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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Asa Holmes + or At the Cross-Roads + +Author: Annie Fellows Johnston + +Illustrator: Ernest Fosbery + +Release Date: May 2, 2012 [EBook #39598] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASA HOLMES *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 392px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="392" height="600" alt="Cover: Asa Holmes" /> +</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + + + +<h1>Asa Holmes<br /> + +<span class='small'>or</span><br /> + +At the Cross-roads</h1><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='bbox'> + +<div class='center'><b>Works of</b><br /> + +<b><span class='bigger'>Annie Fellows Johnston</span></b></div> + + +<div class='center'><b>The Little Colonel Series</b><br /> + +(<i>Trade Mark, Reg. U. S. Pat. Of.</i>)<br /> + +Each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated<br /><br /></div> + + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Booklist"> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel Stories</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>(Containing in one volume the three stories, "The<br /> +Little Colonel," "The Giant Scissors," and<br /> +"Two Little Knights of Kentucky.")</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel's House Party</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel's Holidays</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel's Hero</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel at Boarding-School</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel in Arizona</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor</td><td align="right">1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The above 8 vols., <i>boxed</i></td><td align="right">12.00</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br /><b>Illustrated Holiday Editions</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>Each one vol., small quarto, cloth, illustrated, and printed in color</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel</td><td align="right">$1.25</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Giant Scissors</td><td align="right">1.25</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Two Little Knights of Kentucky</td><td align="right">1.25</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The above 3 vols., <i>boxed</i></td><td align="right">3.75</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br /><b>Cosy Corner Series</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>Each one vol., thin 12mo, cloth, illustrated</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Little Colonel</td><td align="right">$.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Giant Scissors</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Two Little Knights of Kentucky</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Big Brother</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Ole Mammy's Torment</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Story of Dago</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Cicely</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Aunt 'Liza's Hero</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Quilt that Jack Built</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Flip's "Islands of Providence"</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Mildred's Inheritance</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><b>Other Books</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Joel; A Boy of Galilee</td><td align="right">$1.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In the Desert of Waiting</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The Three Weavers</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Keeping Tryst</td><td align="right">.50</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Asa Holmes</td><td align="right">1.00</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Songs Ysame (Poems, with Albion Fellows Bacon)</td><td align="right">1.00</td></tr> +</table></div> +<div class='center'> +L. C. PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +200 Summer Street Boston, Mass.<br /> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4 ]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="350" height="500" alt="Asa Holmes" /> +</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> + +<div class='center'> <table class="title" summary="title"> +<tr><td align='left'><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + + + +<h1>Asa Holmes<br /> + +or<br /> + +At the Cross<i>=</i>Roads</h1> + +<div class='center'>By<br /> + +<span class='author'>Annie Fellows Johnston</span><br /> + +<span class='small'>Author of</span><br /> +<span class='small'>"The Little Colonel," "Two Little Knights</span><br /> +<span class='small'>of Kentucky," etc.</span><br /> +<br /> +With a Frontispiece by<br /> +<b>Ernest Fosbery</b><br /> +<br /><br /></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 82px;"> +<img src="images/emblem.png" width="82" height="100" alt="Emblem" /> +</div> + +<div class='center'><br /><br /> +Boston<br /> +<span class='big'>L.C. Page & Company</span><br /> +Publishers<br /> +</div> + + +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></td> +</tr></table></div> + +<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class='copyright'> +<i>Copyright, 1900, 1901</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">By E. S. Barnett</span><br /> +——————<br /> +<i>Copyright, 1902</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">By L. C. Page and Company</span><br /> +<br /> +(INCORPORATED)<br /> +——————<br /><br /> +<i>All rights reserved</i><br /> +<br /><br /><br /> +<i>Seventh Impression</i><br /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +Colonial Press<br /> +Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.<br /> +Boston, Mass., U. S. A.<br /> +</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class='center'> +TO<br /> +<br /> +<span class='big'><b>A Dear Old Philosopher</b></span><br /> +<br /> +WHOSE CHEERFUL OPTIMISM AND SUNNY FAITH HAVE<br /> +SWEETENED LIFE FOR ALL WHO KNOW HIM<br /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> + + +<h2>Asa Holmes<br /> + +or<br /> + +At the Cross-roads</h2> + + + + +<h2>Chapter I</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>THERE is no place where men +learn each other's little peculiarities +more thoroughly than in the +group usually to be found around the +stove in a country store. Such acquaintance +may be of slow growth, +like the oak's, but it is just as sure. +Each year is bound to add another ring +to one's knowledge of his neighbours +if he lounges with them, as man and +boy, through the Saturday afternoons +of a score of winters.</div> + +<p>A boy learns more there than he +can be taught in schools. It may be +he is only a tow-headed, freckle-faced +little fellow of eight when he rides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +over to the cross-roads store for the +first time by himself. Too timid to +push into the circle around the fire, he +stands shivering on the outskirts, looking +about him with the alertness of a +scared rabbit, until the storekeeper +fills his kerosene can and thrusts the +weekly mail into his red mittens. +Then some man covers him with +confusion by informing the crowd that +"that little chap is Perkins's oldest," +and he scurries away out of the embarrassing +focus of the public eye.</p> + +<p>But the next time he is sent on the +family errands he stays longer and +carries away more. Perched on the +counter, with his heels dangling over +a nail keg, while he waits for the belated +mail train, he hears for the first +time how the government ought to be +run, why it is that the country is going +to the dogs, and what will make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +hens lay in cold weather. Added to +this general information, he slowly +gathers the belief that these men +know everything in the world worth +knowing, and that their decisions on +any subject settle the matter for all +time.</p> + +<p>He may have cause to change his +opinion later on, when his sapling acquaintance +has gained larger girth; +when he has loafed with them, +smoked with them, swapped lies and +spun yarns, argued through a decade +of stormy election times, and talked +threadbare every subject under the sun. +But now, in his callow judgment, he +is listening to the wit and wisdom of +the nation. Now, as he looks around +the overflowing room, where butter +firkins crowd the calicoes and crockery, +and where hams and saddles swing +sociably from the same rafter, as far as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +his knowledge goes, this is the only +store in the universe.</p> + +<p>Some wonder rises in his childish +brain as he counts the boxes of axle-grease +and the rows of shining new +pitchforks, as to where all the people +live who are to use so many things. +He has yet to learn that this one little +store that is such a marvel to him is +only a drop in the bucket, and that he +may travel the width of the continent, +meeting at nearly every mile-post that +familiar mixture of odours—coal oil, +mackerel, roasted coffee, and pickle +brine. And a familiar group of men, +discussing the same old subjects in the +same old way, will greet him at every +such booth he passes on his pilgrimage +through Vanity Fair.</p> + +<p>Probably in after years Perkins's +oldest will never realise how much of +his early education has been acquired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +at that Saturday afternoon loafing-place, +but he will often find himself looking +at things with the same squint with +which he learned to view them +through 'Squire Dobbs's short-sighted +spectacles. Many a time he will find +that he has been unconsciously warped +by the prejudices he heard expressed +there, and that his opinions of life in +general and men in particular are the +outgrowth of those early conversations +which gave him the creed of his boyhood.</p> + +<p>"Them blamed Yankees!" exclaims +one of these neighbourhood orators, +tilting his chair back against the +counter, and taking a vicious bite at +his plug of tobacco. "They don't +know no better than to eat cold bread +the year 'round!" And the boy, accepting +the statement unquestioningly, +stores away in his memory not only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +the remark, but all the weighty emphasis +of disgust which accompanied +the remark in the spitting of a mouthful +of tobacco juice. Henceforth his +idea of the menu north of the Mason +and Dixon line is that it resembles the +bill of fare of a penitentiary, and he +feels that there is something coldblooded +and peculiar about a people +not brought up on a piping hot diet of +hoe-cake and beaten biscuit.</p> + +<p>In the same way the lad whose +opinions are being moulded in some +little corner grocery of a New England +village, or out where the roads cross on +the Western prairie, receives his prejudices. +It may be years before he finds +out for himself that the land of Boone +is not fenced with whiskey jugs and +feuds, and that the cap-sheaf on +every shock of wheat in its domain is +not a Winchester rifle.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<p>But these prejudices, popular at local +cross-roads, are only the side lines of +which every section carries its own +specialty. When it comes to staple +articles, dear to the American heart +and essential to its liberty and progress, +their standard of value is the same the +country over.</p> + +<p>One useful lesson the youthful +lounger may learn here, if he can +learn it anywhere, and that is to be a +shrewd reader of men and motives. +Since staple characteristics in human +nature are repeated everywhere, like +staple dry goods and groceries, a thorough +knowledge of the group around +the stove will be a useful guide to +Perkins's oldest in forming acquaintances +later in life.</p> + +<p>Long after he has left the little +hamlet and grown gray with the experiences +of the metropolis, he will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +run across some queer Dick whose +familiar personality puzzles him. As +he muses over his evening pipe, suddenly +out of the smoke wreaths will +spring the face of some old codger +who aired his wisdom in the village +store, and he will recognise the likeness +between the two as quickly as he +would between two cans of leaf lard +bearing the same brand.</p> + +<p>But Perkins's oldest is only in the +primer of his cross-roads curriculum +now, and these are some of the lessons +he is learning as he edges up to the +group around the fire. On the day +before Thanksgiving, for instance, he +was curled up on a box of soap behind +the chair of old Asa Holmes—Miller +Holmes everybody calls him, because +for nearly half a century his water-mill +ground out the grist of all that section +of country. He is retired now; gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +up his business to his grandsons. They +carry it on in another place with steam +and modern machinery, and he is laid +on the shelf. But he isn't a back +number, even if his old deserted mill +is. It is his boast that now he has +nothing else to do, he not only keeps +up with the times, but ahead of them.</p> + +<p>Everybody goes to him for advice; +everybody looks up to him as they do +to a hardy old forest tree that's lived +through all sorts of hurricanes, but has +stood to the last, sturdy of limb, and +sound to the core. He is as sweet and +mellow as a winter apple, ripened in +the sun, and that's why everybody likes +to have him around. You don't see +many old men like that. Their troubles +sour them.</p> + +<p>Well, this day before Thanksgiving +the old miller was in his usual place at +the store, and as usual it was he who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +was giving the cheerful turn to the +conversation. Some of the men were +feeling sore over the recent election; +some had not prospered as they had +hoped with their crops, and were experiencing +the pinch of hard times and +sickness in their homes. Still there +was a holiday feeling in the atmosphere. +Frequent calls for nutmeg, +and sage, and cinnamon, left the air +spicy with prophecies of the morrow's +dinner.</p> + +<p>The farmers had settled down for a +friendly talk, with the comfortable +sense that the crops were harvested, +the wood piled away for the winter, +and a snug, warm shelter provided for +the cattle. It was good to see the hard +lines relax in the weather-beaten faces, +in the warmth of that genial comradeship. +Even the gruffest were beginning +to thaw a little, when the door opened,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +and Bud Hines slouched in. The spirits +of the crowd went down ten degrees.</p> + +<p>Not that he said anything; only gave +a gloomy nod by way of greeting as he +dropped into a chair. But his whole +appearance said it for him; spoke in +the droop of his shoulders, and the +droop of his hat brim, and the droop +of his mouth at the corners. He +looked as if he might have sat for the +picture of the man in the "Biglow +Papers," when he said:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Sometimes my innard vane pints east for weeks together,<br /> +My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins<br /> +Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins."<br /> +</div> + +<p>The miller greeted him with the +twinkle in his eye that eighty years +and more have never been able to dim; +and Perkins's oldest had his first meeting +with the man who always finds a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +screw loose in everything. Nothing +was right with Bud Hines. One of +his horses had gone lame, and his best +heifer had foundered, and there was +rust in his wheat. He didn't have any +heart to keep Thanksgiving, and he +didn't see how anybody else could, +with the bottom dropped clean out of +the markets and the new road tax so +high. For his part he thought that +everything was on its last legs, and it +wouldn't be long till all the Powers +were at war, and prices would go up +till a poor man simply couldn't live.</p> + +<p>It was impossible not to be affected +more or less by his gloomy forebodings, +and the old miller, looking around +on the listening faces, saw them settling +back in their old discouraged lines. +Clasping his hands more firmly over +the top of his cane, he exclaimed: +"Now look here, Bud Hines, I'm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +going to give you a proverb that was +made on purpose for such a poor, weak-kneed +Mr. Ready-to-halt as you are: +'Never be discouraged, and never be a +discourager!' If you can't live up to +the first part, you certainly can to the +second. No matter how hard things +go with you, you've no right to run +around throwing cold water on other +people. What if your horse has gone +lame? You've got a span of mules +that can outpull my yoke of oxen +any day. One heifer oughtn't to send +a man into mourning the rest of his +days, and it would be more fitting to +be thankful over your good tobacco +crop than to groan over the failure of +your wheat. More fitting to the season. +As for the rest of the things +you're worrying over, why, man, they +haven't happened yet, and maybe never +will. My old grandad used to say to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +me when I was a lad, 'Never cross +your bridge till you come to it, Asa,' +and I've proved the wisdom of that +saying many a time. Suppose'n you +put that in your pipe and smoke it."</p> + +<p>If Perkins's oldest learns no other +lesson this year than to put those two +proverbs into practice, he will have +had a valuable education. How many +Thanksgivings they will help to make +for him! How many problems and +perplexities they will solve!</p> + +<p>"Never be discouraged; never be a +discourager! Don't cross your bridge +until you come to it!" It is a philosophy +that will do away with half the +ills which flesh imagines it is heir to.</p> + +<p>Thanksgiving Day! How much +more it means to the old miller than +to the little fellow beside him on the +soap box! To the child it is only a +feast day; to the old man it is a festival<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +that links him to a lifetime of sacred +memories.</p> + +<p>"Five and eighty years," he says, musingly, +resting his chin on the wrinkled +hands that clasp the head of his cane. +A silence falls on the group around the +stove, and through the cracked door +the red firelight shines out on thoughtful +faces.</p> + +<p>"It's a long time; five and eighty +years," he repeats, "and every one of +them crowned with a Thanksgiving. +Boys," lifting his head and looking +around him, "you've got a good bit +of pike to travel over yet before you +get as far as I've gone, and some of you +are already half fagged out and beginning +to wonder if it's all worth while—Bud, +here, for instance. I'd like to +give you all a word of encouragement.</p> + +<p>"Looking back, I can see that I've +had as many ups and downs as any of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +you, and more than your share of work +and trouble, for I've lived longer, and +nearly all the years are marked with +graves. Seems to me that lately I've +had to leave a new grave behind me at +every mile-stone, till now I'm jogging +on all alone. Family gone, old neighbours +gone, old friends—I'm the last +of the old set. But, still, when all is +said and done, I haven't lost heart, for +'I've lived, seen God's hand through a +lifetime, and all was for best.'</p> + +<p>"When I was milling down there on +Bear Creek you'd 'a' thought I was a +fool if I hadn't taken my rightful toll +out of every bushel of grist that ran +through my hopper, and sometimes I +think that the Almighty must feel that +way about us when we go on grinding +and grinding, and never stopping to count +up our share of the profit and pleasure +and be thankful over it. I believe that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +no matter what life pours into our hopper, +we are to grind some toll of good +out of it for ourselves, and as long as a +man does his part toward producing +something for the world's good, some +kind of bread for its various needs, he +will never go hungry himself.</p> + +<p>"And I believe more than that. +You've heard people compare old age +to a harvest field, and talk about the +autumn of life with its ripened corn +waiting for the reaper Death, and all +that, and speak about the 'harvest +home,' as if it were the glorious end +of everything. But it never did strike +me that way, boys. The best comes +after the harvesting, when the wheat +is turned into flour and the flour into +bread, and the full, wholesome loaves go +to make up blood and muscle and brain. +That's giving it a sort of immortality, +you might say, raising it into a higher<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +order of life. And it's the same with +a man. His old age is just a ripening +for something better a little further on. +All that we go through with here isn't +for nothing, and at eighty-five, when +it looks as if a man had come to the +stepping-off place, I've come to believe +that 'the best is yet to be.'"</p> + +<p>There is a stir around the door, and +the old miller looks around inquiringly. +The mail has come in, and he rises +slowly to get his weekly paper. Perkins's +oldest, waiting his turn in front +of the little case of pigeonholes, eyes +the old man with wondering side +glances. He has not understood more +than half of what he has heard, but he +is vaguely conscious that something is +speaking to him now, as he looks into +the tranquil old face. It is the miller's +past that is calling to him; all those +honest, hard-working years that show<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +themselves in the bent form and +wrinkled hands; the serene peacefulness +that bespeaks a clear conscience; +the big, sunny nature that looks out +of those aged eyes; and above all the +great hopefulness that makes his days a +perpetual Thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>The mute eloquence of an unspoken +invitation thrills the child's heart, he +knows not why:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Grow old along with me;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The best is yet to be!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>It is the greatest lesson that Perkins's +oldest can ever learn.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter II</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>ONE would have known that it +was the day before Christmas +at the Cross-Roads store, even +if the big life insurance calendar over +the desk had not proclaimed the fact +in bold red figures. An unwonted +bustle pervaded the place. Rows of +plump, dressed turkeys hung outside +the door, and on the end of the counter +where the pyramid of canned tomatoes +was usually stacked, a little +evergreen tree stood in a brave array +of tinsel and tiny Christmas tapers.</div> + +<p>It was only an advertisement. No +one might hope to be the proud possessor +of the Noah's ark lodged in its +branches, or of the cheap toys and +candy rings dangling from every limb, +unless he had the necessary pennies.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +Still, every child who passed it eyed it +with such wistful glances that the little +rubber Santa Claus at the base must +have felt his elastic heart stretch almost +to bursting.</p> + +<p>Above the familiar odour of coal-oil +and mackerel, new leather, roasted +coffee and pickle brine, rose the holiday +fragrance of cedar and oranges.</p> + +<p>"Makes me think of when I was a +kid," said a drummer who had been +joking with the men around the stove, +trying to kill time while he waited for +the train that was to take him home +for Christmas. "There's nothing like +that smell of cedar and oranges to resurrect +the boy in a man. It puts me +straight back into knickerbockers again, +among a whole grove of early Christmas +trees. I'll never forget the way I +felt when I picked my first pair of +skates off one of them. A house and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +lot wouldn't give me such a thrill +now."</p> + +<p>"Aw, I don't believe Christmas is at +all what it's cracked up to be," said a +voice from behind the stove, in such +a gloomy tone that a knowing smile +passed around the circle.</p> + +<p>"Bet on you, Bud Hines, for findin' +trouble, every time," laughed the storekeeper. +"Why, Bud, there ain't no +screw loose in Christmas, is there?"</p> + +<p>"Well, there just is!" snapped the +man, resenting the laugh. "It comes +too often for one thing. I just wish +it had happened on leap-year, the +twenty-ninth of February. It would +be a heap less expensive having it just +once in four years. Seems to me we're +always treading on its heels. My old +woman hardly gets done knitting tidies +for one Christmas till she's hard at it +for another.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Anyhow, Christmas never measures +up to what you think it's a-going +to—not by a jug-full. Sure as you +get your heart set on a patent nail-puller +or a pair of fur gloves—something +that'll do <i>you</i> some good—your +wife gives you a carpet sweeper, or +an alarm-clock that rattles you out an +hour too early every morning."</p> + +<p>The drummer led the uproarious +laughter that followed. They were +ready to laugh at anything in this season +of good cheer, and the drummer's +vociferous merriment was irresistible. +He slapped the speaker on the back, +adding jokingly, "That's one thing +Job never had to put up, did he, partner! +He nearly lost his reputation for +politeness over the misfit advice he +didn't want. But there's no telling +what he'd have done with misfit Christmas +gifts. It would take a star actor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +to play the grateful for some of the +things people find in their stockings. +For instance, to have a fond female +relative give you a shaving outfit, when +you wear a full beard."</p> + +<p>"You bet your life," answered the +storekeeper feelingly. "Now, if Santa +Claus wasn't a fake—"</p> + +<p>"Hist!" said the drummer, with a +significant glance toward a small boy, +perched on a soap-box in their midst, +listening open-mouthed to every word. +"I've children myself, and I'd punch +anybody's head who would shake their +faith in Santy. It's one of the rosy +backgrounds of childhood, in my opinion, +and I've got a heap of happiness +out of it since I was a kid, too, looking +back and recollecting."</p> + +<p>It was very little happiness that the +boy on the soap-box was getting out +of anything, that gray December afternoon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +He was weighed down with a +feeling of age and responsibility that +bore heavily on his eight-year-old +shoulders. He had long felt the strain +of his position, as pattern to the house +of Perkins, being the oldest of five. +Now there was another one, and to be +counted as the oldest of six pushed +him almost to the verge of gray hairs.</p> + +<p>There was another reason for his +tear-stained face. He had been disillusioned. +Only that noon, his own +mother had done that for which the +drummer would have punched any +one's head, had it been done to his +children. "We're too poor, Sammy. +There can't be any Christmas at our +house this year," she had said, fretfully, +as she stopped the noisy driving of +nails into the chimney, on which he +contemplated hanging the fraternal +stockings. To his astonished "Why?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +she had replied with a few blunt truths +that sent him out from her presence, +shorn of all his childish hopefulness as +completely as Samson was shorn of his +strength.</p> + +<p>There had been a sorry half-hour in +the hay-mow, where he snuffled over +his shattered faith alone, and from +whence he went out, a hardened little +skeptic, to readjust himself to a cold +and Santa Clausless world. The only +glimmer of comfort he had had since +was when the drummer, with a friendly +wink, slipped a nickel into his hand. +But even that added to his weight of +responsibility. He dropped it back +and forth from one little red mitten to +another, with two impulses strong upon +him. The first was to spend it for six +striped sticks of peppermint candy, one +for each stocking, and thus compel +Christmas to come to the house of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +Perkins. The other was to buy one +orange and go off in a corner and suck +it all by himself. He felt that fate +owed him that much of a reparation +for his disappointment. He was in +the midst of this inward debate when +a new voice joined the discussion +around the stove. It came from Cy +Akers.</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>I</i> think it's downright sinful +to stuff a child with such notions. +You may call 'em fairy-tales all you +like, but it's nothing more or less than +a pack of lies. The idea of a Christian +payrent sitting up and telling his immortal +child that a big fat man in +furs will drive through the air to-night +in a reindeer sleigh right over the roofs +and squeeze himself down a lot of +sooty chimneys, with a bag of gimcracks +on his back—it's all fol-de-rol! +I never could see how any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +intelligent young one could believe it. +I never did. But that's one thing about +me, as the poet says, 'If I've one pecooliar +feature it's a nose that won't be +led.' I never could be made to take +stock in any such nonsense, even as a +boy. I'll leave it to Mr. Asa Holmes, +here, if it isn't wrong to be putting +such ideas into the youth of our land."</p> + +<p>The old miller ran his fingers through +his short white hair and looked around. +His smile was wholesome as it was +genial. He was used to being called +in judgment on these neighbourhood +discussions, and he spoke with the air +of one who felt that his words carried +weight:</p> + +<p>"You're putting it pretty strong, Cy," +he said, with a laugh, and then a tender, +reminiscent light gleamed in his old +eyes.</p> + +<p>"You see it's this way with me,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +boys. We never heard any of these +things when I was a lad. It's plain +facts in a pioneer cabin, you know. +Father taught us about Christmas in +the plain words that he found set down +in the Gospels, and I told it the same +way to my boys. When my first little +grandson came back to the old house +to spend Christmas, I thought it was +almost heathenish for his mother to +have him send letters up the chimney +and talk as if Santa Claus was some +real person. I told her so one day, +and asked what was going to happen +when the little fellow outgrew such +beliefs.</p> + +<p>"'Why, Father Holmes,' said she,—I +can hear her now, words and tones, +for it set me to thinking,—'don't you +see that he is all the time growing into +a broader belief? It's this way.' She +picked up a big apple from the table.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +'Once this apple was only a tiny seed-pod +in the heart of a pink blossom. +The beauty of the blossom was all that +the world saw, at first, but gradually, +as the fruit swelled and developed, the +pink petals fell off, naturally and easily, +and the growing fruit was left. My +little son's idea of Christmas is in the +blossom time now. This rosy glamour +of old customs and traditions that +makes it so beautiful to him is taking +the part of the pink petals. They will +fall away by and by, of their own accord, +for underneath a beautiful truth +is beginning to swell to fruitage. Santa +Claus is the Spirit of Christmas love +and giving, personified. It is because +I want to make it real and vital, something +that my baby's mind can grasp +and enjoy, that I incarnate it in the +form of the good old Saint Nicholas, +but I never let him lose sight of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +Star. It was the Spirit of Christmas +that started the wise men on their +search, and they followed the Star and +they found the Child, and laid gifts at +his feet. And when the Child was +grown, he, too, went out in the world +and followed the Star and scattered his +gifts of love and healing for all the +children of men. And so it has gone +on ever since, that Spirit of Christmas, +impelling us to follow and to find and +to give, wherever there is a need for +our gold and frankincense and myrrh. +That is the larger belief my boy is +growing into, from the smaller.'</p> + +<p>"And she is right," said the old +man, after an impressive pause. "She +raised that boy to be an own brother +to Santa Claus, as far as good-will to +men goes. It's Christmas all the year +round wherever <i>he</i> is. And now when +he brings his boys back to the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +home and hangs their stockings up by +the fire, I never say a word. Sometimes +when the little chaps are hunting +for the marks of the reindeer hoofs +in the ashes, I kneel down on the old +hearthstone and hunt, too.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"A brother to Santa Claus!" The +phrase still echoed in the heart of +Perkins's oldest when the group around +the stove dispersed. It was that which +decided the fate of the nickel, and +filled the little red mittens with sticks +of striped delight for six, instead of the +lone orange for one. Out of a conversation +but dimly understood he had +gathered a vague comfort. It made +less difference that his patron saint was +a myth, since he had learned there +might be brothers in the Claus family +for him to fall back upon. Then his +fingers closed over the paper bag of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +peppermints, and, suddenly, with a little +thrill, he felt that in some queer way +he belonged to that same brotherhood.</p> + +<p>As he fumbled at the latch, the old +miller, who always saw his own boyhood +rise before him in that small +tow-headed figure, and who somehow +had divined the cause of the tear-streaks +on the dirty little face, called +him. "Here, sonny!" It was a pair +of shining new skates that dangled +from the miller's hands into his.</p> + +<p>One look of rapturous delight, and +two little feet were flying homeward +down the frozen pike, beating time to +a joy that only the overflowing heart +of a child can know, when its troubles +are all healed, and faith in mankind +restored. And the old man, going +home in the frosty twilight of the +Christmas eve, saw before him all the +way the light of a shining star.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter III</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>IT was an hour past the usual time +for closing the Cross-Roads store, +but no one made a move to go. +Listening in the comfortable glow of +the red-hot stove, to the wind whistling +down the long pipe, was far pleasanter +than facing its icy blasts on the +way home. Besides, it was the last +night of the old year, and hints of +forthcoming cider had been dropped +by Jim Bowser, the storekeeper. Also +an odour of frying doughnuts came +in from the kitchen, whenever Mrs. +Bowser opened the door into the +entry.</div> + +<p>Added to the usual group of loungers +was the drummer who had spent +Christmas eve with them. He had +come in on an accommodation train,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +and was waiting for the midnight express. +He had had the floor for some +time with his stories, when suddenly +in the midst of the laughter which +followed one of his jokes, Bud Hines +made himself heard.</p> + +<p>"I say, Jim," he exclaimed, turning +to the storekeeper, "why don't you +tear off the last leaf of that calendar? +We've come to the end of everything +now; end of the day, end of the year, +end of the century! Something none +of <i>us</i> will ever experience again. It's +always a mighty solemn thought to me +that I'm doing a thing for the la-ast +time!"</p> + +<p>Jim laughed cheerfully, tilting his +chair back against the counter, and +thrusting his thumbs into the armholes +of his vest.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I feel any call to +mourn over takin' down an old calendar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +when I have a prettier one to +put in its place, and it's the same way +with the century. There'll be a better +one to begin on in the morning."</p> + +<p>"That's so," asserted Cy Akers. +"But some people come bang up +against a New Year as if it was a stone +wall, and down they set and count up +their sins, and turn over new leaves, +and load 'emselves down with so many +good resolutions that they stick in the +mud by the end of the first week. +Now I hold that if it wasn't for the +almanacs, steppin' from one year to +another, or from one century to another, +wouldn't jar you no more than +steppin' over the equator. They're +only imaginary lines, and nobody would +ever know where he was at, either in +months or meridians, if he didn't have +almanacs and the like to keep him +posted. Fourth of July is just as good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +a time to take stock and turn over a +new leaf as the first of January."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you take stock like a man +I used to sell to down in Henderson +County," said the drummer. "He +never kept any books, so he never +knew exactly where he was 'at,' as you +say. Once a year he'd walk around +the store with his hands in his pockets, +and size up things in a general sort of +way. 'Bill,' he'd say to his clerk, +cocking his eyes up at the shelves, +'we've got a right smart chance of +canned goods left over. I reckon +there's a half shelf full more than we +had left last year. I know there's +more bottles of ketchup.' Then he'd +take another turn around the room. +'Bill, I disremember how many pitchforks +we had in this rack. There's +only two left now. Nearly all the +calico is sold, and (thumping the molasses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +barrel), this here bar'l sounds like +it's purty nigh empty. Take it all +around, Bill, we've done first-rate this +year, so I don't know as it's worth +while botherin' about weighin' and +measurin' what's left over, so long as +we're satisfied.' And maybe that's why +Cy makes so little of New Year," +added the drummer, with a sly wink +at the others. "He thinks it's not +worth while to weigh and measure his +shortcomings when he can take stock +of himself in a general sort of a way, +and always be perfectly satisfied with +himself."</p> + +<p>There was a laugh at Cy's expense, +and Bud Hines began again.</p> + +<p>"What worries me is, what's been +prophesied about the new century. +One would think we've had enough +famines and plagues and wars and +rumours of wars in this here old one to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +do for awhile, but from what folks say, +it ain't goin' to hold a candle to the +trouble we'll see in the next one."</p> + +<p>"Troubles is seasonin'. ''Simmons +ain't good till they are frostbit,'" quoted +Cy.</p> + +<p>"Then accordin' to Bud's tell, he +ought to be the best seasoned persimmon +on the bough," chuckled the +storekeeper.</p> + +<p>"No, that fellow that was here this +afternoon goes ahead of Bud," insisted +Cy, turning to the drummer. "I wish +you could have heard him, pardner. +He came in to get a postal order for +some money he wanted to send in a +letter, and he nearly wiped up the earth +with poor old Bowser, because there +was a two-cent war tax to pay on it.</p> + +<p>"'Whose war?' says he. ''Tain't +none of <i>my</i> makin',' says he, 'and I'll +be switched if I'll pay taxes on a thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +I've been dead set against from the +start. It's highway robbery,' says he, +'to load the country down with a war +debt in times like these. It's kill +yourself to keep yourself these days, +and as my Uncle Josh used to say after +the Mexican war, "it's tough luck +when people are savin' and scrimpin' +at the spigot for the government to be +drawin' off at the bung."'</p> + +<p>"Bowser here just looked him over +as if he'd been a freak at a side-show, +and said Bowser, in a dry sort of way, +he guessed, 'when it came to the pinch, +the spigot wouldn't feel that a two-cent +stamp was a killin' big leakage.'</p> + +<p>"The fellow at that threw the coppers +down on the counter, mad as a +hornet. 'It's the principle of the +thing,' says he. 'Uncle Sam had no +business to bite off more'n he could +chew and then call on me to help.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +What's the war done for this country, +anyhow?'</p> + +<p>"He was swinging his arms like a +stump speaker at a barbecue, by this +time. 'What's it done?' says he. +'Why it's sent the soldiers back from +Cuba with an itch as bad as the smallpox, +and as ketchin' to them citizens +that wanted peace, as to them that +clamoured for war. I know what I'm +talkin' about, for my hired man like to +'uv died with it, and he hadn't favoured +the war any more than a spring lamb. +And what's it doin' for us, now?' says +he. 'Sendin' the poor fellows back +from the Philippines by the ship-load, +crazy as June-bugs. I know what I'm +talkin' about. That happened to one +of my wife's cousins. What was it +ever begun for,' says he, 'tell me +that!'</p> + +<p>"Peck here, behind the stove, sung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +out like a fog-horn, '<i>Remember the +Maine!</i>' Peck knew what a blow the +fellow had made at an indignation +meeting when the news first came. +No tellin' what would have happened +then if a little darky hadn't put his +head in at the door and yelled, 'Say, +mistah, yo' mules is done backed yo' +wagon in de ditch!' He tore out to +tend to them, or we might have had +another Spanish war right here among +Bowser's goods and chattels."</p> + +<p>"No danger," said Peck, dryly, +"he isn't the kind of a fellow to fight +for principle. It's only when his +pocketbook is touched he wants to +lick somebody. He's the stingiest man +I ever knew, and I've known some +mighty mean men in my time."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you all to-night?" +said the drummer. "You're +the most pessimistic crowd I've struck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +in an age. This is the tune you've +been giving me from the minute I +lifted the latch." And beating time +with foot and hands in old plantation +style, the drummer began forthwith to +sing in a deep bass voice that wakened +the little Bowsers above:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"Ole Satan is loose an' a-bummin'!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">De wheels er distruckshin is a-hummin.'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Oh, come 'long, sinner, ef you comin'!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>The door into the entry opened a +crack and Mrs. Bowser's forefinger +beckoned.</p> + +<p>"Here's good-bye to the old and +good luck to the new," cried Jim, +jumping up to take the big pitcher of +cider that she passed through the opening.</p> + +<p>"And here's to Mrs. Bowser," cried +the drummer, taking the new tin cup +filled for him with the sparkling cider,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +and helping himself to a hot doughnut +from the huge panful which she +brought in. "It's a pretty good sort +of world, after all, that gives you cakes +as crisp and sugary as these. 'Speak +well of the bridge that carries you +over' is my motto, so don't let another +fellow cheep to-night, unless he can +say something good of the poor old +century or the men who've lived in +it!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Holmes! Mr. Asa Holmes!" +cried several voices.</p> + +<p>The old miller, who had been silent +all evening, straightened himself up in +his chair and drew his hand over his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"I feel as if I were parting with an +old comrade, to-night," he said. "The +century had only fifteen years the start +of me, and it's a long way we've travelled +together. I've been sitting here,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +thinking how much we've lived +through. Listen, boys."</p> + +<p>It was a brief series of pictures he +drew for them, against the background +of his early pioneer days. They saw +him, a little lad, trudging more than +a mile on a winter morning to borrow +a kettle of hot coals, because the fire +had gone out on his own hearthstone, +and it was before the days of matches. +They saw him huddled with the other +little ones around his mother's knee +when the wolves howled in the night +outside the door, and only the light +of a tallow-dip flickered through the +darkness of the little cabin. They saw +the struggle of a strong life against +the limitations of the wilderness, and +realised what the battle must have been +oftentimes, against sudden disease and +accident and death, with the nearest +doctor a three days' journey distant, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +no smoke from any neighbour's chimney +rising anywhere on all the wide +horizon.</p> + +<p>While he talked, a heavy freight +train rumbled by outside; the wind +whistled through the telegraph wires. +The jingle of a telephone bell interrupted +his reminiscences. The old +man looked up with a smile. "See +what we have come to," he said, "from +such a past to a time when I can say +'hello,' across a continent. Cables and +cross-ties and telegraph poles have annihilated +distance. The century and I +came in on an ox-cart; we are going +out on a streak of lightning.</p> + +<p>"But that's not the greatest thing," +he said, pausing, while the listening +faces grew still more thoughtful. +"Think of the hospitals! The homes! +The universities! The social settlements! +The free libraries! The humane<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +efforts everywhere to give humanity +an uplift! When I think of all this +century has accomplished, of the heroic +lives it has produced, I haven't a word +to say about its mistakes and failures. +After all, how do we know that the +things we cry out against <i>are</i> mistakes?</p> + +<p>"This war may be a Samson's riddle +that we are not wise enough to read. +Those who shall come after us may be +able to say '<i>Out of the eater came forth +meat, and out of the strong came forth +sweetness!</i>'"</p> + +<p>Somewhere in an upper room a clock +struck twelve, and deep silence fell on +the little company as they waited for +the solemn passing of the century. It +was no going out as of some decrepit +Lear tottering from his throne. Perhaps +no man there could have put it in +words, but each one felt that its majestic +leave-taking was like the hoary old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +apostle's: "I have fought a good fight, +I have finished my course, I have kept +the faith."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter IV</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>FOR some occult reason, the successful +merchant in small towns +and villages is the confidant, if +not father-confessor, of a large number +of his patronesses. It may be that his +flattering air of personal interest, assumed +for purely business purposes, +loosens not only the purse-strings but +the spring that works the panorama +of private affairs. Or it may be an +idiosyncrasy of some classes of the +mind feminine, to make no distinction +between a bargain counter and a +confessional. Whatever the cause, +many an honest merchant can testify +that it is no uncommon thing for a +woman to air her domestic troubles +while she buys a skirt braid, or to +drag out her family skeleton with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +sample of sewing silk she wishes to +match.</div> + +<p>The Cross-Roads had had its share +of confidences, although as a rule the +women who disposed of their butter +and eggs in trade to Bowser were of +the patient sort, grown silent under +the repressing influence of secluded +farm life. Still, Bowser, quick to see +and keen to judge, had gained a remarkable +insight into neighbourhood +affairs in fifteen years' dealings with his +public. "All things come to him who +waits" if he wears an air of habitual +interest and has a sympathetic way of +saying "Ah! indeed!"</p> + +<p>It was with almost the certainty of +foreknowledge that Bowser counted +his probable patrons as he spread out his +valentines on the morning of the fourteenth +of February. He had selected +his comic ones with a view to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +feud that existed between the Hillock +and Bond families, well knowing +that a heavy cross-fire of ugly caricatures +and insulting rhymes would be +kept up all day by the younger members +of those warring households. It +was with professional satisfaction he +smiled over the picture of a fat man +with a donkey's head, which he was +as sure would be sent by Pete Hillock +to old man Bond, as if he had heard +Pete's penny dropping into the cash-drawer.</p> + +<p>"Nothing like supplying the demand," +he chuckled.</p> + +<p>It was with more than professional +interest that he arranged the lace-paper +valentines in the show-case, for the +little embossed Cupids had a strong +ally in this rustic haberdasher, whose +match-making propensities had helped +many a little romance to a happy issue.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +Drawing on his fund of private information, +acquired in his rôle of confidant +to the neighbourhood gossips, he +set out his stock of plump red hearts, +forget-me-nots, and doves; and with +each addition to the festal array he +nodded his head knowingly over the +particular courtship it was designed to +speed, or the lovers' quarrel that he +hoped might be ended thereby.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>There had been two weeks of "February +thaw." Melting snow had made +the mud hub-deep in places. There +was a velvety balminess in the touch +of the warm wind, and faint, elusive +odours, prophetic of spring, rose from +the moist earth and sap-quickened trees.</p> + +<p>The door of the Cross-Road store +stood open, and behind it, at the post-office +desk, sat Marion Holmes, the +old miller's granddaughter. Just out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +of college and just into society, she had +come to spend Lent in the old place +that had welcomed her every summer +during her childhood. The group +around the stove stared covertly at the +pretty girl in the tailor-made gown, +failing to recognise in the tall, stylish +figure any trace of the miller's "little +Polly," who used to dangle her feet +from the counter and munch peppermint +drops, while she lisped nursery +rhymes for their edification.</p> + +<p>She had come for the letters herself, +she told Bowser, because she was expecting +a whole bag full, and her +grandfather's rheumatism kept him at +home. Installed in the post-office +chair, behind the railing that enclosed +the sanctum of pigeon-holes, she amused +herself by watching the customers while +she waited for the mail-train.</p> + +<p>"It's like looking into a kaleidoscope,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +she told Bowser in one of the +pauses of trade. "Every one who +comes in gives me a different point +of view and combination of opinions. +Now, those valentines! I was thinking +what old-fashioned things those +little lace-paper affairs are, and wondering +how anybody could possibly get +up any thrills over them, when in +walked Miss Anastasia Dill. Prim and +gentle as ever, isn't she? Still getting +her styles from <i>Godey's Lady's Books</i> of +the early sixties; she must draw on +their antiquated love stories for her +sentiment, too, for she seemed lost in +admiration of those hearts and darts. +What <i>do</i> you suppose is Miss Anastasia's +idea of a lover?"</p> + +<p>Marion rattled on with all of a débutante's +reckless enthusiasm for any +subject under discussion. "Wouldn't +he be as odd and old-fashioned as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +lace valentines themselves? She'd call +him a <i>suitor</i>, wouldn't she? I wonder +if she ever had one."</p> + +<p>Then Bowser, piecing together the +fragmentary gossip of fifteen years, told +Marion all he knew of Miss Anastasia's +gentle romance; and Marion, idly +clasping and unclasping the little Yale +pin on her jacket, gained another peep +into the kaleidoscope of human experiences.</p> + +<p>"I have read of such devotion to a +memory," she said when the story was +done, "but I never met it in the flesh. +What a pity he died while he was on +such a high pedestal in her imagination. +If he had lived she would have +discovered that there are no such paragons, +and all the other sons of Adam +needn't have suffered by comparison. +So she's an old maid simply because +she put her ideal of a lover so high in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +the clouds nobody could live up to it! +Dear old Miss Anastasia!"</p> + +<p>Bowser pulled his beard. "Such +couples make me think of these here +lamps with double wicks," he said. +"They hardly ever burn along together +evenly. One wick is sure to flare up +higher than the other; you either have +to keep turning it down and get along +with a half light or let it smoke the +chimney—maybe crack it—and make +things generally uncomfortable. But +here comes somebody, Miss Marion, +who's burned along pretty steady, and +that through three administrations. It's +her brag that she's had three husbands +and treated them just alike, even to the +matter of tombstones. 'Not a pound +difference in the weight nor a dollar in +the price,' she always says."</p> + +<p>The newcomer was a fat, wheezy +woman, spattered with mud from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +hem of her skirt to the crown of her +big crape bonnet, which had tipped +on one side with the jolting of the +wagon.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jim Bowser!" she exclaimed, +catching sight of the valentines. +"Ef you ain't got out them +silly, sentimental fol-de-rols again! My +nephew, Jason Potter,—that's my second +husband's sister's son, you know,—spent +seventy-five cents last year to buy +one of them silly things to send to his +girl; and I says to him, 'Jason,' says I, +'ef <i>I'd</i> been Lib Meadows, that would +'uv cooked your goose with <i>me!</i> Any +man simple enough to waste his substance +so, wouldn't make a good provider.' +I ought to know—I've been +a wife three times."</p> + +<p>This, like all other of Mrs. Power's +conversational roads, led back to the +three tombstones, and started a flow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +of good-natured badinage on the subject +of matrimony, which continued +long after she had taken her noisy +departure. "Well!" exclaimed Bud +Hines, as the big crape bonnet went +jolting down the road, "I guess there's +three good men gone that could tell +why heaven is heaven."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Cy Akers.</p> + +<p>"Because there's no marryin' or +givin' in marriage there."</p> + +<p>"Bud speaks feelingly!" said Cy, +winking at the others. "He'd better +get a job on a newspaper to write Side +Talks with Henpecked Husbands."</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't think <i>you'd</i> want to hear +any extrys or supplements," retorted +Bud. "You get enough in your own +daily editions."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"St. Valentine has been generous +with my little Polly," said the old miller,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +looking up fondly at the tall, graceful +girl, coming into his room, her face +aglow and her arms full of packages.</p> + +<p>"But what's the good of it all, +grandfather?" answered Marion. "I've +been looking into Cupid's kaleidoscope +through other people's eyes this afternoon, +and nothing is rose-coloured +as I thought. Everything is horrid. +'Marriage is a failure,' and sentiment +is a silly thing that people make flippant +jokes about, or else break their +hearts with, like Mr. Bowser's double-wick +lamps, that flare up and crack +their chimneys. I've come to the conclusion +that St. Valentine has outlived +his generation."</p> + +<p>She broke the string which bound +one of the boxes that she had dropped +on the table, and took out a great dewy +bunch of sweet violets. As their fragrance +filled the room, the old man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +looked around as if half expecting to +see some familiar presence; then +dropped his white head with a sigh, +and gazed into the embers on the +hearth, lost in a tender reverie.</p> + +<p>Presently he said, "I wish you would +hand me that box on my wardrobe +shelf, little girl." As Marion opened +the wardrobe door, something hanging +there made her give a little start of +surprise. It was an old familiar gray +dress, with the creases still in the bent +sleeves just as they had been left when +the tired arms last slipped out of them. +That was ten years ago; and Marion, +standing there with a mist gathering +in her eyes, recalled the day her grandfather +had refused to let any one fold +it away. It had hung there all those +years, the tangible reminder of the +strong, sweet presence that had left its +imprint on every part of the household.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is like my life since she slipped +out of it," the old man had whispered, +smoothing the empty sleeve with his +stiff old fingers. "Like my heart—set +to her ways at every turn, and left just +as she rounded it out—but now—so +empty!"</p> + +<p>He lifted an old dog-eared school-book +from the box that Marion brought +him, a queer little "Geography and +Atlas of the Heavens," in use over fifty +years ago. Inside was a tiny slip of +paper, time-yellowed and worn. The +ink was faded, until the words written +in an unformed girlish hand were +barely legible:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"True as grapes grow on a vine,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I will be your Valentine."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>"I had put a letter into her Murray's +grammar," he explained, holding up +another little book. "Here is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +page, just at the conjugation of the +verb 'to love.' You see I was a big, +shy, overgrown boy that lost my tongue +whenever I looked at her, although +she wasn't fifteen then, and only reached +my shoulder. This valentine was the +answer that she slipped into my atlas +of the heavens. I thought the sky +itself had never held such a star. We +walked home across the woodland together +that day, never saying a word. +It was the last of the February thaw, +and the birds were twittering as if it +were really spring. Just such a day as +this. All of a sudden, right at my feet, +I saw something smiling up at me, blue +as the blue of my Polly's eyes. I +stooped and brushed away the leaves, +and there were two little violets.</p> + +<p>"As I gave them to her I wanted to +say, 'There will always be violets in +my heart for you, my Polly,' but I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +couldn't speak a word. I know she +understood, for long years after—when +she was dead—I found them here. +She had pinned them on the page +where my letter had lain, here on the +conjugation that says, 'we love,' and +she had added the word '<i>for ever</i>.'"</p> + +<p>A tear dropped on the dead violets +as the old man reverently closed the +book, and sat gazing again into the +dying embers. There was a tremulous +smile on his face. Was it backward +over the hills of their youth he was +wandering, or ahead to those heights +of Hope, where love shall "put on +immortality?"</p> + +<p>Marion laid her warm cheek against +her violets, still fragrant with the sweetness +of their fresh, unfaded youth. +Then taking a cluster from the great +dewy bunch, she fastened it at her +throat with the little Yale pin.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter V</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>TRADE was dull at the Cross-Roads. +Jim Bowser, his hands +thrust into his pockets and his +lips puckered to a whistle, stood looking +through the dingy glass of his front +door. March was coming in with a +snow-storm, and all he could see in +any direction was a blinding fall of +white flakes. There were only three +men behind the stove that afternoon, +and one of them was absorbed in a +newspaper. Conversation flagged, and +from time to time Bud Hines yawned +audibly.</div> + +<p>"This is getting to be mighty monotonous," +remarked the storekeeper, +glancing from the falling snow to the +silent group by the stove.</p> + +<p>"March always is," answered Bud<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +Hines. "The other months have +some holiday in 'em; something to +brighten 'em up, if it's no more than +a family birthday. But to me, March +is as dull and uninteresting as a mud +road."</p> + +<p>"There's the inauguration this year," +suggested Cy Akers, looking up from +his newspaper. "That's a big event. +This paper is full of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, now you've hit it!" exclaimed +Bud, with withering scorn, as +he bit off another chew of tobacco. +"That is exciting! Just about as interesting +as watching a man take his +second helping of pie. I wouldn't go +across the road to see it. Now in a +monarchy, where death makes the +changes, it can't get to be a cut and +dried affair that takes place every four +years. They make a grand occasion +of it, too, with their pomp and ceremony.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +Look at what England's just +seen. It's the sight of a lifetime to +bury a queen and crown a king. But +what do we see when we change Presidents? +One man sliding into a chair +and another sliding out, same as when +the barber calls 'Next!' Humph!"</p> + +<p>Cy Akers rubbed his chin. "Fuss +and feathers! That's all it amounts +to," he exclaimed. "I'm down on +monopolies, and in my opinion it's the +worst kind of monopoly to let one +family crowd out everybody else in the +king business. I like a country where +every man in it has a show. Not that +I'd <i>be</i> President, if they offered me +double the salary, but it is worth a +whole lot to me to feel that in case I +did want the office, I've as good a right +to it as any man living. And talk +about sights—I say it's the sight of a +lifetime to see a man step out from his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +place among the people, anywhere he +happens to be when they call his name, +take his turn at ruling as if he'd been +born to it, and then step back as if +nothing had happened."</p> + +<p>Bud smiled derisively. "You only +see that on paper, my boy. Men +don't step quietly into offices in this +country. They run for 'em till they +are red in the face, and it's the best +runner that gets there, not the best +man. Monopoly in the king business +keeps out the rabble, any how, and it +gives a country a good deal more dignity +to be ruled by a dynasty than by +Tom, Dick, and Harry."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's no strings tied to +you," said Cy, testily, taking up his +newspaper again. "When people don't +like the way things are run on this +side of the water, there's nothing to +hinder emigration."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a stamping of snowy feet +outside the door, and a big, burly fellow +blustered in, whom they hailed as +Henry Bicking. He was not popular +at the Cross-Roads, having the unenviable +reputation of being a "born +tease," but any diversion was welcome +on such a dull day.</p> + +<p>In the catalogue of queer characters +which every neighbourhood possesses, +the Autocrat, Bore, and Crank may take +precedence of all others alphabetically, +but the one that heads the list in disagreeableness +is that infliction on society +known as the "born tease." One +can forgive the teasing propensity +universally found in boys, as he would +condone the playful destructiveness of +puppyhood; something requiring only +temporary forbearance. But when that +trait refuses to be put away with childish +things it makes of the man it dominates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +a sort of human mosquito. He +regards every one in reach his lawful +prey, from babies to octogenarians, and +while he does not always sting, the persistency +of his annoying attacks becomes +exasperating beyond endurance.</p> + +<p>The same motive that made Henry +Bicking pull cats' whiskers out by the +roots when he was a boy, led him to +keep his children in a turmoil, and his +sensitive little wife in tears half the +time. He had scarcely seated himself +by the stove when he was afforded +opportunity for his usual pastime by +the entrance of half a dozen children, +who came tumbling in on their way +home from school to warm.</p> + +<p>He began with a series of those +inane questions by which grown people +have made themselves largely responsible +for the pertness of the younger +generation. If children of this day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +have departed from that delectable +state wherein they were seen and not +heard, the fault is due far more to their +elders than to them. Often they have +been made self-conscious, and forced +into saucy self-assertion by the teasing +questions that are asked merely to provoke +amusing replies.</p> + +<p>Henry Bicking's quizzing had an +element of cruelty in it. His was the +kind that pinches his victims' ears, that +tickles to the verge of agony, that +threatens all sorts of disagreeable things, +for the sake of seeing little faces blanch +with fright, or eyes fill with tears of +pain.</p> + +<p>"Come here, Woodpecker," he began, +reaching for a child whose red +hair was the grief of his existence. +But the boy deftly eluded him, and +the little fellow standing next in line, +drying his snowball-soaked mittens,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +became the victim. He was dragged +unwillingly to his tormentor's knee.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to be when +you're a man?" was demanded, when +the first questions had elicited the fact +that the child's name was Sammy Perkins, +and that he was eight years old. +But Perkins's oldest, having no knowledge +of the grammar of life beyond its +present tense indicative, hung his head +and held his tongue at mention of its +future potential.</p> + +<p>"If you don't tell me you sha'n't +have your mittens!" Bicking dangled +them tantalisingly out of reach, until, +after an agonising and unsuccessful +scramble, the child was forced into a +tearful reply.</p> + +<p>Then he began again: "Which are +you for, Democrats or Republicans?"</p> + +<p>"Ain't for neither."</p> + +<p>"Well, you're the littlest mugwump<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +I ever did see. Mugwumps ain't got +any right to wear mittens. I've a +notion to pitch 'em in the stove."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>don't!</i>" begged the child. +"<i>Please</i>, mister! I'm not a mugwump!"</p> + +<p>The tragic earnestness of the child +as he disclaimed all right to the term +of reproach which he could not understand, +yet repudiated because of its +obnoxious sound, amused the man +hugely. He threw back his head and +laughed.</p> + +<p>"Tell me who you holler for!" he +continued, catching him up and holding +him head downward a moment. +Then goaded by more teasing questions +and a <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'threatenin'">threatening</ins> swing of his +red mittens toward the stove door, +Perkins's oldest was at last led to take +a bold stand on his party platform, and +publicly declare his political preference.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +But it was in a shaking voice and between +frightened sobs.</p> + +<p>"M-ma, she's for McKinley, an' +p-pap, he's for B-Bryan, so I jus' holler +for Uncle Sam!"</p> + +<p>"Good enough for you, sonny," +laughed the storekeeper. "That's true +blue Americanism. Stick to Uncle +Sam and never mind the parties. +They've had new blades put on their +old handles, and new handles put on +those old blades again, till none of 'em +are what we started out with. We +keep on calling them 'genuine Barlows,' +but it's precious little of the +original Barlows we're hanging on to +nowadays."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It was a woman's voice that interrupted +the conversation. Mrs. Teddy +Mahone had come in for some tea.</p> + +<p>"Arrah, Misther Bicking! Give the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +bye his mitts! You're worrse than a +cat with a mouse."</p> + +<p>The loud voice with its rich Irish +brogue drew Cy Akers's attention from +his newspaper. "By the way, Bud," +he exclaimed, raising his voice so that +Mrs. Mahone could not fail to hear, +"you were complaining about March +being so dull and commonplace without +any holidays. You've forgotten +St. Patrick's Day."</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't. St. Patrick is nothing +to me. There's no reason I should +take any interest in him."</p> + +<p>"And did you hear that, Mrs. Mahone," +asked Henry Bicking, anxious +to start a war of words.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Oi heard it, indade Oi did!" +she answered with a solemn shake of +the head. "It grieves the hearrt of me +to hear such ingratichude. There's +niver a sowl in all Ameriky but has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +cause to be grateful for what he's done +for this counthry."</p> + +<p>"What's he ever done?" asked Bud, +skeptically. There was a twinkle in +Mrs. Mahone's eyes as she answered:</p> + +<p>"It was this way. A gude while +back whin it was at the beginnin' iv +things, Ameriky said to herself wan +day, 'It's a graand pudding Oi'll be +afther makin' meself, by a new resait +Oi've just thought iv.' So she dips +into this counthry for wan set iv immygrants, +an' into another counthry for +another batch, and after a bit a foine +mess she had iv 'em. Dutch an' Frinch +an' Eyetalian, Rooshian, Spaniards an' +haythen Chinee, all stirred up in wan +an' the same pudding-bag.</p> + +<p>"'Somethin's lackin',' siz she, afther +awhile, makin' a wry face.</p> + +<p>"'It's the spice,' siz St. Pathrick, 'ye +lift out iv it, an' the leaven. Ye'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +have to make parsinal application to +meself for it, for Oi'm the only wan +knowin' the saicret of where it's to be +found.'</p> + +<p>"'Then give me some,' siz she, an' +St. Pathrick, not loikin' to lave a leddy +in trouble, reached out from the auld +sod and handed her a fair shprinklin' +of them as would act as both spice an' +leaven.</p> + +<p>"'They'll saison the whole lot,' siz +he, 'an' there's light-heartedness enough +among them to raise the entoire heavy +mass in your whole united pudding-bag.'</p> + +<p>"'Thanks,' siz she, stirrin' us in. +'It's the makin' of the dish, sorr, and +Oi'm etarnally obliged to ye, sorr. +Oi'll be afther puttin' the name of St. +Pathrick in me own family calendar, +and ivery year on that day, it's the pick +iv the land that'll take pride in addin'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +to me own shtars an' shtripes the +wearin' o' the green.'</p> + +<p>"Ye see, Misther Hines, ye may +think ye're under no parsinal obligation +to him, but down-hearted as ye +are by nature, what wud ye have been +had ye niver coom in conthact with +the leaven of St. Pathrick at all, sorr? +Oi ask ye that."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Late that night Bowser pushed his +ledger aside with a yawn, and got +down from his high stool to close the +store. As he counted the meagre contents +of the cash drawer, he reviewed +the day, whose minutes had been as +monotonous in passing as the falling +of the snowflakes outside. It had left +nothing behind it to distinguish it from +a hundred other days. The same old +faces! The same kind of jokes! The +same round of commonplace duties! A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +spirit of unrest seized him, that made +him chafe against such dreary monotony.</p> + +<p>When he went to the door to put +up the shutters, the beauty of the +night held him a moment, and he +stood looking across the wide fields, +lying white in moonlight and snow. +Far down the road a lamp gleamed +from the window of an upper room in +the old miller's house, where anxious +vigil had been kept beside him for +hours. The crisis was passed now. +Only a little while before, the doctor +had stopped by to say that their old +friend would live. Down the track +a gleaming switch-light marked the +place where a wreck had been narrowly +averted that morning.</p> + +<p>"And no telling how many other +misfortunes we've escaped to-day," +mused Bowser. "Maybe if a light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +could be swung out for each one, folks +would see that the dull gray days when +nothing happens are the ones to be +most thankful for, after all."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter VI</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>APRIL sunshine of mid-afternoon +poured in through the open door +of the Cross-Roads. The usual +group of loungers had gathered around +the rusty stove. There was no fire in +it; the day was too warm for that, +but force of habit made them draw +their chairs about it in a circle, as if +this common centre were the hub, +from which radiated the spokes of all +neighbourly intercourse.</div> + +<p>The little schoolmistress was under +discussion. Her short reign in District +No. 3 had furnished a topic of conversation +as inexhaustible as the weather, +for her régime was attended by startling +changes. Luckily for her, the young +ideas enjoyed being taught to shoot at +wide variance from the targets set up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +by parental practice and tradition, else +the tales told out of school might have +aroused more adverse criticism than +they did.</p> + +<p>"You can't take much stock in her +new-fangled notions," was the unanimous +opinion at the Cross-Roads. She +had "put the cart before the horse" +when she laid the time-honoured alphabet +on the shelf, and gave the primer +class a whole word at a mouthful, before +it had cut a single orthographic +tooth on such primeval syllables as +a-b ab.</p> + +<p>"Look at my Willie," exclaimed +one of the district fathers. "Beating +around the bush with talk about a picture +cow, and a real cow, and a word +cow, and not knowing whether B comes +after W or X. At his age I could say +the alphabet forwards or backwards as +fast as tongue could go without a slip."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She's done <i>one</i> sensible thing," admitted +Cy Akers. "They tell me +she's put her foot down on the scholars +playing April fool tricks this year."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why," said Henry Bicking. +"It has been one of the customs +in this district since the schoolhouse +was built. What's the harm if the +children do take one day in the year +for a little foolishness? Let them have +their fun, I say."</p> + +<p>"But they've carried it too far," was +the answer. "It's scandalous they +should be allowed to abuse people's +rights and feelings and property as +they have done the last few years. +First of April doesn't justify such cutting +up any more than the first of +August."</p> + +<p>"She's got Scripture on her side," +said Squire Dobbs. "You know Solomon +says, 'As a mad man who casteth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the +man that deceiveth his neighbour and +saith, am I not in sport?'"</p> + +<p>"She can't stamp out such a deep-rooted +custom in one day," protested +Bicking.</p> + +<p>"You can bet on the little school-ma'am +every time," laughed Bowser. +"My daughter Milly says they didn't +have regular lessons yesterday afternoon. +She had them put their books in their +desks.</p> + +<p>"Said they'd been studying about +wise men all their lives, now they'd +study about fools awhile; the fools of +Proverbs and the fools of history.</p> + +<p>"She read some stories, too, about a +cruel disappointment and the troubles +brought about by some thoughtless +jokes on the first of April. Mighty +interesting stories, Milly said. You +could have heard a pin drop, and some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +of the girls cried. Then she drew a +picture on the blackboard of a court +jester, in cap and bells, and asked if +they wouldn't like a change this year. +Instead of everybody acting the fool +and doing silly things they'd all be +ashamed of if they'd only stop to think, +wouldn't they rather she'd appoint just +one scholar to play the fool for all of +them, as the old kings used to do.</p> + +<p>"They agreed to that, quick enough, +thinking what fun they'd have teasing +the one chosen to be it. Then she +said she'd appoint the first one this +morning who showed himself most +deserving of the office. Milly says +from the way she smiled when she said +it, they're all sure she means to choose +the first one who plays an April Fool +joke. She'd put it so strong to 'em +how silly it was, that there ain't a +child in school you could hire to run<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +the risk of being appointed fool for the +day. So I think she's coming out +ahead as usual."</p> + +<p>"After all," said Bud Hines, "there's +some lessons to be got out of those old +tricks we used to play. For instance, +the pocketbook tied to a string. Seems +to me that everything in life worth +having has a string tied to it, and just +as I am about to pick it up, Fate +snatches it out of my hands."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe it, Buddy," said +Bowser, cheerfully; "you take notice +those pocketbooks on strings are always +empty ones, and they don't +belong to us, so we have no business +grabbing for them or feeling disappointed +because we can't get something +for nothing."</p> + +<p>But Bud waved aside the interruption +mechanically.</p> + +<p>"Then there's the <i>gifts</i> with strings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +tied to 'em," he continued. "My wife +has a rich aunt who is always sending her +presents, and writing, 'Understand this +is for <i>you</i>, Louisy. You're too generous, +and I don't want anybody but your +own deserving self to wear this.' Now +out in the country here, my wife +doesn't have occasion to wear handsome +clothes like them once a year, +while they'd be the very thing for +Clara May, off at Normal School. But +not a feather or a ribbon can the child +touch because her great-aunt bought +them expressly for her ma. Goodness +knows she'd have a thousand times +more pleasure in seeing Clara May +enjoy them, than knowing they were +lying away in bureau drawers doing +nobody any good. When she takes +'em out at house-cleaning times I say, +'Ma,' says I, 'deliver me from gifts +with strings tied to 'em. I'd rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +have a ten-cent bandanna, all mine, to +have and to hold or to give away as +pleased me most, than the finest things +your Aunt Honigford's money could +buy, if I had to account to her every +time I turned around in them.'</p> + +<p>"When I give anything I <i>give</i> it, +and don't expect to come back, spying +around ten years afterward to see if +it's worn out, or cracked, or faded, or +broken. That's my doctrine."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Marion Holmes, driving along the +country road in the old miller's antiquated +chaise, drew rein in front of a +low picket gate, overhung by mammoth +snowball bushes. Down the path, between +the rows of budding lilacs and +japonicas, came an old gentleman in a +quaintly cut, long-tailed coat. He was +stepping along nimbly, although he +leaned hard on his gold-headed cane.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'A man he was to all the country +dear,'" quoted Marion softly to herself +as the minister's benign face smiled +a greeting through his big square-bowed +spectacles. "I know he must +have been Goldsmith's friend, and I +wish I dared ask him how long he +lived in the Deserted Village." But +all she called out to him as he stopped +with a courtly bow, under the snowball +bushes, was a cheery good morning +and an invitation to take a seat beside +her if he wanted to drive to the Cross-Roads +store.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Miss Polly," he answered, +"that is my destination. I am +on my way there for a text."</p> + +<p>"For a what?" exclaimed Marion +in surprise, turning the wheel for him +to step in beside her.</p> + +<p>"For a text for my Easter sermon," +he explained as they drove on in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +warm April sunshine. "Ah, I see, +Miss Polly, you have not discovered the +school of philosophers that centres +around the Cross-Roads store. Well, +it's not to be wondered at; few people +do. I spent a winter in Rome, when +I was younger, and one of my favourite +walks was up on the Pincian Hill. +The band plays in the afternoons, you +know, and tourists flock to see the +queen drive by. There is a charming +view from the summit—the dome of +St. Peters against the blue Italian sky, +the old yellow Tiber crawling along +under its bridges from ruin to ruin, +and the immortal city itself, climbing +up its historic hills. And on the Pincio +one meets everybody,—soldiers and +courtiers, flower girls and friars, monks +in robes of every order, and pilgrims +from all parts of the world.</p> + +<p>"The first time I was on the hill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +as I wandered among the shrubbery and +flowers, I noticed a row of moss-grown +pedestals set along each side of the +drive for quite a distance. Each pedestal +bore the weather-beaten bust of +some old sage or philosopher or hero.</p> + +<p>"They made no more impression +on my mind then, than so many +fence-posts, but later I found a workman +repairing the statuary one day. +He had put a new nose on the mutilated +face of an old philosopher, and +that fresh white nasal appendage, standing +out jauntily in the middle of the +ancient gray visage, was so ludicrous +I could not help smiling whenever I +passed it. I began to feel acquainted +with the old fellow, as day after day +that nose forced my attention. Sometimes, +coming upon him suddenly, the +only familiar face in a city full of +strangers, I felt that he was an old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +friend to whom I should take off my +hat. Then it became so that I rarely +passed him without recalling some of +his wise sayings that I had read at college. +Many a time he and his row of +stony-eyed companions were an inspiration +to me in that way.</p> + +<p>"It was so that I met these men at +the Cross-Roads. They scarcely claimed +my attention at first. Then one day +I heard one of them give utterance to +a time-worn truth in such an original +way that I stopped to talk to him.</p> + +<p>"Trite as it was, he had hewn it +himself out of the actual experiences +of his own life. It was the result of +his own keen observation of human +nature. Set as it was in his homely, +uncouth dialect, it impressed me with +startling force. Then I listened to his +companions, and found that they, too, +were sometimes worthy of pedestals.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +Unconsciously to themselves they have +often given me suggestions for my sermons. +Ah, it's a pity that the backwoods +has no Pincio on which to give +its philosophers to posterity!"</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Half an hour later as they drove +homeward, Marion glanced at her companion. +"No text this time," she +laughed, breaking the reverie into +which the old minister had fallen. +"Your sages said nothing but 'good +morning, sir,' and there wasn't a single +suggestion of Easter in the whole store, +except the packages of egg dyes, and +some impossible little chocolate rabbits. +Oh, yes,—those two little boys playing +on the doorstep. Tommy Bowser had +evidently taken time by the forelock +and sampled his father's dyes, for he +had a whole hatful of coloured eggs, +and was teaching that little Perkins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +boy how to play 'bust.' He was an +apt scholar, for while I watched he +won five of Tommy's eggs and never +cracked his own. You should have +seen them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I saw them," said the minister, +with a smile. "It was those same +little lads who suggested the text for +my Easter sermon."</p> + +<p>Marion gave a gasp of astonishment. +"Would you mind telling me <i>how?</i>" +she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"It came about very naturally. There +they stood with their hands full of the +Easter eggs, with never a thought of +what they symbolised—the breaking +shell—the rising of this little embryo +earth-existence to the free full-winged +life of the Resurrection. They were +too intent on their little game, on their +small winnings and losings, to have a +thought for higher things. As I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +watched them it occurred to me how +typical it was of all the children of +men, and instantly that text from Luke +flashed into my mind: '<i>Their eyes were +holden.</i>' Do you remember? It was +when the two disciples went down to +Emmaus. I often picture it," mused the +old man after a little pause. "The green +of the olive groves, the red and white +of the blossoming almond-trees, the +late afternoon sunshine, and those two +discouraged fishermen trudging along +the dusty road. They were turning +away from a lost cause and a buried +hope, too absorbed in their overwhelming +grief to see that it was the risen +Lord Himself who walked beside them. +Not till the end of their journey did +they know why it was that their hearts +had burned within them as He talked +with them by the way. Their eyes +were holden.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How typical that is, too, Miss +Polly. Sometimes we go on to the +end of life, missing the comfort and +help that we might have had at every +step, because we look up at our Lord +only through eyes of clay, and hold +communion with him as with a stranger. +Yes, I shall certainly make that the +subject of my Easter sermon, Miss +Polly. Thank you for helping me +discover it."</p> + +<p>That next Sunday as Marion sat in +church beside the old miller, her gaze +wandered from the lilies in the chancel +to the faces of the waiting congregation. +Bud Hines was there and Bowser, +Cy Akers, and even Perkins's +oldest, whose game of "bust" had +suggested the helpful sermon of the +morning. Marion studied the serious, +weather-beaten faces with new interest. +"It is not in spiritual things alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +that our eyes are holden," she said to +herself. "I have been looking at only +the commonplace exterior of these +people. It takes a man like the old +minister to recognise unpedestalled virtues +and to set them on the Pincio they +deserve."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter VII</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>THE old saying that "there are +always two sides to a story" has +worn a deep rut into the popular +mind. It has been handed down +to us so often with an air of virtuous +rebuke, that we have come to regard +the individual who insists on his two-sided +theory as the acme of all that is +broad-minded and tolerant. But in +point of fact, if two sides is all he sees, +he is only one remove from the bigot +whose mental myopia limits him to a +single narrow facet.</div> + +<p>Even such a thing as a May-day +picnic is polyhedral. The little schoolmistress, +who was the chief promoter +of the one at the Cross-Roads, would +have called it a parallelopiped, if she +had been there that morning, to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +seen the different expressions portrayed +on the faces of six people who were +interested in it.</p> + +<p>The business side of the picnic appealed +to Bowser. As he bustled +around, dusting off cases of tinned +goods that he had long doubted his +ability to dispose of, and climbed to +the top shelves for last summer's shop-worn +cans of sardines and salmon, as he +sliced cheese, and counted out the little +leathery lemons that time had shrivelled, +his smile was as bland as the May +morning itself. One could plainly see +that he regarded this picnic as a special +dispensation of Providence, to help him +work off his old stock.</p> + +<p>There were no loungers in the store. +Field and garden claimed even the +idlest, and only the old miller, who had +long ago earned his holiday, sat in the +sun on the porch outside, with his chair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +tipped back against the wall. At intervals +a warm breath from the apple orchard, +in bloom across the road, touched +his white hair in passing, and stirred his +memory until he sat oblivious of his surroundings. +He was wholly unmindful +of the gala stir about him, save when +Polly recalled his wandering thoughts. +She, keenly alive to every sensation of +the present, stood beside him with her +hand on his shoulder, while she waited +for her picnic basket to be filled.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it an ideal May-day, grandfather?" +she exclaimed. "It gives +me a real Englishy feeling of skylarks +and cuckoos and cowslips, of primroses +and village greens. I think it is dear +of the little school-ma'am to resurrect +the old May-pole dance, and give the +children some idea of 'Merrie old +England' other than the dates and +dust of its ancient history." Unconsciously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +beating time with light fingertips +on the old man's shoulder, she +began to hum half under her breath:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"'And then my heart with rapture thrills,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And dances with the daffodills-o-dills—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And dances with the daffodils!'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>Suddenly she broke off with a girlish +giggle of enjoyment. "Listen, +grandfather. There's little Cora Bowser +up-stairs, rehearsing her speech +while she dresses. Isn't it delicious to +be behind the scenes!"</div> + +<p>Through an open bedroom window, +a high-pitched, affected little voice +came shrilly down to them: "'If you're +<i>wa</i>-king, call me <i>early!</i> Call me <i>early</i>, +mother dear!'"</p> + +<p>"Now, Cora," interrupted the maternal +critic, "you went and forgot +to make your bow; and how many +times have I told you about turning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +your toes out? You'll have to begin +all over again." Then followed several +beginnings, each brought to a stop +by other impatient criticisms. There +were so many pauses in the rehearsal +and reminders to pay attention to +manners, commas, and refractory ribbons, +that when Cora was finally +allowed to proceed, it was in a tearful +voice punctuated with sobs, that she +declared, "'To-morrow will be the +ha-happiest day of all the g-glad new +year.'"</p> + +<p>"'Uneasy lies the head that wears +the crown,'" quoted the old miller +with a smile, as Mrs. Bowser's parting +injunction reached their ears.</p> + +<p>"Now, Cora, for goodness' sake, +don't you forget for one minute this +whole enduring day, that them daisies +on your crown came off your teacher's +best hat, and have to be put back on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +If you move around much to the picnic +you might lose some of 'em. Best +keep pretty quiet anyway, or your sash +will come unpinned, and the crimp +will all get out of your hair. Wish I'd +thought to iron them plaits before I +unbraided 'em. They'd have been +lots frizzier."</p> + +<p>It was a very stiffly starched, precise +little Queen o' the May who came +down the steep back stairs into the +store. She stepped like a careful peacock, +fearing to ruffle a feather of her +unrivalled splendour. Her straight +flaxen hair, usually as limp as a string, +stood out in much crimped profusion +from under her gilt paper crown. +Polly could not decide whether the +pucker on the little forehead came +from anxiety concerning the borrowed +daisies which starred her crown, +or the fact that it was too tightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +skewered to the royal head by a relentless +hat-pin.</p> + +<p>One of the picnic wagons was waiting +at the door, and as Bowser lifted +her in among her envious and admiring +schoolmates, Polly saw with sympathetic +insight which of its many +sides the picnic parallelopiped was +presenting to the child in that proud +moment. The feeling of supreme importance +that it bestowed is a joy not +permitted to all, and rarely does it +come to any mortal more than once +in a lifetime.</p> + +<p>But for every Haman, no matter +how resplendent, sits an unmoved Mordecai +in the king's gate. So to this +little Sheba of the Cross-Roads there +was one who bowed not down. Perkins's +oldest, on the front seat beside +the driver, had no eyes for her. He +scarcely looked in her direction. His<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +glances were all centred on the baskets +which Bowser was packing in +around his feet. He smelled pickles +and pies and ham sandwiches. He +knew of sundry tarts and dressed eggs +in his own basket, and wild rumours +had reached his ears that Miss Polly +intended to stand treat to the extent +of Bowser's entire stock of bananas and +candy. Aside from hopes of a surreptitious +swim in the creek and a wild +day in the woods, his ideas of a picnic +were purely prandial.</p> + +<p>Across the road, Miss Anastasia Dill, +peeping through the blinds, watched the +wagon rattle off with its merry load. +Long after the laughing voices had +passed beyond her hearing, she still stood +there, one slender hand holding back the +curtain, and the other shading her faded +blue eyes, as she gazed absently after +them. It was the sunshine of another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +May-day she was looking into. +Presently with a little start she realised +that she was not out in the cool green +woods with a May-basket in her hands, +brimming over with anemones. She +was all alone in her stuffy little parlour, +with its hair-cloth furniture and depressing +crayon portraits. And the +canary was chirping loudly for water, +and the breakfast cups were still unwashed. +But for once, heedless of her +duties, even unmindful of the fact that +she had left the shutters open, and the +hot sun was streaming across her cherished +store carpet, she drew a chair up +to the marble-topped centre table, and +deliberately sat down. There was a +pile of old-fashioned daguerreotypes in +front of her. She opened them one +by one, and then took up another that +lay by itself on a blue beaded mat. +So the face it dimly pictured held a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +sacred place, apart, in her memory. +When her eyes had grown misty with +long gazing, she lifted a book from its +place beside the family Bible. It was +bound in red leather, and it had a +quaint wreath of embossed roses around +the gilt letters of its title, "The Album +of the Heart." It was an autograph +album, and as she slowly turned the +pages she remembered that every hand +that had traced a sentiment or a signature +therein had once upon a time +gathered anemones with her in some +one of those other May-days.</p> + +<p>Then she turned through the pages +again. Of all that circle of early +friends not one was left to give her a +hand-clasp. She had friends in plenty, +but the old ones—the early ones—the +roots of whose growth had twined +with hers in the intimacy known only +to childhood, were all gone. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +May-day picnic brought only a throb +of pain to gentle Miss Anastasia, for +to her it was but the lonely echo of +a "voice that was still."</p> + +<p>Bud Hines watched the wagon drive +away with far different emotions. +He had happened to come into the +store for a new hoe, as the gay party +started. "It's all foolishness," he +grumbled to the miller, "to lose a +whole day's schooling while they go +gallivanting around the country for +nothing. They'll ride ten miles to +find a place to eat their dinner in, and +pass by twenty on the way nicer than +the one they finally pick out. They'd +better be doing sums in school, or +grubbing weeds out of the garden, instead +of playing 'frog in the meadow' +around a fool British May-pole."</p> + +<p>He looked around inquiringly as if +he expected his practical listener to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +agree with him. But all the sympathy +he got from the old miller was one of +the innumerable proverbs he seemed +to keep continually on tap. "'All +work and no play makes Jack a dull +boy,' Bud. Life is apt to be little but +sums and grubbing for the youngsters +by and by, so let them make the most +of their May-days now."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The sequels of picnics are also polyhedral. +Miss Anastasia, lingering at +her front gate in the early twilight, +that she might enjoy to the last moment +the orchard odours that filled +all the balcony outdoors, heard the +rattle of returning wheels. She had +had a pleasant day, despite the tearful +retrospection of the morning, for she +had attended the great social function +of the neighbourhood, the monthly +missionary tea. It had brought immeasurable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +cheer, and now she was +returning with a comfortable conviction +that she was to be envied far above +any of her neighbours. The consciousness +of having on her best gown, of +being the mistress of the trim little +home to which she was going, of freedom +from a hundred harassing cares +that she had heard discussed that afternoon, +all combined to make her supremely +contented with her lot.</p> + +<p>"Poor children," she sighed, as the +tired, dirty little picnickers were lifted +from the wagon across the road. +"They look as if the game hadn't been +worth the candle. I'm glad that I've +outgrown such things."</p> + +<p>Perkins's oldest, having soaked long +in the cold creek, and sampled every +dinner-basket with reckless abandon +till he could sample no more, sat +doubled up in the straw of the wagon-bed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +He was white about the mouth, +and had he been called upon to debate +the time-worn question, "Resolved, +that there is more pleasure in pursuit +than in possession," the tarts and sandwiches +of that day's picnic would have +furnished several dozen indisputable +arguments for the affirmative.</p> + +<p>The dishevelled little queen sat beside +him, tired out by her day's wild +frolic, with starch and frizzes all gone.</p> + +<p>As she was lifted over the wheel, and +put down on the doorstep, a limp little +bunch of woe, Miss Anastasia heard +her bewailing her fate. She had lost +the stars from her crown, the borrowed +daisies that must be reckoned for on +the morrow. The amused listener +smiled to herself under cover of the +twilight, as she heard Bowser's awkward +attempts at consolation, for all +the comfort that he could muster was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +an old saw learned from the miller: +"Never mind, Cora, pa's mighty sorry +for his little girl. But you know:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"'When a man buys meat he buys bone,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And when he buys land he buys stone.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">You must take the bad with the good.'"</span><br /> +</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter VIII</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>THERE is something in the air +of June that stirs even insentient +things with a longing to +blossom. Staid old universities blaze +out with the gala colours of commencement +week, when the month of roses +is ushered in, and on every college +campus the social life of the student +year comes to flower in the crowning +exercises of class-day.</div> + +<p>One wonders sometimes if the roots, +burrowing underground in order to +fill the bush overhead with myriads +of roses, have any share in the thrill of +success at having produced such a +wealth of sweetness and beauty. But +there need be no surmise about college +florescence. Faculties may beam with +complacency on their yearly cluster of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +full-blown graduates, the very walls +of the gray old universities may thrill +as they echo the applause of admiring +audiences, but the greatest pride is not +felt within the college town itself +where the student life centres. It is +back in the roots that have made college +life possible. Back in some parental +existence that daily sinks itself +farther into the commonplace in order +that some son or daughter may blossom +into the culture of arts and belles-lettres. +The Jacqueminot that flaunts +its glory over the garden wall may not +sweeten life for the fibres that lift it, +but the valedictorian who flaunts his +diploma and degree in the classic halls +of some sea-board college may be +glorifying the air of some little backwoods +village a thousand miles inland. +Even the Cross-Roads are bound with +a network of such far-reaching roots<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +to the commencements of Harvard and +Yale.</p> + +<p>It was Cy Akers's boy who came +home this June, a little lifted up, perhaps, +by the honours he had won; +thoroughly impressed with the magnitude +of his own knowledge and the +meagreness of other peoples', but honestly +glad at first to get back to the +old home and neighbours.</p> + +<p>The family pride in him was colossal. +Old Cy encouraged his visits to +the Cross-Roads store, inventing excuses +for going which he considered the +acme of subtle diplomacy. But his +motives were as transparent as a child's. +Illiterate himself, he wanted his neighbours +to see what college had done for +his boy in the way of raising him head +and shoulders above them all. And +the boy was good-naturedly compliant. +He was as willing to show off mentally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +as he had been to lend a hand in +the wheat harvest, and demonstrate +what football training had done for +him in the way of developing muscle.</p> + +<p>Like Perkins's oldest, his education +had begun with the primer of the +Cross-Roads. He could remember the +time when he, too, had ignorantly +believed this to be the only store in +the universe, and wondered if there +were enough people living to consume +all its contents. Now he smiled to +himself when he looked around the +stuffy little room and saw the same old +butter firkins crowding the—apparently—same +old calico and crockery, +and looked up at the half-dozen hams +still swinging sociably from the low +rafters.</p> + +<p>Time had been, too, when he thought +the men who gossiped around its rusty +stove on Saturday afternoons knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +everything. Like Perkins's oldest, he +had unquestioningly formulated the +creed of his boyhood from their conversations, +and he smiled again when +he recalled how he had been warped +in those early days by their prejudices +and short-sighted opinions.</p> + +<p>The smile extended outwardly when +he walked into their midst to find +them repeating the same old saws about +the weather, and the way the country +was going to the dogs. Yet in his +salad days these time-honoured prognostications +had seemed to him the +wisdom of seers and sages.</p> + +<p>Probably it was the thought that he +had travelled far beyond the narrow +confines of the Cross-Roads that gave +his conversation a patronising tone. +But the Cross-Roads refused to be +patronised. He learned that on the +day of his arrival. It was the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +lesson of a valuable post-graduate course. +That a man away from home may +be Mister Robert Harrison Hamilton +Akers, with all the A. B.'s and LL. D.'s +after his name that an educational institution +can bestow; but as soon as he sets +foot again on his native heath, where +he has gone through the vicissitudes of +boyhood, he is shorn of titles and degrees +as completely as Samson was +shorn of his locks, and his strength +straightway falls from him. He is +nobody but Bobby Akers, and everybody +remembers when he robbed birds' +nests, and stole grapes, and played +hooky, and was a little freckle-faced, +snub-nosed neighbourhood terror. A +man cannot maintain his importance +long in the face of such reminiscences. +No amount of university culture is +going to lay the ghost of youthful indiscretions, +and he might as well put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +his patronising proclivities in his +pocket. They will not be tolerated +by those who have patted him on the +head when he wore roundabouts.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It was Saturday afternoon, but it was +also the and of the wheat-harvest, and +the men were afield who usually gathered +on the Cross-Roads porch to +round up the week over their pipes +and plugs of chewing tobacco. Only +three chairs were tilted back against +the wall, and on these, with their heels +caught over the front rungs, sat Bowser, +the old miller, and Robert Akers.</p> + +<p>The whirr of reaping machines came +faintly up from the fields and near by, +where several acres of waving yellow +grain still stood uncut, a bob-white +whistled cheerily. No one was talking. +"Knee-deep in June" would have +voiced the thoughts of the trio, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +they were "Jes' a sort o' lazein' there," +with their hats pulled over their eyes, +enjoying to the utmost the perfect +afternoon. Every breeze was redolent +with red clover and wild honeysuckle, +and vibrant with soothing country +sounds.</p> + +<p>"Who is that coming up the road?" +asked the miller, as a team and wagon +appeared over the brow of the hill.</p> + +<p>"They wabble along like Duncan +Smith's horses," answered the storekeeper, +squinting his eyes for a better +view. "Yes, that's who it is. That's +Dunk on the top of the load. Moving +again, bless Pete!"</p> + +<p>As the wagon creaked slowly nearer, +a feather bed came into view, surmounting +a motley collection of household +goods, and perched upon it, high +above the jangle of her jolting tins and +crockery, sat Mrs. Duncan Smith. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +clock and a looking-glass lay in her +lap, and, like a wise virgin, in her +hands she carefully bore the family +lamp. From frequent and anxious +turnings of her black sunbonnet, it was +evident that she was keeping her +weather eye upon the chicken-coop, +which was bound to the tail-board of +the wagon by an ancient clothes-line.</p> + +<p>A flop-eared dog trotted along under +the wagon. Squeezed in between a +bureau and the feather bed, two shock-headed +children sat on a flour barrel, +clutching each other at every lurch of +the crowded van to keep from losing +their balance.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Dunk!" called the storekeeper, +as the dusty pilgrims halted in +front of the porch. "Where are you +bound now?"</p> + +<p>"Over to the old Neal place," answered +the man, handing the reins to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +his wife, and climbing stiffly down +over the wheel. Going around to the +back of the wagon, he unstrapped a +kerosene can which swung from the +pole underneath.</p> + +<p>"Gimme a gallon of coal-ile, Jim," +he said. "I don't want to be left in +the dark the first night, anyway. It +takes awhile to git your bearings in a +strange place, and it's mighty confusing +to butt agin a half-open door where +you've always been used to a plain +wall, and it hurts like fire to bark your +shins on a rocking-chair when you're +steering straight for bed, and hain't no +idee it's in the road. This time it'll +be a little more so than usual," he +added, handing over the can. "The +house backs up agin a graveyard, you +know. Sort o' spooky till you git +used to it."</p> + +<p>"What on earth did you move there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +for?" asked Bowser. "They say the +place is ha'nted."</p> + +<p>"To my mind the dead make better +neighbours than the living," came the +tart reply from the depths of the black +sunbonnet. "At any rate, they mind +their own business."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come now, Mrs. Smith," began +Bowser, good-naturedly. "Maybe +you've been unfortunate in your choice +of neighbours."</p> + +<p>"I've had a dozen different kinds," +came the emphatic answer. "This'll +make the twelfth move in eight years, +so you can't say that I'm speaking from +hearsay."</p> + +<p>"Twelve moves in eight years!" exclaimed +Bowser, as the wagon went +lurching and creaking on through the +dust. "There's gipsy blood in that +Dunk Smith, sure as you live. Seems +like that family can't be satisfied anywhere;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +always thinking they can better +themselves by changing, and always +getting out of the frying-pan into the +fire. There wa'n't no well in the place +where they settled when they was first +married, and they had to carry water +from a spring. The muscle put into +packing that water up-hill those six +months would have dug a cistern, but +they were too short-sighted to see that. +They jest played Jack and Jill as long +as they could stand it, and then moved +to a place where there was a cistern +already dug. But there wa'n't any fruit +on that place. If they'd have set out +trees right away they'd have been eating +from orchards of their own planting +by this time. But they thought it +was easier to move to where one was +already set out.</p> + +<p>"Then when they got to a place +where they had both fruit and water,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +it was low, and needed draining. The +water settled around the house, and +they all had typhoid that summer. Oh, +they've spent enough energy packing +up and moving on and settling down +again in new places to have fixed the +first one up to a queen's taste. They +seem to be running a perpetual Home-seeker's +Excursion. Well, such a life +might suit some people, but it would +never do for me."</p> + +<p>"But such a life has some things in +its favour," put in Rob Akers, always +ready to debate any question that offered, +for the mere pleasure of arguing. "It +keeps a man from getting into a rut, +and develops his ability to adapt himself +to any circumstance. A man who +hangs his hat on the same peg for fifty +or sixty years gets to be so dependent on +that peg that he would be uncomfortable +if it were suddenly denied him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +Now Dunk Smith can never become +such a slave to habit. Then, too, +moving tends to leave a man more unhampered. +He gradually gets rid of +everything in his possessions but the +essentials. He hasn't a garret full of +old claptraps, as most people have +who never move from under their ancestral +roof-trees. You saw for yourself, +one wagon holds all his household +goods and gods.</p> + +<p>"It is the same way with a man +mentally. If he stays in the spot where +his forefathers lived, in the same social +conditions, he is apt to let his upper +story accumulate a lot of worn-out +theories that he has no earthly use for; +all their old dusty dogmas and cob-webbed +beliefs. He will hang on to +them as on to the old furniture, because +he happened to inherit them. If +he would move once in awhile, keep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +up with the times, you know, he'd get +rid of a lot of rubbish. It is especially +true in regard to his religion. All +those old superstitions, for instance, +about Jonah and the whale, and Noah's +ark and the like.</p> + +<p>"He hangs on to them, not because +he cares for them himself, but because +they were his father's beliefs, and he +doesn't like to throw out anything the +old man had a sentiment for. Now, +as I say, if he'd move once in awhile—do +some scientific thinking and investigating +on his own account—he'd +throw out over half of what he holds +on to now. He'd cut the most of +Genesis out of his Bible, and let Job +slide as a myth. One of the finest bits +of literature, to be sure, that can be +found anywhere, but undoubtedly fiction. +The sooner a man moves on +untrammelled, I say, by those old heirlooms<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +of opinion, the better progress +he will make."</p> + +<p>"Toward what?" asked the old +miller, laconically. "Dunk's moving +next door to the graveyard." There +was a twinkle in his eye, and the young +collegian, who flattered himself that +his speech was making a profound impression, +paused with the embarrassing +consciousness that he was affording +amusement instead.</p> + +<p>"The last time I went East to visit +my grandson," said the old man, meditatively, +"his wife showed me a mahogany +table in her dining-room which +she said was making all her friends +break the tenth commandment. It +was a handsome piece of furniture, +worth a small fortune. It was polished +till you could see your face in it, and +I thought it was the newest thing out +in tables till she told me she'd rummaged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +it out of her great-grandmother's +attic, and had it 'done over' as she +called it. It had been hidden away in +the dust and cobwebs for a lifetime +because it had been pronounced too +time-worn and battered and scratched +for longer use; yet there it stood, just as +beautiful and useful for this generation +to spread its feasts on as it was the day it +was made. Every whit as substantial, +and aside from any question of sentiment, +a thousand times more valuable +than the one that Dunk Smith drove +past with just now. His table is modern, +to be sure, but it's of cheap pine, +too rickety to serve even Dunk through +his one short lifetime of movings.</p> + +<p>"I heard several lectures while I +was there, too. One was by a man +who has made a name for himself on +both sides of the water as a scientist +and a liberal thinker. He took up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +Genesis, all scratched and battered as it +is by critics, and showed us how it had +been misunderstood and misconstrued. +And by the time he'd polished up the +meaning here and there, so that we +could see the original grain of the +wood, what it was first intended to +be, it seemed like a new book, and +fitted in with all the modern scientific +ideas as if it had been made only yesterday.</p> + +<p>"There it stood, like the mahogany +table that had been restored after people +thought they had stowed it away +in the attic to stay. Just as firm on +its legs, and as substantial for this generation +to put its faith on, as it was in +the days of the Judges.</p> + +<p>"Take an old man's word for it, +Robert, who has lived a long time and +seen many a restless Dunk Smith fling +out his father's old heirlooms, in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +fever to move on to something new. +Solid mahogany, with all its dust and +scratches, is better than the modern +flimsy stuff, either in faith or furniture, +that he is apt to pick up in its stead."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter IX</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>THE booming of distant cannon +had been sounding at intervals +since midnight, ushering in +the Fourth, but Bowser, although disturbed +in his slumbers by each reverberation, +did not rouse himself to any +personal demonstration until dawn. +Then his patriotism manifested itself +in a noisy tattoo with a hammer, as he +made the front of his store gay with +bunting, and nailed the word <i>Welcome</i> +over the door, in gigantic letters of red, +white, and blue.</div> + +<p>When he was done, each window +wore a bristling eyebrow of stiff little +flags, that gave the store an air of +mild surprise. The effect was wholly +unintentional on Bowser's part, and, +unconscious of the likeness to human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +eyes he had given his windows, he +gazed at his work with deep satisfaction.</p> + +<p>But the expression was an appropriate +one, considering all the astonishing +sights the old store was to look +upon that day. In the woodland across +the railroad track, just beyond Miss +Anastasia Dill's little cottage, preparations +were already begun for a grand +barbecue. Even before Bowser had +finished tacking up his flags, the digging +of the trench had begun across the way, +and the erection of a platform for the +speakers. In one corner of the woodland +a primitive merry-go-round had +already been set in place, and the first +passenger train from the city deposited +an enterprising hoky-poky man, a peanut +and pop-corn vender, and a lank +black-bearded man with an outfit for +taking tin-types.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> + +<p>By ten o'clock the wood-lot fence +was a hitching-place for all varieties of +vehicles, from narrow sulkies to cavernous +old carryalls. A haze of thick +yellow dust, extending along the pike +as far as one could see, was a constant +accompaniment of fresh arrivals. Each +newcomer emerged from it, his Sunday +hat and coat powdered as thickly as the +wayside weeds. Smart side-bar buggies +dashed up, their shining new tops +completely covered with it. There +was a great shaking of skirts as the +girls alighted, and a great flapping of +highly perfumed handkerchiefs, as the +young country beaux made themselves +presentable, before joining the other +picnickers.</p> + +<p>Slow-going farm wagons rattled +along, the occupants of their jolting +chairs often representing several generations, +for the drawing power of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +Fourth of July barbecue reaches from +the cradle to the grave.</p> + +<p>The unusual sight of such a crowd, +scattered through the grove in gala +attire, was enough of itself to produce +a holiday thrill, and added to this was +the smell of gunpowder from occasional +outbursts of firecrackers, the +chant of the hoky-poky man, and the +hysterical laughter of the couples patronising +the merry-go-round, as they +clung giddily to the necks of the +wooden ostriches and camels in the first +delights of its dizzy whirl.</p> + +<p>"Good as a circus, isn't it?" exclaimed +Robert Akers, pausing beside +the bench where the old miller and +the minister sat watching the gay +scene. "I'm having my fun walking +around and taking notes. It is amusing +to see how differently the affair +impresses people, and what seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +make each fellow happiest. Little +Tommy Bowser, for instance, is in the +seventh heaven following the hoky-poky +man. He gets all that people +leave in their dishes for helping to +drum up a crowd of patrons. Perkins's +boy sticks by the merry-go-round. He +has spent every cent of his own money, +and had so many treats that he's spun +around till he's so dizzy he's cross-eyed. +One old fellow I saw back there is +simply sitting on the fence grinning at +everything that goes by. He's getting +his enjoyment in job lots."</p> + +<p>"Sit down," said the minister, sociably +moving along the bench to +make room beside him for the young +man. "Mr. Holmes and I are finding +our amusement in the same way, only +we are not going around in search of +it. We are catching at it as it drifts +by."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What has happened to Mrs. Teddy +Mahone?" exclaimed Rob, as a red-faced +woman with an important self-conscious +air hurried by. "She seems +ubiquitous this morning, and as proud +as a peacock over something. One +would think she were the mistress of +ceremonies from her manner."</p> + +<p>"Or hostess, rather," said the miller. +"She met me down by the fence on +my arrival, and held out her hand as +graciously as if she were a duchess in +her own drawing-room, and I an invited +guest.</p> + +<p>"'Gude marnin' to yez, Mr. Holmes,' +she said. 'I hope ye'll be afther enjyin' +yerself the day. If anything intherferes +wid yer comfort ye've but to +shpake to Mahone about it. He's been +appinted <i>constable</i> for the occasion, ye +understhand. If I do say it as oughtn't, +he can carry the title wid the best av<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> +'im; him six fut two in his stockin's, +an' the shtar shinin' on his wes'cut loike +he'd been barn to the job.'</p> + +<p>"Then she turned to greet some +strangers from Morristown, and I heard +her introducing herself as Mrs. <i>Constable</i> +Mahone, and repeating the same +instructions she had given me, to report +to her husband, in case everything was +not to their liking."</p> + +<p>Both listeners laughed at the miller's +imitation of her brogue, and the minister +quoted, with an amused smile:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"'For never title yet so mean could prove,<br /> +But there was eke a mind, which did that title love.'<br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>It is a pity we cannot dress more of +them in 'a little brief authority.' It +seems to be a means of grace to a certain +class of Hibernians. It has Americanised +the Mahones, for instance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +You'll find no patriots on the ground +to-day more enthusiastic than Mr. and +Mrs. Constable Mahone. Fourth of +July will be an honoured feast-day +henceforth in their calendar. It is +often surprising how quickly a policeman's +buttons and billy will make a +good citizen out of the wildest bog-trotter +that ever brandished a shillalah."</div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Later, in subsequent wanderings +around the grounds, the young collegian +spied the little schoolmistress helping +to keep guard over the cake-table. +He immediately crossed over and joined +her. She was looking unusually pretty, +and there was an amused gleam in her +eyes as she watched the crowds, which +made him feel that she was viewing the +scene from his standpoint; that he +had found a kindred spirit.</p> + +<p>"What incentive to patriotism do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +you see in all this, Miss Helen?" he +asked, when he had induced her to +turn over her guardianship of the cake-table +to some one else, and join him in +his tour among the boisterous picnickers.</p> + +<p>"None at all—yet," she answered. +"I suppose that will come by and by +with the songs and speeches. But +all this foolishness seems a legitimate +part of the celebration to me. You +remember Lowell says, 'If I put on +the cap and bells, and made myself +one of the court fools of King Demos, +it was less to make his Majesty laugh +than to win a passage to his royal ears +for certain serious things which I had +deeply at heart.' It takes a barbecue +and its attendant attractions to draw a +crowd like this. See what a hotch-potch +it is of all nationalities. Now +that Schneidmacher family never would +have driven ten miles in this heat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +and dust simply to hear the band +play 'Hail, Columbia,' and Judge +Jackson make one of his spread-eagle +speeches on the Duty of the American +Citizen. Neither would the O'Gradys +or any of the others who represent the +foreign element in the neighbourhood. +Even Young America himself, the type +we see here, is more willing to come +and bring his best girl on account of +the diversions offered."</p> + +<p>"Well, that may be so," was the +reluctant assent, "but if this is a sample +of the Fourth of July observances all +over the country I can't help feeling +sorry for Uncle Sam. Patriotism has +sadly degenerated from the pace that +Patrick Henry set for it."</p> + +<p>"The old miller says not," answered +the little schoolmistress. "I made that +same complaint last Washington's Birthday, +when I was trying to work my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +school up to proper enthusiasm for the +occasion. He recalled the drouth of +the summer before when nearly every +well and creek and pond in the township +went dry. Cattle died of thirst, +gardens dried up like brick-kilns, and +people around here were almost justified +in thinking that the universe would +soon be entirely devoid of water. The +skies were like brass, and there was no +indication of rain for weeks. But one +day there was a terrific earthquake +shock. It started all the old springs, +and opened new ones all over this part +of the country, and the water gushed +out of the earth where it had been +pent up all the time, only waiting for +some such touch to call it forth. 'And +you're afraid that patriotism is going +dry in this generation,' he said to me. +'But it only takes some shock like the +sinking of the <i>Maine</i>, or some sudden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +menace to the public safety, to start a +spring that will gush from Plymouth +Rock to the Golden Gate. There is a +deep underground vein in the American +heart that no drouth can ever dry. +Maybe it does not come to the surface +often, but it can always be depended +on in time of need.'"</p> + +<p>The speakers for the day began to +arrive, and Rob, seeing the crowds +gravitating toward the grand stand, +took the little schoolmistress to the +bench where the miller had stationed +himself.</p> + +<p>"Watch that old Scotchman just in +front of us," whispered the girl, "Mr. +Sandy McPherson. Last Thanksgiving +there was a union service in the schoolhouse. +After the sermon 'America' was +sung, and that old heathen stood up +and roared out through it all, at the +top of his voice, every word of 'God<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +Save the Queen!' Wasn't that flaunting +the thistle in our faces with a vengeance? +I am sure that he will repeat +the performance to-day. Think of the +dogged persistence that refuses to succumb +to the fact that we have thrown +off the British yoke! The very day we +are celebrating that event, he'll dare to +mix up our national hymn with 'God +Save the King.'"</p> + +<p>It was as she had predicted. As the +band started with a great clash of +brazen instruments, and the whole +company rose to the notes of "America," +Sandy McPherson's big voice, with +its broad Scotch burr, rolled out like +a bass drum:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"'Thy choicest gifts in store,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">On <i>him</i> be pleased to pour.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Long may <i>he</i> reign.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>It drowned out every voice around +him. "He ought to be choked," exclaimed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +Rob, in righteous indignation, +as they resumed their seats. "To-day +of all days! The old Tory has been +living in this country for forty-five +years, and a good living he's gotten out +of it, too, for himself and family. Nobody +cares what he sings on his own +premises, but he might have the +decency to keep his mouth shut on +occasions of this kind, if he can't join +with us."</p> + +<p>There was a gleam of laughter in +the little schoolmistress's eyes as she +replied: "If the truth were known I +have no doubt but that this Fourth of +July celebration is very like the pie +in Mother Goose's song of sixpence, +when her four and twenty blackbirds +were baked in a pie. If this pie could +be opened, and the birds begin to sing +according to their sentiments, there +would be a wonderful diversity of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +tunes. One would be twittering the +'Marseillaise,' and another 'Die Wacht +am Rhein,' and another echoing old +Sandy's tune. America was in too big +a hurry to serve her national pie, I am +afraid. Consequently she put it in +half prepared, and turned it out half +baked. The blackbirds should have +had their voices tuned to the same key +before they were allowed to become +vital ingredients of such an important +dish."</p> + +<p>"In other words," laughed Rob, +"you'd reconstruct the enfranchisement +laws. Make the term of probationary +citizenship so long that the +blackbird would have time to change +his vocal chords, or even the leopard +his anarchistic spots, before he would +be considered fit to be incorporated in +the national dish. By the way, Miss +Helen, have you heard Mrs. Mahone's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +allegory of the United Pudding bag? +You and she ought to collaborate. +Get the storekeeper to repeat it to you +sometime."</p> + +<p>"You needn't laugh," responded the +little schoolmistress, a trifle tartly. +"You know yourself that scores of +emigrants are given the ballot before +they can distinguish 'Yankee Doodle' +from 'Dixie,' and that is only typical +of their ignorance in all matters regarding +governmental affairs. Too many +people's idea of good citizenship is like +the man's 'who kept his private pan +just where 'twould catch most public +drippings.' There is another mistaken +idea loose in the land," she continued, +after a moment. "That is, that a +great hero must be a man who has a +reputation as a great soldier. I wish +I had the rewriting of all the school +histories. They are better now than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> +when I studied them, but there is still +vast room for improvement. I had to +learn page after page of wars. Really, +war and history were synonyms then +as it was taught in the schools. Every +chapter was gory, and we were required +to memorise the numbers killed, +wounded, and captured in every battle, +from the French and Indian massacres, +down to the last cannon-shot of the +sixties. That is all right for government +records and reference libraries, +but when we give a text-book to the +rising generation, the accounts of battles +and the glorifying thereof would +be better relegated to the foot-notes. +It is loyal statesmanship that ought +to be exalted in our school histories. +We ought to make our heroes out of +the legislators who cannot be bribed +and public men who cannot be bought, +and the honest private citizen who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +<i>lives</i> for his country instead of dying +for it."</p> + +<p>The old miller beside her applauded +softly, leaning over to say, as the overture +by the band came to a close with +a grand clash, "If ever the blackbirds +are tuned to one key, Miss Helen, +America will know whom to thank. +Not the legislators, but the patriotic +little schoolma'ams all over their land +who are serving their country in a +way her greatest generals cannot do."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>All day the Cross-Roads store raised +its bristling eyebrows of little flags, till +the celebration came to a close. Savoury +whiffs of the barbecued meats +floated across to it, vigorous hand-clapping +and hearty cheers rang out to it +between the impassioned words of excited +orators. Later there were the +fireworks, and more rag-time music by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +the band, and renewed callings of the +hoky-poky man. But before the moon +came up there was a great backing of +teams and scraping of turning wheels, +and a gathering together of picnic-baskets +and stray children.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's over for another year," +said Bowser, welcoming the old miller, +who had crossed the road and taken a +chair on the porch to wait until the +crowds were out of the way.</p> + +<p>"Those were fine speeches we had +this afternoon, but seemed to me as if +they were plumb wasted on the majority +of that crowd. They applauded +them while they were going off, same +as they did the rockets, but they forget +in the next breath." As Bowser spoke, +a rocket whizzed up through the tree +tops, and the old miller, looking up to +watch the shining trail fade out, saw +that the sky was full of stars.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's the good of those speeches, +Bowser," he said. "'<i>To leave a wake, +men's hearts and faces skyward turning.</i>' +I hadn't noticed that the stars were out +till that rocket made me look up. The +speeches may be forgotten, but they +will leave a memory in their wake that +give men an uplook anyhow."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter X</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>"GUESS who's come to board at +the Widder Powers's for the +month of August?" It was +Bowser who asked the question, and +who immediately answered it himself, +as every man on the porch looked up +expectantly.</div> + +<p>"Nobody more nor less than a <i>multimillionaire!</i> +The big boot and shoe +man, William A. Maxwell. Mrs. +Powers bought a bill of goods this +morning as long as your arm. It's a +windfall for <i>her</i>. He offered to pay +regular summer-resort-hotel prices, because +she's living on the old farm where +he was born and raised, and he fancied +getting back to it for a spell."</p> + +<p>"Family coming with him?" queried +Cy Akers, after a moment's meditation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +over the surprising fact that a millionaire +with the world before him should +elect such a place as the Cross-Roads +in which to spend his vacation.</p> + +<p>"No, you can bet your bottom +dollar they're not. And they're all +abroad this summer or <i>he'd</i> never got +here. They'd had him dragged off to +some fashionable watering-place with +them. But when the cat's away the +mice'll play, you know. Mrs. Powers +says it is his first visit here since his +mother's funeral twenty years ago, and +he seems as tickled as a boy to get +back.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday evening he followed the +man all around the place while she was +getting supper. She left him setting +up in the parlour, but when she went +in to ask him out to the table, he was +nowhere to be seen. Pretty soon he +came walking around the corner of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> +house with a pail of milk in each hand, +sloshing it all over his store clothes. +He'd done the milking himself, and +seemed mightily set up over it."</p> + +<p>"Lawzee! Billy Maxwell! Don't +I remember him?" exclaimed Bud +Hines. "Seems like 'twas only yesterday +we used to sit on the same bench +at school doin' our sums out of the +same old book. The year old man +Prosser taught, we got into so much +devilment that it got to be a regular +thing for him to say, regular as clock-work, +almost, 'I'll whip Bud Hines +and Billy Maxwell after the first arithmetic +class this morning.' I don't +s'pose he ever thinks of those old times +since he's got to be one of the Four +Hundred. Somehow I can hardly +sense it, his bein' so rich. He never +seemed any smarter than the rest of us. +That's the way of the world, though,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +seesaw, one up and the other down. +Of course it's my luck to be the one +that's down. Luck always was against +me."</p> + +<p>"There he is now," exclaimed the +storekeeper, and every head turned to +see the stranger stepping briskly along +the platform in front of the depot, on +his way to the telegraph office.</p> + +<p>He had the alertness of glance and +motion that comes from daily contact +with city corners. If there was a slight +stoop in his broad shoulders, and if his +closely cut hair and beard were iron +gray, that seemed more the result of +bearing heavy responsibilities than the +token of advancing years. His immaculate +linen, polished low-cut shoes, and +light gray business suit would have +passed unnoticed in the metropolis, but +in this place, where coats and collars +were in evidence only on Sunday, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> +gave him the appearance of being on +dress parade.</p> + +<p>Perkins's oldest eyed him as he +would a zebra or a giraffe, or some +equally interesting curiosity escaped +from a Zoo. He had heard that his +pockets were lined with gold, and that +he had been known to pay as much as +five dollars for a single lunch. Five +dollars would board a man two weeks +at the Cross-Roads.</p> + +<p>With his mouth agape, the boy +stood watching the stranger, who presently +came over to the group on the +porch with smiling face and cordial +outstretched hand. Despite his gray +hair there was something almost boyish +in the eagerness with which he +recognised old faces and claimed old +friendships. Bowser's store had been +built since his departure from the +neighbourhood, so few of the congenial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +spirits accustomed to gather there were +familiar to him. But Bud Hines and +Cy Akers were old schoolfellows. +When he would have gone up to them +with old-time familiarity, he found +a certain restraint in their greeting +which checked his advances.</p> + +<p>If he thought he was coming back +to them the same freckle-faced, unconventional +country lad they had known +as Billy Maxwell, he was mistaken. +He might feel that he was the same at +heart; but they looked on the outward +appearance. They saw the successful +man of the world who had +outstripped them in the race and passed +out of their lives long ago. They +could not conceive of such a change +as had metamorphosed the boy they +remembered into the man who stood +before them, without feeling that +a corresponding change must have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +taken place in his attitude toward +them.</p> + +<p>They were not conscious that this +feeling was expressed in their reception +of him. They laughed at his jokes, +and indulged in some reminiscences, +but he felt, in a dim subconscious way, +that there was a barrier between them, +and he could never get back to the old +familiar footing.</p> + +<p>He turned away, vaguely disappointed. +Had he dared to dream that +he would find his lost youth just as he +had left it? The fields and hills were +unchanged. The very trees were the +same, except that they had added a +few more rings to their girth, and +threw a larger circling shade. But the +old chums he had counted on finding +had not followed the same law of +growth as the trees. The shade of their +sympathies had narrowed, not expanded,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> +with the passing years, and left him +outside their contracted circle.</p> + +<p>Perkins's oldest, awed by reports of +his fabulous wealth, could hardly find +his tongue when the distinguished visitor +laid a friendly hand on his embarrassed +tow head, and inquired about +the old swimming-hole, and the mill-dam +where he used to fish. But the +boy's interest grew stronger every minute +as he watched him turning over +the limited assortment of fishing tackle. +The men he knew had outlived such +frivolous sports. It was a sight to justify +one's gazing open-mouthed,—a +grown man deliberately preparing for +a month's idleness.</p> + +<p>If the boy could have seen the +jointed rods, the reels, the flies, all the +expensive angler's outfit left behind in +the Maxwell mansion; if he could +have known of the tarpon this man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +had caught in Florida bays, and the +fishing he had enjoyed in northern +waters, he would have wondered still +more; wondered how a man could be +considered in his right mind who deliberately +renounced such privileges to +come and drop a common hook, on a +pole of his own cutting, into the shallow +pools of the Cross-Roads creek.</p> + +<p>After his purchases no one saw him +at the store for several days, but the +boy, dodging across lots, encountered +him often,—a solitary figure wandering +by the mill stream, or crashing +through the woods with long eager +strides; lying on the orchard grass sometimes +with his hat pulled over his +eyes; leaning over the pasture bars in +the twilight, and following with wistful +glance the little foot-path stretching +white across the meadows. A +pathetic sight to eyes wise enough to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +see the pathos,—a world-weary, middle-aged +man in vain quest of his lost +boyhood.</p> + +<p>On Sunday, Polly, looking across the +church from her place in the miller's +pew, recognised the stranger in their +midst, and straightway lost the thread +of the sermon in wondering at his +presence. She had gone to school +with his daughter, Maud Maxwell. +She had danced many a german with +his son Claude. They lived on the +same avenue, and passed each other +daily; but this was the first time she +had seen him away from the shadow +of the family presence, that seemed to +blot out his individuality.</p> + +<p>She had thought of him only as +Maud's father, a simple, good-natured +nonentity in his own household. A +good business man, but one who could +talk nothing but leather, and whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +only part in the family affairs was to +furnish the funds for his wife and children +to shine socially.</p> + +<p>"Oh, your father's opinion doesn't +count," she had heard Mrs. Maxwell +say on more than one occasion, and +the children had grown up, unconsciously +copying her patronising attitude +toward him. As Polly studied +his face now in the light of other surroundings, +she saw that it was a strong, +kindly one; that it was not weakness +which made him yield habitually, until +he had become a mere figurehead in +his own establishment. It was only +that his peace-loving nature hated +domestic scenes, and his generosity +amounted to complete self-effacement +when the happiness of his family was +concerned.</p> + +<p>His eyes were fixed on the chancel +with a wistful reminiscent gaze, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> +Polly read something in the careworn +face that touched her sympathy. +"Grandfather," she said, at the close +of the service, "let's be neighbourly +and ask Mr. Maxwell home to dinner +with us. He looks lonesome."</p> + +<p>She was glad afterward that she had +suggested it, when she recalled his +evident pleasure in the old man's company. +There were chairs out under +the great oak-trees in the yard, and the +two sat talking all afternoon of old +times, until the evening shadows began +to grow long across the grass. Then +Polly joined them again, and sat with +them till the tinkle of home-going cowbells +broke on the restful stillness of +the country Sabbath.</p> + +<p>"All the orchestras in all the operas +in the world can't make music that +sounds as sweet to me as that does," said +Mr. Maxwell, raising his head from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +the big armchair to listen. Then he +dropped it again with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"It rests me so after the racket of +the city. If Julia would only consent, +I'd sell out and come back to-morrow. +But she's lost all interest in the old +place. I'm country to the core, but +she never was. She took to city ways +like a duck to water, just as soon as +she got away from the farm, and she +laughs at me for preferring katydids to +the whirr of electric cars."</p> + +<p>A vision rose before the old miller +of a little country girl in a pink cotton +gown, who long ago used to wait, +bright-eyed and blushing, at the pasture +bars, for Billy to drive home the +cows. Many a time he had passed +them at their trysting-place. Then +he recalled the superficial, ambitious +woman he had met years afterward +when he visited his son. He shook<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +his head when he thought of her renouncing +her social position for the +simple pastoral life her husband longed +to find the way back to. Presently he +broke the silence of their several reveries +by turning to Polly.</p> + +<p>"What's that piece you recited to +me the other night, little girl, about +old times? Say it for Mr. Maxwell." +And Polly, clasping her hands in her +lap, and looking away across the +August meadows, purple with the +royal pennons of the ironweed, began +the musical old poem:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"'Ko-ling, ko-lang, ko-linglelingle,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Way down the darkening dingle</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">The cows come slowly home.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">(And old-time friends and twilight plays</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And starry nights and sunny days</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Come trooping up the misty ways,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">When the cows come home.)</span><br /> +<br /> +"'And over there on Merlin Hill<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Hear the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And the dewdrops lie on the tangled vines,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And over the poplars Venus shines,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And over the silent mill.</span><br /> +<br /> +"'Ko-ling, ko-lang, ko-linglelingle,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With ting-aling and jingle</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">The cows come slowly home.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">(Let down the bars, let in the train</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of long-gone songs and flowers and rain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For dear old times come back again,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">When the cows come home.)'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Once as Polly went on, she saw the +tears spring to his eyes at the line "and +mother-songs of long-gone years," and +she knew that the</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"same sweet sound of wordless psalm,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The same sweet smell of buds and balm,"</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class='unindent'>that had been his delight in the past, +were his again as he listened. But, +much to her surprise, as she finished, +he rose abruptly, and began a hurried +leave-taking. She understood his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +manner, however, when his mood was +revealed to her a little later.</div> + +<p>At her grandfather's suggestion she +walked down to the gate with him, to +point out a short cut across the fields +to Mrs. Powers's. Outside the gate he +paused, hat in hand.</p> + +<p>"Miss Polly," he began, as if unconsciously +taking her into his confidence, +"old times never come back +again. Seems as if the bottom had +dropped out of everything. I've done +my best to resurrect them, but I can't +do it. I thought if I could once get +back to the old place I could rest as +I've not been able to rest for twenty +years—that I'd have a month of perfect +enjoyment. But something's the +matter.</p> + +<p>"Many a time when I've been off +at some fashionable resort I've thought +I'd give a fortune to be able to drop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +my hook in your grandfather's mill-stream, +and feel the old thrill that I +used to feel when I was a boy. I tried +it the day I came—caught a little +speckled trout, the kind that used to +make me tingle to my finger ends, but +somehow it didn't bring back the old +sensation. I just looked at it a minute +and put it back in the water, and +threw my pole away.</p> + +<p>"Even the swimming-hole down by +the mill didn't measure up to the way +I had remembered it. I've fairly ached +for a dip into it sometimes, in the years +I've been gone. Seemed as if I could +just get into it once, I could wash myself +clear of all the cares and worries +of business that pester a man so. That +was a disappointment, too. The change +is in me, I guess, but nothing seems +the same."</p> + +<p>Polly knew the reason. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +tried so long to mould his habits to fit +his wife's exacting tastes, that he had +succeeded better than he realised. He +could not analyse his feelings enough to +know that it was the absence of long +accustomed comforts that made him +vaguely dissatisfied with his surroundings; +his luxuriously appointed bathroom, +for instance; the perfect service +of his carefully trained footmen. Mrs. +Powers's noisy table, where with great +clatter she urged every one "to fall +to and help himself," jarred on him, +although he was unconscious of what +caused the irritation. As for the rank +tobacco Bowser furnished him when +he had exhausted his own special brand +of cigars with which he had stocked +his satchel, it was more than flesh and +blood could endure. That is, flesh +and blood that had acquired the pampered +taste of a millionaire whose wife<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> +is <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'fastidous'">fastidious</ins>, and only allows first-class +aromas in the way of the weed.</p> + +<p>But Polly knew another reason that +his vacation had been a failure. She +divined it as the little Yale pin, stuck +jauntily into the front of her white +dress, met the touch of her caressing +fingers. The girl in the pink cotton +gown was long dead, and the woman +who had grown up in her stead had no +part in the old scenes that he still +fondly clung to, with a sentiment she +ridiculed because she could not understand. +<i>There must always be two when +you turn back searching for your lost Eldorado, +and even the two cannot find it, +unless they go hand in hand.</i></p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Next day Bowser had another piece +of news to impart. "Mr. Maxwell +went home this morning. He told +Mrs. Powers it was like taking a vacation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +in a graveyard, and he'd had enough. +He'd have to get back to work again. +So he paid her for the full month, and +took the first train back to the city."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be switched!" was Bud +Hines's comment. "If I had as much +money as he's got, I'd never bother +my head about work. I'd sit down +and take it easy all the rest of my born +days."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," answered Bowser, +meditatively. "I reckon a man who's +worked the way Mr. Maxwell has, +gets such a big momentum on to himself +that he can't stop, no matter how +bad he wants a vacation."</p> + +<p>"He's a fool for coming back here +for it," said Bud Hines, looking out +across the fields that stretched away on +every side in unbroken monotony.</p> + +<p>But miles away, in his city office, +the busy millionaire was still haunted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +by an unsatisfied longing for those +same level meadows. Glimpses of the +old mill-stream and the willows still +rose before him in tantalising freshness, +and whenever he closed his tired eyes, +down twilight paths, where tinkling +cowbells called, there came again the +glimmer of a little pink gown, to wait +for him as it had waited through all +the years, beside the pasture bars.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter XII</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>THE seat was an empty starch-box +on the Cross-Roads porch, +its occupant a barefoot boy +with a torn straw hat pulled far down +over his eyes. To the casual observer +one of the most ordinary of sights, but +to one possessed of sympathetic powers +of penetration into a boy's inner consciousness +there was a suggestion of the +tragic. Perkins's oldest had that afternoon +in school been told to write a +composition on September. It was to +be handed in next morning. It was the +hopelessness of accomplishing the fact +even in ćons, not to mention the limited +time of a dozen short hours, that had +bound him, a little Prometheus, to the +starch-box, with the vulture of absolute +despair tearing at his vitals.</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>Two other boys had been assigned +the same subject, and the three had +kicked the dust up wrathfully all the +way from the schoolhouse, echoing +an old cry that had gone up ages before +from the sons of Jacob, under the +lash of the Egyptian, "How can we +make bricks without straw?"</p> + +<p>"Ain't nothin' to say 'bout September," +declared Riley Hines, gloomily, +"and I'll be dogged if I say it. I'm +goin' to get my sister to write mine fer +me. She'll do it ef I tease long +enough, and give her something to +boot."</p> + +<p>"I'll ask paw what to say," declared +Tommy Bowser. "He won't write it +for me, but he'll sort o' boost me along. +Then if it ain't what she wants, <i>I</i> won't +be to blame. I'll tell her paw said +'twas all right."</p> + +<p>This shifting of responsibility to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +paternal shoulders restored the habitual +expression of cheerfulness to Tommy's +smudgy face, but there was no corresponding +smile on Sammy's. There +was no help to be had in the household +of Perkins.</p> + +<p>That was why he was waiting on +the starch-box while Tommy was sent +on an errand. It was in the vain hope +that Tommy would return and apply +for his "boost" and share it with him +before darkness fell. He was a practical +child, not given to whimsical +reflections, but as he sat there in desperate +silence, he began wondering +what the different customers would +have to say if they were suddenly called +upon, as he had been that afternoon, +to write about September.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Powers, for instance, in her +big crape bonnet, with its long wispy +veil trailing down her back. He was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> +almost startled, when, as if in answer +to his thought, she uttered the word +that was at the bottom of his present +trouble, the subject assigned him for +composition.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Bowser, September is a +month that I'm never sorry to say good-bye +to. What with the onion pickle +and peach preserves and the house-cleaning +to tend to, I'm nearly broke +down when it's over. There's so many +odds and ends to see to on a farm this +time of year, first in doors and then +out. I tell Jane it's like piecing a +crazy quilt. You can't never count on +what a day's going to bring forth in September. +You may get a carpet up and +beat, and have your stove settin' out +waiting to be put up, and your furniture +in a heap in the yard, and the +hired man will have to go off and leave +it all while he takes the cider-mill to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +be mended. And you in a stew all +day long for fear it'll rain before he +gets things under shelter.</p> + +<p>"Then it's a sad time to me, too," +she exclaimed with a mournful shake +of the head in the black bonnet. "It +was in September I lost my first and +third husbands, two of the best that +ever had tombstones raised to their +memory, if I do say it as oughtn't. +One died on the sixteenth, and his +funeral was preached on the eighteenth, +and the other died fifteen years later +on the twenty-third, and we kept him +three days, on account of waiting till +his brother could get here from Missouri. +So you see that makes nearly +a week altogether of mournful anniversaries +for me every September."</p> + +<p>Another breath and she had reached +the three tombstones, and talking +volubly on her favourite subject, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +completed her purchases and went out. +But her conversation had not lightened +the woes of the little Prometheus on +the starch-box. Despair still gnawed +on. House-cleaning worries and onion +pickle, and reminiscences of two out of +three departed husbands, might furnish +material for Mrs. Powers's composition, +should the fates compel her to write +one, but there was no straw of a suggestion +for Sammy Perkins, and again +he cried out inwardly as bitterly as the +oppressed of old had cried out against +Pharaoh.</p> + +<p>A man in a long, sagging linen duster +was the next comer. He squeaked +back and forth in front of the counter +in new high-heeled boots, and talked +incessantly while he made his purchases, +with a clumsy attempt at facetiousness.</p> + +<p>"Put in a cake of shaving-soap, too, +Jim," he called, passing his hand over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +the black stubble on his chin. "County +court begins to-morrer. Reckon the +lawyers will shave everything in sight +when it comes to their bills, but I want +to be as slick as them. I'll be settin' +on the jury all week. Did you ever +think of it, Jim, that's a mighty interesting +way to earn your salt? Jest set +back and be entertained with the history +of all the old feuds and fusses in +the county, and collect your two bucks +a day without ever turning your hand +over. Good as a show, and dead easy.</p> + +<p>"Only one thing, it sort o' spiles +your faith in human nature. The +court stenographer said last year that +in the shorthand he writes, the same +mark that stands for lawyer stands for +liar, too. He! he! he! isn't that a +good one? You can only tell which +one is meant by what comes before it, +and this fellow said he'd come to believe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +that one always fit in the sentence +as good as the other. Either word +was generally appropriate. You miss +a lot of fun, Jim, by not getting on +the jury. I always look forrard to fall +on that account."</p> + +<p>No help for Perkins's oldest in <i>that</i> +conversation. He waited awhile longer. +Presently an old gentleman in a long-tailed, +quaintly cut black coat, stepped +up on the porch. He had a gold-headed +cane under his arm, and the +eyes behind the square-bowed spectacles +beamed kindly on the little +fellow. He stopped beside the starch-box +a moment with a friendly question +about school and the health of the +Perkins household. The boy's heart +gave a jump up into his throat. The +old minister knew everything. The +minister could even tell him what to +write in his composition if he dared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +but ask him. He opened his mouth +to form the question, but his tongue +seemed glued in its place, and the head +under the torn hat drooped lower in +embarrassed silence. His troubled face +flushed to the roots of his tow hair, +and he let the Angel of Opportunity +pass him by unchallenged.</p> + +<p>"Will you kindly give me one of +those advertising almanacs, Mr. Bowser?" +inquired the parson, when his +packages of tea and sugar had been +secured. "I've misplaced mine, and I +want to ascertain at what hour to-morrow +the moon changes."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly!" responded +the storekeeper with obliging alacrity, +rubbing his hands together, and stepping +up on a chair to reach the pile +on a shelf overhead. "Help yourself, +sir. I must answer the telephone."</p> + +<p>The parson, slowly studying the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +moon's phases as he stepped out of the +store, did not notice that he had taken +two almanacs until one fell at his feet. +The boy sprang up to return it, but he +waved it aside with a courtly sweep of +his hand.</p> + +<p>"No, my son, I intended to take +but one. Keep it. They are for general +distribution. You will find it full +of useful information. Have you ever +learned anything about the signs of the +Zodiac? Here is Leo. I always take +an especial interest in this sign, because +I happened to be born under it. I'm +the seventh son of a seventh son, born +in the seventh month, and I always +take it as a good omen, seven being +the perfect number. You know the +ancients believed a man's star largely +affected his destiny. You will find +some interesting historical events enumerated +under each month. A good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +almanac is almost as interesting to study +as a good dictionary, my boy. I would +advise you to form a habit of referring +to both of them frequently."</p> + +<p>With one of his rare, childlike +smiles the good man passed on, and +Perkins's oldest was left with the +almanac in his hands. For awhile he +studied the signs of the Zodiac, in +puzzled awe, trying to establish a relationship +between them and the man +they surrounded, whose vital organs +were obligingly laid open to public inspection, +regardless of any personal +inconvenience the display might cause +him.</p> + +<p>Then he turned to the historical +events. There was one for each day +in the month. On Sunday, the first, +eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, had +occurred the Japanese typhoon. Friday, +the sixth, sixteen hundred and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> +twenty, the <i>Mayflower</i> had sailed. +Mahomet's birth had set apart the +eleventh in five hundred and seventy. +The founding of Mormonism, Washington's +Farewell, and the battle of +Marathon were further down the list, +but it was all Greek to Perkins's +oldest. Any one of these items would +have been straw for the parson. Out +of the <i>Mayflower</i>, Mahomet, Mormonism, +or Marathon, each one of them +the outgrowth of some September, he +could have pressed enough literary +brick to build a fair sky-scraping +structure that would have been the +wonder of all who gazed upon it. +This time the boy looked his Angel +of Opportunity in the face and did not +recognise it as such.</p> + +<p>The gate clicked across the road and +he turned his head. Miss Anastasia +Dill was going up the path, her arms<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> +full of goldenrod and white and purple +asters. September was a poem to Miss +Anastasia, but the boy looked upon +goldenrod and the starry asters simply +as meadow weeds. The armful of +bloom brought no suggestion to him. +On the morrow Riley Hines would +hand in two pages of allusions to them, +beginning with a quotation from Whittier's +"Autumn Thoughts," and ending +with a couplet from Pope, carefully +copied by Maria Hines from the "Exercises +for Parsing" in the back of her +grammar.</p> + +<p>Somebody's supper-horn blew in the +distance, and, grown desperate by +Tommy's long absence and the lateness +of the hour, he took his little +cracked slate from the strap of books +on the floor beside him, and laid it +across his knees. Then with a stubby +pencil that squeaked dismally in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> +passage across the slate, he began copying +bodily from the almanac the list +of historical events enumerated therein, +just as they stood, beginning with the +Japanese typhoon on the first, and +ending "<i>Volunteer</i> beat <i>Thistle</i>" on the +thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven.</p> + +<p>Then he began to copy a few agricultural +notes, inserted as side remarks +for those who relied on their almanacs +as guide-posts to gardening. "Gather +winter squashes now. They keep +better when stored in a warm dry +place. Harvest sugar beets when the +leaves turn yellowish green, etc."</p> + +<p>He was bending painfully over this +task when a shadow fell across his +slate, and, looking up, he saw the old +miller looking over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Doing your sums?" he asked, with +a friendly smile. "Let's see if you do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +them the way I was taught when I +was a lad." He held out his hand for +the slate. There had been a bond of +sympathy between the two ever since +Christmas eve, when a certain pair of +skates had changed owners, and now, +although the boy's voice trembled almost +out of his control, he managed +to stammer out the reply that he was +trying to write a composition.</p> + +<p>The old man looked from the +straggling lines on the slate, then at +the open almanac, then down at the +boy's troubled face, and understood. +Drawing a chair across the porch he +sat down beside him, and, catching the +furtive, scared side-glance cast in his +direction, he plunged at once into a +story.</p> + +<p>It was about a shepherd boy who +went out to fight a giant, and the king +insisted on lending him his armour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> +But he couldn't fight in the heavy +helmet and the coat of mail. The +shield was in his way, and the spear +more than he could lift. So he threw it +aside, and going down to a little brook, +chose five small pebbles, worn smooth +by the running water. And with these +in his hand, and only the simple sling +he was accustomed to use every day, he +went out against the Philistine giant, +and slew him in the first round.</p> + +<p>Perkins's oldest wondered what the +story had to do with his composition. +He wasn't looking for a personal application. +He had not been brought up at +Sunday schools and kindergartens. But +all of a sudden he realised that the +miller meant him; that his depending +on Tommy, or the customers, or the +almanac, to furnish him ideas, was like +going out in Saul's armour, and that +he could only come to failure in that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +because it wouldn't fit him; that he +could hit the mark the little schoolmistress +had in mind for him, only +with the familiar sling-shot of his own +common every-day personal experiences.</p> + +<p>Maybe the old miller recognised +that it was a crisis in the little fellow's +life, for he stayed beside him with +helpful hints and questions, until the +slate was full. When he carried it +home in the gloaming it no longer +bore the items from the almanac. +There were other remarks straggling +across it, not so well expressed, perhaps, +but plainly original. They were +to the effect that September is the +month you've got to go back to school +when you don't want to, 'cos it's the +nicest time of all to stay out-doors, +neither too hot nor too cold. There's +lots of apples then, and it's the minister's +birthday. He's the seventh son of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +a seventh son, and Dick Wiggins says +if you're that you can pick Wahoo +berries in the dark of the moon and +make med'cine out of them, that will +cure the bone-break fever every time, +when nothing else in the world will. +Then followed several items of information +that he had discovered for +himself, in his prowls through the +September woods, about snakes and +tree-toads, as to their habits at that +season of the year. It closed with a suggestive +allusion to the delights of sucking +cider from the bung of a barrel +through a straw.</p> + +<p>Next day the little schoolmistress +shook her head over the composition +that Riley Hines handed in, and laid +it aside with a hopeless sigh. She +recognised too plainly the hand of +Maria in its construction. The sentiments +expressed therein were as foreign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +to Riley's nature as they would have +been to a woodchuck's. She took up +Tommy Bowser's. Alas, four-syllabled +words were not in Tommy's daily +vocabulary, nor were the elegant sentences +under his name within the +power of his composition. Plainly it +was the work of a plagiarist.</p> + +<p>She went through the pile slowly, +and then wrote on the blackboard as +she had promised, the names of the +ten whose work was the best and most +original. It was then that Perkins's +oldest had the surprise of his life, for +lo! his name, like Abou-ben-Adhem's, +"led all the rest."</p> + +<p>Again the Cross-Roads had taught +him more than the school,—to depend +on the resources to which nature had +adapted him, and never again to attempt +to sally forth in borrowed armour, +even though it be a king's.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>Chapter XII</h2> + + +<div class='cap'>IT was Cy Akers who carried the +news to the schoolhouse, galloping +his old sorrel up to the open door +just before the bell tapped for afternoon +dismissal. He did not dismount, but +drawing rein, leaned forward in his +saddle, waiting for the little schoolmistress +to step down from the desk to +the doorstep. The rows of waiting +children craned their necks anxiously, +but only those nearest the door heard +his message.</div> + +<p>"Mr. Asa Holmes died this morning," +he said. "The funeral is set for +to-morrow afternoon at four, and you +can announce to the children that there +won't be any school. The trustees +thought it would be only proper to +close out of respect for him, as he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +on the school board over thirty years, +and has done so much for the community. +He's one of the old landmarks, +you might say, about the last of +the old pioneers, and everybody will +want to go."</p> + +<p>Before she could recover from the +suddenness of the announcement the +rider was gone, and she was left looking +out across the October fields with +a lonely sense of personal loss, although +her acquaintance with the old miller +had extended over only two short +school terms.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later the measured +tramp of feet over the worn door-sill +began, and forty children passed out +into the mellow sunshine of the late +autumn afternoon. They went quietly +at first, awed by the tender, reverent +words in which the little schoolmistress +had given them the message to carry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +home. But once outside, the pent-up +enthusiasm over their unexpected holiday, +and the mere joy of being alive +and free on such a day sent them rushing +down the road pell-mell, shouting +and swinging their dinner-pails as they +ran.</p> + +<p>A shade of annoyance crossed the +teacher's face as she stood watching +from the doorstep. She wished she +had cautioned them not to be so noisy, +for she knew that their shouts could +be plainly heard in the old house +whose gables she could see through a +clump of cedars, farther down the +road. It was standing with closed +blinds now, and she had a feeling that +the laughing voices floating across to it +must strike harshly across its profound +silence.</p> + +<p>But presently her face brightened as +she watched the children running on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +in the sunshine, in the joy of their +emancipation. Part of a poem she +had read that morning came to her. +She had thought when she read it that +it was a beautiful way to look upon +death, and now it bore a new significance, +and she whispered it to herself:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +"'Why should it be a wrench to leave this wooden bench?<br /> +Why not with happy shout, run home when school is out?'<br /> +</div> + +<p>"That's the way the old miller has +gone," she said, softly. "His lessons +all learned and his tasks all done—so +well done, too, that he has nothing to +regret. I'm glad that I didn't stop the +children. I am sure that's the way he +would want them to go. Dear old +man! He was always a boy at heart."</p> + +<p>She turned the key in the door behind +her presently, and started down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +the road to Mrs. Powers's, where she +boarded. In every fence corner the +sumachs flamed blood-red, and across +the fields, where purple shadows trailed +their royal lengths behind every shock +of corn, the autumn woodlands massed +their gold and crimson against the +sunset sky. She walked slowly, loath +to reach the place where she must go +indoors.</p> + +<p>The Perkins home lay in her way, +and as she passed, Mrs. Perkins with a +baby on her hip, and a child clinging +to her skirts, leaned over the gate to +speak to her.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it sad," the woman exclaimed, +grasping eagerly at this chance to discuss +every incident of the death and +illness, with that love for detail always +to be found in country districts +where happenings are few and interests +are strong.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They sent for the family Tuesday +when he had the stroke, but he couldn't +speak to them when they got here. +They said he seemed to recognise Miss +Polly, and smiled when she took his +hand. She seemed to be his favourite, +and they say she's taking it mighty +hard—harder than any of the rest. +It's a pity he couldn't have left 'em all +some last message. I think it's always a +comfort to remember one's dying words +when as good a person as Mr. Holmes +goes. And it's always so nice when +they happen to be appropriate, so's they +can be put on the tombstone afterward. +I remember my Aunt Maria worked +my grandfather's last words into a +sampler, with an urn and weeping-willow-tree. +She had it framed in +black and hung in the parlour, and +everybody who came to the house +admired it. It's a pity that the miller<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +couldn't have left some last word to +each of 'em."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it was necessary," +said the girl, turning away with a +choke in her voice, as the eloquent +face of the old man seemed to rise up +before her. "His whole life speaks for +him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Perkins looked after the retreating +figure regretfully, as the jaunty +sailor hat disappeared behind a tall +hedge. "I wish she hadn't been in +such a hurry," she sighed, shifting the +baby to the other hip. "I would +have liked to ask her if she's heard +who the pall-bearers are to be."</p> + +<p>At the turn in the road the little +schoolmistress looked up to see Miss +Anastasia Dill leaning over her gate. +She had just heard the news, and there +were tears in her pale blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"And Polly's wedding cards were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +to have been sent out this next week!" +she exclaimed after their first words of +greeting. "The poor child told me +so herself when she was here in August +on a visit. 'Miss Anastasia,' she said +to me, 'I'm not going abroad for my +honeymoon, as all my family want +me to do. I'm going to bring Jack +back here to the old homestead where +grandfather's married life began. Somehow +it was so ideal, so nearly perfect, +that I have a feeling that maybe the +mantle of that old romance will fall on +our shoulders. Besides, Jack has never +seen grandfather, and I tell him it's as +much of an education to know such +a grand old man as it is to go through +Yale. So we're coming in October. +The woods will have on all their gala +colours then, and I'll be the happiest +bride the sun ever shone on, unless it +was my grandmother Polly.' And now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> +to think," added Miss Anastasia, tearfully, +"none of those plans can come +to pass. It's bad luck to put off a +wedding. Oh, I feel so sorry for +her!"</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>There is an undefined note of pathos +in a country funeral that is never +reached in any other. The little schoolmistress +felt it as she walked up the path +to the old house behind the cedars. +The front porch was full of men, who, +dressed in their unaccustomed best, +had the uneasy appearance of having +come upon a Sunday in the middle of +the week. Their heavy boots tiptoed +clumsily through the hall, with a painful +effort to go silently, as one by one +the neighbours passed into the old sitting-room +and out again. The room +across the hall had been filled with +rows of chairs, and the women who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +came first were sitting there in a +deep silence, broken only by a cough +now and then, a hoarse whisper or a +rustle, as some one moved to make +room for a newcomer.</p> + +<p>It was a sombre assembly, for every +one wore whatever black her wardrobe +afforded, and many funeral occasions +had left an accumulation of mourning +millinery in every house in the neighbourhood. +But the limp crape veils +and black gloves and pall-like cashmere +shawls were all congregated in +the dimly lighted parlour. In the old +sitting-room it was as cheerful and +homelike as ever, save for the still +form in the centre.</p> + +<p>Through an open window the western +sun streamed into the big, hospitable +room, across the bright home-made +rag carpet. The old clock in the +corner ticked with the placid, steady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +stroke that had never failed or faltered, +in any vicissitude of the generations +for which it had marked the changes. +No fire blazed on the old hearthstone +that had warmed the hearts as well as +the hands of the whole countryside on +many a cheerful occasion. But a great +bough of dogwood, laid across the shining +andirons, filled the space with coral +berries that glowed like live embers as +the sun stole athwart them.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if the old room could only +speak!" thought Miss Anastasia, when +her turn came to pass reverently in for +a last look at the peaceful face. "There +would be no need of man's eulogy."</p> + +<p>But man's eulogy was added presently, +when the old minister came in +and took his place beside the coffin +of his lifelong friend and neighbour. +The men outside the porch closed in +around the windows to listen. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +women in the back rows of chairs in +the adjoining room leaned forward +eagerly. Those farthest away caught +only a faltering sentence now and +then.</p> + +<p>"A hospitality as warm as his own +hearthstone, as wide as his broad acres.... +No man can point to him and say +he ever knowingly hurt or hindered a +fellow creature.... He never measured +out to any man a scant bushel. +Be it grain or good-will, it was ever an +overflowing measure...." But those +who could not hear all that was said +could make the silent places eloquent +with their own recollections, for he +had taken a father's interest in them +all, and manifested it by a score of +kindly deeds, too kindly to ever be +forgotten.</p> + +<p>It was a perfect autumn day, sunny +and golden and still, save for the patter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +of dropping nuts and the dry rustle of +fallen leaves. A purple haze rested on +the distant horizon like the bloom on +a ripened grape. Down through the +orchard, when the simple service was +over, they carried their old friend to the +family burying-ground, and, although +voices had choked, and eyes overflowed +before, there was neither sob nor tear, +when the light of the sunset struck +across the low mound, heaped with its +covering of glowing autumn leaves. +For if grief has no part in the sunset +glory that ends the day, or in the perfect +fulness of the autumn time, then +it must indeed stand hushed, when a +life comes both to its sunset and its +harvest, in such royal fashion.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>That evening at the Cross-Roads, +Bowser lighted the first fire of the season +in the rusty old stove, for the night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +was chilly. One by one the men accustomed +to gather around it dropped +in and took their usual places. The +event of the day was all that was spoken +of.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember what he said +last Thanksgiving, nearly a year ago?" +asked Bowser. "It came back to me +as I stood and looked at him to-day, +and if I'd never believed in immortality +before, I'd 'a' had to have believed in it +then. The words seemed to fairly +shine out of his face. He said '<i>The +best comes after the harvest, when the +wheat goes to make up blood and muscle +and brain; when it's raised to a higher +order of life in man. And it's the same +with me. At eighty-five, when it looks as +if I'd about reached the end, I've come +to believe that "the best is yet to be.</i>"'"</p> + +<p>There was a long pause, and Cy +Akers said, slowly, "Somehow I can't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> +feel that he is dead. Seems as if he'd +just gone away a while. But Lord! +how we're going to miss him here at +the store."</p> + +<p>"No, don't say that!" exclaimed +Bud Hines, with more emotion than +he had ever been known to show before. +"Say, how we're going to feel +him! I can't get him out of my +mind. Every time I turn around, +most, seems to me I can hear him +laugh, and say, 'Don't cross your +bridge till you come to it, Bud.' That +saying of his rings in my ears every +time I get in the dumps. Seems like +he could set the calendar straight for +us, all the year around. The winters +wasn't so cold or the summers so hard +to pull through, looking at life through +his eyes."</p> + +<p>Perkins's oldest crept up unnoticed. +He added no word, but deep in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +heart lay an impression that all the +years to come could never erase; the +remembrance of a kindly old man who +had given him a new gospel, in that +one phrase, "A brother to Santa +Claus;" who had taught him to go +out against his Philistines with simple +directness of aim and whatever lay at +hand; who had left behind him the +philosophy of a cheerful optimist, and +the example of a sweet simple life, +unswerving in its loyalty to duty and +to truth.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Over in the old homestead, Polly, +standing in the firelight, fair and slender +in her black gown, looked up at the +tall young fellow beside her, and placed +two little books in his hands. The +old house was not her only heritage. +The little atlas of the heavens was hers +also. Standing there in the room<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +where the beloved presence seemed to +have left its benediction, Polly told the +story of the love that had outlived +Death. Then across the yellowed +page of the old grammar where the +faded violets lay, two hands met in +the same sure clasp that had joined the +souls of those older lovers, who somewhere +beyond the stars were still repeating +the old conjugation—"we +love—<i>for ever!</i>"</p> + + +<div class='center'>THE END.</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1_ad1" id="Page_1_ad1">[1]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class='adtitle1'> +L. C. Page & Company's<br /> +Announcement List<br /> +of New Fiction<br /> +</div> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>Haunters of the Silences.</span> <span class="smcap">By Charles G. +D. Roberts</span>, author of "Red Fox," "The Watchers of +the Trails," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth, one volume, with many drawings by Charles Livingston Bull, four of which are in full color $2.00<br /> +</div> + +<p>The stories in Mr. Roberts's new collection are the strongest +and best he has ever written.</p> + +<p>He has largely taken for his subjects those animals rarely +met with in books, whose lives are spent "In the Silences," +where they are the supreme rulers. Mr. Roberts has written +of them sympathetically, as always, but with fine regard +for the scientific truth.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"As a writer about animals, Mr. Roberts occupies an enviable +place. He is the most literary, as well as the most imaginative +and vivid of all the nature writers."—<i>Brooklyn Eagle.</i></p> + +<p>"His animal stories are marvels of sympathetic science and +literary exactness."—<i>New York World.</i></p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2_ad1" id="Page_2_ad1">[2]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>The Lady of the Blue Motor.</span> <span class="smcap">By +G. Sidney Paternoster</span>, author of "The Cruise of +the Motor-Boat Conqueror," "The Motor Pirate," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by John C. Frohn $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>The Lady of the Blue Motor is an audacious heroine +who drove her mysterious car at breakneck speed. Her +plea for assistance in an adventure promising more than a +spice of danger could not of course be disregarded by any +gallant fellow motorist. Mr. Paternoster's hero rose +promptly to the occasion. Across France they tore and +across the English Channel. There, the escapade past, he +lost her.</p> + +<p>Mr. Paternoster, however, is generous, and allows the +reader to follow their separate adventures until the Lady of +the Blue Motor is found again and properly vindicated of +all save womanly courage and affection. A unique romance, +one continuous exciting series of adventure.</p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>Clementina's Highwayman.</span> <span class="smcap">By Robert +Neilson Stephens</span>, author of "The Flight of Georgiana," +"An Enemy to the King," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Stephens has put into his new book, "Clementina's +Highwayman," the finest qualities of plot, construction, and +literary finish.</p> + +<p>The story is laid in the mid-Georgian period. It is a +dashing, sparkling, vivacious comedy, with a heroine as +lovely and changeable as an April day, and a hero all ardor +and daring.</p> + +<p>The exquisite quality of Mr. Stephens's literary style +clothes the story in a rich but delicate word-fabric; and +never before have his setting and atmosphere been so +perfect.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3_ad1" id="Page_3_ad1">[3]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>The Sorceress of Rome.</span> <span class="smcap">By Nathan Gallizier</span>, +author of "Castel del Monte," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>The love-story of Otto III., the boy emperor, and Stephania, +wife of the Senator Crescentius of Rome, has +already been made the basis of various German poems and +plays.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gallizier has used it for the main theme of "The +Sorceress of Rome," the second book of his trilogy of +romances on the medićval life of Italy. In detail and +finish the book is a brilliant piece of work, describing +clearly an exciting and strenuous period. It possesses the +same qualities as "Castel del Monte," of which the <i>Chicago +Record Herald</i> said: "There is color, there is sumptuous +word-painting in these pages; the action is terrific at times; +vividness and life are in every part; brilliant descriptions +entertain the reader; mystic scenes and prophecies give a +singular fascination to the tale, which is strong and forceful +in its portrayal."</p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>Hester of the Hills.</span> <span class="smcap">By Gilder Clay.</span></div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>"Hester of the Hills" has a motif unusual in life, and +new in fiction. Its hero, who has only acquired his own +strength and resourcefulness by a lifelong struggle against +constitutional frailty, has come to make the question of +bodily soundness his dominant thought. He resolves to +ensure strong constitutions to his children by marrying a +physically perfect woman. After long search, he finds this +ideal in Hester, the daughter of a "cracker squatter," of +the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. But,—he forgot to +take into consideration that very vital emotion, love, which +played havoc with his well-laid plans.</p> + +<p>It is an ingenious combination of practical realism and +imaginative fiction worked out to a thoroughly delightful +and satisfying climax.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4_ad1" id="Page_4_ad1">[4]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>Prisoners of Fortune.</span> <span class="smcap">A Tale of the Massachusetts +Bay Colony. By Ruel Perley Smith</span>, +author of "The Rival Campers," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>The period of Mr. Smith's story is the beginning of the +eighteenth century, when the shores of the American colonies +were harassed and the seas patrolled by pirates and +buccaneers. These robbed and spoiled, and often seized +and put to death, the sailors and fishers and other humbler +folk, while their leaders claimed friendship alike with Southern +planters and New England merchants,—with whom +it is said they frequently divided their spoils.</p> + +<p>The times were stern and the colonists were hardy, but +they loved as truly and tenderly as in more peaceful days. +Thus, while the hero's adventures with pirates and his search +for their hidden treasure is a record of desperate encounters +and daring deeds, his love-story and his winning of sweet +Mary Vane is in delightful contrast.</p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>The Rome Express.</span> <span class="smcap">By Major Arthur Griffiths</span>, +author of "The Passenger from Calais," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by A. O. Scott $1.25<br /> +</div> + +<p>A mysterious murder on a flying express train, a wily +Italian, a charming woman caught in the meshes of circumstantial +evidence, a chivalrous Englishman, and a police +force with a keen nose for the wrong clue, are the ingredients +from which Major Griffiths has concocted a clever, up-to-date +detective story. The book is bright and spirited, +with rapid action, and consistent development which brings +the story to a logical and dramatic ending.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5_ad1" id="Page_5_ad1">[5]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>The Morning Glory Club.</span> <span class="smcap">By George A. +Kyle.</span></div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by A. O. Scott. $1.25<br /> +</div> + +<p>The doings of the Morning Glory Club will furnish genuine +amusement to the reader. Originally formed to "elevate" +the village, it quickly develops into an exchange for +town gossip. It has a saving grace, however, in the person +of motherly Mrs. Stout, the uncultured but sweet-natured +and pure-minded village philosopher, who pours the oil of +her saneness and charity on the troubled waters of discussion +and condemnation.</p> + +<p>It is a series of clear and interesting pictures of the humor +of village life.</p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Detective.</span> +<span class="smcap">New Illustrated Edition. By Arthur +Morrison</span>, author of "The Green Diamond," +"The Red Triangle," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, with six full-page drawings by W. Kirkpatrick $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>The success of Mr. Morrison's recent books, "The Green +Diamond" and "The Red Triangle," has led to an imperative +demand for the reissue of "The Chronicles of Martin +Hewitt," which has been out of print for a number of years.</p> + +<p>It will be remembered that Martin Hewitt is the detective +in "The Red Triangle," of whom the <i>New York +Tribune</i> said: "Better than Sherlock Holmes." His adventures +in the London slums were of such a nature that the +<i>Philadelphia North American</i> said: "The reader who has +a grain of fancy or imagination may be defied to lay this +book down once he has begun it until the last word is +reached."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6_ad1" id="Page_6_ad1">[6]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>Mystery Island.</span> <span class="smcap">By Edward H. Hurst.</span></div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>A hunting camp on a swampy island in the Florida Everglades +furnishes the background for this present-day tale.</p> + +<p>By the murder of one of their number, the secret of +egress from the island is lost, and the campers find themselves +marooned.</p> + +<p>Cut off from civilization, conventional veneer soon wears +away. Love, hate, and revenge spring up, and after the +sterner passions have had their sway the man and the woman +are left alone to fulfil their own destiny.</p> + +<p>While there is much that is unusual in the plot and its +development, Mr. Hurst has handled his subject with fine +delicacy, and the tale of their love on the beautiful little +island is told with deep sympathy and feeling.</p> + + +<div class='hang1'><span class='adtitle2'>The Flying Cloud.</span> <span class="smcap">By Morley Roberts</span>, +author of "The Promotion of the Admiral," "Rachel +Marr," "The Idlers," etc.</div> + +<div class='center'> +Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Roberts's new book is much more than a ripping +good sea story such as might be expected from the author +of "The Promotion of the Admiral." In "The Flying +Cloud" the waters and the winds are gods personified. +Their every mood and phase are described in words of telling +force. There is no world but the waste of waters.</p> + +<p>Mr. Roberts glories and exults in the mystery, the passion, +the strength of the elements, as did the Viking chroniclers +of old. He understands them and loves them and +interprets them as no other writer has heretofore done. +The book is too big for conventional phrases. It needs +Mr. Roberts's own richness of imagery and masterly expression +to describe adequately the word-pictures in this +epic of wind and waves.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1_ad2" id="Page_1_ad2">[1]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class='adtitle1'>Selections from<br /> +L. C. Page and Company's<br /> +List of Fiction</div> + + +<div class='adtitle2'><br />WORKS OF<br /> +ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS</div> + +<div class='center'> +<i>Each one vol., library 12mo, cloth decorative</i> $1.50<br /> +</div> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Flight of Georgiana</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Romance of the Days of the Young Pretender.</span> Illustrated +by H. C. Edwards.</p> + +<div class='blockquot'>"A love-story in the highest degree, a dashing story, and a remarkably +well finished piece of work."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></div> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Bright Face of Danger</div> + +<p>Being an account of some adventures of Henri de Launay, son of +the Sieur de la Tournoire. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Stephens has fairly outdone himself. We thank him +heartily. The story is nothing if not spirited and entertaining, +rational and convincing."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Mystery of Murray Davenport</div> + +<p>(40th thousand.)</p> + +<div class='blockquot'>"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done. +Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of +this praise, which is generous."—<i>Buffalo News.</i></div> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>Captain Ravenshaw</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Or, The Maid of Cheapside.</span> (52d thousand.) A romance +of Elizabethan London. Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other +artists.</p> + +<p>Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we had +anything so good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.</p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Continental Dragoon</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Romance of Philipse Manor House in 1778.</span> (53d +thousand.) Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.</p> + +<p>A stirring romance of the Revolution, with its scene laid on +neutral territory.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2_ad2" id="Page_2_ad2">[2]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>Philip Winwood</div> + +<p>(70th thousand.) A Sketch of the Domestic History of an +American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing events +that occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in +New York and London. Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.</p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>An Enemy to the King</div> + +<p>(70th thousand.) From the "Recently Discovered Memoirs of +the Sieur de la Tournoire." Illustrated by H. De M. Young.</p> + +<p>An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the +adventures of a young French nobleman at the court of Henry III., +and on the field with Henry IV.</p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Road to Paris</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Story of Adventure.</span> (35th thousand.) Illustrated by +H. C. Edwards.</p> + +<p>An historical romance of the eighteenth century, being an account +of the life of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry.</p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>A Gentleman Player</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth.</span> +(48th thousand.) Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.</p> + +<p>The story of a young gentleman who joins Shakespeare's company +of players, and becomes a friend and protégé of the great +poet.</p> +<hr class="chap" /> + + + +<h2>WORKS OF +CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS</h2> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>Red Fox</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Story of His Adventurous Career in the Ringwaak +Wilds, and of His Final Triumph over the Enemies of +His Kind.</span> With fifty illustrations, including frontispiece in +color and cover design by Charles Livingston Bull.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Square quarto, cloth decorative $2.00<br /> +</div> + +<blockquote><p>"Infinitely more wholesome reading than the average tale of +sport, since it gives a glimpse of the hunt from the point of view of +the hunted."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> + +<p>"True in substance but fascinating as fiction. It will interest +old and young, city-bound and free-footed, those who know animals +and those who do not."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p> + +<p>"A brilliant chapter in natural history."—<i>Philadelphia North +American.</i></p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3_ad2" id="Page_3_ad2">[3]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Kindred of the Wild</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Book of Animal Life.</span> With fifty-one full-page plates and +many decorations from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Square quarto, decorative cover $2.00<br /> +</div> + +<blockquote><p>"Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal stories +that has appeared; well named and well done."—<i>John Burroughs.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Watchers of the Trails</div> + +<p>A companion volume to "The Kindred of the Wild." With +forty-eight full-page plates and many decorations from drawings +by Charles Livingston Bull.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Square quarto, decorative cover $2.00<br /> +</div> + +<blockquote><p>"Mr. Roberts has written a most interesting series of tales free +from the vices of the stories regarding animals of many other +writers, accurate in their facts and admirably and dramatically told."—<i>Chicago +News.</i></p> + +<p>"These stories are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust +in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. +Among the many writers about animals, Mr. Roberts occupies an +enviable place."—<i>The Outlook.</i></p> + +<p>"This is a book full of delight. An additional charm lies in Mr. +Bull's faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their +own tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and supplementing +the pen pictures of the author."—<i>Literary Digest.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>Earth's Enigmas</div> + +<p>A new edition of Mr. Roberts's first volume of fiction, published +in 1892, and out of print for several years, with the addition of +three new stories, and ten illustrations by Charles Livingston +Bull.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<blockquote><p>"It will rank high among collections of short stories. In +'Earth's Enigmas' is a wider range of subject than in the 'Kindred +of the Wild.'"—<i>Review from advance sheets of the illustrated edition +by Tiffany Blake in the Chicago Evening Post.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>Barbara Ladd</div> + +<p>With four illustrations by Frank Verbeck.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Library 12mo, gilt top $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<blockquote><p>"From the opening chapter to the final page Mr. Roberts lures +us on by his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of Nature and +by his keen and sympathetic analysis of human character"—<i>Boston +Transcript.</i></p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4_ad2" id="Page_4_ad2">[4]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>Cameron of Lochiel</div> + +<p>Translated from the French of Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, with +frontispiece in color by H. C. Edwards.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<blockquote><p>"Professor Roberts deserves the thanks of his reader for giving +a wider audience an opportunity to enjoy this striking bit of French +Canadian literature."—<i>Brooklyn Eagle.</i></p> + +<p>"It is not often in these days of sensational and philosophical +novels that one picks up a book that so touches the heart."—<i>Boston +Transcript.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Prisoner of Mademoiselle</div> + +<p>With frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Library 12mo, cloth decorative, gilt top $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>A tale of Acadia,—a land which is the author's heart's delight,—of +a valiant young lieutenant and a winsome maiden, who first +captures and then captivates.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"This is the kind of a story that makes one grow younger, more +innocent, more light-hearted. Its literary quality is impeccable. +It is not every day that such a heroine blossoms into even temporary +existence, and the very name of the story bears a breath of +charm."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Heart of the Ancient Wood</div> + +<p>With six illustrations by James L. Weston.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Library 12mo, decorative cover $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<blockquote><p>"One of the most fascinating novels of recent days."—<i>Boston +Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"A classic twentieth-century romance."—<i>New York Commercial +Advertiser.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<div class='adtitle3'>The Forge In the Forest</div> + +<p>Being the Narrative of the Acadian Ranger, Jean de Mer, +Seigneur de Briart, and how he crossed the Black Abbé, and of +his adventures in a strange fellowship. Illustrated by Henry +Sandham, R. C. A.</p> + +<div class='center'> +Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>A story of pure love and heroic adventure.</p> + + + +<div class='adtitle3'>By the Marshes of Minas</div> + +<div class='center'> +Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated $1.50<br /> +</div> + +<p>Most of these romances are in the author's lighter and more +playful vein; each is a unit of absorbing interest and exquisite +workmanship.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> +<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p> + +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Asa Holmes, by Annie Fellows Johnston + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASA HOLMES *** + +***** This file should be named 39598-h.htm or 39598-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/9/39598/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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