeley admitted. "It has an air of +conspiracy." + +"I've got half a mind to let Phillips come in and get his bag +himself." + +"It would serve him right, though I don't know why, exactly. He has a +right to spare his own feelings if he's sparing hers at the same time. +Of course he's afraid she'll plead with him to stay, and he'll have to +be inexorable with her; and if I understand the yielding nature of +Phillips he doesn't like to be inexorable." + +There came another sharp rattle of small pebbles at the window. + +"Oh, confound him!" Briggs cried under his breath, and he shuffled out +of the room and crept noiselessly down the stairs to the front door. +The door creaked a little in opening, and he left it ajar. The current +of cold air that swept up to the companions he had left behind at his +room door brought them the noise of his rush down the gravel walk to +the gate and a noise there as of fugitive steps on the pavement +outside. + +A weak female tread made itself heard in the hallway, followed by a +sharp voice from a door in the rear. "Was it the cat, Jenny?" + +"No; the door just seems to have blown open. The catch is broken." + +Swift, strong steps advanced with an effect of angry suspicion. "I +don't believe it blew open. More likely the cat clawed it open." + +The steps which the voice preceded seemed to halt at the open door, as +if falling back from it, and Wallace and Blakeley, looking down, saw +by the dim flare of the hall lamp the face of Briggs confronting the +face of Mrs. Betterson from the outer darkness. They saw the sick +girl, whose pallor they could not see, supporting herself by the +stairs-post with one hand and pressing the other to her side. + +"Oh! It's _you_, Mr. Briggs," the landlady said, with a note of +inculpation. "What made you leave the door open?" + +The spectators could not see the swift change in Briggs's face from +terror to savage desperation, but they noted it in his voice. +"Yes--yes! It's me. I just--I was just-- No I won't, either! You'd +better know the truth. I was taking Phillips's bag out to him. He was +afraid to come in for it, because he didn't want to see you, the +confounded coward! He's left." + +"Left? And he said he would stay till spring! Didn't he, Jenny?" + +"I don't remember--" the girl weakly gasped, but her mother did not +heed her in her mounting wrath. + +"A great preacher _he'll_ make. What'd he say he left for?" + +"He didn't say. Will you let me up-stairs?" + +"No, I won't, till you tell me. You know well enough, between you." + +"Yes, I do know," Briggs answered, savagely. "He left because he was +tired of eating sole-leather for steak, and fire-salt pork, and tar +for molasses, and butter strong enough to make your nose curl, and +drinking burnt-rye slops for coffee and tea-grounds for tea. And so am +I, and so are all of us, and--and-- Will you let me go up-stairs now, +Mrs. Betterson?" + +His voice had risen, not so high but that another voice from the +parlor could prevail over it: a false, silly, girl voice, with the +twitter of piano-keys as from hands swept over the whole board to help +drown the noise of the quarrel in the hall. "Oh yes, I'll sing it +again, Mr. Saunders, if you sa-a-a-y." + +Then this voice lifted itself in a silly song, and a silence followed +the voices in the hall, except for the landlady's saying, brokenly: +"Well, all right, Mr. Briggs. You can go up to your room for all me. +I've tried to be a mother to you boys, but if _this_ is what I get for +it!" + +The two at the threshold of Briggs's room retreated within, as he +bounded furiously upon them and slammed the door after him. It started +open again, from the chronic defect of the catch, but he did not care. + +"Well, Briggs, I hope you feel better now," Blakeley began. "You +certainly told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing _but_ the +truth. But I wonder you had the heart to do it before that sick girl." + +"I _didn't_ have the heart," Briggs shouted. "But I had the courage, +and if you say one word more, Blakeley, I'll throw you out of the +room. I'm going to leave! _My_ board's paid if yours isn't." + +He went wildly about, catching things down here and there from nails +and out of drawers. The tears stood in his eyes. But suddenly he +stopped and listened to the sounds from below--the sound of the silly +singing in the parlor, and the sound of sobbing in the dining-room, +and the sound of vain entreating between the sobs. + +"Oh, I don't suppose I'm fit to keep a boarding-house. I never was a +good manager; and everybody imposes on me, and everything is so dear, +and I don't know what's good from what's bad. Your poor father used +to look after all that." + +"Well, don't you cry, now, mother! It'll all come right, you'll see. +I'm getting so I can go and do the marketing now; and if Minervy would +only help a little--" + +"No, no!" the mother's voice came anxiously up. "We can get along +without her; we always have. I know he likes her, and I want to give +her every chance. _We_ can get along. If she was on'y married, once, +we could all live--" A note of self-comforting gradually stole into +the mother's voice, and the sound of a nose violently blown seemed to +note a period in her suffering. + +"Oh, mother, I wish I was well!" The girl's voice came with a burst of +wild lamenting. + +"'Sh, 'sh, deary!" her mother entreated. "He'll _hear_ you, and +then--" + +"'Hazel Dell'?" the silly voice came from the parlor, with a sound of +fright in it. "I can sing it without the music." The piano keys +twittered the prelude and the voice sang: + + "In the Hazel Dell my Nelly's sleeping, + Nelly loved so long!" + +Wallace went forward and shut the door. "It's a shame to overhear +them! What are you going to do, you fellows?" + +"I'm going to stay," Briggs said, "if it kills me. At least I will +till Minervy's married. _I_ don't care what the grub's like. I can +always get a bite at the restaurant." + +"If anybody will pay up my back board, I'll stay, too," Blakeley +followed. "I should like to make a virtue of it, and, as things stand, +I can't." + +"All right," Wallace said, and he went out and down the stairs. Then +from the dining-room below his heavy voice offering encouragement came +up, in terms which the others could not make out. + +"I'll bet he's making her another advance," Blakeley whispered, as if +he might be overheard by Wallace. + +"I wish _I_ could have made to do it," Briggs whispered back. "I feel +as mean as pursley. Would you like to kick me?" + +"I don't see how that would do any good. I may want to borrow money of +you, and you can't ask a loan from a man you've kicked. Besides, I +think what you said may do her good." + + + + + IX + + BREAKFAST IS MY BEST MEAL + + + I + + Breakfast is my best meal, and I reckon it's always been + Ever since I was old enough to know what breakfast could mean. + I mind when we lived in the cabin out on the Illinoy, + Where father had took up a quarter-section when I was a boy, + I used to go for the cows as soon as it was light; + And when I started back home, before I come in sight, + I come in _smell_ of the cabin, where mother was frying the ham, + And boiling the coffee, that reached through the air like a mile o' ba'm, + 'N' I bet you I didn't wait to see what it was that the dog + Thought he'd got under the stump or inside o' the hollow log! + But I made the old cows canter till their hoof-joints cracked--you know + That dry, funny kind of a noise that the cows make when they go-- + And I never stopped to wash when I got to the cabin door; + I pulled up my chair and e't like I never had e't before. + And mother she set there and watched me eat, and eat, and eat, + Like as if she couldn't give her old eyes enough of the treat; + And she split the shortened biscuit, and spread the butter between, + And let it lay there and melt, and soak and soak itself in; + And she piled up my plate with potato and ham and eggs, + Till I couldn't hold any more, or hardly stand on my legs; + And she filled me up with coffee that would float an iron wedge, + And never give way a mite, or spill a drop at the edge. + + + II + + What? Well, yes, this is good coffee, too. If they don't know much, + They do know how to make coffee, I _will_ say that for these Dutch. + But my--oh, my! It ain't the kind of coffee my mother made, + And the coffee my wife used to make would throw it clear in the shade; + And the brand of sugar-cured, canvased ham that she always used-- + Well, this Westphalia stuff would simply have made her amused! + That so, heigh? I saw that you was United States as soon + As ever I heard you talk; I reckon I know the tune! + Pick it out anywhere; and _you_ understand how I feel + About these here foreign breakfasts: breakfast is my best meal. + + + III + + My! but my wife was a cook; and the breakfasts she used to get + The first years we was married, I can smell 'em and taste 'em yet: + Corn cake light as a feather, and buckwheat thin as lace + And crisp as cracklin'; and steak that you couldn't have the face + To compare any steak over here to; and chicken fried + Maryland style--I couldn't get through the bill if I tried. + And then, her waffles! My! She'd kind of slip in a few + Between the ham and the chicken--you know how women'll do-- + For a sort of little surprise, and, if I was running light, + To take my fancy and give an edge to my appetite. + Done it all herself as long as we was poor, and I tell _you_ + _She_ liked to see me eat as well as mother used to do; + I reckon she went ahead of mother some, if the truth was known, + And everything she touched she give a taste of her own. + + + IV + + _She_ was a cook, I can tell you! And after we got ahead, + And she could 'a' had a girl to do the cookin' instead, + I had the greatest time to get Momma to leave the work; + She said it made her feel like a mis'able sneak and shirk. + She didn't want daughter, though, when we did begin to keep girls, + To come in the kitchen and cook, and smell up her clo'es and curls; + But you couldn't have stopped the child, whatever you tried to do-- + I reckon the gift of the cookin' was born in Girly, too. + Cook she would from the first, and we just had to let her alone; + And after she got married, and had a house of her own, + She tried to make me feel, when I come to live with her, + Like it was my house, too; and I tell you she done it, sir! + She remembered that breakfast was my best meal, and she tried + To have all I used to have, and a good deal more beside; + Grape-fruit to begin with, or melons or peaches, at least-- + Husband's business took him there, and they had went to live East-- + Then a Spanish macker'l, or a soft-shell crab on toast, + Or a broiled live lobster! Well, sir, I don't want to seem to boast, + But I don't believe you could have got in the whole of New York + Any such an oyster fry or sausage of country pork. + + + V + + Well, I don't know what-all it means; I always lived just so-- + Never drinked or smoked, and yet, here about two years ago, + I begun to run down; I ain't as young as I used to be; + And the doctors all said Carlsbad, and I reckon this is me. + But it's more like some one I've dreamt of, with all three of 'em gone! + Believe in ghosts? Well, _I_ do. I _know_ there are ghosts. I'm _one_. + Maybe I mayn't look it--I was always inclined to fat; + The doctors say that's the trouble, and very likely it's that. + This is my little grandson, and this is the oldest one + Of Girly's girls; and for all that the whole of us said and done, + She must come with grandpa when the doctors sent me off here, + To see that they didn't starve him. Ain't that about so, my dear? + _She_ can cook, I tell you; and when we get home again + We're goin' to have something to _eat_; I'm just a-livin' till then. + But when I set here of a morning, and think of them that's gone-- + Mother and Momma and Girly--well, I wouldn't like to let on + Before the children, but I can almost seem to see + All of 'em lookin' down, like as if they pitied me, + After the breakfasts they give me, to have me have to put up + With nothing but bread and butter, and a little mis'able cup + Of this here weak-kneed coffee! I can't tell how _you_ feel, + But it fairly makes me sick! Breakfast is my best meal. + + + + + X + + THE MOTHER-BIRD + + +She wore around the turned-up brim of her bolero-like toque a band of +violets not so much in keeping with the gray of the austere November +day as with the blue of her faded autumnal eyes. Her eyes were +autumnal, but it was not from this, or from the lines of maturity +graven on the passing prettiness of her little face, that the notion +and the name of Mother-Bird suggested itself. She became known as the +Mother-Bird to the tender ironic fancy of the earliest, if not the +latest, of her friends, because she was slight and small, and like a +bird in her eager movements, and because she spoke so instantly and so +constantly of her children in Dresden: before you knew anything else +of her you knew that she was going out to them. + +She was quite alone, and she gave the sense of claiming their +protection, and sheltering herself in the fact of them. When she +mentioned her daughters she had the effect of feeling herself +chaperoned by them. You could not go behind them and find her wanting +in the social guarantees which women on steamers, if not men, exact of +lonely birds of passage who are not mother-birds. One must respect the +convention by which she safeguarded herself and tried to make good her +standing; yet it did not lastingly avail her with other birds of +passage, so far as they were themselves mother-birds, or sometimes +only maiden-birds. The day had not ended before they began to hold her +off by slight liftings of their wings and rufflings of their feathers, +by quick, evasive flutterings, by subtle ignorances of her approach, +which convinced no one but themselves that they had not seen her. She +sailed with the sort of acquaintance-in-common which every one shares +on a ship leaving port, when people are confused by the kindness of +friends coming to see them off after sending baskets of fruit and +sheaves of flowers, and scarcely know what they are doing or saying. +But when the ship was abreast of Fire Island, and the pilot had gone +over the side, these provisional intimacies of the parting hour began +to restrict themselves. Then the Mother-Bird did not know half the +women she had known at the pier, or quite all the men. + +It was not that she did anything obvious to forfeit this knowledge. +Her behavior was if anything too exemplary; it might be thought to +form a reproach to others. Perhaps it was the unseasonable band of +violets around her hat-brim; perhaps it was the vernal gaiety of her +dress; perhaps it was the uncertainty of her anxious eyes, which +presumed while they implored. A mother-bird must not hover too +confidently, too appealingly, near coveys whose preoccupations she +does not share. It might have been her looking and dressing younger +than nature justified; at forty one must not look thirty; in November +one must not, even involuntarily, wear the things of May if one would +have others believe in one's devotion to one's children in Dresden; +one alleges in vain one's impatience to join them as grounds for +joining groups or detached persons who have begun to write home to +their children in New York or Boston. + +The very readiness of the Mother-Bird to give security by the mention +of well-known names, to offer proof of her social solvency by the +eager correctness of her behavior, created reluctance around her. Some +would not have her at all from the first; others, who had partially or +conditionally accepted her, returned her upon her hands and withdrew +from the negotiation. More and more she found herself outside that +hard woman-world, and trying less and less to beat her way into it. + +The women may have known her better even than she knew herself, and it +may have been through ignorance greater than her own that the men were +more acquiescent. But the men too were not so acquiescent, or not at +all, as time passed. + +It would be hard to fix the day, the hour, far harder the moment, when +the Mother-Bird began to disappear from the drawing-room and to appear +in the smoking-room, or say whether she passed from the one to the +other in a voluntary exile or by the rigor of the women's unwritten +law. Still, from time to time she was seen in their part of the ship, +after she was also seen where the band of violets showed strange and +sad through veils of smoke that were not dense enough to hide her +poor, pretty little face, with its faded blue eyes and wistful mouth. +There she passed by quick transition from the conversation of the +graver elderly smokers to the loud laughter of two birds of prey who +became her comrades, or such friends as birds like them can be to +birds like her. + +From anything she had said or done there was no reason for her lapse +from the women and the better men to such men; for her transition from +the better sort of women there was no reason except that it happened. +Whether she attached herself to the birds of prey, or they to her, by +that instinct which enables birds of all kinds to know themselves of a +feather remained a touching question. + +There remained to the end the question whether she was of a feather +with them, or whether it was by some mischance, or by some such stress +of the elements as drives birds of any feather to flock with birds of +any other. To the end there remained a distracted and forsaken +innocence in her looks. It was imaginable that she had made overtures +to the birds of prey because she had made overtures to every one else; +she was always seeking rather than sought, and her acceptance with +them was as deplorable as her refusal by better birds. Often they were +seen without her, when they had that look of having escaped, which +others wore; but she was not often seen without them. + +There is not much walking-weather on a November passage, and she was +seen less with them in the early dark outdoors than in the late light +within, by which she wavered a small form through the haze of their +cigars in the smoking-room, or in the grill-room, where she showed in +faint eclipse through the fumes of the broiling and frying, or +through the vapors of the hot whiskies. The birds of prey were then +heard laughing, but whether at her or with her it must have been +equally sorrowful to learn. + +Perhaps they were laughing at the maternal fondness which she had used +for introduction to the general acquaintance lost almost in the moment +of winning it. She seemed not to resent their laughter, though she +seemed not to join in it. The worst of her was the company she kept; +but since no better would allow her to keep it, you could not +confidently say she would not have liked the best company on board. At +the same time you could not have said she would; you could not have +been sure it would not have bored her. Doubtless these results are not +solely the sport of chance; they must be somewhat the event of choice +if not of desert. + +For anything you could have sworn, the Mother-Bird would have liked to +be as good as the best. But since it was not possible for her to be +good in the society of the best, she could only be good in that of the +worst. It was to be hoped that the birds of prey were not cruel to +her; that their mockery was never unkind if ever it was mockery. The +cruelty which must come came when they began to be seen less and less +with her, even at the late suppers, through the haze of their cigars +and the smoke of the broiling and frying, and the vapors of the hot +whiskies. Then it was the sharpest pang of all to meet her wandering +up and down the ship's promenades, or leaning on the rail and looking +dimly out over the foam-whitened black sea. It is the necessity of +birds of prey to get rid of other birds when they are tired of them, +and it had doubtless come to that. + +One night, the night before getting into port, when the curiosity +which always followed her with grief failed of her in the heightened +hilarity of the smoking-room, where the last bets on the ship's run +were making, it found her alone beside a little iron table, of those +set in certain nooks outside the grill-room. There she sat with no one +near, where the light from within fell palely upon her. The boon birds +of prey, with whom she had been supping, had abandoned her, and she +was supporting her cheek on the small hand of the arm that rested on +the table. She leaned forward, and swayed with the swaying ship; the +violets in her bolero-toque quivered with the vibrations of the +machinery. She was asleep, poor Mother-Bird, and it would have been +impossible not to wish her dreams were kind. + + + + + XI + + THE AMIGO + + +His name was really Perez Armando Aldeano, but in the end everybody +called him the _amigo_, because that was the endearing term by which +he saluted all the world. There was a time when the children called +him "Span-yard" in their games, for he spoke no tongue but Spanish, +and though he came from Ecuador, and was no more a Spaniard than they +were English, he answered to the call of "Span-yard!" whenever he +heard it. He came eagerly in the hope of fun, and all the more eagerly +if there was a hope of mischief in the fun. Still, to discerning +spirits, he was always the _amigo_, for, when he hailed you so, you +could not help hailing him so again, and whatever mock he put upon you +afterward, you were his secret and inalienable friend. + +The moment of my own acceptance in this quality came in the first +hours of expansion following our getting to sea after long detention +in the dock by fog. A small figure came flying down the dock with +outspread arms, and a joyful cry of "Ah, _amigo_!" as if we were now +meeting unexpectedly after a former intimacy in Bogotá; and the +_amigo_ clasped me round the middle to his bosom, or more strictly +speaking, his brow, which he plunged into my waistcoat. He was clad in +a long black overcoat, and a boy's knee-pants, and under the peak of +his cap twinkled the merriest black eyes that ever lighted up a +smiling face of olive hue. Thereafter, he was more and more, with the +thinness of his small black legs, and his habit of hopping up and +down, and dancing threateningly about, with mischief latent in every +motion, like a crow which in being tamed has acquired one of the worst +traits of civilization. He began babbling and gurgling in Spanish, and +took my hand for a stroll about the ship, and from that time we were, +with certain crises of disaffection, firm allies. + +There were others whom he hailed and adopted his friends, whose legs +he clung about and impeded in their walks, or whom he required to toss +him into the air as they passed, but I flattered myself that he had a +peculiar, because a primary, esteem for myself. I have thought it +might be that, Bogotá being said to be a very literary capital, as +those things go in South America, he was mystically aware of a common +ground between us, wider and deeper than that of his other +friendships. But it may have been somewhat owing to my inviting him to +my cabin to choose such portion as he would of a lady-cake sent us on +shipboard at the last hour. He prattled and chuckled over it in the +soft gutturals of his parrot-like Spanish, and rushed up on deck to +eat the frosting off in the presence of his small companions, and to +exult before them in the exploitation of a novel pleasure. Yet it +could not have been the lady-cake which lastingly endeared me to him, +for by the next day he had learned prudence and refused it without +withdrawing his amity. + +This, indeed, was always tempered by what seemed a constitutional +irony, and he did not impart it to any one without some time making +his friend feel the edge of his practical humor. It was not long +before the children whom he gathered to his heart had each and all +suffered some fall or bump or bruise which, if not of his intention, +was of his infliction, and which was regretted with such winning +archness that the very mothers of them could not resist him, and his +victims dried their tears to follow him with glad cries of "Span-yard, +Span-yard!" Injury at his hands was a favor; neglect was the only real +grievance. He went about rolling his small black head, and darting +roguish lightnings from under his thick-fringed eyes, and making more +trouble with a more enticing gaiety than all the other people on the +ship put together. + +The truth must be owned that the time came, long before the end of the +voyage, when it was felt that in the interest of the common welfare, +something must be done about the _amigo_. At the conversational end of +the doctor's table, where he was discussed whenever the racks were not +on, and the talk might have languished without their inspiration, his +badness was debated at every meal. Some declared him the worst boy in +the world, and held against his half-hearted defenders that something +ought to be done about him; and one was left to imagine all the darker +fate for him because there was nothing specific in these convictions. +He could not be thrown overboard, and if he had been put in irons +probably his worst enemies at the conversational end of the table +would have been the first to intercede for him. It is not certain, +however, that their prayers would have been effective with the +captain, if that officer, framed for comfort as well as command, could +have known how accurately the _amigo_ had dramatized his personal +presence by throwing himself back, and clasping his hands a foot in +front of his small stomach, and making a few tilting paces forward. + +The _amigo_ had a mimic gift which he liked to exercise when he could +find no intelligible language for the expression of his ironic spirit. +Being forbidden visits in and out of season to certain staterooms +whose inmates feigned a wish to sleep, he represented in what +grotesque attitudes of sonorous slumber they passed their day, and he +spared neither age nor sex in these graphic shows. When age refused +one day to go up on deck with him and pleaded in such Spanish as it +could pluck up from its past studies that it was too old, he laughed +it to scorn. "You are not old," he said. "Why?" the flattered dotard +inquired. "Because you smile," and that seemed reason enough for one's +continued youth. It was then that the _amigo_ gave his own age, +carefully telling the Spanish numerals over, and explaining further by +holding up both hands with one finger shut in. But he had the subtlety +of centuries in his nine years, and he penetrated the ship everywhere +with his arch spirit of mischief. It was mischief always in the +interest of the good-fellowship which he offered impartially to old +and young; and if it were mere frolic, with no ulterior object, he did +not care at all how old or young his playmate was. This endeared him +naturally to every age; and the little blond German-American boy +dried his tears from the last accident inflicted on him by the _amigo_ +to recall him by tender entreaties of "Span-yard, Span-yard!" while +the eldest of his friends could not hold out against him more than two +days in the strained relations following upon the _amigo's_ sweeping +him down the back with a toy broom employed by the German-American boy +to scrub the scuppers. This was not so much an injury as an indignity, +but it was resented as an indignity, in spite of many demure glances +of propitiation from the _amigo's_ ironical eyes and murmurs of +inarticulate apology as he passed. + +He was, up to a certain point, the kindest and truest of _amigos_; +then his weird seizure came, and the baby was spilled out of the +carriage he had been so benevolently pushing up and down; or the +second officer's legs, as he walked past with the prettiest girl on +board, were hit with the stick that the _amigo_ had been innocently +playing shuffle-board with; or some passenger was taken unawares in +his vanity or infirmity and made to contribute to the _amigo's_ +passion for active amusement. + +At this point I ought to explain that the _amigo_ was not traveling +alone from Ecuador to Paris, where it was said he was to rejoin his +father. At meal-times, and at other rare intervals, he was seen to be +in the charge of a very dark and very silent little man, with +intensely black eyes and mustache, clad in raven hues from his head to +the delicate feet on which he wore patent-leather shoes. With him the +_amigo_ walked gravely up and down the deck, and behaved decorously at +table; and we could not reconcile the apparent affection between the +two with a theory we had that the _amigo_ had been found impossible in +his own country, and had been sent out of Ecuador by a decree of the +government, or perhaps a vote of the whole people. The little, dark, +silent man, in his patent-leather boots, had not the air of conveying +a state prisoner into exile, and we wondered in vain what the tie +between him and the _amigo_ was. He might have been his tutor, or his +uncle. He exercised a quite mystical control over the _amigo_, who was +exactly obedient to him in everything, and would not look aside at you +when in his keeping. We reflected with awe and pathos that, as they +roomed together, it was his privilege to see the _amigo_ asleep, when +that little, very kissable black head rested innocently on the pillow, +and the busy brain within it was at peace with the world which formed +its pleasure and its prey in waking. + +It would be idle to represent that the _amigo_ played his pranks upon +that shipload of long-suffering people with final impunity. The time +came when they not only said something must be done, but actually did +something. It was by the hand of one of the _amigo's_ sweetest and +kindest friends, namely, that elderly captain, off duty, who was going +out to be assigned his ship in Hamburg. From the first he had shown +the affectionate tenderness for the _amigo_ which was felt by all +except some obdurate hearts at the conversational end of the table; +and it must have been with a loving interest in the _amigo's_ ultimate +well-being that, taking him in an ecstasy of mischief, he drew the +_amigo_ face downward across his knees, and bestowed the chastisement +which was morally a caress. He dismissed him with a smile in which the +_amigo_ read the good understanding that existed unimpaired between +them, and accepted his correction with the same affection as that +which had given it. He shook himself and ran off with an enjoyment of +the joke as great as that of any of the spectators and far more +generous. + +In fact there was nothing mean in the _amigo_. Impish he was, or might +be, but only in the sort of the crow or the parrot; there was no +malevolence in his fine malice. One fancied him in his adolescence +taking part in one of the frequent revolutions of his continent, but +humorously, not homicidally. He would like to alarm the other +faction, and perhaps drive it from power, or overset it from its +official place, but if he had the say there would be no bringing the +vanquished out into the plaza to be shot. He may now have been on his +way to France ultimately to study medicine, which seems to be +preliminary to a high political career in South America; but in the +mean time we feared for him in that republic of severely regulated +subordinations. + +We thought with pathos of our early parting with him, as we approached +Plymouth and tried to be kodaked with him, considering it an honor and +pleasure. He so far shared our feeling as to consent, but he insisted +on wearing a pair of glasses which had large eyes painted on them, and +on being taken in the act of inflating a toy balloon. Probably, +therefore, the likeness would not be recognized in Bogotá, but it will +always be endeared to us by the memory of the many mockeries suffered +from him. There were other friends whom we left on the ship, notably +those of the conversational end of the table, who thought him simply a +bad boy; but there were none of such peculiar appeal as he, when he +stood by the guard, opening and shutting his hand in ironical adieu, +and looking smaller and smaller as our tender drifted away and the +vast liner loomed immense before us. He may have contributed to its +effect of immensity by the smallness of his presence, or it may have +dwarfed him. No matter; he filled no slight space in our lives while +he lasted. Now that he is no longer there, was he really a bad little +boy, merely and simply? Heaven knows, which alone knows good boys from +bad. + + + + + XII + + BLACK CROSS FARM + + (To F. S.) + + + After full many a mutual delay + My friend and I at last fixed on a day + For seeing Black Cross Farm, which he had long + Boasted the fittest theme for tale or song + In all that charming region round about: + Something that must not really be left out + Of the account of things to do for me. + It was a teasing bit of mystery, + He said, which he and his had tried in vain, + Ever since they had found it, to explain. + The right way was to happen, as they did, + Upon it in the hills where it was hid; + But chance could not be always trusted, quite, + You might not happen on it, though you might; + Encores were usually objected to + By chance. The next best thing that we could do + Was in his carryall, to start together, + And trust that somehow favoring wind and weather, + With the eccentric progress of his horse, + Would so far drift us from our settled course + That we at least could lose ourselves, if not + Find the mysterious object that we sought. + So one blithe morning of the ripe July + We fared, by easy stages, toward the sky + That rested one rim of its turquoise cup + Low on the distant sea, and, tilted up, + The other on the irregular hilltops. Sweet + The sun and wind that joined to cool and heat + The air to one delicious temperature; + And over the smooth-cropt mowing-pieces pure + The pine-breath, borrowing their spicy scent + In barter for the balsam that it lent! + And when my friend handed the reins to me, + And drew a fuming match along his knee, + And, lighting his cigar, began to talk, + I let the old horse lapse into a walk + From his perfunctory trot, content to listen, + Amid that leafy rustle and that glisten + Of field, and wood, and ocean, rapt afar, + From every trouble of our anxious star. + From time to time, between effect and cause + In this or that, making a questioning pause, + My friend peered round him while he feigned a gay + Hope that we might have taken the wrong way + At the last turn, and then let me push on, + Or the old horse rather, slanting hither and yon, + And never in the middle of the track, + Except when slanting off or slanting back. + He talked, I listened, while we wandered by + The scanty fields of wheat and oats and rye, + With patches of potatoes and of corn, + And now and then a garden spot forlorn, + Run wild where once a house had stood, or where + An empty house yet stood, and seemed to stare + Upon us blindly from the twisted glass + Of windows that once let no wayfarer pass + Unseen of children dancing at the pane, + And vanishing to reappear again, + Pulling their mother with them to the sight. + Still we kept on, with turnings left and right, + Past farmsteads grouped in cheerful neighborhoods, + Or solitary; then through shadowy woods + Of pine or birch, until the road, grass-grown, + Had given back to Nature all her own + Save a faint wheel-trace, that along the slope, + Rain-gullied, seemed to stop and doubt and grope, + And then quite ceased, as if 't had turned and fled + Out of the forest into which it led, + And left us at the gate whose every bar + Was nailed against us. But, "Oh, here we are!" + My friend cried joyously. "At last, at last!" + And making our horse superfluously fast, + He led the way onward by what had been + A lane, now hid by weeds and briers between + Meadows scarce worth the mowing, to a space + Shaped as by Nature for the dwelling-place + Of kindly human life: a small plateau + Open to the heaven that seemed bending low + In liking for it. There beneath a roof + Still against winter and summer weather-proof, + With walls and doors and windows perfect yet, + Between its garden and its graveyard set, + Stood the old homestead, out of which had perished + The home whose memory it dumbly cherished, + And which, when at our push the door swung wide, + We might have well imagined to have died + And had its funeral the day before: + So clean and cold it was from floor to floor, + So lifelike and so deathlike, with the thrill + Of hours when life and death encountered still + Passionate in it. They that lay below + The tangled grasses or the drifted snow, + Husband and wife, mother and little one, + From that sad house less utterly were gone + Than they that living had abandoned it. + In moonless nights their Absences might flit, + Homesick, from room to room, or dimly sit + Around its fireless hearths, or haunt the rose + And lily in the neglected garden close; + But they whose feet had borne them from the door + Would pass the footworn threshold nevermore. + We read the moss-grown names upon the tombs, + With lighter melancholy than the glooms + Of the dead house shadowed us with, and thence + Turning, my heart was pierced with more intense + Suggestion of a mystical dismay, + As in the brilliance of the summer day + We faced the vast gray barn. The house was old, + Though so well kept, as age by years is told + In our young land; but the barn, gray and vast, + Stood new and straight and strong--all battened fast + At every opening; and where once the mow + Had yawned wide-windowed, on the sheathing now + A Cross was nailed, the bigness of a man, + Aslant from left to right, athwart the span, + And painted black as paint could make it. Hushed, + I stood, while manifold conjecture rushed + To this point and to that point, and then burst + In the impotent questionings rejected first. + What did it mean? Ah, that no one could tell. + Who put it there? That was unknown as well. + Was there no legend? My friend knew of none. + No neighborhood story? He had sought for one + In vain. Did he imagine it accident, + With nothing really implied or meant + By the boards set in that way? It might be, + But I could answer that as well as he. + Then (desperately) what did he guess it was: + Something of purpose, or without a cause + Other than chance? He slowly shook his head, + And with his gaze fixed on the symbol said: + "We have quite ceased from guessing or surmising, + For all our several and joint devising + Has left us finally where I must leave you. + But now I think it is your part to do + Yourself some guessing. I hoped you might bring + A fresh mind to the riddle's unraveling. + Come!" + + And thus challenged I could not deny + The sort of right he had to have me try; + And yielding, I began--instinctively + Proceeding by exclusion: "We agree + It was not put there as a pious charm + To keep the abandoned property from harm? + The owner could have been no Catholic; + And yet it was no sacrilegious trick + To make folks wonder; and it was not chance + Assuredly that set those boards askance + In that shape, or before or after, so + Painted them to that coloring of woe. + Do you suppose, then, that it could have been + Some secret sorrow or some secret sin, + That tried to utter or to expiate + Itself in that way: some unhappy hate + Turned to remorse, or some life-rending grief + That could not find in years or tears relief? + Who lived here last?" + + "Ah," my friend made reply, + "You know as much concerning that as I. + All I could tell is what those gravestones tell, + And they have told it all to you as well. + The names, the dates, the curious epitaphs + At whose quaint phrase one either sighs or laughs, + Just as one's heart or head happens to be + Hollow or not, are there for each to see. + But I believe they have nothing to reveal: + No wrong to publish, no shame to conceal." + + "And yet that Cross!" I turned at his reply, + Fixing the silent symbol with my eye, + Insistently. "And you consent," I said, + "To leave the enigma uninterpreted?" + + "Why, no," he faltered, then went on: "Suppose + That some one that had known the average woes + Of human nature, finding that the load + Was overheavy for him on life's road, + Had wished to leave some token in this Cross, + Of what had been his gain and been his loss, + Of what had been his suffering and of what + Had also been the solace of his lot? + Whoever that unknown brother-man might be, + I think he must have been like you and me, + Who bear our Cross, and when we fail at length, + Bow down and pray to it for greater strength." + + I mused, and as I mused, I seemed to find + The fancy more and still more to my mind. + + "Well, let it go at that! I think, for me, + I like that better than some tragedy + Of clearer physiognomy, which were + In being more definite the vulgarer. + For us, what, after all, would be the gain + Of making the elusive meaning plain? + I really think, if I were you and yours, + I would not lift the veil that now obscures + The appealing fact, lest I should spoil the charm + Deeding me for my own the Black Cross Farm." + + "A good suggestion! I am glad," said he, + "We have always practised your philosophy." + + He smiled, we laughed; we sighed and turned away, + And left the mystery to the summer day + That made as if it understood, and could + Have read the riddle to us if it would: + The wide, wise sky, the clouds that on the grass + Let their vague shadows dreamlike trail and pass; + The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing + Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing + Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon, + Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune + Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds, + Forgetful of the spring-time's lyric words, + Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane + That to our coming feet had been so plain, + And lost ourselves among the sweetfern's growth, + And thickets of young pine-trees, nothing loath, + Amidst the wilding loveliness to stray, + And spend, if need were, looking for the way, + Whole hours; but blundered into the right course + Suddenly, and came out upon our horse, + Where we had left him--to our great surprise, + Stamping and switching at the pestering flies, + But not apparently anxious to depart, + When nearly overturning at the start, + We followed down that evanescent trace + Which, followed up, had brought us to the place. + + Then, all the wayside scenes reversing, we + Dropped to the glimpses of the distant sea, + Content as if we brought, returning thus, + The secret of the Black Cross back with us. + + + + + XIII + + THE CRITICAL BOOKSTORE + + +It had long been the notion of Frederick Erlcort, who held it +playfully, held it seriously, according to the company he was in, that +there might be a censorship of taste and conscience in literary +matters strictly affiliated with the retail commerce in books. When he +first began to propose it, playfully, seriously, as his listener +chose, he said that he had noticed how in the great department stores +where nearly everything to supply human need was sold, the shopmen and +shopwomen seemed instructed by the ownership or the management to deal +in absolute good faith with the customers, and not to misrepresent the +quality, the make, or the material of any article in the slightest +degree. A thing was not to be called silk or wool when it was partly +cotton; it was not to be said that it would wash when it would not +wash, or that the color would not come off when it would come off, or +that the stuff was English or French when it was American. + +When Erlcort once noted his interest in the fact to a floor-walker +whom he happened to find at leisure, the floor-walker said, Yes, that +was so; and the house did it because it was business, good business, +the only good business. He was instantly enthusiastic, and he said +that just in the same way, as an extension of its good faith with the +public, the house had established the rule of taking back any article +which a customer did not like, or did not find what she had supposed +when she got it home, and refunding the money. This was the best sort +of business; it held custom; the woman became a customer for life. The +floor-walker laughed, and after he had told an anxious applicant, +"Second aisle to the left, lady; three counters back," he concluded to +Erlcort, "I say she because a man never brings a thing back when he's +made a mistake; but a woman can always blame it on the house. That +so?" + +Erlcort laughed with him, and in going out he stopped at the +book-counter. Rather it was a bookstore, and no small one, with ranks +of new books covering the large tables and mounting to their level +from the floor, neatly piled, and with shelves of complete editions +and soberer-looking volumes stretching along the wall as high as the +ceiling. "Do you happen to have a good book--a book that would read +good, I mean--in your stock here?" he asked the neat blonde behind +the literary barricade. + +"Well, here's a book that a good many are reading," she answered, with +prompt interest and a smile that told in the book's favor; it was a +protectingly filial and guardedly ladylike smile. + +"Yes, but is it a book worth reading--worth the money?" + +"Well, I don't know as I'm a judge," the kind little blonde replied. +She added, daringly, "All I can say is, I set up till two last night +to finish it." + +"And you advise me to buy it?" + +"Well, we're not allowed to do that, exactly. I can only tell you what +I know." + +"But if I take it, and it isn't what I expected, I can return it and +get my money back?" + +"That's something I never was asked before. Mr. Jeffers! Mr. Jeffers!" +she called to a floor-walker passing near; and when he stopped and +came up to the counter, she put the case to him. + +He took the book from Erlcort's hand and examined the outside of it +curiously if not critically. Then he looked from it to Erlcort, and +said, "Oh, how do you do again! Well, no, sir; I don't know as we +could do that. You see, you would have to read it to find out that you +didn't want it, and that would be like using or wearing an article, +wouldn't it? We couldn't take back a thing that had been used or +worn--heigh?" + +"But you might have some means of knowing whether a book is good or +not?" + +"Well, yes, we might. That's a point we have never had raised before. +Miss Prittiman, haven't we any means of knowing whether a book's +something we can guarantee or not?" + +"Well, Mr. Jeffers, there's the publisher's advertisement." + +"Why, yes, so there is! And a respectable publisher wouldn't indorse a +book that wasn't the genuine article, would he now, sir?" + +"He mightn't," Erlcort said, as if he felt the force of the argument. + +"And there are the notices in the newspapers. They ought to tell," +Miss Prittiman added, more convincingly. "I don't know," she said, as +from a sensitive conscience, "whether there have been any about this +book yet, but I should think there would be." + +"And in the mean time, as you won't guarantee the book so that I can +bring it back and get my money if I find it worthless, I must accept +the publisher's word?" Erlcort pressed further. + +"I should think you could do that," the floor-walker suggested, with +the appearance of being tired. + +"Well, I think I will, for once," Erlcort relented. "But wait! What +does the publisher say?" + +"It's all printed on this slip inside," the blonde said, and she +showed it as she took the book from him. "Shall I send it? Or will +you--" + +"No, no, thank you, I'll take it with me. Let me--" + +He kept the printed slip and began to read it. The blonde wrapped the +book up and laid it with a half-dollar in change on the counter before +Erlcort. The floor-walker went away; Erlcort heard him saying, "No, +madam; toys on the fifth floor, at the extreme rear, left," while he +lost himself in the glowing promises of the publisher. It appeared +that the book he had just bought was by a perfectly new author, an old +lady of seventy who had never written a novel before, and might +therefore be trusted for an entire freshness of thought and feeling. +The plot was of a gripping intensity; the characters were painted with +large, bold strokes, and were of an unexampled virility; the story was +packed with passion from cover to cover; and the reader would be held +breathless by the author's skill in working from the tragic conditions +to an all-round happy conclusion. + +From time to time Erlcort heard the gentle blonde saying such things +as, "Oh yes; it's the best-seller, all right," and, "All I can say is +I set up till two o'clock in the morning to finish it," and, "Yes, +ma'am; it's by a new writer; a very old lady of seventy who is just +beginning to write; well, that's what I _heard_." + +On his way up-town in the Subway he clung to the wonted strap, +unsupported by anything in the romance which he had bought; and yet he +could not take the book back and get his money, or even exchange it +for some article of neckwear or footwear. In his extremity he thought +he would try giving it to the trainman just before he reached his +stop. + +"You want to _give_ it to me? Well, that's something that never +happened to me on _this_ line before. I guess my wife will like it. +I--_1009th Street! Change for East Brooklyn and the Bronx!_" the guard +shouted, and he let Erlcort out of the car, the very first of the tide +that spilled itself forth at the station. He called after him, "Do as +much for you some time." + +The incident first amused Erlcort, and then it began to trouble him; +but he appeased his remorse by toying with his old notion of a +critical bookstore. His mind was still at play with it when he stopped +at the bell-pull of an elderly girl of his acquaintance who had a +studio ten stories above, and the habit of giving him afternoon tea in +it if he called there about five o'clock. She had her ugly +painting-apron still on, and her thumb through the hole in her +palette, when she opened her door to him. + +"Too soon?" he asked. + +She answered as well as she could with the brush held horizontally in +her mouth while she glared inhospitably at him. "Well, not much," and +then she let him in, and went and lighted her spirit-lamp. + +He began at once to tell her of his strange experience, and went on +till she said: "Well, there's your tea. _I_ don't know what you've +been driving at, but I suppose you do. Is it the old thing?" + +"It's my critical bookstore, if that's what you call the old thing." + +"Oh! _That!_ I thought it had failed 'way back in the dark ages." + +"The dark ages are not _back_, please; they're all 'round, and you +know very well that my critical bookstore has never been tried yet. +But tell me one thing: should you wish to live with a picture, even +for a few hours, which had been painted by an old lady of seventy who +had never tried to paint before?" + +"If I intended to go crazy, yes. What has all that got to do with it?" + +"That's the joint commendation of the publisher and the kind little +blonde who united to sell me the book I just gave to that poor Subway +trainman. Do you ever buy a new book?" + +"No; I always borrow an old one." + +"But if you _had_ to buy a new one, wouldn't you like to know of a +place where you could be sure of getting a good one?" + +"I shouldn't mind. Or, yes, I should, rather. Where's it to be?" + +"Oh, I know. I've had my eye on the place for a good while. It's a +funny old place in Sixth Avenue--" + +"Sixth _Avenue_!" + +"Don't interrupt--where the dearest old codger in the world is just +going out of the house-furnishing business in a small way. It's kept +getting smaller and smaller--I've watched it shrink--till now it can't +stand up against the big shops, and the old codger told me the other +day that it was no use." + +"Poor fellow!" + +"No. He's not badly off, and he's going back up-state where he came +from about forty years ago, and he can live--or die--very well on what +he's put by. I've known him rather a good while, and we've been +friends ever since we've been acquainted." + +"Go on," the elderly girl said. + +Erlcort was not stopping, but she spoke so as to close her mouth, +which she was apt to let hang open in a way that she did not like; she +had her intimates pledged to tell her when she was doing it, but she +could not make a man promise, and she had to look after her mouth +herself with Erlcort. It was not a bad mouth; her eyes were large, and +it was merely large to match them. + +"When shall you begin--open shop?" she asked. + +"My old codger's lease expires in the fall," he answered, "but he +would be glad to have me take it off his hands this spring. I could +give the summer to changing and decorating, and begin my campaign in +the fall--the first of October, say. Wouldn't you like to come some +day and see the old place?" + +"I should love it. But you're not supposing I shall be of the least +use, I hope? I'm not decorational, you know. Easel pictures, and small +ones at that." + +"Of course. But you are a woman, and have ideas of the cozy. I mean +that the place shall be made attractive." + +"Do you think the situation will be--on Sixth Avenue?" + +"It will be quaint. It's in a retarded region of low buildings, with a +carpenter's shop two doors off. The L roars overhead and the surface +cars squeal before, but that is New York, you know, and it's very +central. Besides, at the back of the shop, with the front door shut, +it is very quiet." + +The next day the friends lunched together at an Italian restaurant +very near the place, and rather hurried themselves away to the old +codger's store. + +"He _is_ a dear," Margaret whispered to Erlcort in following him about +to see the advantages of the place. + +"Oh, mine's setting-hen's time," he justified his hospitality in +finally asking them to take seats on a nail-keg apiece. "You mustn't +think you're interruptin'. Look 'round all ye want to, or set down and +rest ye." + +"That would be a good motto for your bookstore," she screamed to +Erlcort, when they got out into the roar of the avenue. "'Look 'round +all ye want to, or set down and rest ye.' Wasn't he sweet? And I don't +wonder you're taken with the place: it _has_ such capabilities. You +might as well begin imagining how you will arrange it." + +They were walking involuntarily up the avenue, and when they came to +the Park they went into it, and in the excitement of their planning +they went as far as the Ramble, where they sat down on a bench and +disappointed some squirrels who supposed they had brought peanuts with +them. + +They decided that the front of the shop should be elaborately simple; +perhaps the door should be painted black, with a small-paned sash and +a heavy brass latch. On each side should be a small-paned show-window, +with books laid inside on an inclined shelving; on the door should be +a modest bronze plate, reading, "The Critical Bookstore." They +rejected _shop_ as an affectation, and they hooted the notion of "Ye +Critical Bookstore" as altogether loathsome. The door and window would +be in a rather belated taste, but the beautiful is never out of date, +and black paint and small panes might be found rococo in their +old-fashionedness now. There should be a fireplace, or perhaps a +Franklin stove, at the rear of the room, with a high-shouldered, +small-paned sash on each side letting in the light from the yard of +the carpenter-shop. On the chimneypiece should be lettered, "Look +'round all ye want to, or set down and rest ye." + +The genius of the place should be a refined hospitality, such as the +gentle old codger had practised with them, and to facilitate this +there should be a pair of high-backed settles, one under each window. +The book-counter should stretch the whole length of the store, and at +intervals beside it, against the book-shelving, should be set +old-fashioned chairs, but not too old-fashioned. Against the lower +book-shelves on a deeper shelf might be stood against the books a few +sketches in water-color, or even oil. + +This was Margaret Green's idea. + +"And would you guarantee the quality?" Erlcort asked. + +"Perhaps they wouldn't be for sale, though if any one insisted--" + +"I see. Well, pass the sketches. What else?" + +"Well, a few little figures in plaster, or even marble or bronze, very +Greek, or very American; things in low relief." + +"Pass the little figures and low reliefs. But don't forget it's a +_bookstore_." + +"Oh, I won't. The sketches of all kinds would be strictly subordinated +to the books. If I had a tea-room handy here, with a table and the +backs of some menus to draw on, I could show you just how it would +look." + +"What's the matter with the Casino?" + +"Nothing; only it's rather early for tea yet." + +"It isn't for soda-lemonade." + +She set him the example of instantly rising, and led the way back +along the lake to the Casino, resting at that afternoon hour among its +spring flowers and blossoms innocent of its lurid after-dark +frequentation. He got some paper from the waiter who came to take +their order. She began to draw rapidly, and by the time the waiter +came again she was giving Erlcort the last scrap of paper. + +"Well," he said, "I had no idea that I had imagined anything so +charming! If this critical bookstore doesn't succeed, it'll be because +there are no critics. But what--what are these little things hung +against the partitions of the shelves?" + +"Oh--mirrors. Little round ones." + +"But why mirrors of any shape?" + +"Nothing; only people like to see themselves in a glass of any shape. +And when," Margaret added, in a burst of candor, "a woman looks up and +sees herself with a book in her hand, she will feel so intellectual +she will never put it down. She will buy it." + +"Margaret Green, this is immoral. Strike out those mirrors, or I will +smash them every one!" + +"Oh, very well!" she said, and she rubbed them out with the top of her +pencil. "If you want your place a howling wilderness." + +He looked at the ruin her rubber had wrought. "They _were_ rather +nice. Could--could you rub them in again?" + +"Not if I tried a hundred years. Besides, they _were_ rather impudent. +What time is it?" + +"No time at all. It's half-past three." + +"Dear me! I must be going. And if you're really going to start that +precious critical bookstore in the fall, you must begin work on it +right away." + +"Work?" + +"Reading up for it. If you're going to guarantee the books, you must +know what's in them, mustn't you?" + +He realized that he must do what she said; he must know from his own +knowledge what was in the books he offered for sale, and he began +reading, or reading _at_, the new books immediately. He was a good +deal occupied by day with the arrangement of his store, though he left +it mainly with the lively young decorator who undertook for a lump sum +to realize Margaret Green's ideas. It was at night that he did most of +his reading in the spring books which the publishers were willing to +send him gratis, when they understood he was going to open a +bookstore, and only wanted sample copies. As long as she remained in +town Margaret Green helped him read, and they talked the books over, +and mostly rejected them. By the time she went to Europe in August +with another elderly girl they had not chosen more than eight or ten +books; but they hoped for better things in the fall. + +Word of what he was doing had gone out from Margaret, and a great many +women of their rather esthetic circle began writing to him about the +books they were reading, and commending them to him or warning him +against them. The circle of his volunteer associates enlarged itself +in the nature of an endless chain, and before society quite broke up +for the summer a Sympathetic Tea was offered to Erlcort by a Leading +Society Woman at the Intellectual Club, where he was invited to +address the Intellectuals in explanation of his project. This was +before Margaret sailed, and he hurried to her in horror. + +"Why, of course you must accept. You're not going to hide your +Critical Bookstore under a bushel; you can't have too much publicity." + +The Leading Society Woman flowed in fulsome gratitude at his +acceptance, and promised no one but the club should be there; he had +hinted his reluctance. She kept her promise, but among the +Intellectuals there was a girl who was a just beginning journalist, +and who pumped Erlcort's whole scheme out of him, unsuspicious of what +she was doing, till he saw it all, with his picture, in the Sunday +Supplement. She rightly judged that the intimacy of an interview would +be more popular with her readers than the cold and distant report of +his formal address, which she must give, though she received it so +ardently with all the other Intellectuals. They flocked flatteringly, +almost suffocatingly, around him at the end. His scheme was just what +every one had vaguely thought of: something must be done to stem the +tide of worthless fiction, which was so often shocking as well as +silly, and they would only be too glad to help read for him. They were +nearly all just going to sail, but they would each take a spring book +on the ship, and write him about it from the other side; they would +each get a fall book coming home, and report as soon as they got back. + +His scheme was discussed seriously and satirically by the press; it +became a joke with many papers, and a byword quickly worn out, so that +people thought that it had been dropped. But Erlcort gave his days and +nights to preparation for his autumnal campaign. He studied in careful +comparison the reviews of the different literary authorities, and was +a little surprised to find, when he came to read the books they +reviewed, how honest and adequate they often were. He was obliged to +own to himself that if people were guided by them, few worthless books +would be sold, and he decided that the immense majority of the +book-buyers were not guided by the critics. The publishers themselves +seemed not so much to blame when he went to see them and explained his +wish to deal with them on the basis of a critical bookseller. They +said they wished all the booksellers were like him, for they would ask +nothing better than to publish only good books. The trouble, they +said, lay with the authors; they wrote such worthless books. Or if now +and then one of them did write a good book and they were over-tempted +to publish it, the public united in refusing to buy it. So he saw? But +if the booksellers persisted in selling none but good books, perhaps +something might be done. At any rate they would like to see the +experiment tried. + +Erlcort felt obliged to read the books suggested to him by the endless +chain of readers who volunteered to read for him, on both sides of the +ocean, or going and coming on the ocean. Mostly the books they praised +were abject rubbish, but it took time to find this out, and he formed +the habit of reading far into the night, and if he was very much vexed +at discovering that the book recommended to him was trash, he could +not sleep unless he took veronal, and then he had a ghastly next day. + +He did not go out of town except for a few brief sojourns at places +where he knew cultivated people were staying, and could give him their +opinions of the books he was reading. When the publishers began, as +they had agreed, to send him their advance sheets, the stitched but +unbound volumes roused so much interest by the novelty of their form +that his readers could not give an undivided attention to their +contents. He foresaw that in the end he should have to rely upon the +taste of mercenaries in his warfare against rubbish, and more and more +he found it necessary to expend himself in it, to read at second hand +as well as at first. His greatest relief was in returning to town and +watching the magical changes which the decorator was working in his +store. This was consolation, this was inspiration, but he longed for +the return of Margaret Green, that she might help him enjoy the +realization of her ideas in the equipment of the place; and he held +the decorator to the most slavish obedience through the carpenters and +painters who created at his bidding a miraculous interior, all white, +or just off-white, such as had never been imagined of a bookstore in +New York before. It was actually ready by the end of August, though +smelling a little of turpentine still, and Erlcort, letting himself in +at the small-paned black door, and ranging up and down the long, +beautiful room, and round and round the central book-table, and in and +out between the side tables, under the soft, bright shelving of the +walls, could hardly wait the arrival of the _Minnedingdong_ in which +the elderly girl had taken her passage back. One day, ten days ahead +of time, she blew in at the front door in a paroxysm of explanation; +she had swapped passages home with another girl who wanted to come +back later, while she herself wanted to come back earlier. She had no +very convincing reason for this as she gave it, but Erlcort did not +listen to her reason, whatever it was. He said, between the raptures +with the place that she fell in and out of, that now she was just in +time for the furnishing, which he never could have dared to undertake +alone. + +In the gay September weather they visited all the antiquity shops in +Fourth Avenue, and then threw themselves frankly upon reproductions, +which they bought in the native wood and ordered painted, the settles +and the spindle-backed chairs in the cool gray which she decided was +the thing. In the same spirit they bought new brass fire-irons and new +shovel and tongs, but all very tall and antique-looking, and then they +got those little immoral mirrors, which Margaret Green attached with +her own hands to the partitions of the shelving. She also got soft +green silk curtains for the chimney windows and for the sash of the +front door; even the front windows she curtained, but very low, so +that a salesman or a saleswoman could easily reach over from the +interior and get a book that any customer had seen from the outside. + +One day when all this was done, and Erlcort had begun ordering in a +stock of such books as he had selected to start with, she said: +"You're looking rather peakéd, aren't you?" + +"Well, I've been _feeling_ rather peakéd, until lately, keeping awake +to read and read _after_ the volunteer readers." + +"You mean you've lost sleep?" + +"Something like that." + +"Well, you mustn't. How many books do you start with?" + +"About twenty-five." + +"Good ones? It's a lot, isn't it? I didn't suppose there were so +many." + +"Well, to fill our shelves I shall have to order about a thousand of +each." + +"You'll never sell them in the world! You'll be ruined." + +"Oh no; the publishers will take them back." + +"How nice of them! But that's only what painters have to do when the +dealers can't sell their pictures." + +A month off, the prospect was brilliant, and when the shelves and +tables were filled and the sketches and bas-reliefs were stuck about +and the little immoral mirrors were hung, the place was charming. The +chairs and settles were all that could be asked; Margaret Green helped +put them about; and he let her light the low fire on the hearth of +the Franklin stove; he said he should not always burn hickory, but he +had got twenty-four sticks for two dollars from an Italian in a cellar +near by, and he meant to burn that much. She upbraided him for his +extravagance while touching the match to the paper under the kindling; +but October opened cold, and he needed the fire. + +The enterprise seemed rather to mystify the neighborhood, and some old +customers of the old codger's came in upon one fictitious errand and +another to see about it, and went away without quite making it out. It +was a bookstore, all right, they owned in conference, but what did he +mean by "critical"? + +The first _bona fide_ buyer appeared in a little girl who could just +get her chin on the counter, and who asked for an egg-beater. Erlcort +had begun with only one assistant, the young lady who typed his +letters and who said she guessed she could help him when she was not +working. She leaned over and tried to understand the little girl, and +then she called to Erlcort where he stood with his back to the fire +and the morning paper open before his face. + +"Mr. Erlcort, have we got a book called _The Egg-beater_?" + +"_The Egg-beater?_" he echoed, letting his paper drop below his face. + +"No, no!" the little girl shouted, angrily. "It _ain't_ a book. It's a +thing to beat eggs with. Mother said to come here and get it." + +"Well, she's sent you to the wrong place, little girl. You want to go +to a hardware-store," the young lady argued. + +"Ain't this No. 1232?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, this is the _right_ place. Mother said to go to 1232. I guess +she knows. She's an old customer." + +"_The Egg-beater! The Egg-beater!_" the blithe young novelist to whom +Erlcort told the story repeated. He was still happy in his original +success as a best-seller, and he had come to the Critical Bookstore to +spy out the stock and see whether his last novel was in it; but though +it was not, he joyously extended an acquaintance with Erlcort which +had begun elsewhere. "_The Egg-beater?_ What a splendid title for a +story of adventure! Keep the secret of its applicability to the last +word, or perhaps never reveal it at all, and leave the reader +worrying. That's one way; makes him go and talk about the book to all +the girls he knows and get them guessing. Best ad. in the world. _The +Egg-beater!_ Doesn't it suggest desert islands and penguins' nests in +the rocks? Fellow and girl shipwrecked, and girl wants to make an +omelette after they've got sick of plain eggs, and can't for want of +an egg-beater. Heigh? He invents one--makes it out of some wire that +floats off from the wreck. See? When they are rescued, she brings it +away, and doesn't let him know it till their Iron Wedding Day. They +keep it over his study fireplace always." + +This author was the first to stretch his legs before Erlcort's fire +from his seat on one of the reproductions. He could not say enough of +the beauty of the place, and he asked if he might sit there and watch +for the old codger's old customers coming to buy hardware. There might +be copy in it. + +But the old customers did not come so often as he hoped and Erlcort +feared. Instead there came _bona fide_ book-buyers, who asked some for +a book and some for a particular book. The first were not satisfied +with the books that Erlcort or his acting saleslady recommended, and +went away without buying. The last were indignant at not finding what +they wanted in Erlcort's selection. + +"Why don't you stock it?" they demanded. + +"Because I don't think it's worth reading." + +"Oh, indeed!" The sarcastic customers were commonly ladies. "I +thought you let the public judge of that!" + +"There are bookstores where they do. This is a critical bookstore. I +sell only the books that _I_ think worth reading. If you had noticed +my sign--" + +"Oh!" the customer would say, and she, too, would go away without +buying. + +There were other ladies who came, links of the endless chain of +volunteer readers who had tried to help Erlcort in making his +selection, and he could see them slyly looking his stock over for the +books they had praised to him. Mostly they went away without comment, +but with heads held high in the offense which he felt even more than +saw. One, indeed, did ask him why he had not stocked her chosen book, +and he had to say, "Well, when I came to go through it carefully, I +didn't think it quite--" + +"But here is _The Green Bay Tree_, and _The Biggest Toad in the +Puddle_, and--" + +"I know. For one reason and another I thought them worth stocking." + +Then another head went away high in the air, with its plumes +quivering. One afternoon late a lady came flying in with all the +marks, whatever they are, of transatlantic travel upon her. + +"I'm just through the customs, and I've motored up here the first +thing, even before I went home, to stop you from selling that book I +recommended. It's dreadful; and, horrors! horrors! here it is by the +hundreds! Oh, Mr. Erlcort! You mustn't sell that dreadful book! You +see, I had skipped through it in my berth going out, and posted my +letter the first thing; and just now, coming home, I found it in the +ship's library and came on that frightful episode. You know! +Where-- How _could_ you order it without reading it, on a mere say-so? +It's utterly immoral!" + +"I don't agree with you," Erlcort answered, dryly. "I consider that +passage one of the finest in modern fiction--one of the most ennobling +and illumining--" + +"Ennobling!" The lady made a gesture of horror. "Very well! If _that_ +is your idea of a critical bookstore, all I've got to say is--" + +But she had apparently no words to say it in, and she went out banging +but failing to latch the door which let through the indignant snort of +her car as it whirled her away. She left Erlcort and his assistant to +a common silence, but he imagined somehow a resolution in the +stenographer not to let the book go unsearched till she had grasped +the full iniquity of that episode and felt all its ennobling force. He +was not consoled when another lady came in and, after drifting +unmolestedly about (it was the primary rule of the place not to +follow people up), stopped before the side shelf where the book was +ranged in dozens and scores. She took a copy from the neat ranks, and +opened it; then she lifted her head by chance and caught sight of her +plume in one of the little mirrors. She stealthily lifted herself on +tiptoe till she could see her face, and then she turned to the +assistant and said, gently, "I believe I should like _this_ book, +please," and paid for it and went out. + +It was now almost on the stroke of six, and Erlcort said to his +assistant: "I'll close the store, Miss Pearsall. You needn't stay any +longer." + +"All right, sir," the girl said, and went into the little closet at +the rear for her hat and coat. Did she contrive to get a copy of that +book under her coat as she passed the shelf where it lay? + +When she was gone, he turned the key in the door and went back and sat +down before the fire dying on the hearth of the Franklin stove. It was +not a very cheerful moment with him, but he could not have said that +the day had been unprofitable, either spiritually or pecuniarily. In +its experiences it had been a varied day, and he had really sold a +good many books. More people than he could have expected had taken him +seriously and even intelligently. It is true that he had been somewhat +vexed by the sort of authority the president of the Intellectual Club +had shown in the way she swelled into the store and patronized him and +it, as if she had invented them both, and blamed him in a high, sweet +voice for having so many _old_ books. "My idea was that it would be a +place where one could come for the best of the _new_ books. But here! +Why, half of them I saw in June before I sailed!" She chided him +merrily, and she acted as if it were quite part of the joke when he +said that he did not think a good book could age much in four months. +She laughed patronizingly at his conceit of getting in the fall books +by Thanksgiving; but even for the humor of it she could not let him +say he should not do anything in holiday books. "I had expected to get +_all_ my Christmas books of you, Mr. Erlcort," she crowed, but for the +present she bought nothing. In compensation he recalled the gratitude, +almost humble gratitude, of a lady (she was a lady!) who had come that +day, bringing her daughter to get a book, any book in his stock, and +to thank him for his enterprise, which she had found worked perfectly +in the case of the book she had got the week before; the book had been +an unalloyed delight, and had left a sense of heightened self-respect +with her: that book of the dreadful episode. + +He wished Margaret Green had been there; but she had been there only +once since his opening; he could not think why. He heard a rattling at +the door-latch, and he said before he turned to look, "What if it +should be she _now_?" But when he went to peer through the +door-curtain it was only an old fellow who had spent the better part +of the afternoon in the best chair, reading a book. Erlcort went back +to the fire and let him rattle, which he did rather a long time, and +then went away, Erlcort hoped, in dudgeon. He was one of a number of +customers who had acted on the half of his motto asking them to sit +down and rest them, after acting on the other half to look round all +they wanted. Most of them did not read, even; they seemed to know one +another, and they talked comfortably together. Erlcort recognized a +companionship of four whom he had noticed in the Park formerly; they +were clean-enough-looking elderly men, but occupied nearly all the +chairs and settles, so that lady customers did not like to bring books +and look over them in the few places left, and Erlcort foresaw the +time when he should have to ask the old fellows to look around more +and rest them less. In resuming his own place before the fire he felt +the fleeting ache of a desire to ask Margaret Green whether it would +not be a good plan to remove the motto from the chimneypiece. He would +not have liked to do it without asking her; it had been her notion to +put it there, and her other notion of the immoral mirrors had +certainly worked well. The thoughtful expression they had reflected on +the faces of lady customers had sold a good many books; not that +Erlcort wished to sell books that way, though he argued with himself +that his responsibility ought strictly to end with the provision of +books which he had critically approved before offering them for sale. + +His conscience was not wholly at peace as to his stock, not only the +books which he had included, but also those he had excluded. Some of +these tacitly pleaded against his severity; in one case an author came +and personally protested. This was the case of a book by the +ex-best-seller, who held that his last book was so much better than +his first that it ought certainly to be found in any critical +bookstore. The proceeds of his best-seller had enabled him to buy an +electric runabout, and he purred up to Erlcort's door in it to argue +the matter with him. He sat down in a reproduction and proved, gaily, +that Erlcort was quite wrong about it. He had the book with him, and +read passages from it; then he read passages from some of the books on +sale and defied Erlcort to say that his passages were not just as +good, or, as he put it merrily, the same as. He held that his marked +improvement entitled him to the favor of a critical bookstore; +without this, what motive had he in keeping from a reversion to the +errors which had won him the vicious prosperity of his first venture? +Hadn't Erlcort a duty to perform in preventing his going back to the +bad? Refuse this markedly improved fiction, and you drove him to +writing nothing but best-sellers from now on. He urged Erlcort to +reflect. + +They had a jolly time, and the ex-best-seller went away in high +spirits, prophesying that Erlcort would come to his fiction yet. + +There were authors who did not leave Erlcort so cheerful when they +failed to see their books on his shelves or tables. Some of them were +young authors who had written their worthless books with a devout +faith in their worth, and they went away more in sorrow than in anger, +and yet more in bewilderment. Some were old authors who had been all +their lives acceptably writing second-rate books and trying to make +them unacceptably first-rate. If he knew them he kept out of their +way, but the dejection of their looks was not less a pang to him if he +saw them searching his stock for their books in vain. + +He had his own moments of dejection. The interest of the press in his +enterprise had flashed through the Sunday issues of a single week, and +then flashed out in lasting darkness. He wondered vaguely if he had +counted without the counting-house in hoping for their continued +favor; he could not realize that nothing is so stale as old news, and +that no excess of advertising would have relumed those fitful fires. + +He would have liked to talk the case over with Margaret Green. After +his first revolt from the easy publicity the reporters had first given +him, he was aware of having enjoyed it--perhaps vulgarly enjoyed it. +But he hoped not quite that; he hoped that in his fleeting celebrity +he had cared for his scheme rather than himself. He had really +believed in it, and he liked having it recognized as a feature of +modern civilization, an innovation which did his city and his country +credit. Now and then an essayist of those who wrote thoughtful +articles in the Sunday or Saturday-evening editions had dropped in, +and he had opened his heart to them in a way he would not have minded +their taking advantage of. Secretly he hoped they would see a topic in +his enterprise and his philosophy of it. But they never did, and he +was left to the shame of hopes which had held nothing to support +defeat. He would have liked to confess his shame and own the justice +of his punishment to Margaret Green, but she seemed the only friend +who never came near. Other friends came, and many strangers, the +friends to look and the strangers to buy. He had no reason to +complain of his sales; the fame of his critical bookstore might have +ceased in New York, because it had gone abroad to Chicago and St. +Louis and Pittsburg; people who were clearly from these commercial +capitals and others came and bought copiously of his criticized stock, +and they praised the notion of it in telling him that he ought to open +branches in their several cities. + +They were all women, and it was nearly all women who frequented the +Critical Bookstore, but in their multitude Margaret Green was not. He +thought it the greater pity because she would have enjoyed many of +them with him, and would have divined such as hoped the culture +implicated by a critical bookstore would come off on them without +great effort of their own; she would have known the sincere spirits, +too, and could have helped direct their choice of the best where all +was so good. He smiled to find that he was invoking her help, which he +had no right to. + +His longing had no effect upon her till deep in January, when the +weather was engaged late one afternoon in keeping the promise of a +January thaw in the form of the worst snow-storm of the winter. Then +she came thumping with her umbrella-handle at his door as if, he +divined, she were too stiff-handed or too package-laden to press the +latch and let herself in, and she almost fell in, but saved herself +by spilling on the floor some canvases and other things which she had +been getting at the artist's-materials store near by. "Don't bother +about them," she said, "but take me to the fire as fast as you can," +and when she had turned from snow to rain and had dripped partially +dry before the Franklin stove, she asked, "Where have you been all the +time?" + +"Waiting here for you," he answered. + +"Well, you needn't. I wasn't going to come--or at least not till you +sent for me, or said you wanted my advice." + +"I don't want your advice now." + +"I didn't come to give it. I just dropped in because if I hadn't I +should have just dropped outside. How have you been getting along with +your ridiculous critical bookstore?" + +"Well, things are rather quiet with us just now, as the publishers say +to the authors when they don't want to publish their books." + +"Yes, I know that saying. Why didn't you go in for the holiday books?" + +"How did you know I didn't?" + +"Lots of people told me." + +"Well, then, I'll tell you why. I would have had to read them first, +and no human being could do that--not even a volunteer link in an +endless chain." + +"I see. But since Christmas?" + +"You know very well that after Christmas the book market drops dead." + +"Yes, so I've been told." She had flung her wet veil back over her +shoulders, and he thought she had never looked so adorably plain +before; if she could have seen herself in a glass she would have found +her whole face out of drawing. It seemed as if his thinking had put +her in mind of them, and she said, "Those immoral mirrors are +shameful." + +"They've sold more of the best books than anything else." + +"No matter. As soon as I get a little drier I shall take them down." + +"Very well. _I_ didn't put them up." He laid a log of hickory on the +fire. "I'm not doing it to dry you quicker." + +"Oh, I know. I'll tell you one thing. You ought to keep the magazines, +or at least the Big Four. You could keep them with a good conscience, +and you could sell them without reading; they're always good." + +"There's an idea in that. I believe I'll try it." + +Margaret Green was now dry enough, and she rose and removed the +mirrors. In doing this she noticed that Erlcort had apparently sold a +good many of his best books, and she said: "Well! I don't see why +_you_ should be discouraged." + +"Who said I was? I'm exultant." + +"Then you were exulting with the corners of your mouth down just now. +Well, I must be going. Will you get a taxi to flounder over to the +Subway with me?" While Erlcort was telephoning she was talking to him. +"I believe the magazines will revive public interest in your scheme. +Put them in your window. Try to get advance copies for it." + +"You have a commercial genius, Margaret Green." + +"When it comes to selling literature, I have. Selling art is where I +fall down." + +"That's because you always try to sell your own art. I should fall +down, too, if I tried to sell my own literature." + +They got quite back to their old friendliness; the coming of the taxi +gave them plenty of time. The electric lights were turned brilliantly +on, but there, at the far end of the store, before the Franklin stove, +they had a cozy privacy. At the moment of parting she said: + +"If I were you I should take out these settles. They simply invite +loafing." + +"I've noticed that they seem to do that." + +"And better paint out that motto." + +"I've sometimes fancied I'd better. _That_ invites loafing, too; +though some nice people like it." + +"Nice people? Why haven't some of them bought a picture?" He perceived +that she had taken in the persistent presence of the sketches when +removing the mirrors, and he shared the indignation she expressed: +"Shabby things!" + +She stood with the mirrors under her arm, and he asked what she was +going to do with them, as he followed her to the door with her other +things. + +"Put them around the studio. But you needn't come to see the effect." + +"No. I shall come to see you." + +But when he came in a lull of February, and he could walk part of the +way up through the Park on the sunny Saturday afternoon, she said: + +"I suppose you've come to pour out some more of your griefs. Well, +pour away! Has the magazine project failed?" + +"On the contrary, it has been a _succès fou_. But I don't feel +altogether easy in my mind about it. The fact is, they seem to print +much more rubbish than I supposed." + +"Of course they do; they must; rubbish is the breath in their +nostrils." + +She painted away, screwing her eyes almost shut and getting very close +to her picture. He had never thought her so plain; she was letting her +mouth hang open. He wondered why she was so charming; but when she +stepped back rhythmically, tilting her pretty head this way and that, +he saw why: it was her unfailing grace. She suddenly remembered her +mouth and shut it to say, "Well?" + +"Well, some people have come back at me. They've said, What a rotten +number this or that was! They were right; and yet there were things in +all those magazines better than anything they had ever printed. What's +to be done about it? I can't ask people to buy truck or read truck +because it comes bound up with essays and stories and poems of the +first quality." + +"No. You can't. Why," she asked, drifting up to her picture again, +"don't you tear the bad out, and sell the good?" + +Erlcort gave a disdainful sound, such as cannot be spelled in English. +"Do you know how defiantly the bad is bound up with the good in the +magazines? They're wired together, and you could no more tear out the +bad and leave the good than you could part vice from virtue in human +nature." + +"I see," Margaret Green said, but she saw no further, and she had to +let him go disconsolate. After waiting a decent time she went to find +him in his critical bookstore. It was late in an afternoon of the days +that were getting longer, and only one electric was lighted in the +rear of the room, where Erlcort sat before the fireless Franklin +stove, so busy at something that he scarcely seemed aware of her. + +"What in the world are you doing?" she demanded. + +He looked up. "Who? I? Oh, it's you! Why, I'm merely censoring the +truck in the May number of this magazine." He held up a little roller, +as long as the magazine was wide, blacked with printer's ink, which he +had been applying to the open periodical. "I've taken a hint from the +way the Russian censorship blots out seditious literature before it +lets it go to the public." + +"And _what_ a mess you're making!" + +"Of course it will have to dry before it's put on sale." + +"I should think so. Listen to me, Frederick Erlcort: you're going +crazy." + +"I've sometimes thought so: crazy with conceit and vanity and +arrogance. Who am I that I should set up for a critical +bookstore-keeper? What is the Republic of Letters, anyway? A vast, +benevolent, generous democracy, where one may have what one likes, or +a cold oligarchy where he is compelled to take what is good for him? +Is it a restricted citizenship, with a minority representation, or is +it universal suffrage?" + +"Now," Margaret Green said, "you are talking sense. Why didn't you +think of this in the beginning?" + +"Is it a world, a whole earth," he went on, "where the weeds mostly +outflourish the flowers, or is it a wretched little florist's +conservatory where the watering-pot assumes to better the instruction +of the rain which falls upon the just and the unjust? What is all the +worthy family of asses to do if there are no thistles to feed them? +Because the succulent fruits and nourishing cereals are better for the +finer organisms, are the coarser not to have fodder? No; I have made a +mistake. Literature is the whole world; it is the expression of the +gross, the fatuous, and the foolish, and it is the pleasure of the +gross, the fatuous, and the foolish, as well as the expression and the +pleasure of the wise, the fine, the elect. Let the multitude have +their truck, their rubbish, their rot; it may not be the truck, the +rubbish, the rot that it would be to us, or may slowly and by natural +selection become to certain of them. But let there be no artificial +selection, no survival of the fittest by main force--the force of the +spectator, who thinks he knows better than the creator of the ugly and +the beautiful, the fair and foul, the evil and good." + +"Oh, _now_ if the Intellectual Club could hear you!" Margaret Green +said, with a long, deep, admiring suspiration. "And what are you +going to do with your critical bookstore?" + +"I'm going to sell it. I've had an offer from the author of that +best-seller--I've told you about him. I was just trying to censor that +magazine while I was thinking it over. He's got an idea. He's going to +keep it a critical bookstore, but the criticism is to be made by +universal suffrage and the will of the majority. The latest books will +be put to a vote; and the one getting the greatest number of votes +will be the first offered for sale, and the author will receive a free +passage to Europe by the southern route." + +"The southern route!" Margaret mused. "I've never been that way. It +must be delightful." + +"Then come with _me_! _I'm_ going." + +"But how can I?" + +"By marrying me!" + +"I never thought of that," she said. Then, with the conscientious +resolution of an elderly girl who puts her fate to the touch of any +risk the truth compels, she added: "Or, yes! I _have_. But I never +supposed you would ask me." She stared at him, and she was aware she +was letting her mouth hang open. While she was trying for some word to +close it with he closed it for her. + + + + + XIV + + A FEAST OF REASON + + +Florindo and Lindora had come to the end of another winter in town, +and had packed up for another summer in the country. They were sitting +together over their last breakfast until the taxi should arrive to +whirl them away to the station, and were brooding in a joint gloom +from the effect of the dinner they had eaten at the house of a friend +the night before, and, "Well, thank goodness," she said, "there is an +end to that sort of thing for _one_ while." + +"An end to _that_ thing," he partially assented, "but not that _sort_ +of thing." + +"What do you mean?" she demanded excitedly, almost resentfully. + +"I mean that the lunch is of the nature of the dinner, and that in the +country we shall begin lunching where we left off dining." + +"Not instantly," she protested shrilly. "There will be nobody there +for a while--not for a whole month, nearly." + +"They will be there before you can turn round, almost; and then you +women will begin feeding one another there before you have well left +off here." + +"We women!" she protested. + +"Yes, you--you women. You give the dinners. Can you deny it?" + +"It's because we can't get you to the lunches." + +"In the country you can; and so you will give the lunches." + +"We would give dinners if it were not for the distance, and the +darkness on those bad roads." + +"I don't see where your reasoning is carrying you." + +"No," she despaired, "there is no reason in it. No sense. How tired of +it all I am! And, as you say, it will be no time before it is all +going on again." + +They computed the number of dinners they had given during the winter; +that was not hard, and the sum was not great: six or seven at the +most, large and small. When it came to the dinners they had received, +it was another thing; but still she considered, "Were they really so +few? It's nothing to what the English do. They never dine alone at +home, and they never dine alone abroad--of course not! I wonder they +can stand it. I think a dinner, the happy-to-accept kind, is always +loathsome: the everlasting soup, if there aren't oysters first, or +grape-fruit, or melon, and the fish, and the entrée, and the roast and +salad, and the ice-cream and the fruit nobody touches, and the coffee +and cigarettes and cigars--how I hate it all!" + +Lindora sank back in her chair and toyed desperately with the fragment +of bacon on her plate. + +"And yet," Florindo said, "there is a charm about the first dinner of +autumn, after you've got back." + +"Oh, yes," she assented; "it's like a part of our lost youth. We think +all the dinners of the winter will be like that, and we come away +beaming." + +"But when it keeps on and there's more and more of our lost youth, +till it comes to being the whole--" + +"Florindo!" she stopped him. He pretended that he was not going to +have said it, and she resumed, dreamily, "I wonder what it is makes it +so detestable as the winter goes on." + +"All customs are detestable, the best of them," he suggested, "and I +should say, in spite of the first autumnal dinner, that the society +dinner was an unlovely rite. You try to carry if off with china and +glass, and silver and linen, and if people could fix their minds on +these, or even on the dishes of the dinner as they come successively +on, it would be all very well; but the diners, the diners!" + +"Yes," she said, "the old men are hideous, certainly; and the young +ones--I try not to look at them, poking things into the hollows of +their faces with spoons and forks--" + +"Better than when it was done with knives! Still, it's a horror! A +veteran diner-out in full action is certainly a hideous spectacle. +Often he has few teeth of his own, and the dentists don't serve him +perfectly. He is in danger of dropping things out of his mouth, both +liquids and solids: better not look! His eyes bulge and roll in his +head in the stress of mastication and deglutition; his color rises and +spreads to his gray hair or over his baldness; his person seems to +swell vividly in his chair, and when he laughs--" + +"Don't, Florindo! It _is_ awful." + +"Well, perhaps no worse than the sight of a middle-aged matron tending +to overweight and bulking above her plate--" + +"Yes, yes! That's dreadful, too. But when people are young--" + +"Oh, when people are young!" He said this in despair. Then he went on +in an audible muse. "When people are young they are not only in their +own youth; they are in the youth of the world, the race. They dine, +but they don't think of the dinner or the unpleasantness of the +diners, and the grotesqueness of feeding in common. They think--" he +broke off in defect of other ideas, and concluded with a laugh, "they +think of themselves. And they don't think of how they are looking." + +"They needn't; they are looking very well. Don't keep harping on that! +I remember when we first began going to dinners, I thought it was the +most beautiful thing in the world. I don't mean when I was a girl; a +girl only goes to a dinner because it comes before a dance. I mean +when we were young married people; and I pinned up my dress and we +went in the horse-cars, or even walked. I enjoyed every instant of it: +the finding who was going to take me in and who you were; and the +going in; and the hovering round the table to find our places from the +cards; and the seeing how you looked next some one else, and wondering +how you thought I looked; and the beads sparkling up through the +champagne and getting into one's nose; and the laughing and joking and +talking! Oh, the talking! What's become of it? The talking, last +night, it bored me to death! And what good stories people used to +tell, women as well as men! You can't deny it was beautiful." + +"I don't; and I don't deny that the forms of dining are still +charming. It's the dining itself that I object to." + +"That's because your digestion is bad." + +"Isn't yours?" + +"Of course it is. What has that got to do with it?" + +"It seems to me that we have arrived at what is called an _impasse_ in +French." He looked up at the clock on the wall, and she gave a little +jump in her chair. "Oh, there's plenty of time. The taxi won't be here +for half an hour yet. Is there any heat left in that coffee?" + +"There will be," she said, and she lighted the lamp under the pot. +"But I don't like being scared out of half a year's growth." + +"I'm sorry. I won't look at the clock any more; I don't care if we're +left. Where were we? Oh, I remember--the objection to dining itself. +If we could have the forms without the facts, dining would be all +right. Our superstition is that we can't be gay without gorging; that +society can't be run without meat and drink. But don't you remember +when we first went to Italy there was no supper at Italian houses +where we thought it such a favor to be asked?" + +"I remember that the young Italian swells wouldn't go to the American +and English houses where they weren't sure of supper. They didn't +give supper at the Italian houses because they couldn't afford it." + +"I know that. I believe they do, now. But-- + + 'Sweet are the uses of adversity,' + +and the fasting made for beauty then more than the feasting does now. +It was a lovelier sight to see the guests of those Italian houses +conversing together without the grossness of feeding or being fed--the +sort of thing one saw at our houses when people went out to supper." + +"I wonder," Lindora said, "whether the same sort of thing goes on at +evening parties still--it's so long since I've been at one. It was +awful standing jammed up in a corner or behind a door and eating +_vis-à-vis_ with a man who brought you a plate; and it wasn't much +better when you sat down and he stood over you gabbling and gobbling, +with his plate in one hand and his fork in the other. I was always +afraid of his dropping things into my lap; and the sight of his jaws +champing as you looked up at them from below!" + +"Yes, ridiculous. But there was an element of the grotesque in a +bird's-eye view of a lady making shots at her mouth with a spoon and +trying to smile and look _spirituelle_ between the shots." + +Lindora as she laughed bowed her forehead on the back of her hand in +the way Florindo thought so pretty when they were both young. "Yes," +she said, "awful, awful! Why _should_ people want to flock together +when they feed? Do you suppose it's a survival of the primitive +hospitality when those who had something to eat hurried to share it +with those who had nothing?" + +"Possibly," Florindo said, flattered into consequence by her momentary +deference, or show of it. "But the people who mostly meet to feed +together now are not hungry; they are already so stuffed that they +loathe the sight of the things. Some of them shirk the consequences by +frankly dining at home first, and then openly or covertly dodging the +courses." + +"Yes, and you hear that praised as a mark of high civilization, or +social wisdom. I call it wicked, and an insult to the very genius of +hospitality." + +"Well, I don't know. It must give the faster a good chance of seeing +how funny the feeders all look." + +"I wonder, I _do_ wonder, how the feeding in common came to be the +custom," she said, thoughtfully. "Of course where it's done for +convenience, like hotels or in boarding-houses--but to do it wantonly, +as people do in society, it ought to be stopped." + +"We might call art to our aid--have a large tableful of people kodaked +in the moments of ingulfing, chewing, or swallowing, as the act varied +from guest to guest; might be reproduced as picture postals, or from +films for the movies. That would give the ten and twenty cent +audiences a chance to see what life in the exclusive circles was." + +She listened in dreamy inattention. "It was a step in the right +direction when people began to have afternoon teas. To be sure, there +was the biting and chewing sandwiches, but you needn't take _them_, +and most women could manage their teacups gracefully." + +"Or hide their faces in them when they couldn't." + +"Only," she continued, "the men wouldn't come after the first go off. +It was as bad as lunches. Now that the English way of serving tea to +callers has come in, it's better. You really get the men, and it keeps +them from taking cocktails so much." + +"They're rather glad of that. But still, still, there's the guttling +and guzzling." + +"It's reduced to a minimum." + +"But it's there. And the first thing you know you've loaded yourself +up with cake or bread-and-butter and spoiled your appetite for dinner. +No, afternoon tea must go with the rest of it, if we're going to be +truly civilized. If people could come to one another's tables with +full minds instead of stomachs, there would be some excuse for +hospitality. Perhaps if we reversed the practice of the professional +diner-out, and read up at home as he now eats at home, and-- No, I +don't see how it could be done. But we might take a leaf from the book +of people who are not in society. They never ask anybody to meals if +they can possibly help it; if some one happens in at meal-times they +tell him to pull up a chair--if they have to, or he shows no signs +first of going. But even among these people the instinct of +hospitality--the feeding form of it--lurks somewhere. In our +farm-boarding days--" + +"Don't speak of them!" she implored. + +"We once went to an evening party," he pursued, "where raw apples and +cold water were served." + +"I thought I should die of hunger. And when we got home to our own +farmer's we ravaged the pantry for everything left from supper. It +wasn't much. There!" Lindora screamed. "There _is_ the taxi!" And the +shuddering sound of the clock making time at their expense penetrated +from the street. "Come!" + +"How the instinct of economy lingers in us, too, long after the use +of it is outgrown. It's as bad as the instinct of hospitality. We +could easily afford to pay extra for the comfort of sitting here over +these broken victuals--" + +"I tell you we shall be left," she retorted; and in the thirty-five +minutes they had at the station before their train started she +outlined a scheme of social reform which she meant to put in force as +soon as people began to gather in summer force at Lobster Cove. + +He derided the notion; but she said, "You will see!" and in rather +more time than it takes to tell it they were settled in their cottage, +where, after some unavoidable changes of cook and laundress, they were +soon in perfect running order. + +By this time Lobster Cove was in the full tide of lunching and being +lunched. The lunches were almost exclusively ladies' lunches, and the +ladies came to them with appetites sharpened by the incomparable air +of those real Lobster Cove days which were all cloudless skies and +west winds, and by the vigorous automobile exercise of getting to one +another's cottages. They seized every pretext for giving these feasts, +marked each by some vivid touch of invention within the limits of the +graceful convention which all felt bound not to transcend. It was some +surprising flavor in the salad, or some touch of color appealing to +the eye only; or it was some touch in the ice-cream, or some daring +substitution of a native dish for it, as strawberry or peach +shortcake; or some bold transposition in the order of the courses; or +some capricious arrangement of the decoration, or the use of wild +flowers, or even weeds (as meadow-rue or field-lilies), for the local +florist's flowers, which set the ladies screaming at the moment and +talking of it till the next lunch. This would follow perhaps the next +day, or the next but one, according as a new cottager's claims +insisted or a lady had a change of guests, or three days at the +latest, for no reason. + +In their rapid succession people scarcely noticed that Lindora had not +given a lunch, and she had so far abandoned herself to the enjoyment +of the others' lunches that she had half forgotten her high purposes +of reform, when she was sharply recalled to them by a lunch which had +not at all agreed with her; she had, in fact, had to have the doctor, +and many people had asked one another whether they had heard how she +was. Then she took her good resolution in both hands and gave an +afternoon, asking people by note or 'phone simply whether they would +not come in at four sharp. People were a good deal mystified, but for +this very reason everybody came. Some of them came from somebody's +lunch, which had been so nice that they lingered over it till four, +and then walked, partly to fill in the time and partly to walk off the +lunch, as there would be sure to be something at Lindora's later on. + +It would be invidious to say what the nature of Lindora's +entertainment was. It was certainly to the last degree original, and +those who said the worst of it could say no worse than that it was +queer. It quite filled the time till six o'clock, and may be perhaps +best described as a negative rather than a positive triumph, though +what Lindora had aimed at she had undoubtedly achieved. Whatever it +was, whether original or queer, it was certainly novel. + +A good many men had come, one at least to every five ladies, but as +the time passed and a certain blankness began to gather over the +spirits of all, they fell into different attitudes of the despair +which the ladies did their best to pass off for rapture. At each +unscheduled noise they started in a vain expectation, and when the end +came, it came so without accent, so without anything but the clock to +mark it as the close, that they could hardly get themselves together +for going away. They did what was nice and right, of course, in +thanking Lindora for her fascinating afternoon, but when they were +well beyond hearing one said to another: "Well, I shall certainly +have an appetite for my dinner _to-night_! Why, if there had only been +a cup of the weakest kind of tea, or even of cold water!" + +Then those who had come in autos gathered as many pedestrians into +them as they would hold in leaving the house, or caught them up +fainting by the way. + +Lindora and Florindo watched them from their veranda. + +"Well, my dear," he said, "it's been a wonderful afternoon; an immense +stride forward in the cause of anti-eating--or--" + +"Don't _speak_ to me!" she cried. + +"But it leaves one rather hungry, doesn't it?" + +"_Hungry!_" she hurled back at him. "I could eat a--I don't know +what!" + + + + + XV + + CITY AND COUNTRY IN THE FALL + + A Long-distance Eclogue + + 1902 + + + _Morrison._ Hello! Hello! Is that you, Wetherbee? + + _Wetherbee._ Yes. Who are you? What do you want with me? + + _Morrison._ Oh, nothing much. It's Morrison, you know; + Morrison--down at Clamhurst Shortsands. + + _Wetherbee._ Oh! + Why, Morrison, of course! Of course, I know! + How are you, Morrison? And, by the way, + _Where_ are you? What! You never mean to say + You are down there _yet_? Well, by the Holy Poker! + What are you doing there, you ancient joker? + + _Morrison._ Sticking it out over Thanksgiving Day. + I said I would. I tell you, it is gay + Down here. You ought to see the Hunter's Moon, + These silver nights, prinking in our lagoon. + You ought to see our sunsets, glassy red, + Shading to pink and violet overhead. + You ought to see our mornings, still and clear, + White silence, far as you can look and hear. + You ought to see the leaves--our oaks and ashes + Crimson and yellow, with those gorgeous splashes, + Purple and orange, against the bluish green + Of the pine woods; and scattered in between + The scarlet of the maples; and the blaze + Of blackberry-vines, along the dusty ways + And on the old stone walls; the air just balm, + And the crows cawing through the perfect calm + Of afternoons all gold and turquoise. Say, + You ought to have been with wife and me to-day, + A drive we took--it would have made you sick: + The pigeons and the partridges so thick; + And on the hill just beyond Barkin's lane, + Before you reach the barn of Widow Payne, + Showing right up against the sky, as clear + And motionless as sculpture, stood a deer! + Say, does that jar you just a little? Say, + How have you found things up there, anyway, + Since you got back? Air like a cotton string + To breathe? The same old dust on everything, + And in your teeth, and in your eyes? The smoke + From the soft coal, got long beyond a joke? + The trolleys rather more upon your curves, + And all the roar and clatter in your nerves? + Don't you wish you had stayed here, too? + + _Wetherbee._ Well, yes, + I do at certain times, I must confess. + I swear it is enough at times to make you swear + You would almost rather be anywhere + Than here. The building up and pulling down, + The getting to and fro about the town, + The turmoil underfoot and overhead, + Certainly make you wish that you were dead, + At first; and all the mean vulgarity + Of city life, the filth and misery + You see around you, make you want to put + Back to the country anywhere, hot-foot. + Yet--there are compensations. + + _Morrison._ Such as? + + _Wetherbee._ Why, + There is the club. + + _Morrison._ The club I can't deny. + Many o' the fellows back there? + + _Wetherbee._ Nearly all. + Over the twilight cocktails there are tall + Stories and talk. But you would hardly care; + You have the natives to talk with down there, + And always find them meaty. + + _Morrison._ Well, so-so. + Their words outlast their ideas at times, you know, + And they have _staying_ powers. The theaters + All open now? + + _Wetherbee._ Yes, all. And it occurs + To me: there's one among the things that you + Would have enjoyed; an opera with the new-- + Or at least the last--music by Sullivan, + And words, though not Gilbertian, that ran + Trippingly with it. Oh, I tell you what, + I'd rather that you had been there than not. + + _Morrison._ Thanks ever so! + + _Wetherbee._ Oh, there is nothing mean + About your early friend. That deer and autumn scene + Were kind of you! And, say, I think you like + Afternoon teas when good. I have chanced to strike + Some of the best of late, where people said + They had sent you cards, but thought you must be dead. + I told them I left you down there by the sea, + And then they sort of looked askance at me, + As if it were a joke, and bade me get + Myself some bouillon or some chocolate, + And turned the subject--did not even give + Me time to prove it is not life to live + In town as long as you can keep from freezing + Beside the autumn sea. A little sneezing, + At Clamhurst Shortsands, since the frosts set in? + + _Morrison._ Well, not enough to make a true friend grin. + Slight colds, mere nothings. With our open fires + We've all the warmth and cheer that heart desires. + Next year we'll have a furnace in, and stay + Not till Thanksgiving, but till Christmas Day. + It's glorious in these roomy autumn nights + To sit between the firelight and the lights + Of our big lamps, and read aloud by turns + As long as kerosene or hickory burns. + We hate to go to bed. + + _Wetherbee._ Of course you do! + And hate to get up in the morning, too-- + To pull the coverlet from your frost-bit nose, + And touch the glary matting with your toes! + Are you beginning yet to break the ice + In your wash-pitchers? No? Well, that is nice. + I always hate to do it--seems as if + Summer was going; but when your hand is stiff + With cold, it can be done. Still, I prefer + To wash and dress beside my register, + When summer gets a little on, like this. + But some folks find the other thing pure bliss-- + Lusty young chaps, like you. + + _Morrison._ And some folks find + A sizzling radiator to their mind. + What else have you, there, you could recommend + To the attention of a country friend? + + _Wetherbee._ Well, you know how it is in Madison Square, + Late afternoons, now, if the day's been fair-- + How all the western sidewalk ebbs and flows + With pretty women in their pretty clo'es: + I've never seen them prettier than this year. + Of course, I know a dear is not a deer, + But still, I think that if I had to meet + One or the other in the road, or street, + All by myself, I am not sure but that + I'd choose the dear that wears the fetching hat. + + _Morrison._ Get out! What else? + + _Wetherbee._ Well, it is not so bad, + If you are feeling a little down, or sad, + To walk along Fifth Avenue to the Park, + When the day thinks perhaps of getting dark, + And meet that mighty flood of vehicles + Laden with all the different kinds of swells, + Homing to dinner, in their carriages-- + Victorias, landaus, chariots, coupés-- + There's nothing like it to lift up the heart + And make you realize yourself a part, + Sure, of the greatest show on earth. + + _Morrison._ Oh, yes, + I know. I've felt that rapture more or less. + But I would rather put it off as long + As possible. I suppose you like the song + Of the sweet car-gongs better than the cry + Of jays and yellowhammers when the sky + Begins to redden these October mornings, + And the loons sound their melancholy warnings; + Or honk of the wild-geese that write their A + Along the horizon in the evening's gray. + Or when the squirrels look down on you and bark + From the nut trees-- + + _Wetherbee._ We have them in the Park + Plenty enough. But, say, you aged sinner, + Have you been out much recently at dinner? + + _Morrison._ What do you mean? You know there's no one here + That dines except ourselves now. + + _Wetherbee._ Well, that's queer! + I thought the natives-- But I recollect! + It was not reasonable to expect-- + + _Morrison._ What are you driving at? + + _Wetherbee._ Oh, nothing much. + But I was thinking how you come in touch + With life at the first dinner in the fall, + When you get back, first, as you can't at all + Later along. But you, of course, won't care + With your idyllic pleasures. + + _Morrison._ _Who was there?_ + + _Wetherbee._ Oh--ha, ha! What d'you mean by _there_? + + _Morrison._ Come off! + + _Wetherbee._ What! you remain to pray that came to scoff! + + _Morrison._ You know what I am after. + + _Wetherbee._ Yes, that dinner. + Just a round dozen: Ferguson and Binner + For the fine arts; Bowyer the novelist; + Dr. Le Martin; the psychologist + Fletcher; the English actor Philipson; + The two newspaper Witkins, Bob and John; + A nice Bostonian, Bane the archæologer, + And a queer Russian amateur astrologer; + And Father Gray, the jolly ritualist priest, + And last your humble servant, but not least. + The food was not so filthy, and the wine + Was not so poison. We made out to dine + From eight till one A.M. One could endure + The dinner. But, oh say! _The talk was poor!_ + Your natives down at Clamhurst-- + + _Morrison._ Look ye here! + What date does Thanksgiving come on this year? + + _Wetherbee._ Why, I suppose--although I don't remember + Certainly--the usual 28th November. + + _Morrison._ Novem-- You should have waited to get sober! + It comes on the 11th of October! + And that's to-morrow; and if you happen down + Later, you'd better look for us in town. + + + + + XVI + + TABLE TALK + + +They were talking after dinner in that cozy moment when the +conversation has ripened, just before the coffee, into mocking guesses +and laughing suggestions. The thing they were talking of was something +that would have held them apart if less happily timed and placed, but +then and there it drew these together in what most of them felt a +charming and flattering intimacy. Not all of them took part in the +talk, and of those who did, none perhaps assumed to talk with +authority or finality. At first they spoke of the subject as _it_, +forbearing to name it, as if the name of it would convey an unpleasant +shock, out of temper with the general feeling. + +"I don't suppose," the host said, "that it's really so much commoner +than it used to be. But the publicity is more invasive and explosive. +That's perhaps because it has got higher up in the world and has +spread more among the first circles. The time was when you seldom +heard of it there, and now it is scarcely a scandal. I remember that +when I went abroad, twenty or thirty years ago, and the English +brought me to book about it, I could put them down by saying that I +didn't know a single divorced person." + +"And of course," a bachelor guest ventured, "a person of that sort +_must_ be single." + +At first the others did not take the joke; then they laughed, but the +women not so much as the men. + +"And you couldn't say that now?" the lady on the right of the host +inquired. + +"Why, I don't know," he returned, thoughtfully, after a little +interval. "I don't just call one to mind." + +"Then," the bachelor said, "that classes you. If you moved in our best +society you would certainly know some of the many smart people whose +disunions alternate with the morning murders in the daily papers." + +"Yes, the fact seems to rank me rather low; but I'm rather proud of +the fact." + +The hostess seemed not quite to like this arrogant humility. She said, +over the length of the table (it was not very long), "I'm sure you +know some very nice people who have not been." + +"Well, yes, I do. But are they really smart people? They're of very +good family, certainly." + +"You mustn't brag," the bachelor said. + +A husband on the right of the hostess wondered if there were really +more of the thing than there used to be. + +"Qualitatively, yes, I should say. Quantitatively, I'm not convinced," +the host answered. "In a good many of the States it's been made +difficult." + +The husband on the right of the hostess was not convinced, he said, as +to the qualitative increase. The parties to the suits were rich +enough, and sometimes they were high enough placed and far enough +derived. But there was nearly always a leak in them, a social leak +somewhere, on one side or the other. They could not be said to be +persons of quality in the highest sense. + +"Why, persons of quality seldom can be," the bachelor contended. + +The girl opposite, who had been invited to balance him in the scale of +celibacy by the hostess in her study of her dinner-party, first +smiled, and then alleged a very distinguished instance of divorce in +which the parties were both of immaculate origin and unimpeachable +fashion. "Nobody," she said, "can accuse _them_ of a want of quality." +She was good-looking, though no longer so young as she could have +wished; she flung out her answer to the bachelor defiantly, but she +addressed it to the host, and he said that was true; certainly it was +a signal case; but wasn't it exceptional? The others mentioned like +cases, though none quite so perfect, and then there was a lull till +the husband on the left of the hostess noted a fact which renewed the +life of the discussion. + +"There was a good deal of agitation, six or eight years ago, about it. +I don't know whether the agitation accomplished anything." + +The host believed it had influenced legislation. + +"For or against?" the bachelor inquired. + +"Oh, against." + +"But in other countries it's been coming in more and more. It seems to +be as easy in England now as it used to be in Indiana. In France it's +nothing scandalous, and in Norwegian society you meet so many +disunited couples in a state of quadruplicate reunion that it is very +embarrassing. It doesn't seem to bother the parties to the new +relation themselves." + +"It's very common in Germany, too," the husband on the right of the +hostess said. + +The husband on her left side said he did not know just how it was in +Italy and Spain, and no one offered to disperse his ignorance. + +In the silence which ensued the lady on the left of the host created a +diversion in her favor by saying that she had heard they had a very +good law in Switzerland. + +Being asked to tell what it was, she could not remember, but her +husband, on the right of the hostess, saved the credit of his family +by supplying her defect. "Oh, yes. It's very curious. We heard of it +when we were there. When people want to be put asunder, for any reason +or other, they go before a magistrate and declare their wish. Then +they go home, and at the end of a certain time--weeks or months--the +magistrate summons them before him with a view to reconciliation. If +they come, it is a good sign; if they don't come, or come and persist +in their desire, then they are summoned after another interval, and +are either reconciled or put asunder, as the case may be, or as they +choose. It is not expensive, and I believe it isn't scandalous." + +"It seems very sensible," the husband on the left of the hostess said, +as if to keep the other husband in countenance. But for an interval no +one else joined him, and the mature girl said to the man next her that +it seemed rather cold-blooded. He was a man who had been entreated to +come in, on the frank confession that he was asked as a stop-gap, the +original guest having fallen by the way. Such men are apt to abuse +their magnanimity, their condescension. They think that being there +out of compassion, and in compliance with a hospitality that had not +at first contemplated their presence, they can say anything; they are +usually asked without but through their wives, who are asked to "lend" +them, and who lend them with a grudge veiled in eager acquiescence; +and the men think it will afterward advantage them with their wives, +when they find they are enjoying themselves, if they will go home and +report that they said something vexing or verging on the offensive to +their hostess. This man now addressed himself to the lady at the head +of the table. + +"Why do we all talk as if we thought divorce was an unquestionable +evil?" + +The hostess looked with a frightened air to the right and left, and +then down the table to her husband. But no one came to her rescue, and +she asked feebly, as if foreboding trouble (for she knew she had taken +a liberty with this man's wife), "Why, don't we?" + +"About one in seven of us doesn't," the stop-gap said. + +"Oh!" the girl beside him cried out, in a horror-stricken voice which +seemed not to interpret her emotion truly. "Is it so bad as that?" + +"Perhaps not quite, even if it is bad at all," he returned, and the +hostess smiled gratefully at the girl for drawing his fire. But it +appeared she had not, for he directed his further speech at the +hostess again: really the most inoffensive person there, and the least +able to contend with adverse opinions. + +"No, I don't believe we do think it an unquestionable evil, unless we +think marriage is so." Everybody sat up, as the stop-gap had intended, +no doubt, and he "held them with his glittering eye," or as many as he +could sweep with his glance. "I suppose that the greatest hypocrite at +this table, where we are all so frankly hypocrites together, will not +deny that marriage is the prime cause of divorce. In fact, divorce +couldn't exist without it." + +The women all looked bewilderedly at one another, and then appealingly +at the men. None of these answered directly, but the bachelor softly +intoned out of Gilbert and Sullivan--he was of that date: + + "'A paradox, a paradox; + A most ingenious paradox!'" + +"Yes," the stop-gap defiantly assented. "A paradox; and all aboriginal +verities, all giant truths, are paradoxes." + +"Giant truths is good," the bachelor noted, but the stop-gap did not +mind him. + +He turned to the host: "I suppose that if divorce is an evil, and we +wish to extirpate it, we must strike at its root, at marriage?" + +The host laughed. "I prefer not to take the floor. I'm sure we all +want to hear what you have to say in support of your mammoth idea." + +"Oh yes, indeed," the women chorused, but rather tremulously, as not +knowing what might be coming. + +"Which do you mean? That all truth is paradoxical, or that marriage is +the mother of divorce?" + +"Whichever you like." + +"The last proposition is self-evident," the stop-gap said, supplying +himself with a small bunch of the grapes which nobody ever takes at +dinner; the hostess was going to have coffee for the women in the +drawing-room, and to leave the men to theirs with their tobacco at the +table. "And you must allow that if divorce is a good thing or a bad +thing, it equally partakes of the nature of its parent. Or else +there's nothing in heredity." + +"Oh, come!" one of the husbands said. + +"Very well!" the stop-gap submitted. "I yield the word to you." But as +the other went no further, he continued. "The case is so clear that it +needs no argument. Up to this time, in dealing with the evil of +divorce, if it is an evil, we have simply been suppressing the +symptoms; and your Swiss method--" + +"Oh, it isn't _mine_," the man said who had stated it. + +"--Is only a part of the general practice. It is another attempt to +make divorce difficult, when it is marriage that ought to be made +difficult." + +"Some," the daring bachelor said, "think it ought to be made +impossible." The girl across the table began to laugh hysterically, +but caught herself up and tried to look as if she had not laughed at +all. + +"I don't go as far as that," the stop-gap resumed, "but as an +inveterate enemy of divorce--" + +An "Oh!" varying from surprise to derision chorused up; but he did not +mind it; he went on as if uninterrupted. + +"I should put every possible obstacle, and at every step, in the way +of marriage. The attitude of society toward marriage is now simply +preposterous, absolutely grotesque. Society? The whole human framework +in all its manifestations, social, literary, religious, artistic, and +civic, is perpetually guilty of the greatest mischief in the matter. +Nothing is done to retard or prevent marriage; everything to +accelerate and promote it. Marriage is universally treated as a virtue +which of itself consecrates the lives of the mostly vulgar and +entirely selfish young creatures who enter into it. The blind and +witless passion in which it oftenest originates, at least with us, is +flattered out of all semblance to its sister emotions, and revered as +if it were a celestial inspiration, a spiritual impulse. But is it? I +defy any one here to say that it is." + +As if they were afraid of worse things if they spoke, the company +remained silent. But this did not save them. + +"You all know it isn't. You all know that it is the caprice of chance +encounter, the result of propinquity, the invention of poets and +novelists, the superstition of the victims, the unscrupulous +make-believe of the witnesses. As an impulse it quickly wears itself +out in marriage, and makes way for divorce. In this country +nine-tenths of the marriages are love-matches. The old motives which +delay and prevent marriage in other countries, aristocratic countries, +like questions of rank and descent, even of money, do not exist. Yet +this is the land of unhappy unions beyond all other lands, the very +home of divorce. The conditions of marriage are ideally favorable +according to the opinions of its friends, who are all more or less +active in bottling husbands and wives up in its felicity and +preventing their escape through divorce." + +Still the others were silent, and again the stop-gap triumphed on. +"Now, I am an enemy of divorce, too; but I would have it begin before +marriage." + +"Rather paradoxical again?" the bachelor alone had the hardihood to +suggest. + +"Not at all. I am quite literal. I would have it begin with the +engagement. I would have the betrothed--the mistress and the +lover--come before the magistrate or the minister, and declare their +motives in wishing to marry, and then I would have him reason with +them, and represent that they were acting emotionally in obedience to +a passion which must soon spend itself, or a fancy which they would +quickly find illusory. If they agreed with him, well and good; if not, +he should dismiss them to their homes, for say three months, to think +it over. Then he should summon them again, and again reason with them, +and dismiss them as before, if they continued obstinate. After three +months more, he should call them before him and reason with them for +the last time. If they persisted in spite of everything, he should +marry them, and let them take the consequences." + +The stop-gap leaned back in his chair defiantly, and fixed the host +with an eye of challenge. Upon the whole the host seemed not so much +frightened. He said: "I don't see anything so original in all that. +It's merely a travesty of the Swiss law of divorce." + +"And you see nothing novel, nothing that makes for the higher +civilization in the application of that law to marriage? You all +approve of that law because you believe it prevents nine-tenths of the +divorces; but if you had a law that would similarly prevent +nine-tenths of the marriages, you would need no divorce law at all." + +"Oh, I don't know that," the hardy bachelor said. "What about the +one-tenth of the marriages which it didn't prevent? Would you have the +parties hopelessly shut up to them? Would you forbid _them_ all hope +of escape? Would you have no divorce for any cause whatever?" + +"Yes," the husband on the right of the hostess asked (but his wife on +the right of the host looked as if she wished he had not mixed in), +"wouldn't more unhappiness result from that one marriage than from all +the marriages as we have them now?" + +"Aren't you both rather precipitate?" the stop-gap demanded. "I said, +let the parties to the final marriage take the consequences. But if +these consequences were too dire, I would not forbid them the hope of +relief. I haven't thought the matter out very clearly yet, but there +are one or two causes for divorce which I would admit." + +"Ah?" the host inquired, with a provisional smile. + +"Yes, causes going down into the very nature of things--the nature of +men and of women. Incompatibility of temperament ought always to be +very seriously considered as a cause." + +"Yes?" + +"And, above all," and here the stop-gap swept the board with his eye, +"difference of sex." + +The sort of laugh which expresses uncertainty of perception and +conditional approval went up. + +The hostess rose with rather a frightened air. "Shall we leave them to +their tobacco?" she said to the other women. + +When he went home the stop-gap celebrated his triumph to his wife. "I +don't think she'll ask you for the loan of me again to fill a place +without you." + +"Yes," she answered, remotely. "You don't suppose she'll think we live +unhappily together?" + + + + + XVII + + THE ESCAPADE OF A GRANDFATHER + + +"Well, what are you doing here?" the younger of the two sages asked, +with a resolute air of bonhomie, as he dragged himself over the +asphalt path, and sank, gasping, into the seat beside the other in the +Park. His senior lifted his head and looked him carefully over to make +sure of his identity, and then he said: + +"I suppose, to answer your fatuous question, I am waiting here to get +my breath before I move on; and in the next place, I am watching the +feet of the women who go by in their high-heeled shoes." + +"How long do you think it will take you to get your breath in the +atmosphere of these motors?" the younger sage pursued. "And you don't +imagine that these women are of the first fashion, do you?" + +"No, but I imagine their shoes are. I have been calculating that their +average heel is from an inch and a half to two inches high, and +touches the ground in the circumference of a twenty-five-cent piece. +As you seem to be fond of asking questions, perhaps you will like to +answer one. Why do you think they do it?" + +"Wear shoes like that?" the younger returned, cheerily, and laughed as +he added, "Because the rest do." + +"Mmm!" the elder grumbled, not wholly pleased, and yet not refusing +the answer. He had been having a little touch of grippe, and was +somewhat broken from his wonted cynicism. He said: "It's very strange, +very sad. Just now there was such a pretty young girl, so sweet and +fine, went tottering by as helpless, in any exigency, as the daughter +of a thousand years of bound-feet Chinese women. While she tilted on, +the nice young fellow with her swept forward with one stride to her +three on the wide soles and low heels of nature-last boots, and kept +himself from out-walking her by a devotion that made him grit his +teeth. Probably she was wiser and better and brighter than he, but she +didn't look it; and I, who voted to give her the vote the other day, +had my misgivings. I think I shall satisfy myself for the next five +years by catching cold in taking my hat off to her in elevators, and +getting killed by automobiles in helping her off the cars, where I've +given her my seat." + +"But you must allow that if her shoes are too tight, her skirts are +not so tight as they were. Or have you begun sighing for the good old +hobble-skirts, now they're gone?" + +"The hobble-skirts were prettier than I thought they were when they +were with us, but the 'tempestuous petticoat' has its charm, which I +find I'd been missing." + +"Well, at least it's a change," the younger sage allowed, "and I +haven't found the other changes in our dear old New York which I look +for when I come back in the fall." + +The sages were enjoying together the soft weather which lingered with +us a whole month from the middle of October onward, and the afternoon +of their meeting in the Park was now softly reddening to the dim +sunset over the westward trees. + +"Yes," the elder assented. "I miss the new sky-scrapers which used to +welcome me back up and down the Avenue. But there are more automobiles +than ever, and the game of saving your life from them when you cross +the street is madder and merrier than I have known it before." + +"The war seems to have stopped building because people can't afford +it," the other suggested, "but it has only increased automobiling." + +"Well, people can't afford that, either. Nine-tenths of them are +traveling the road to ruin, I'm told, and apparently they can't get +over the ground too fast. Just look!" and the sages joined in the +amused and mournful contemplation of the different types of motors +innumerably whirring up and down the drive before them, while they +choked in the fumes of the gasolene. + +The motors were not the costliest types, except in a few instances, +and in most instances they were the cheaper types, such as those who +could not afford them could at least afford best. The sages had found +a bench beside the walk where the statue of Daniel Webster looks down +on the confluence of two driveways, and the stream of motors, going +and coming, is like a seething torrent either way. + +"The mystery is," the elder continued, "why they should want to do it +in the way they do it. Are they merely going somewhere and must get +there in the shortest time possible, or are they arriving on a wager? +If they are taking a pleasure drive, what a droll idea of pleasure +they must have! Maybe they are trying to escape Black Care, but they +must know he sits beside the chauffeur as he used to sit behind the +horseman, and they know that he has a mortgage in his pocket, and can +foreclose it any time on the house they have hypothecated to buy their +car. Ah!" The old man started forward with the involuntary impulse of +rescue. But it was not one of the people who singly, or in terrorized +groups, had been waiting at the roadside to find their way across; it +was only a hapless squirrel of those which used to make their way +safely among the hoofs and wheels of the kind old cabs and carriages, +and it lay instantly crushed under the tire of a motor. "He's done +for, poor little wretch! They can't get used to the change. Some day a +policeman will pick _me_ up from under a second-hand motor. I wonder +what the great Daniel from his pedestal up there would say if he came +to judgment." + +"He wouldn't believe in the change any more than that squirrel. He +would decide that he was dreaming, and would sleep on, forgetting and +forgotten." + +"Forgotten," the elder sage assented. "I remember when his fame filled +the United States, which was then the whole world to me. And now I +don't imagine that our hyphenated citizens have the remotest +consciousness of him. If Daniel began delivering one of his +liberty-and-union-now-and-forever-one-and-inseparable speeches, they +wouldn't know what he was talking about." The sage laughed and champed +his toothless jaws together, as old men do in the effort to compose +their countenances after an emotional outbreak. + +"Well, for one thing," the younger observed, "they wouldn't understand +what he said. You will notice, if you listen to them going by, that +they seldom speak English. That's getting to be a dead language in New +York, though it's still used in the newspapers." He thought to hearten +the other with his whimsicality, for it seemed to him that the elder +sage was getting sensibly older since their last meeting, and that he +would be the gayer for such cheer as a man on the hither side of +eighty can offer a man on the thither. "Perhaps the Russian Jews would +appreciate Daniel if he were put into Yiddish for them. They're the +brightest intelligences among our hyphenates. And they have the +old-fashioned ideals of liberty and humanity, perhaps because they've +known so little of either." + +His gaiety did not seem to enliven his senior much. "Ah, the old +ideals!" he sighed. "The old ideal of an afternoon airing was a gentle +course in an open carriage on a soft drive. Now it's a vertiginous +whirl on an asphalted road, round and round and round the Park till +the victims stagger with their brains spinning after they get out of +their cars." + +The younger sage laughed. "You've been listening to the pessimism of +the dear old fellows who drive the few lingering victorias. If you'd +believe them, all these people in the motors are chauffeurs giving +their lady-friends joy-rides." + +"Few?" the elder retorted. "There are lots of them. I've counted +twenty in a single round of the Park. I was proud to be in one of +them, though my horse left something to be desired in the way of youth +and beauty. But I reflected that I was not very young or beautiful +myself." + +As the sages sat looking out over the dizzying whirl of the motors +they smoothed the tops of their sticks with their soft old hands, and +were silent oftener than not. The elder seemed to drowse off from the +time and place, but he was recalled by the younger saying, "It is +certainly astonishing weather for this season of the year." + +The elder woke up and retorted, as if in offense: "Not at all. I've +seen the cherries in blossom at the end of October." + +"They didn't set their fruit, I suppose." + +"Well--no." + +"Ah! Well, I saw a butterfly up here in the sheep-pasture the other +day. I could have put out my hand and caught it. It's the soft weather +that brings your victorias out like the belated butterflies. Wait till +the first cold snap, and there won't be a single victoria or butterfly +left." + +"Yes," the elder assented, "we butterflies and victorias belong to the +youth of the year and the world. And the sad thing is that we won't +have our palingenesis." + +"Why not?" the younger sage demanded. "What is to prevent your coming +back in two or three thousand years?" + +"Well, if we came back in a year even, we shouldn't find room, for one +reason. Haven't you noticed how full to bursting the place seems? +Every street is as packed as lower Fifth Avenue used to be when the +operatives came out of the big shops for their nooning. The city's +shell hasn't been enlarged or added to, but the life in it has +multiplied past its utmost capacity. All the hotels and houses and +flats are packed. The theaters, wherever the plays are bad enough, +swarm with spectators. Along up and down every side-streets the motors +stand in rows, and at the same time the avenues are so dense with them +that you are killed at every crossing. There has been no building to +speak of during the summer, but unless New York is overbuilt next year +we must appeal to Chicago to come and help hold it. But I've an idea +that the victorias are remaining to stay; if some sort of mechanical +horse could be substituted for the poor old animals that remind me of +my mortality, I should be sure of it. Every now and then I get an +impression of permanence in the things of the Park. As long as the +peanut-men and the swan-boats are with us I sha'n't quite despair. +And the other night I was moved almost to tears by the sight of a +four-in-hand tooling softly down the Fifth Avenue drive. There it was, +like some vehicular phantom, but how, whence, when? It came, as if out +of the early eighteen-nineties; two middle-aged grooms, with their +arms folded, sat on the rumble (if it's the rumble), but of all the +young people who ought to have flowered over the top none was left but +the lady beside the gentleman-driver on the box. I've tried every +evening since for that four-in-hand, but I haven't seen it, and I've +decided it wasn't a vehicular phantom, but a mere dream of the past." + +"Four-horse dream," the younger sage commented, as if musing aloud. + +The elder did not seem quite pleased. "A joke?" he challenged. + +"Not necessarily. I suppose I was the helpless prey of the rhyme." + +"I didn't know you were a poet." + +"I'm not, always. But didn't it occur to you that danger for danger +your four-in-hand was more dangerous than an automobile to the passing +human creature?" + +"It might have been if it had been multiplied by ten thousand. But +there was only one of it, and it wasn't going twenty miles an hour." + +"That's true," the younger sage assented. "But there was always a +fearful hazard in horses when we had them. We supposed they were +tamed, but, after all, they were only _trained_ animals, like +Hagenback's." + +"And what is a chauffeur?" + +"Ah, you have me there!" the younger said, and he laughed generously. +"Or you would have if I hadn't noticed something like amelioration in +the chauffeurs. At any rate, the taxis are cheaper than they were, and +I suppose something will be done about the street traffic some time. +They're talking now about subway crossings. But I should prefer +overhead foot-bridges at all the corners, crossing one another +diagonally. They would look like triumphal arches, and would serve the +purpose of any future Dewey victory if we should happen to have +another hero to win one." + +"Well, we must hope for the best. I rather like the notion of the +diagonal foot-bridges. But why not Rows along the second stories as +they have them in Chester? I should be pretty sure of always getting +home alive if we had them. Now if I'm not telephoned for at a hospital +before I'm restored to consciousness, I think myself pretty lucky. And +yet it seems but yesterday, as the people used to say in the plays, +since I had a pride in counting the automobiles as I walked up the +Avenue. Once I got as high as twenty before I reached Fifty-ninth +Street. Now I couldn't count as many horse vehicles." + +The elder sage mocked himself in a feeble laugh, but the younger tried +to be serious. "We don't realize the absolute change. Our streets are +not streets any more; they are railroad tracks with locomotives let +loose on them, and no signs up to warn people at the crossings. It's +pathetic to see the foot-passengers saving themselves, especially the +poor, pretty, high-heeled women, looking this way and that in their +fright, and then tottering over as fast as they can totter." + +"Well, I should have said it was outrageous, humiliating, insulting, +once, but I don't any more; it would be no use." + +"No; and so much depends upon the point of view. When I'm on foot I +feel all my rights invaded, but when I'm in a taxi it amuses me to see +the women escaping; and I boil with rage in being halted at every +other corner by the policeman with his new-fangled semaphore, and it's +"Go" and "Stop" in red and blue, and my taxi-clock going round all the +time and getting me in for a dollar when I thought I should keep +within seventy cents. Then I feel that pedestrians of every age and +sex ought to be killed." + +"Yes, there's something always in the point of view; and there's some +comfort when you're stopped in your taxi to feel that they often _do_ +get killed." + +The sages laughed together, and the younger said: "I suppose when we +get aeroplanes in common use, there'll be annoying traffic +regulations, and policemen anchored out at intervals in the central +blue to enforce them. After all--" + +What he was going to add in amplification cannot be known, for a +girlish voice, trying to sharpen itself from its native sweetness to a +conscientious severity, called to them as its owner swiftly advanced +upon the elder sage: "Now, see here, grandfather! This won't do at +all. You promised not to leave that bench by the Indian Hunter, and +here you are away down by the Falconer, and we've been looking +everywhere for you. It's too bad! I shall be afraid to trust you at +all after this. Why, it's horrid of you, grandfather! You might have +got killed crossing the drive." + +The grandfather looked up and verified the situation, which seemed to +include a young man, tall and beautiful, but neither so handsome nor +so many heads high as the young men in the advertisements of +ready-to-wear clothing, who smiled down on the young girl as if he had +arrived with her, and were finding an amusement in her severity which +he might not, later. She was, in fact, very pretty, and her skirt +flared in the fashion of the last moment, as she stooped threateningly +yet fondly over her grandfather. + +The younger sage silently and somewhat guiltily escaped from the +tumult of emotion which ignored him, and shuffled slowly down the +path. The other finally gave an "Oh!" of recognition, and then said, +for all explanation and excuse, "I didn't know what had become of +you," and then they all laughed. + + + + + XVIII + + SELF-SACRIFICE: A FARCE-TRAGEDY + + + I + + MISS ISOBEL RAMSEY AND MISS ESTHER GARNETT + +_Miss Ramsey_: "And they were really understood to be engaged?" Miss +Ramsey is a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl of nearly the length of two +lady's umbrellas and the bulk of one closely folded in its sheath. She +stands with her elbow supported on the corner of the mantel, her +temple resting on the knuckle of a thin, nervous hand, in an effect of +thoughtful absent-mindedness. Miss Garnett, more or less Merovingian +in a costume that lends itself somewhat reluctantly to a low, thick +figure, is apparently poising for departure, as she stands before the +chair from which she has risen beside Miss Ramsey's tea-table and +looks earnestly up into Miss Ramsey's absent face. Both are very +young, but aim at being much older than they are, with occasional +lapses into extreme girlhood. + +_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, distinctly. I knew you couldn't know, and I +thought you ought to." She speaks in a deep conviction-bearing and +conviction-carrying voice. "If he has been coming here so much." + +_Miss Ramsey_, with what seems temperamental abruptness: "Sit down. +One can always think better sitting down." She catches a chair under +her with a deft movement of her heel, and Miss Garnett sinks +provisionally into her seat. "And I think it needs thought, don't +you?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "That is what I expected of you." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "And have some more tea. There is nothing like _fresh_ +tea for clearing the brain, and we certainly need clear brains for +this." She pushes a button in the wall beside her, and is silent till +the maid appears. "More tea, Nora." She is silent again while the maid +reappears with the tea and disappears. "I don't know that he has been +coming here so _very_ much. But he has no right to be coming at all, +if he is engaged. That is, in that _way_." + +_Miss Garnett_: "No. Not unless--he wishes he wasn't." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "That would give him _less_ than no right." + +_Miss Garnett_: "That is true. I didn't think of it in that light." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I'm trying to decide what I ought to do if he does +want to get off. She said herself that they were engaged?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "As much as that. Conny understood her to say so. And +Conny never makes a mistake in what people say. Emily didn't say +_whom_ she was engaged to, but Conny felt that that was to come later, +and she did not quite feel like asking, don't you know." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Of course. And how came she to decide that it was Mr. +Ashley?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Simply by putting two and two together. They two were +together the whole time last summer." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I see. Then there is only one thing for me to do." + +_Miss Garnett_, admiringly: "I knew you would say that." + +_Miss Ramsey_, dreamily: "The question is what the thing is." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Yes!" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "That is what I wish to think over. Chocolates?" She +offers a box, catching it with her left hand from the mantel at her +shoulder, without rising. + +_Miss Garnett_: "Thank you; do you think they go well with tea?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "They go well with anything. But we mustn't allow our +minds to be distracted. The case is simply this: If Mr. Ashley is +engaged to Emily Fray, he has no right to go round calling on other +girls--well, as if he wasn't--and he has been calling here a great +deal. That is perfectly evident. He must be made to feel that girls +are not to be trifled with--that they are not mere toys." + +_Miss Garnett_: "How splendidly you do reason! And he ought to +understand that Emily has a right--" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I don't know that I care about _her_--or not +_pri_marily. Or do you say pri_mar_ily?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "I never know. I only use it in writing." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "It's a clumsy word; I don't know that I shall. But +what I mean is that I must act from a general principle, and that +principle is that when a man is engaged, it doesn't matter whether the +girl has thrown herself at him, or not--" + +_Miss Garnett_: "She certainly did, from what Conny says." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "He must be shown that other girls won't tolerate his +behaving as if he were _not_ engaged. It is wrong." + +_Miss Garnett_: "We must stand together." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Yes. Though I don't infer that he has been attentive +to other girls generally." + +_Miss Garnett_: "No. I meant that if he has been coming here so much, +you want to prevent his trifling with others." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Something like that. But it ought to be more definite. +He ought to realize that if another girl cared for him, it would be +cruel to her, paying her attentions, when he was engaged to some one +else." + +_Miss Garnett_: "And cruel to the girl he is engaged to." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Yes." She speaks coldly, vaguely. "But that is the +personal ground, and I wish to avoid that. I wish to deal with him +purely in the abstract." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, I understand that. And at the same time you wish +to punish him. He ought to be made to feel it all the more because he +is so severe himself." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Severe?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Not tolerating anything that's the least out of the +way in other people. Taking you up about your ideas and showing where +you're wrong, or even silly. Spiritually snubbing, Conny calls it." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I like that in him. It's so invigorating. It +braces up all your good resolutions. It makes you ashamed; and shame +is sanative." + +_Miss Garnett_: "That's just what I told Conny, or the same thing. Do +you think another one would hurt me? I will risk it, anyway." She +takes another chocolate from the box. "Go on." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I was just wishing that I had been out longer, and +had a little more experience of men. Then I should know how to act. +How do you suppose people do, generally?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Why, you know, if they find a man in love with them, +after he's engaged to another girl, they make him go back to her, it +doesn't matter whether they're in love with him themselves or not." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I'm _not_ in love with Mr. Ashley, please." + +_Miss Garnett_: "No; I'm supposing an extreme case." + +_Miss Ramsey_, after a moment of silent thought: "Did you ever hear of +anybody doing it?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Not just in our set. But I know it's done +continually." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "It seems to me as if I had read something of the +kind." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Oh yes, the books are full of it. Are those mallows? +They might carry off the effects of the chocolates." Miss Ramsey +passes her the box of marshmallows which she has bent over the table +to look at. + +_Miss Ramsey_: "And of course they couldn't get into the books if they +hadn't really happened. I wish I could think of a case in point." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Why, there was Peg Woffington--" + +_Miss Ramsey_, with displeasure: "She was an actress of some sort, +wasn't she?" + +_Miss Garnett_, with meritorious candor: "Yes, she was. But she was a +very _good_ actress." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "What did _she_ do?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Well, it's a long time since I read it; and it's +rather old-fashioned now. But there was a countryman of some sort, I +remember, who came away from his wife, and fell in love with Peg +Woffington, and then the wife follows him up to London, and begs her +to give him back to her, and she does it. There's something about a +portrait of Peg--I don't remember exactly; she puts her face through +and cries when the wife talks to the picture. The wife thinks it is a +real picture, and she is kind of soliloquizing, and asking Peg to give +her husband back to her; and Peg does, in the end. That part is +beautiful. They become the greatest friends." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Rather silly, I should say." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, it _is_ rather silly, but I suppose the author +thought she had to do something." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "And disgusting. A married man, that way! I don't see +any comparison with Mr. Ashley." + +_Miss Garnett_: "No, there really isn't any. Emily has never asked you +to give him up. And besides, Peg Woffington really liked him a +little--loved him, in fact." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "And I _don't_ like Mr. Ashley at all. Of course I +respect him--and I admire his intellect; there's no question about his +being handsome; but I have never thought of him for a moment in any +other way; and now I can't even respect him." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Nobody could. I'm sure Emily would be welcome to him +as far as _I_ was concerned. But he has never been about with me so +much as he has with you, and I don't wonder you feel indignant." + +_Miss Ramsey_, coldly: "I don't feel indignant. I wish to be just." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, that is what I mean. And poor Emily is so +uninteresting! In the play that Kentucky Summers does, she is +perfectly fascinating at first, and you can see why the poor girl's +fiancé should be so taken with her. But I'm sure no one could say you +had ever given Mr. Ashley the least encouragement. It would be pure +justice on your part. I think you are grand! I shall always be proud +of knowing what you were going to do." + +_Miss Ramsey_, after some moments of snubbing intention: "I don't know +what I am going to do myself, yet. Or how. What _was_ that play? I +never heard of it." + +_Miss Garnett_: "I don't remember distinctly, but it was about a young +man who falls in love with her, when he's engaged to another girl, and +she determines, as soon as she finds it out, to disgust him, so that +he will go back to the other girl, don't you know." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "That sounds rather more practical than the Peg +Woffington plan. What does she do?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Nothing you'd like to do." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I'd like to do something in such a cause. What does +she do?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, when he is calling on her, Kentucky Summers +pretends to fly into a rage with her sister, and she pulls her hair +down, and slams everything round the room, and scolds, and drinks +champagne, and wants him to drink with her, and I don't know what all. +The upshot is that he is only too glad to get away." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "It's rather loathsome, isn't it?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "It _is_ rather loathsome. But it was in a good cause, +and I suppose it was what an actress would think of." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "An actress?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "I forgot. The heroine is a distinguished actress, you +know, and Kentucky could play that sort of part to perfection. But I +don't think a lady would like to cut up, much, in the _best_ cause." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Cut up?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "She certainly frisks about the room a good deal. How +delicious these mallows are! Have you ever tried toasting them?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "At school. There seems an idea in it. And the hero +isn't married. I don't like the notion of a married man." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, I'm quite sure he isn't married. He's merely +engaged. That makes the whole difference from the Peg Woffington +story. And there's no portrait, I'm confident, so that you wouldn't +have to do that part." + +_Miss Ramsey_, haughtily: "I don't propose to do _any_ part, if the +affair can't be arranged without some such mountebank business!" + +_Miss Garnett_: "You can manage it, if anybody can. You have so much +dignity that you could awe him into doing his duty by a single glance. +I wouldn't be in his place!" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I shall not give him a glance. I shall not see him +when he comes. That will be simpler still." To Nora, at the door: +"What is it, Nora?" + + + II + + NORA, MISS RAMSEY, MISS GARNETT + +_Nora_: "Mr. Ashley, Miss Ramsey." + +_Miss Ramsey_, with a severity not meant for Nora: "Ask him to sit +down in the reception-room a moment." + +_Nora_: "Yes, Miss Ramsey." + + + III + + MISS RAMSEY, MISS GARNETT + +_Miss Garnett_, rising and seizing Miss Ramsey's hands: "Oh, Isobel! +But you will be equal to it! Oh! Oh!" + +_Miss Ramsey_, with state: "Why are you going, Esther? Sit down." + +_Miss Garnett_: "If I only _could_ stay! If I could hide under the +sofa, or behind the screen! Isn't it wonderful--providential--his +coming at the very instant? Oh, Isobel!" She clasps her friend +convulsively, and after a moment's resistance Miss Ramsey yields to +her emotion, and they hide their faces in each other's neck, and +strangle their hysteric laughter. They try to regain their composure, +and then abandon the effort with a shuddering delight in the +perfection of the incident. "What shall you do? Shall you trust to +inspiration? Shall you make him show his hand first, and then act? Or +shall you tell him at once that you know all, and-- Or no, of course +you can't do that. He's not supposed to know that you know. Oh, I can +imagine the freezing hauteur that you'll receive him with, and the icy +indifference you'll let him understand that he isn't a _persona grata_ +with! If I were only as tall as you! He isn't as tall himself, and you +can tower over him. Don't sit down, or bend, or anything; just stand +with your head up, and glance carelessly at him under your lashes as +if nobody was there! Then it will gradually dawn upon him that you +know everything, and he'll simply go through the floor." They take +some ecstatic turns about the room, Miss Ramsey waltzing as gentleman. +She abruptly frees herself. + +_Miss Ramsey_: "No. It can't be as tacit as all that. There must be +something explicit. As you say, I must _do_ something to cure him of +his fancy--his perfidy--and make him glad to go back to her." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Yes! Do you think he deserves it?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I've no wish to punish him." + +_Miss Garnett_: "How noble you are! I don't wonder he adores you. _I_ +should. But you won't find it so easy. You must do something drastic. +It _is_ drastic, isn't it? or do I mean static? One of those things +when you simply crush a person. But now I must go. How I should like +to listen at the door! We must kiss each other very quietly, and I +must slip out-- Oh, you dear! How I long to know what you'll do! But it +will be perfect, whatever it is. You always _did_ do perfect things." +They knit their fingers together in parting. "On second thoughts I +won't kiss you. It might unman you, and you need all your strength. +Unman isn't the word, exactly, but you can't say ungirl, can you? It +would be ridiculous. Though girls are as brave as men when it comes to +duty. Good-by, dear!" She catches Miss Ramsey about the neck, and +pressing her lips silently to her cheek, runs out. Miss Ramsey rings +and the maid appears. + + + IV + + NORA, MISS RAMSEY + +_Miss Ramsey_, starting: "Oh! Is that you, Nora? Of course! Nora!" + +_Nora_: "Yes, Miss Ramsey." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Do you know where my brother keeps his cigarettes?" + +_Nora_: "Why, in his room, Miss Ramsey; you told him you didn't like +the smell here." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Yes, yes. I forgot. And has he got any cocktails?" + +_Nora_: "He's got the whole bottle full of them yet." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Full yet?" + +_Nora_: "You wouldn't let him offer them to the gentlemen he had to +lunch, last week, because you said--" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "What did I say?" + +_Nora_: "They were vulgar." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "And so they are. And so much the better! Bring the +cigarettes and the bottle and some glasses here, Nora, and then ask +Mr. Ashley to come." She walks away to the window, and hurriedly hums +a musical comedy waltz, not quite in tune, as from not remembering +exactly, and after Nora has tinkled in with a tray of glasses she +lights a cigarette and stands puffing it, gasping and coughing a +little, as Walter Ashley enters. "Oh, Mr. Ashley! Sorry to make you +wait." + + + V + + MR. ASHLEY, MISS RAMSEY + +_Mr. Ashley_: "The time _has_ seemed long, but I could have waited all +day. I couldn't have gone without seeing you, and telling you--" He +pauses, as if bewildered at the spectacle of Miss Ramsey's resolute +practice with the cigarette, which she now takes from her lips and +waves before her face with innocent recklessness. + +_Miss Ramsey_, chokingly: "Do sit down." She drops into an easy-chair +beside the tea-table, and stretches the tips of her feet out beyond +the hem of her skirt in extremely lady-like abandon. "Have a +cigarette." She reaches the box to him. + +_Ashley_: "Thank you. I won't smoke, I believe." He stands frowning, +while she throws her cigarette into a teacup and lights another. + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I thought everybody smoked. Then have a cocktail." + +_Ashley_: "A what?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "A cocktail. So many people like them with their tea, +instead of rum, you know." + +_Ashley_: "No, I didn't know." He regards her with amaze, rapidly +hardening into condemnation. + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I hope you don't _object_ to smoking. Englishwomen all +smoke." + +_Ashley_: "I think I've heard. I didn't know that American ladies +did." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "They don't, _all_. But they will when they find how +nice it is." + +_Ashley_: "And do Englishwomen all drink cocktails?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "They will when they find how nice it is. But why do +you keep standing? Sit down, if it's only for a moment. There is +something I would like to talk with you about. What were you saying +when you came in? I didn't catch it quite." + +_Ashley_: "Nothing--now--" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "And I can't persuade you to have a cocktail? I believe +I'll have another myself." She takes up the bottle, and tries several +times to pour from it. "I do believe Nora's forgotten to open it! That +is a good joke on me. But I mustn't let her know. Do you happen to +have a pocket-corkscrew with you, Mr. Ashley?" + +_Ashley_: "No--" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Well, never mind." She tosses her cigarette into the +grate, and lights another. "I wonder why they always have cynical +persons smoke, on the stage? I don't see that the two things +necessarily go together, but it does give you a kind of thrill when +they strike a match, and it lights up their faces when they put it to +the cigarette. You know something good and wicked is going to happen." +She puffs violently at her cigarette, and then suddenly flings it away +and starts to her feet. "Will you--would you--open the window?" She +collapses into her chair. + +_Ashley_, springing toward her: "Miss Ramsey, are you--you are ill!" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "No, no! The window! A little faint--it's so +close-- There, it's all right now. Or it will be--when--I've +had--another cigarette." She leans forward to take one; Ashley gravely +watches her, but says nothing. She lights her cigarette, but, without +smoking, throws it away. "Go on." + +_Ashley_: "I wasn't saying anything!" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, I forgot. And I don't know what we were talking +about myself." She falls limply back into her chair and closes her +eyes. + +_Ashley_: "Sha'n't I ring for the maid? I'm afraid--" + +_Miss Ramsey_, imperiously: "Not at all. Not on any account." Far less +imperiously: "You may pour me a cup of tea if you like. That will make +me well. The full strength, please." She motions away the hot-water +jug with which he has proposed qualifying the cup of tea which he +offers her. + +_Ashley_: "One lump or two?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Only one, thank you." She takes the cup. + +_Ashley_, offering the milk: "Cream?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "A drop." He stands anxiously beside her while she +takes a long draught and then gives back the cup. "That was perfect." + +_Ashley_: "Another?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "No, that is just right. Now go on. Or, I forgot. You +were not going on. Oh dear! How much better I feel. There must have +been something poisonous in those cigarettes." + +_Ashley_: "Yes, there was tobacco." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, do you think it was the tobacco? Do throw the +whole box into the fire! I shall tell Bob never to get cigarettes with +tobacco in them after this. Won't you have one of the chocolates? Or a +mallow? I feel as if I should never want to eat anything again. Where +was I?" She rests her cheek against the side of her chair cushion, and +speaks with closed eyes, in a weak murmur. Mr. Ashley watches her at +first with anxiety, then with a gradual change of countenance until a +gleam of intelligence steals into his look of compassion. + +_Ashley_: "You asked me to throw the cigarettes into the fire. But I +want you to let me keep them." + +_Miss Ramsey_, with wide-flung eyes: "You? You said you wouldn't +smoke." + +_Ashley_, laughing: "May I change my mind? One talks better." He +lights a cigarette. "And, Miss Ramsey, I believe I _will_ have a +cocktail, after all." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley!" + +_Ashley_, without noting her protest: "I had forgotten that I had a +corkscrew in my pocket-knife. Don't trouble yourself to ring for one." +He produces the knife and opens the bottle; then, as Miss Ramsey rises +and stands aghast, he pours out a glass and offers it to her, with +mock devotion. As she shakes her head and recoils: "Oh! I thought you +liked cocktails. They are very good after cigarettes--very reviving. +But if you won't--" He tosses off the cocktail and sets down the +glass, smacking his lips. "Tell your brother I commend his taste--in +cocktails and"--puffing his cigarette--"tobacco. Poison for poison, +let me offer you one of _my_ cigarettes. They're milder than these." +He puts his hand to his breast pocket. + +_Miss Ramsey_, with nervous shrinking: "No--" + +_Ashley_: "It's just as well. I find that I hadn't brought mine with +me." After a moment: "You are so unconventional, so fearless, that I +should like your notion of the problem in a book I've just been +reading. Why should the mere fact that a man is married to one woman +prevent his being in love with another, or half a dozen others; or +_vice versa_?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley, do you wish to insult me?" + +_Ashley_: "Dear me, no! But put the case a little differently. Suppose +a couple are merely engaged. Does that fact imply that neither has a +right to a change of mind, or to be fancy free to make another +choice?" + +_Miss Ramsey_, indignantly: "Yes, it does. They are as sacredly bound +to each other as if they were married, and if they are false to each +other the girl is a wretch, and the man is a villain! And if you think +anything I have said can excuse you for breaking your engagement, or +that I don't consider you the wickedest person in the world, and the +most barefaced hypocrite, and--and--I don't know what--you are very +much mistaken." + +_Ashley_: "What in the world are you talking about?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I am talking about you and your shameless perfidy." + +_Ashley_: "My shameless perf-- I don't understand! I came here +to tell you that I love you--" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "How dare you! To speak to me of that, when-- Or +perhaps you _have_ broken with her, and think you are free to hoodwink +some other poor creature. But you will find that you have chosen the +wrong person. And it's no excuse for you her being a little--a +little--not so bright as some girls, and not so good-looking. Oh, it's +enough to make any girl loathe her own looks! You mustn't suppose you +can come here red-handed--yes, it's the same as a murder, and any true +girl would say so--and tell me you care for me. No, Walter Ashley, I +haven't fallen so low as that, though I _have_ the disgrace of your +acquaintance. And I hope--I hope--if you don't like my smoking, and +offering you cocktails, and talking the way I have, it will be a +lesson to you. And yes!--I _will_ say it! If it will add to your +misery to know that I did respect you very much, and thought +everything--very highly--of you, and might have answered you very +differently before, when you were free to tell me _that_--now +I have nothing but the utmost abhorrence--and--disapproval of you. +And--and-- Oh, I don't see how you can be so hateful!" She hides her +face in her hands and rushes from the room, overturning several chairs +in her course toward the door. Ashley remains staring after her, while +a succession of impetuous rings make themselves heard from the street +door. There is a sound of opening it, and then a flutter of skirts and +anxieties, and Miss Garnett comes running into the room. + + + VI + + MISS GARNETT, MR. ASHLEY + +_Miss Garnett_, to the maid hovering in the doorway: "Yes, I must have +left it here, for I never missed it till I went to pay my fare in the +motor-bus, and tried to think whether I had the exact dime, and if I +hadn't whether the conductor would change a five-dollar bill or not, +and then it rushed into my mind that I had left my purse somewhere, +and I knew I hadn't been anywhere else." She runs from the mantel to +the writing-desk in the corner, and then to the sofa, where, peering +under the tea-table, she finds her purse on the shelf. "Oh, here it +is, Nora, just where I put it when we began to talk, and I must have +gone out and left it. I--" She starts with a little shriek, in +encountering Ashley. "Oh, Mr. Ashley! What a fright you gave me! I was +just looking for my purse that I missed when I went to pay my fare in +the motor-bus, and was wondering whether I had the exact dime, or the +conductor could change a five-dollar bill, and--" She discovers, or +affects to discover, something strange in his manner. "What--what is +the matter, Mr. Ashley?" + +_Ashley_: "I shall be glad to have you tell me--or any one." + +_Miss Garnett_: "I don't understand. Has Isobel--" + +_Ashley_: "Miss Garnett, did you know I was engaged?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Why, yes; I was just going to congrat--" + +_Ashley_: "Well, don't, unless you can tell me whom I am engaged to." + +_Miss Garnett_: "Why, aren't you engaged to Emily Fray?" + +_Ashley_: "Not the least in the world." + +_Miss Garnett_, in despair: "Then _what_ have I done? Oh, what a +fatal, fatal scrape!" With a ray of returning hope: "But she told me +_herself_ that she was engaged! And you were together so much, last +summer!" Desperately: "Then if she isn't engaged to you, whom is she +engaged to?" + +_Ashley_: "On general principles, I shouldn't know, but in this +particular instance I happen to know that she is engaged to Owen +Brooks. They were a great deal more together last summer." + +_Miss Garnett_, with conviction: "So they were!" With returning doubt: +"But why didn't she say so?" + +_Ashley_: "I can't tell you; she may have had her reasons, or she may +not. Can you possibly tell me, in return for my ignorance, why the +fact of her engagement should involve me in the strange way it seems +to have done with Miss Ramsey?" + +_Miss Garnett_, with a burst of involuntary candor: "Why, _I_ did +that. Or, no! What's she been doing?" + +_Ashley_: "Really, Miss Garnett--" + +_Miss Garnett_: "How can I tell you anything, if you don't tell me +everything? You wouldn't wish me to betray confidence?" + +_Ashley_: "No, certainly not. What was the confidence?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Well-- But I shall have to know first what she's been +doing. You must see that yourself, Mr. Ashley." He is silent. "Has +she--has Isobel--been behaving--well, out of character?" + +_Ashley_: "Very much indeed." + +_Miss Garnett_: "I expected she would." She fetches a thoughtful sigh, +and for her greater emotional convenience she sinks into an easy-chair +and leans forward. "Oh dear! It is a scrape." Suddenly and +imperatively: "Tell me exactly what she did, if you hope for any help +whatever." + +_Ashley_: "Why, she offered me a cocktail--" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, how good! I didn't suppose she would dare! Well?" + +_Ashley_: "And she smoked cigarettes--" + +_Miss Garnett_: "How perfectly divine! And what else?" + +_Ashley_, coldly: "May I ask why you admire Miss Ramsey's behaving out +of character so much? I think the smoking made her rather faint, and--" + +_Miss Garnett_: "She would have let it _kill_ her! Never tell me that +girls have no moral courage!" + +_Ashley_: "But what--what was the meaning of it all?" + +_Miss Garnett_, thoughtfully: "I suppose if I got her in for it, I +ought to get her out, even if I betray confidence." + +_Ashley_: "It depends upon the confidence. What is it?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Why-- But you're sure it's my duty?" + +_Ashley_: "If you care what I think of her--" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Oh, Mr. Ashley, you mustn't think it strange of +Isobel, on my bended knees you mustn't! Why, don't you see? She was +just doing it to disgust you!" + +_Ashley_: "Disgust me?" + +_Miss Garnett_: "Yes, and drive you back to Emily Fray." + +_Ashley_: "Drive me ba--" + +_Miss Garnett_: "If she thought you were engaged to Emily, when you +were coming here all the time, and she wasn't quite sure that she +hated to have you, don't you see it would be her duty to sacrifice +herself, and-- Oh, I suppose she's heard everything up there, and--" +She catches herself up and runs out of the room, leaving Ashley to +await the retarded descent of skirts which he hears on the stairs +after the crash of the street door has announced Miss Garnett's +escape. He stands with his back to the mantel, and faces Miss Ramsey +as she enters the room. + + + VII + + MISS RAMSEY, ASHLEY + +_Miss Ramsey_, with the effect of cold surprise: "Mr. Ashley? I +thought I heard-- Wasn't Miss Garnett--" + +_Ashley_: "She was. Did you think it was the street door closing on +_me_?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "How should I know?" Then, courageously: "No, I didn't +think it was. Why do you ask?" She moves uneasily about the room, with +an air of studied inattention. + +_Ashley_: "Because if you did, I can put you in the right, though I +can't restore Miss Garnett's presence by my absence." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "You're rather--enigmatical." A ring is heard; the maid +pauses at the doorway. "I'm not at home, Nora." To Mr. Ashley: "It +seems to be very close--" + +_Ashley_: "It's my having been smoking." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "_Your_ having?" She goes to the window and tries to +lift it. + +_Ashley_: "Let _me_." He follows her to the window, where he stands +beside her. + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Now, she's seen me! And you here with me. Of course--" + +_Ashley_: "I shouldn't mind. But I'm so sorry if--and I will go." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "You can't go now--till she's round the corner. She'll +keep looking back, and she'll think I made you." + +_Ashley_: "But haven't you? Aren't you sending me back to Miss Fray to +tell her that I must keep my engagement, though I care nothing for +her, and care all the world for you? Isn't that what you want me to +do?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "But you're not engaged to her! You just--" + +_Ashley_: "Just what?" + +_Miss Ramsey_, desperately: "You wish me to disgrace myself forever in +your eyes. Well, I will; what does it matter now? I heard you telling +Esther you were not engaged. I _overheard_ you." + +_Ashley_: "I fancied you must." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I _tried_ to overhear! I _eavesdropped_! I wish you to +know that." + +_Ashley_: "And what do you wish me to do about it?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I should think any self-respecting person would know. +I'm _not_ a self-respecting person." Her wandering gaze seems to fall +for the first time upon the tray with the cocktails and glasses and +cigarettes; she flies at the bell-button and presses it impetuously. +As the maid appears: "Take these things away, Nora, please!" To Ashley +when the maid has left the room: "Don't be afraid to say what you +think of me!" + +_Ashley_: "I think all the world of you. But I should merely like to +ask--" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Oh, you can ask anything of me now!" + +_Ashley_, with palpable insincerity: "I should like to ask why you +don't respect yourself?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Was that what you were going to ask? I know it wasn't. +But I will tell you. Because I have been a fool." + +_Ashley_: "Thank you. Now I will tell you what I was really going to +ask. Why did you wish to drive me back to Miss Fray when you knew that +I would be false to her a thousand times if I could only once be true +to you?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Now you _are_ insulting me! And that is just the +point. You may be a very clever lawyer, Mr. Ashley, and everybody says +you are--very able, and talented, and all that, but you can't get +round that point. You may torture any meaning you please out of my +words, but I shall always say you brought it on yourself." + +_Ashley_: "Brought what on?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Mr. Ashley! I won't be cross-questioned." + +_Ashley_: "Was that why you smoked, and poured cocktails out of an +unopened bottle? Was it because you wished me to hate you, and +remember my duty, and go back to Miss Fray? Well, it was a dead +failure. It made me love you more than ever. I am a fool too, as you +call it." + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Say anything you please. I have given you the right. I +shall not resent it. Go on." + +_Ashley_: "I should only repeat myself. You must have known how much I +care for you, Isobel. Do you mind my calling you Isobel?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Not in the least if you wish to humiliate me by it. I +should like you to trample on me in every way you can." + +_Ashley_: "Trample on you? I would rather be run over by a +steam-roller than tread on the least of your outlying feelings, +dearest. Do you mind my saying dearest?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I have told you that you can say anything you like. I +deserve it. But oh, if you have a spark of pity--" + +_Ashley_: "I'm a perfect conflagration of compassion, darling. Do you +object to darling?" + +_Miss Ramsey_, with starting tears: "It doesn't matter now." She has +let her lovely length trail into the corner of the sofa, where she +desperately reclines, supporting her elbow on the arm of it, and +resting her drooping head on her hand. He draws a hassock up in front +of her, and sits on it. + +_Ashley_: "This represents kneeling at your feet. One doesn't do it +literally any more, you know." + +_Miss Ramsey_, in a hollow voice: "I should despise you if you did, +and"--deeply murmurous--"I don't _wish_ to despise you." + +_Ashley_: "No, I understand that. You merely wish _me_ to despise +_you_. But why?" + +_Miss Ramsey_, nervously: "You know." + +_Ashley_: "But I don't know--Isobel, dearest, darling, if you will +allow me to express myself so fully. _How_ should I know?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "I've told you." + +_Ashley_: "May I take your hand? For good-by!" He possesses himself of +it. "It seems to go along with those expressions." + +_Miss Ramsey_, self-contemptuously: "Oh yes." + +_Ashley_: "Thank you. Where were we?" + +_Miss Ramsey_, sitting up and recovering her hand: "You were saying +good-by--" + +_Ashley_: "Was I? But not before I had told you that I knew you were +doing all that for my best good, and I wish--I _wish_ you could have +seen how exemplary you looked when you were trying to pour a cocktail +out of a corked bottle, between your remarks on passionate fiction and +puffs of the insidious cigarette! When the venomous tobacco began to +get in its deadly work, and you turned pale and reeled a little, and +called for air, it made me mentally vow to go back to Miss Fray +instantly, whether I was engaged to her or not, and cut out poor old +Brooks--" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Was it Mr. Brooks? I didn't hear the name exactly." + +_Ashley_: "When I was telling Miss Garnett? I ought to have spoken +louder, but I wasn't sure at the time you were listening. Though as +you were saying, what does it matter now?" + +_Miss Ramsey_: "Did I say that?" + +_Ashley_: "Words to that effect. And they have made me feel how +unworthy of you I am. I'm not heroic--by nature. But I could be, if +you made me--by art--" + +_Miss Ramsey_, springing to her feet indignantly: "Now, you are +ridiculing me--you are making fun of me." + +_Ashley_, gathering himself up from his hassock with difficulty, and +confronting her: "Do I look like a man who would dare to make fun of +you? I am half a head shorter than you, and in moral grandeur you +overtop me so that I would always have to wear a high hat when I was +with you." + +_Miss Ramsey_, thoughtfully: "Plenty of girls are that way, now. But +if you are ashamed of my being tall--" Flashingly, and with starting +tears. + +_Ashley_: "Ashamed! I can always look up to you, you can always stoop +to me!" He stretches his arms toward her. + +_Miss Ramsey_, recoiling bewildered: "Wait! We haven't got to that +yet." + +_Ashley_: "Oh, Isobel--dearest--darling! We've got past it! We're on +the home stretch, now." + + + + + XIX + + THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS + + A MORALITY + + + I + + MR. AND MRS. CLARENCE FOUNTAIN + +_Mrs. Clarence Fountain_, backing into the room, and closing the door +noiselessly before looking round: "Oh, you poor thing! I can see that +you are dead, at the first glance. I'm dead myself, for that matter." +She is speaking to her husband, who clings with one hand to the +chimney-piece, and supports his back with the other; from this hand a +little girl's long stocking lumpily dangles; Mrs. Fountain, turning +round, observes it. "Not finished yet? But I don't wonder! I wonder +you've even begun. Well, now, _I_ will take hold with you." In token +of the aid she is going to give, Mrs. Fountain sinks into a chair and +rolls a distracted eye over the littered and tumbled room. "It's worse +than I thought it would be. You ought to have smoothed the papers out +and laid them in a pile as fast as you unwrapped the things; that is +the way I always do; and wound the strings up and put them one side. +Then you wouldn't have had to wade round in them. I suppose I oughtn't +to have left it to you, but if I had let _you_ put the children to bed +you know you'd have told them stories and kept them all night over +their prayers. And as it was each of them wanted to put in a special +Christmas clause; I know what kind of Christmas clause _I_ should have +put in if I'd been frank! I'm not sure it's right to keep up the +deception. One comfort, the oldest ones don't believe in it any more +than we do. Dear! I did think at one time this afternoon I should have +to be brought home in an ambulance; it would have been a convenience, +with all the packages. I simply marvel at their delivery wagons +getting them here." + +_Fountain_, coming to the table, where she sits, and taking up one of +the toys with which it is strewn: "They haven't all of them." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "What do you mean by all of them?" + +_Fountain_: "I mean half." He takes up a mechanical locomotive and +stuffs it into the stocking he holds. + +_Mrs. Fountain_, staying his hand: "What are you doing? Putting +Jimmy's engine into Susy's stocking! She'll be perfectly insulted when +she finds it, for she'll know you weren't paying the least attention, +and you can't blame Santa Claus for it with _her_. If that's what +you've been doing with the other stockings-- But there _aren't_ any +others. Don't tell me you've just begun! Well, I could simply cry." + +_Fountain_, dropping into the chair on the other side of the table, +under the shelter of a tall Christmas tree standing on it: "Do you +call unwrapping a whole car-load of truck and getting it sorted, just +beginning? I've been slaving here from the dawn of time, and I had to +have _some_ leisure for the ghosts of my own Christmases when I was +little. I didn't have to wade round in the wrappings of my presents in +those days. But it isn't the sad memories that take it out of you; +it's the happy ones. I've never had a ghastlier half-hour than I've +just spent in the humiliating multiplicity of these gifts. All the old +birthdays and wedding-days and Fourth of Julys and home-comings and +children's christenings I've ever had came trooping back. There +oughtn't to be any gay anniversaries; they should be forbidden by law. +If I could only have recalled a few dangerous fevers and funerals!" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Clarence! Don't say such a thing; you'll be punished +for it. I know how you suffer from those gloomy feelings, and I pity +you. You ought to bear up against them. If _I_ gave way! You must +think about something cheerful in the future when the happiness of the +past afflicts you, and set one against the other; life isn't _all_ a +vale of tears. You must keep your mind fixed on the work before you. I +don't believe it's the number of the packages here that's broken you +down. It's the shopping that's worn you out; I'm sure I'm a mere +thread. And I had been at it from immediately after breakfast; and I +lunched in one of the stores with ten thousand suburbans who had come +pouring in with the first of their unnatural trains: I did hope I +should have some of the places to myself; but they were every one +jammed. And you came up from your office about four, perfectly fresh." + +_Fountain_: "Fresh! Yes, quite dewy from a day's fight with the beasts +at Ephesus on the eve of Christmas week." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, don't be cynical, Clarence, on this, of all +nights of the year. You know how sorry I always am for what you have +to go through down there, and I suppose it's worse, as you say, at +this season than any other time of year. It's the terrible +concentration of everything just before Christmas that makes it so +killing. I really don't know which of the places was the worst; the +big department stores or the separate places for jewelry and toys and +books and stationery and antiques; they were all alike, and all +maddening. And the rain outside, and everybody coming in reeking; +though I don't believe that sunshine would have been any better; +there'd have been more of them. I declare, it made my heart ache for +those poor creatures behind the counters, and I don't know whether I +suffered most for them when they kept up a ghastly cheerfulness in +their attention or were simply insulting in their indifference. I know +they must be all dead by this time. 'Going up?' 'Going down?' +'Ca-ish!' 'Here, boy!' I believe it will ring in my ears as long as I +live. And the whiz of those overhead wire things, and having to wait +ages for your change, and then drag your tatters out of the stores +into the streets! If I hadn't had you with me at the last I should +certainly have dropped." + +_Fountain_: "Yes, and what had become of your good resolutions about +doing all your Christmas shopping in July?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "_My_ good resolutions? Really, Clarence, sometimes +if it were not cruelty to animals I should like to hit you. _My_ good-- +You _know_ that you suggested that plan, and it wasn't even original +with you. The papers have been talking about it for years; but when +you brought it up as such a new idea, I fell in with it to please you--" + +_Fountain_: "Now, look out, Lucy!" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, to please you, and to help you forget the +Christmas worry, just as I've been doing to-night. You never spare +_me_." + +_Fountain_: "Stick to the record. Why didn't you do your Christmas +shopping in July?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Why didn't I? Did you expect me to do my Christmas +shopping down at Sculpin Beach, where I spent the whole time from the +middle of June till the middle of September? Why didn't _you_ do the +Christmas shopping in July? You had the stores under your nose here +from the beginning till the end of summer, with nothing in the world +to hinder you, and not a chick or a child to look after." + +_Fountain_: "Oh, I like that. You think I was leading a life of +complete leisure here, with the thermometer among the nineties +nine-tenths of the time?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "I only know you were bragging in all your letters +about your bath and your club, and the folly of any one going away +from the cool, comfortable town in the summer. I suppose you'll say +that was to keep me from feeling badly at leaving you. When it was +only for the children's sake! I will let you take them the next time." + +_Fountain_: "While you look after my office? And you think the stores +are full of Christmas things in July, I suppose." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "I never thought so; and now I hope you see the folly +of that idea. No, Clarence. We must be logical in everything. You +can't get rid of Christmas shopping at Christmas-time." + +_Fountain_, shouting wrathfully: "Then I say get rid of Christmas!" + + + II + + MR. FRANK WATKINS, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Watkins_, opening the door for himself and struggling into the room +with an armful of parcels: "I'm with you there, Clarence. Christmas is +at the root of Christmas shopping, and Christmas giving, and all the +rest of it. Oh, you needn't be afraid, Lucy. I didn't hear any +epithets; just caught the drift of your argument through the keyhole. +I've been kicking at the door ever since you began. Where shall I dump +these things?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, you poor boy! Here--anywhere--on the floor--on +the sofa--on the table." She clears several spaces and helps Watkins +unload. "Clarence! I'm surprised at you. What are you thinking of?" + +_Fountain_: "I'm thinking that if this goes on, I'll let somebody else +arrange the presents." + +_Watkins_: "If I saw a man coming into my house with a load like this +to-night, I'd throw him into the street. But living in a ninth-story +flat like you, it might hurt him." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, reading the inscriptions on the packages: "'For Benny +from his uncle Frank.' Oh, how sweet of you, Frank! And here's a kiss +for his uncle Frank." She embraces him with as little interruption as +possible. "'From Uncle Frank to Jim.' Oh, I know what that is!" She +feels the package over. "And this is for 'Susy from her aunt Sue.' Oh, +I knew she would remember her namesake. 'For Maggie. Merry Christmas +from Mrs. Watkins.' 'Bridget, with Mrs. Watkins's best wishes for a +Merry Christmas.' Both the girls! But it's like Sue; she never forgets +anybody. And what's this for Clarence? I _must_ know! Not a +bath-gown?" Undoing it: "I simply _must_ see it. Blue! His very +color!" Holding it up: "From you, Frank?" He nods. "Clarence!" + +_Watkins_: "If Fountain tries to kiss me, I'll--" + +_Fountain_: "I wouldn't kiss you for a dozen bath-gowns." Lifting it +up from the floor where Mrs. Fountain has dropped it: "It _is_ rather +nice." + +_Watkins_: "Don't overwhelm me." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, dancing about with a long, soft roll in her hand: "Oh, +oh, oh! She saw me gloating on it at Shumaker's! I do wonder if it +_is_." + +_Fountain_, reaching for it: "Why, open it--" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "You dare! No, it shall be opened the very last thing +in the morning, now, to punish you! How is poor Sue? I saw her +literally dropping by the way at Shumaker's." + +_Watkins_, making for the door: "Well, she must have got up again. I +left her registering a vow that if ever she lived to see another +Christmas she would leave the country months before the shopping +began. She called down maledictions on all the recipients of her gifts +and wished them the worst harm that can befall the wicked." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Poor Sue! She simply lives to do people good, and I +can understand exactly how she feels toward them. I'll be round bright +and early to-morrow to thank her. Why do you go?" + +_Watkins_: "Well, I can't stay here all night, and I'd better let you +and Clarence finish up." He escapes from her detaining embrace and +runs out. + + + III + + MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Mrs. Fountain_, intent upon her roll: "How funny he is! I wonder if +he did hear anything but our scolding voices? Where were we?" + +_Fountain_: "I had just called you a serpent." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, with amusement: "No, really?" Feeling the parcel: "If +it's that Spanish lace scarf I can tell her it was machine lace. I saw +it at the first glance. But poor Sue has no taste. I suppose I must +stand it. But I can't bear to think what she's given the girls and +children. She means well. Did you really say serpent, Clarence? You +never called me just _that_ before." + +_Fountain_: "No, but you called me a laughing hyena, and said I +scoffed at everything sacred." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "I can't remember using the word hyena, exactly, +though I do think the way you talk about Christmas is dreadful. But I +take back the laughing hyena." + +_Fountain_: "And I take back the serpent. I meant dove, anyway. But +it's this Christmas-time when a man gets so tired he doesn't know +what he's saying." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, _you're_ good, anyway, dearest, whatever you +say; and now I'm going to help you arrange the things. I suppose +there'll be lots more to-morrow, but we must get rid of these now. +Don't you wish nobody would do anything for us? Just the +children--dear little souls! I don't believe but what we can make Jim +and Susy believe in Santa Claus again; Benny is firm in the faith; he +put him into his prayer. I declare, his sweetness almost broke my +heart." At a knock: "Who's that, I wonder? Come in! Oh, it's you, +Maggie. Well?" + + + IV + + THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN'S SISTERS + +_Maggie_: "It's Mr. Fountain's sisters just telephoned up." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Have them come up at once, Maggie, of course." As +Maggie goes out: "Another interruption! If it's going to keep on like +this! Shouldn't you have thought they might have _sent_ their +presents?" + +_Fountain_: "I thought something like it in Frank's case; but I didn't +say it." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "And I don't know why _I_ say it, now. It's because +I'm so tired I don't know what I _am_ saying. Do forgive me! It's this +terrible Christmas spirit that gets into me. But now you'll see how +nice I can be to them." At a tap on the door: "Come in! Come in! +Don't mind our being in all this mess. So darling of you to come! You +can help cheer Clarence up; you know his Christmas Eve dumps." She +runs to them and clasps them in her arms with several half-open +packages dangling from her hands and contrasting their disarray with +the neatness of their silk-ribboned and tissue-papered parcels which +their embrace makes meet at her back. "Minnie! Aggie! To lug here, +when you ought to be at home in bed dying of fatigue! But it's just +like you, both of you. Did you ever see anything like the stores +to-day? Do sit down, or swoon on the floor, or anything. Let me have +those wretched bundles which are simply killing you." She looks at the +different packages. "'For Benny from Grandpa.' 'For a good girl, from +Susy's grandmother.' 'Jim, from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Aggie.' 'Lucy, +with love from Aggie and Minnie.' And Clarence! What hearts you _have_ +got! Well, I always say there never were such thoughtful girls, and +you always show such taste and such originality. I long to get at the +things." She keeps fingering the large bundle marked with her +husband's name. "Not--not--a--" + +_Minnie_: "Yes, a bath-robe. Unless you give him a cigar-case it's +about the only thing you can give a man." + +_Aggie_: "Minnie thought of it and I chose it. Blue, because it's his +color. Try it on, Clarence, and if it's too long--" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, do, dear! Let's see you with it on." While the +girls are fussily opening the robe, she manages to push her brother's +gift behind the door. Then, without looking round at her husband. "It +isn't a bit too long. Just the very--" Looking: "Well, it can easily +be taken up at the hem. I can do it to-morrow." She abandons him to +his awkward isolation while she chatters on with his sisters. "Sit +down; I insist! Don't think of going. Did you see that frightful pack +of people when the cab horse fell down in front of Shumaker's?" + +_Minnie_: "See it?" + +_Aggie_: "We were in the midst of it! I wonder we ever got out alive. +It's enough to make you wish never to see another Christmas as long as +you live." + +_Minnie_: "A great many _won't_ live. There will be more grippe, and +more pneumonia, and more appendicitis from those jams of people in the +stores!" + +_Aggie_: "The germs must have been swarming." + +_Fountain_: "Lucy was black with them when we got home." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Don't pay the slightest attention to him, girls. +He'll probably be the first to sneeze himself." + +_Minnie_: "I don't know about sneezing. I shall only be too glad if I +don't have nervous prostration from it." + +_Aggie_: "I'm glad we got our motor-car just in time. Any one that +goes in the trolleys now will take their life in their hand." The +girls rise and move toward the door. "Well, we must go on now. We're +making a regular round; you can't trust the delivery wagons at a time +like this. Good-by. Merry Christmas to the children. They're fast +asleep by this time, I suppose." + +_Minnie_: "I only wish _I_ was!" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "I believe you, Minnie. Good-by. Good night. Good +night, Aggie. Clarence, go to the elevator with them! Or no, he can't +in that ridiculous bath-gown!" Turning to Fountain as the door closes: +"Now I've done it." + + + V + + MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Fountain_: "It isn't a thing you could have wished to phrase that +way, exactly." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "And you made me do it. Never thanking them, or +anything, and standing there like I don't know what, and leaving the +talk all to me. And now, making me lose my temper again, when I wanted +to be so nice to you. Well, it is no use trying, and from this on I +won't. _Clarence!_" She has opened the parcel addressed to herself and +now stands transfixed with joy and wonder. "_See_ what the girls have +given me! The very necklace I've been longing for at Planets', and +denying myself for the last fortnight! Well, never will I say your +sisters are mean again." + +_Fountain_: "You ought to have said that to them." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "It quite reconciles one to Christmas. What? Oh, that +_was_ rather nasty. You know I didn't mean it. I was so excited I +didn't know what I was saying. I'm sure nobody ever got on better with +sisters-in-law, and that shows my tact; if I do make a slip, now and +then, I can always get out of it. They will understand. Do you think +it was very nice of them to flaunt their new motor in my face? But of +course anything _your_ family does is perfect, and always was, though +I must say this necklace is sweet of them. I wonder they had the +taste." A tap on the door is heard. "Come in, Maggie!" _Sotto voce._ +"Take it off." She snatches his bath-robe and tosses it behind the +door. + + + VI + + WILBUR HAZARD, THE FOUNTAINS + +_Hazard_: "I suppose I can come in, even if I'm not Maggie. Catch, +Fountain." He tosses a large bundle to Fountain. "It's huge, but it +isn't hefty." He turns to go out again. + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, oh, oh! Don't go! Come in and help us. What have +you brought Clarence! May I feel?" + +_Hazard_: "You can look, if you like. I'm rather proud of it. There's +only one other thing you can give a man, and I said, 'No, not a +cigar-case. Fountain smokes enough already, but if a bath-robe can +induce him to wash--'" He goes out. + +_Mrs. Fountain_, screaming after him through the open door: "Oh, how +good! Come back and see it on him." She throws the bath-robe over +Fountain's shoulders. + +_Hazard_, looking in again: "Perfect fit, just as the Jew said, and +the very color for Fountain." He vanishes, shutting the door behind +him. + + + VII + + MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "How coarse! Well, my dear, I don't know where you +picked up your bachelor friends. I hope this is the last of them." + +_Fountain_: "Hazard's the only one who has survived your rigorous +treatment. But he always had a passion for cold shoulder, poor fellow. +As bath-robes go, this isn't bad." He gets his arms into it, and walks +up and down. "Heigh?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, it is pretty good. But the worst of Christmas +is that it rouses up all your old friends." + +_Fountain_: "They feel so abnormally good, confound them. I suppose +poor old Hazard half killed himself looking this thing up and building +the joke to go with it." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, take it off, now, and come help me with the +children's presents. You're quite forgetting about them, and it'll be +morning and you'll have the little wretches swarming in before you can +turn round. Dear little souls! I can sympathize with their impatience, +of course. But what are you going to do with these bath-robes? You +can't wear _four_ bath-robes." + +_Fountain_: "I can change them every day. But there ought to be seven. +This hood is rather a new wrinkle, though, isn't it? I suppose it's +for a voyage, and you pull it up over your head when you come through +the corridor back to your stateroom. We shall have to go to Europe, +Lucy." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "I would go to Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, to escape +another Christmas. Now if there are any more bath-robes-- Come in, +Maggie." + + + VIII + + MAGGIE, THE FOUNTAINS + +_Maggie_, bringing in a bundle: "Something a District Messenger +brought. Will you sign for it, ma'am?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "You sign, Clarence. If I know anything about the +look and the feel of a bundle, this _is_ another bath-robe, but I +shall soon see." While she is cutting the string and tearing the +wrappings away, Fountain signs and Maggie goes. Mrs. Fountain shakes +out the folds of the robe. "Well, upon my word, I should think there +was conspiracy to insult you, Clarence. I should like to know who has +had the effrontery-- What's on it?" + +_Fountain_, reading from the card which had fallen out of the garment +to the floor: "'With Christmas greetings from Mrs. Arthur J. Gibby.'" + +_Mrs. Fountain_, dropping the robe and seizing the card: "_Mrs._ +Arthur J. Gibby! Well, upon my word, this _is_ impudence. It's not +only impudence, it's indelicacy. And I had always thought she was the +very embodiment of refinement, and I've gone about saying so. Now I +shall have to take it back. The idea of a lady sending a bath-robe to +a gentleman! What next, I wonder! What right has Mrs. Gibby to send +you a bath-robe? Don't prevaricate! Remember that the truth is the +only thing that can save you. Matters must have gone pretty far, when +a woman could send you anything so--intimate. What are you staring at +with that paper? You needn't hope to divert my mind by--" + +_Fountain_, giving her the paper in which the robe came: "Seems to be +for _Mrs._ Clarence Fountain." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, snatching it from him: "What! It is, it is! Oh, poor +dear Lilly! How can you ever forgive me? She saw me looking at it +to-day at Shumaker's, and it must have come into her head in despair +what else to get me. But it was a perfect inspiration--for it was just +what I was longing for. Why"--laughing hysterically while she holds up +the robe, and turns it this way and that--"I might have seen at a +glance that it wasn't a man's, with this lace on and this silk hood, +and"--she hurries into it, and pulls it forward, looking down at +either side--"it's just the right length, and if it was made for me it +couldn't fit me better. What a joke I _shall_ have with Lilly, when I +tell her about it. I sha'n't spare myself a bit!" + +_Fountain_: "Then I hope you'll spare me. I have some little delicacy +of feeling, and I don't like the notion of a lady's giving me a +bath-robe. It's--intimate. I don't know where you picked up your girl +friends." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, capering about joyfully: "Oh, how funny you are, +darling! But go on. I don't mind it, now. And you may be glad you've +got off so easily. Only now if there are any more bath-robes--" A +timid rap is heard at the door. "Come in, Maggie!" The door is slowly +set ajar, then flung suddenly wide open, and Jim and Susy in their +night-gowns rush dancing and exulting in. + + + IX + + JIM, SUSY, THE FOUNTAINS + +_Susy_: "We've caught you, we've caught you." + +_Jim_: "I just bet it was you, and now I've won, haven't I, mother?" + +_Susy_: "And I've won, too, haven't I, father?" Arrested at sight of +her father in the hooded bath-gown: "He does look like Santa Claus, +doesn't he, Jimmy? But the real Santa Claus would be all over snow, +and a long, white beard. You can't fool _us_!" + +_Jim_: "You can't fool _us_! We know you, we know you! And mother +dressed up, too! There isn't any Mrs. Santa Claus, and that proves +it!" + +_Mrs. Fountain_, severely: "Dreadful little things! Who said you might +come here? Go straight back to bed, this minute, or-- _Will_ you send +them back, Clarence, and not stand staring so? What are you thinking of?" + +_Fountain_, dreamily: "Nothing. Merely wondering what we shall do when +we've got rid of our superstitions. Shall we be the better for it, or +even the wiser?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "What put that question into your head? Christmas, I +suppose; and that's another reason for wishing there was no such +thing. If I had my way, there wouldn't be." + +_Jim_: "Oh, mother!" + +_Susy_: "No Christmas?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, not for disobedient children who get out of +bed and come in, spoiling everything. If you don't go straight back, +it will be the last time, Santa Claus or no Santa Claus." + +_Jim_: "And if we go right back?" + +_Susy_: "And promise not to come in any more?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, we'll see how you keep your promise. If you +don't, that's the end of Christmas in _this_ house." + +_Jim_: "It's a bargain, then! Come on, Susy!" + +_Susy_: "And we do it for you, mother. And for you, father. We just +came in for fun, anyway." + +_Jim_: "We just came for a surprise." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, kissing them both: "Well, then, if it was only for +fun, we'll excuse you this time. Run along, now, that's good children. +_Clarence!_" + + + X + + MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Fountain_: "Well?" He looks up at her from where he has dropped into +a chair beside the table strewn with opened and unopened gifts at the +foot of the Christmas tree. + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "What _are_ you mooning about?" + +_Fountain_: "What if it was all a fake? Those thousands and hundreds +of thousands of churches that pierce the clouds with their spires; +those millions of ministers and missionaries; those billions of +worshipers, sitting and standing and kneeling, and singing and +praying; those nuns and monks, and brotherhoods and sisterhoods, with +their ideals of self-denial, and their duties to the sick and poor; +those martyrs that died for the one true faith, and those other +martyrs of the other true faiths whom the one true faith tortured and +killed; those masses and sermons and ceremonies, what if they were all +a delusion, a mistake, a misunderstanding? What if it were all as +unlike the real thing, if there is any real thing, as this pagan +Christmas of ours is as unlike a Christian Christmas?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_, springing up: "I knew it! I knew that it was this +Christmas giving that was making you morbid again. Can't you shake it +off and be cheerful--like me? I'm sure I have to bear twice as much of +it as you have. I've been shopping the whole week, and you've been +just this one afternoon." She begins to catch her breath, and fails in +searching for her handkerchief in the folds of her dress under the +bath-robe. + +_Fountain_, offering his handkerchief: "Take mine." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, catching it from him, and hiding her face in it on +the table: "You ought to help me bear up, and instead of that you +fling yourself on my sympathies and break me down." Lifting her face: +"And if it was all a fake, as you say, and an illusion, what would you +do, what would you give people in place of it?" + +_Fountain_: "I don't know." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "What would you have in place of Christmas itself?" + +_Fountain_: "I don't know." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, then, I wouldn't set myself up to preach down +everything--in a blue bath-gown. You've no idea how ridiculous you +are." + +_Fountain_: "Oh, yes, I have. I can see you. You look like one of +those blue nuns in Rome. But I don't remember any lace on them." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, you don't look like a blue monk, you needn't +flatter yourself, for there are none. You look like-- What are you +thinking about?" + +_Fountain_: "Oh, nothing. What do you suppose is in all these packages +here? Useful things, that we need, that we must have? You know without +looking that it's the superfluity of naughtiness in one form or other. +And the givers of these gifts, they _had_ to give them, just as we've +had to give dozens of gifts ourselves. We ought to have put on our +cards, 'With the season's bitterest grudges,' 'In hopes of a return,' +'With a hopeless sense of the folly,' 'To pay a hateful debt,' 'With +impotent rage and despair.'" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "I don't deny it, Clarence. You're perfectly right; I +almost wish we _had_ put it. How it would have made them hop! But +they'd have known it was just the way they felt themselves." + +_Fountain_, going on thoughtfully: "It's the cap-sheaf of the social +barbarism we live in, the hideous hypocrisy. It's no use to put it on +religion. The Jews keep Christmas, too, and we know what they think of +Christianity as a belief. No, we've got to go further back, to the +Pagan Saturnalia-- Well, I renounce the whole affair, here and now. I'm +going to spend the rest of the night bundling these things up, and +to-morrow I'm going to spend the day in a taxi, going round and giving +them back to the fools that sent them." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "And I'm going with you. I hate it as much as you +do-- Come in, Maggie!" + + + XI + + MAGGIE, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Maggie_: "Something the elevator-boy says he forgot. It came along +with the last one." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, taking a bundle from her: "If this is another +bath-robe, Clarence! It _is_, as I live. Now if it is a woman sending +it--" She picks up a card which falls out of the robe as she unfolds +it. "'Love the Giver,' indeed! Now, Clarence, I insist, I demand--" + +_Fountain_: "Hold on, hold on, my dear. The last bath-robe that came +from a woman was for _you_." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "So it was. I don't know what I was thinking about; +and I do beg your par-- But this is a man's bath-robe!" + +_Fountain_, taking the card which she mechanically stretches out to +him: "And a man sends it--old Fellows. Can't you read print? Ambrose +J. Fellows, and a message in writing: 'It was a toss-up between this +and a cigar-case, and the bath-robe won. Hope you haven't got any +other thoughtful friends.'" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, very brilliant, giving me a start like this! I +shall let Mr. Fellows know-- What is it, Maggie? Open the door, +please." + +_Maggie_, opening: "It's just a District Messenger." + +_Fountain_, ironically: "Oh, only a District Messenger." He signs the +messenger's slip, while his wife receives from Maggie a bundle which +she regards with suspicion. + + + XII + + MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "'From Uncle Philip for Clarence.' Well, Uncle +Philip, if you have sent Clarence-- _Clarence!_" breaking into +a whimper: "It is, it is! It's another." + +_Fountain_: "Well, that only makes the seventh, and just enough for +every day in the week. It's quite my ideal. Now, if there's nothing +about a cigar-case-- Hello!" He feels in the pocket of the robe and +brings out a cigar-case, from which a slip of paper falls: "'Couldn't +make up my mind between them, so send both. Uncle Phil.' Well, this +is the last stroke of Christmas insanity." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "His brain simply reeled under it, and gave way. It +shows what Christmas really comes to with a man of strong intellect +like Uncle Phil." + +_Fountain_, opening the case: "Oh, I don't know! He's put some cigars +in here--in a lucid interval, probably. There's hope yet." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, in despair: "No, Clarence, there's no hope. Don't +flatter yourself. The only way is to bundle back all their presents +and never, never, never give or receive another one. Come! Let's begin +tying them up at once; it will take us the rest of the night." A knock +at the door. "Come, Maggie." + + + XIII + + JIM AND SUSY, MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Jim and Susy_, pushing in: "We can't sleep, mother. May we have a +pillow fight to keep us amused till we're drowsy?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_, desolately: "Yes, go and have your pillow fight. It +doesn't matter now. We're sending the presents all back, anyway." She +begins frantically wrapping some of the things up. + +_Susy_: "Oh, father, are you sending them back?" + +_Jim_: "She's just making believe. Isn't she, father?" + +_Fountain_: "Well, I'm not so sure of that. If she doesn't do it, I +will." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, desisting: "Will you go right back to bed?" + +_Jim and Susy_: "Yes, we will." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "And to sleep, instantly?" + +_Jim and Susy_, in succession: "We won't keep awake a minute longer." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Very well, then, we'll see. Now be off with you." As +they put their heads together and go out laughing: "And remember, if +you come here another single time, back go every one of the presents." + +_Fountain_: "As soon as ever Santa Claus can find a moment for it." + +_Jim_, derisively: "Oh, yes, Santa Claus!" + +_Susy_: "I guess if you wait for Santa Claus to take them back!" + + + XIV + + MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Tiresome little wretches. Of course we can't expect +them to keep up the self-deception." + +_Fountain_: "They'll grow to another. When they're men and women +they'll pretend that Christmas is delightful, and go round giving +people the presents that they've worn their lives out in buying and +getting together. And they'll work themselves up into the notion that +they are really enjoying it, when they know at the bottom of their +souls that they loathe the whole job." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "There you are with your pessimism again! And I had +just begun to feel cheerful about it!" + +_Fountain_: "Since when? Since I proposed sending this rubbish back to +the givers with our curse?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "No, I was thinking what fun it would be if we could +get up a sort of Christmas game, and do it just among relations and +intimate friends." + +_Fountain_: "Ah, I wish you luck of it. Then the thing would begin to +have some reality, and just as in proportion as people had the worst +feelings in giving the presents, their best feeling would be hurt in +getting them back." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Then why did you ever think of it?" + +_Fountain_: "To keep from going mad. Come, let's go on with this job +of sorting the presents, and putting them in the stockings and hanging +them up on the tree and laying them round the trunk of it. One thing: +it's for the last time. As soon as Christmas week is over, I shall +inaugurate an educational campaign against the whole Christmas +superstition. It must be extirpated root and branch, and the +extirpation must begin in the minds of the children; we old fools are +hopeless; we must die in it; but the children can be saved. We must +organize and make a house-to-house fight; and I'll begin in our own +house. To-morrow, as soon as the children have made themselves +thoroughly sick with candy and cake and midday dinner, I will appeal +to their reason, and get them to agree to drop it; to sign the +Anti-Christmas pledge; to--" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Clarence! I have an idea." + +_Fountain_: "Not a _bright_ one?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, a bright one, even if you didn't originate it. +Have Christmas confined entirely to children--to the very youngest--to +children that believe firmly in Santa Claus." + +_Fountain_: "Oh, hello! Wouldn't that leave Jim and Susy out? I +couldn't have _them_ left out." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "That's true. I didn't think of that. Well, say, to +children that either believe or _pretend_ to believe in him. What's +_that_?" She stops at a faint, soft sound on the door. "It's Maggie +with her hands so full she's pushing with her elbow. Come in, Maggie, +come in. _Come_ in! Don't you hear me? Come in, I say! Oh, it isn't +Maggie, of course! It's those worthless, worthless little wretches, +again." She runs to the door calling out, "Naughty, naughty, naughty!" +as she runs. Then, flinging the door wide, with a final cry of +"_Naughty_, I say!" she discovers a small figure on the threshold, +nightgowned to its feet, and looking up with a frightened, wistful +face. "Why, Benny!" She stoops down and catches the child in her arms, +and presses him tight to her neck, and bends over, covering his head +with kisses. "What in the world are you doing here, you poor little +lamb? Is mother's darling walking in his sleep? What did you want, my +pet? Tell mudda, do! Whisper it in mudda's big ear! Can't you tell +mudda? What? Whisper a little louder, love! We're not angry with you, +sweetness. Now, try to speak louder. Is that Santa Claus? No, dearest, +that's just dadda. Santa Claus hasn't come yet, but he will soon. +What? Say it again. _Is_ there any Santa Claus? Why, who else could +have brought all these presents? Presents for Benny and Jim and Susy +and mudda, and seven bath-gowns for dadda. Isn't that funny? Seven! +And one for mudda. What? I can't quite hear you, pet. Are we going to +send the presents back? Why, who ever heard of such a thing? Jim said +so? And Susy? Well, I will settle with them, when I come to them. You +don't want me to? Well, I won't, then, if Benny doesn't want mudda to. +I'll just give them a kiss apiece, pop in their big ears. What? You've +got something for Santa Claus to give them? What? Where? In your crib? +And shall we go and get it? For mudda too? And dadda? Oh, my little +angel!" She begins to cry over him, and to kiss him again. "You'll +break my heart with your loveliness. He wants to kiss you too, dadda." +She puts the boy into his father's arms; then catches him back and +runs from the room with him. Fountain resumes the work of filling the +long stocking he had begun with; then he takes up a very short sock. +He has that in his hand when Mrs. Fountain comes back, wiping her +eyes. "He'll go to sleep now, I guess; he was half dreaming when he +came in here. I should think, when you saw how Benny believed in it, +you'd be ashamed of saying a word against Christmas." + +_Fountain_: "Who's said anything against it? I've just been arguing +for it, and trying to convince you that for the sake of little +children like Benny it ought to be perpetuated to the end of the +world. It began with the childhood of the race, in the rejuvenescence +of the spirit." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Didn't you say that Christmas began with the +pagans? How monstrously you prevaricate!" + +_Fountain_: "That was merely a figure of speech. And besides, since +you've been out with Benny, I've been thinking, and I take back +everything I've said or thought against Christmas; I didn't really +think it. I've been going back in my mind to that first Christmas we +had together, and it's cheered me up wonderfully." + +_Mrs. Fountain_, tenderly: "Have you, dearest? I _always_ think of it. +If you could have seen Benny, how I left him, just now?" + +_Fountain_: "I shouldn't mind seeing him, and I shouldn't care if I +gave a glance at poor old Jim and Susy. I'd like to reassure them +about not sending back the presents." He puts his arm round her and +presses her toward the door. + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "How sweet you are! And how funny! And good!" She +accentuates each sentiment with a kiss. "And don't you suppose I felt +sorry for you, making you go round with me the whole afternoon, and +then leaving you to take the brunt of arranging the presents? Now I'll +tell you: _next_ year, I _will_ do my Christmas shopping in July. It's +the only way." + +_Fountain_: "No, there's a better way. As you were saying, they don't +have the Christmas things out. The only way is to do our Christmas +shopping the day after Christmas; everything will be round still, and +dog-cheap. Come, we'll begin day after to-morrow." + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "We will, we will!" + +_Fountain_: "Do you think we will?" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, we'll _say_ we will." They laugh together, and +then he kisses her. + +_Fountain_: "Even if it goes on in the same old way, as long as we +have each other--" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "And the children." + +_Fountain_: "I forgot the children!" + +_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, how delightful you are!" + + + THE END + + + + + BOOKS BY W. D. HOWELLS + + Annie Kilburn. 12mo. + April Hopes. 12mo. + Between the Dark and Daylight. New Edition. 12mo. + Boy Life. Illustrated. 12mo. + Boy's Town. Illustrated. Post 8vo. + Certain Delightful English Towns. Illustrated. 8vo. + Traveller's Edition, Leather. + Christmas Every Day, and Other Stories. Illustrated. 12mo. + Holiday Edition. Illustrated. 4to. + Coast of Bohemia. Illustrated. 12mo. + Criticism and Fiction. Portrait. 16mo. + Day of Their Wedding. Illustrated. 12mo. + Familiar Spanish Travels. Illustrated. 8vo. + Fennel and Rue. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. + Flight of Pony Baker. Post 8vo. + Hazard of New Fortunes. New Edition. 12mo. + Heroines of Fiction. Illustrated. 2 vols. 8vo. + Imaginary Interviews. 8vo. + Imperative Duty. 12mo. + Paper. + Impressions and Experiences. New Edition. 12mo. + Kentons. 12mo. + Landlord at Lion's Head. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. + Letters Home. 12mo. + Library of Universal Adventure. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth. + Three-quarter Calf. + Literary Friends and Acquaintance. Illustrated. 8vo. + Literature and Life. 8vo. + Little Swiss Sojourn. Illustrated. 32mo. + London Films. Illustrated. 8vo. + Traveller's Edition, Leather. + Miss Bellard's Inspiration. 12mo. + Modern Italian Poets. Illustrated. 12mo. + Mother and the Father. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. + Mouse-Trap, A Likely Story, The Garroters, Five-o'Clock Tea. + Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. + My Literary Passions. New Edition. 12mo. + My Mark Twain. Illustrated. 8vo. + My Year in a Log Cabin. Illustrated. 32mo. + Open-Eyed Conspiracy. 12mo. + Pair of Patient Lovers. 12mo. + Parting and a Meeting. Illustrated. Square 32mo. + Quality of Mercy. New Edition. 12mo. + Questionable Shapes. Ill'd. 12mo. + Ragged Lady. Illustrated. New Edition. 12mo. + Roman Holidays. Illustrated. 8vo. + Traveller's Edition, Leather. + Seven English Cities. Illustrated. 8vo. + Traveller's Edition, Leather. + Shadow of a Dream. 12mo. + Son of Royal Langbrith. 8vo. + Stops of Various Quills. Illustrated. 4to. + Limited Edition. + Story of a Play. 12mo. + The Daughter of the Storage. 8vo. + The Seen and Unseen at Stratford-on-Avon. Crown 8vo. + Their Silver Wedding Journey. Illustrated. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. + In 1 vol. New Edition. 12mo. + Through the Eye of a Needle. New Edition. 12mo. + Traveller from Altruria. New Edition. 12mo. + World of Chance. 12mo. + Years of My Youth. Crown 8vo. + + + FARCES: + + A Letter of Introduction. Illustrated. 32mo. + A Likely Story. Illustrated. 32mo. + A Previous Engagement. 32mo. + Paper. + Evening Dress. Illustrated. 32mo. + Five-o'Clock Tea. Illustrated. 32mo. + Parting Friends. Illustrated. 32mo. + The Albany Depot. Illustrated. 32mo. + The Garroters. Illustrated. 32mo. + The Mouse-Trap. Illustrated. 32mo. + The Unexpected Guests. Illustrated. 32mo. + + + HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Daughter of the Storage, by +William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30023 *** |