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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Memoirs of a millionaire - -Author: Lucia True Ames - -Release Date: January 1, 2023 [eBook #69678] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from - images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF A -MILLIONAIRE *** - - - - - - MEMOIRS OF A MILLIONAIRE - - - BY - - LUCIA TRUE AMES - - AUTHOR OF “GREAT THOUGHTS FOR LITTLE THINKERS” - -[Illustration] - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY - =The Riverside Press, Cambridge= - 1889 - - - - - Copyright, 1889, - BY LUCIA TRUE AMES. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ - Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. - - - - - Dedicated - - TO - - MY ONLY BROTHER, CHARLES H. AMES. - -Written for all men and women to whom the privilege of American -citizenship has been vouchsafed, and to whom the stewardship of wealth -has been entrusted. - -[Illustration] - - - - - EDITOR’S PREFACE. - - -Since the recent death of the noble woman whose name has become a -household word all over our land, and whose memoirs form the subject of -this volume, I have been repeatedly importuned to give to the public -some account of her remarkable life. - -It is too soon yet to present an adequate biography, and for such a task -I should consider myself entirely unfitted. I have, however, endeavored, -though somewhat hastily, to put together such material, chiefly -selections from newspaper reports, letters, and diaries, as shall throw -light upon the numerous projects that were the outcome of her thought -and generosity, and which in certain ways are unparalleled in the annals -of those whose wealth has been devoted to the cause of humanity. - -Cut off in the full ripeness of early womanhood, her work was -nevertheless accomplished, and millions shall in the ages to come reap -perennial harvests from the seed which in one short year her wisdom and -foresight sowed far and wide. - -The world at large will know somewhat of her work; but only to those who -knew her best, to whom she revealed the warmth and intensity of her -strong nature, can the full beauty of her life be known. - -The constant, subtle charm of her manner, now gracious and dignified, -now unconsciously naive and simple, only a master could portray. I must -content myself, therefore, with giving, in simplest words, but a few of -the many reminiscences that memory brings back of those moments which -may serve to make clear the thoughts and purposes that were the -mainspring of all her action, and which made her what she was, the -noblest woman I have ever known. - -I have hesitated about using the word “Memoirs” in the title of this -volume. That word has a somewhat doleful and funereal sound, suggestive -of anything but the bright, vigorous life of her who was so intensely -warm and alive. But perhaps there is no other word that so well -expresses what I have here put together, and so I leave it as I wrote it -first, “Memoirs of a Millionaire.” - - BOSTON, _June 7, 189–_. - - - - - MEMOIRS OF A MILLIONAIRE. - - - - - CHAPTER I. - - The class of which I speak make themselves merry without duties. They - sit in decorated club-houses in the cities, and burn tobacco and play - whist; in the country they sit idle in stores and bar-rooms, and burn - tobacco, and gossip and sleep. They complain of the flatness of - American life; America has no illusions, no romance. They have no - perception of its destiny. They are not Americans.—EMERSON, _The - Fortune of the Republic_. - - -It was on the evening of election day that I first saw her. I had come -up from Salem to Boston, to spend the night and hear Booth and Barrett -the next day, and I had gone to dine at aunt Madison’s on Louisburg -Square. - -The lamps had not been lighted, and we were all sitting cosily around -the open grate after dinner, talking over the _matinée_, and jesting -with two or three of Will’s college friends who were there for the -evening, when the portière was noiselessly drawn aside, and Mildred -Brewster came in with a cheery good evening. - -I can recall now just how she looked, as, after the introductions were -over, she stood leaning on the back of aunt Madison’s chair, with the -ruddy glow of the firelight on her face, and her lithe figure dimly -outlined against the shadowy background. - -I did not notice her much at first, for, after her blithe greeting, on -seeing strangers she had drawn back into the shadow and sat so quietly -that I, carrying on a gay banter with the young men, had almost -forgotten her. - -I do not remember what was said at first. It did not make much -impression on me at the time, until, after a while, the talk grew a -little more serious, and the young men began to speak of their plans for -the future. They were all seniors, and each of them, except Will, had -plenty of money in his own right, with apparently nothing in life more -burdensome to do than to draw checks and order dinners at Young’s. - -They were a handsome trio, broad-chested, keen-eyed, clad in the -daintiest of linen from Noyes Brothers,—“the jolliest swells in the -class,” Will called them. - -Aunt Madison asked them, apropos of the election, how they had voted, -for they were all residents of Boston and had passed their majority. -They were evidently rather amused at the query, but each and all -politely replied that they hadn’t much enthusiasm about voting, and it -having been a rainy day, they had not taken the trouble to go to the -polls. - -“You see, the fact is,” said the young man with the blonde mustache whom -Will called Ned Conro, “voting is a confounded bore, any way.” - -“But of course you have an interest in national politics, if not in -municipal affairs?” said aunt Madison, inquiringly, as she looked up -from her knitting and beamed benevolently at the young man through her -gold-bowed spectacles. “I suppose you young men at Harvard, with all -your study of history and political economy, are wide awake about all -these things.” - -“Oh, we talk free trade and protection more or less, that is, the -fellows did who took that course of study last year. I don’t go in for -that sort of thing myself very much; my money isn’t in manufactures, and -I don’t care a continental about the tariff one way or the other. And as -for politics,—of course we all go in for the hurrah and fun in a -presidential campaign, but I don’t look forward to doing anything -further in that line after I graduate. It is all well enough for any one -who has a fancy for it and who wants to run for office, and that sort of -thing. But there can’t be more than two senators and one governor in a -state at a time, and anything less than that isn’t worth the trouble. - -“I’ve mighty little respect for any man who condescends to be a ward -politician. Boston is an Irish city, after all, though last year some of -the better class got their blood up and had a clearing out; but the game -isn’t worth the candle, and I, for one, am willing to let the Irish go -the whole figure if they wish to do it. We can’t get rid of them, and it -doesn’t pay to mix up with them. I don’t propose to vote to have my -father, or any other gentleman of good old New England stock, sit beside -some liquor-seller or grocer as common councilman or alderman.” - -“Neither do I,” ejaculated my _vis-à-vis_, whom Will had introduced as -Mr. Mather; “a fellow who begins to bother his head about all these -little twopenny municipal affairs only soils his hands for his pains, -and doesn’t improve matters one atom. It’s well enough to vote if one -wants to, but what does a single vote amount to? It counts no more when -cast by a Harvard professor than by some South Cove ‘Mick.’ Suppose Mr. -Smith and Mr. Brown are up for school committee; you don’t know a thing -about either of them, except that they are nominated by a set of rummies -and demagogues, or else by a lot of women or pious temperance cranks. -You are a professional man and your time is worth ten dollars an -hour,—you don’t care a fig about the whole school committee business -anyway; it’s the women’s affair—they can vote on that. Let them turn out -and manage it as they did last year, if they want to; but you can’t -expect a man to look after these matters, and be elbowed and hooted down -at the caucuses, if he has the tastes of a gentleman and all the -responsibilities of a profession or a large business on his shoulders.” - -“The fact is that in municipal matters the ballot ought to be put on a -property basis, and until that is done, I shall bother myself precious -little about it,” remarked the third young gentleman, twirling his seal -and addressing his three feminine listeners. - -I wondered why Mildred’s cheeks had grown so rosy and why her dark eyes -had such a gleam in them as she laid down the bit of embroidery on which -her fingers had been busy, and turned toward the speaker. “What a -profile!” I thought; “almost pure Greek, only the chin is a little too -square.” - -“The truth is,” the young man continued, “we have no great men now and -no great issues, unless you call all this frenzy about the school -question a great issue. We’ve got to come to see that the government has -no right to tax its citizens to teach history, anyway. It’s an -imposition to tax a man to send some one else’s child to a high school. -Let the state give a child the three R’s, and then if he wants to learn -about Tetzel or Luther, let his father pay to have him taught in his own -way. Politics is no profession for a young man. There’s no great amount -of money in it, unless you’re mighty shrewd, and tricky, too; and as for -fame, the man must be pretty thick-skinned who can stand the pelting -which every reputation gets nowadays, and not wince under it. For my -part, I think democracy is a good deal played out. It was all right so -long as men _were_ equal; but we’re getting about as stratified a -society now as there is anywhere in the Old World; and there’s no use in -the sentimental every-man-a-brother kind of talk. I don’t propose to -shake the greasy hand of any of these beastly foreigners that are coming -here and crowding us to the wall. I don’t grudge them the rights of -American citizenship; they may have it and welcome, if they want it; but -where they step in I step out. In fact, I think I shall settle down in -Paris or Florence for a while. There’s lots more fun for a fellow over -there.” - -There was more of this sort of talk. I watched Mildred’s face, and -noticed that her lips were twitching and her fingers playing nervously -with the fringe of a scarlet silk shawl which she wore. Evidently she -was under some stress of strong emotion, though for what reason I but -vaguely guessed. She had come out of the shadow, and stood tall and -stately, with her arm resting on the mantel and her eyes fixed on the -speakers with such a look as I had never before seen on any countenance. -There was anger and pity and contempt, strangely mingled, on her mobile -features. She had forgotten herself, and I think they were fairly -startled at the look they read in her tell-tale face. - -Will made an attempt to change the subject, but Mr. Mather broke in: -“You look as though you did not agree with us, Miss Brewster. Come, we -have monopolized the conversation so far, now tell us what _you_ think.” - -She did not speak at first, and there was an awkward silence for a -minute. When it was broken, her voice sounded so painfully hard and calm -in its effort not to tremble that I scarcely recognized it. - -“Within two weeks,” she said, speaking slowly, “I have sat for five -hours face to face with the leading anarchists of New England. I have -questioned them, and they have told me frankly of their doctrines, which -you already know, and which, I scarcely need to say, I heartily detest. -But I have not heard, either from the lips of these misguided men or -from any one for many months, anything which has so shocked and -surprised me as what I have just listened to here.” - -I felt that she was trembling as she spoke, but her voice was low and -quiet. - -She continued: “When one is filled with indignation and grief it is -difficult to speak justly and wisely, and therefore, if you will excuse -me, I think that I will not trust myself to say anything further.” - -“Good heavens!” cried Mr. Mather, staring at her in undisguised -amazement, while his companions glanced slyly at each other with faint -smiles and an evident endeavor to make the best of an embarrassing -situation. - -“I think, dear, you had better tell them what you are thinking of, lest -they misunderstand you; of course you don’t mean that they are worse -than anarchists,” said aunt Madison, gently. - -“No, not worse, but more to blame,” replied Miss Brewster, with -extraordinary candor, and then recollecting herself, a crimson tide -suddenly mantled her neck and cheek and brow, and she drew back again -into the shadow. - -“I beg your pardon,” she stammered; and then with a little forced laugh -she added, “you see, you oughtn’t to have tempted me to speak. I was -sure to give offense if I spoke my thoughts.” - -“Ah, but we can’t excuse you unless you go on,” said Ned Conro, -persuasively. “As for me, you have whetted my curiosity so that I shan’t -sleep a wink to-night,” he went on, with a twinkle in his eye, “unless I -know why my father’s son and heir, who has hitherto supposed himself to -be always on the side of law and order, is more to blame than these -foreign wretches who have come over here with the notion in their addled -heads that they are going to upset this nineteenth-century civilization -with a few ounces of dynamite.” - -Mr. Gordon echoed Mr. Conro’s request, while a quizzical smile played -around his lips, and I knew as well as if he had told me, that he was -saying to himself, “Gad, she’s a specimen! One of these cranky -women’s-righters, no doubt. How they do like to hold forth! These girls -always spoil a fellow’s fun with their high and mighty theories and -ideas.” And this son of a quadruple millionaire thrust his hands deep -into the pockets of his English trousers and stretched himself -comfortably to listen, with all the complacent condescension of a man to -whom twenty-two years of experience and masculine wisdom gave a -consciousness of virtuous superiority. - -The flush had faded from Mildred’s cheek, but I fancied from the look in -her eyes that she was in no mood to be trifled with; this was no mere -passing gust of passion. She had received a wound which had cut her to -the quick; for, as I afterwards learned to know, hers was one of those -rare natures, rare in men, rarer still in women, which scarcely feels a -personal slight, but to which a grand, absorbing idea is more real and -vital than all else, and which counts treason to this the unpardonable -sin. - -“If I speak, I must speak plainly,” said Mildred. “I have neither time -nor wit to clothe my thoughts in ambiguous, inoffensive words. Like -plain, blunt Antony, I can only ‘speak right on’ and say ‘what in my -heart doth beat and burn.’” - -“Good, I like that,” said Mr. Mather gravely, and there was an instant’s -silence, broken only by the chime of the cathedral clock as it struck -the hour. - -“I have been thinking,” said Mildred quietly, “of those words in that -record of the young Hebrew, who, it is said, sold his birthright for a -mess of pottage. I have been thinking also of those words of our own -Emerson: ‘We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name -for Opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of -Providence in behalf of the human race.’ Perhaps you do not see the -connection between these two thoughts, but to me it seems very close. To -have for one’s inheritance the birthright of American citizenship seems -to me something so rich and precious that to despise it and ignobly sell -it,—not like Esau for the mess of pottage which could relieve his -hunger,—but to sell it to the stranger for the sake of gaining immunity -from responsibility, yes, more than that, throwing it away out of sheer -contempt for it and ingratitude for what it has done for one, this seems -to me the acme of cowardice and selfishness.” - -I noticed that Mr. Mather knit his brows at this, and I thought I -detected a slight flush in his cheeks, but perhaps it was only the -firelight. Mildred did not look up or hesitate, but went steadily on. - - “We sit here in the Promised Land - That flows with Freedom’s honey and milk; - But ’twas they won it, sword in hand, - Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.” - -“Yes, they won it, not we; and we, the heirs of all the ages, for whom -the whole creation has groaned and travailed until now, we, the favored -children of the best age, the best land which history has known, we idly -fold our hands and let the wealth of all the past, which others have -toiled for and shed bloody sweat to gain, fall into our laps as a matter -of course, as if it were but the just due of such lordly creatures as -we. - -“Of what value, pray, is all our study of history if we have so little -realizing sense of its meaning, if we have no imagination to fill out -with quivering, throbbing life this record of the past, which shows what -mankind has been, and what, thank God, we have escaped? - -“Of what value are the sacrifices of those who at bitter cost bought us -our freedom and privilege, if we are so lost to all sense of honor as to -tacitly say, ‘everything has been done for us, to be sure, but we can’t -be expected to go out of our way to see that it is passed along to those -who are less favored’?” - -Mr. Mather made a gesture of dissent and looked up as if to speak; but -Mildred did not notice him. She was gazing with fixed eyes into the -shadows, and seemed to have forgotten her little audience and to be -addressing herself to an unnumbered throng of unseen listeners. Her -bosom heaved and her breath came and went quickly as she went on with -her relentless sarcasm. - -“Yes, our business as immortal sons of God is first of all to look out -for our precious selves. Let us all see to it that no annoying social or -economic questions shall disturb our minds. Let us not be distracted -from our culture and amusements by being forced to waste time in -settling the prosaic bread and butter problems of the ‘lower classes.’ -Let us wash our hands of all responsibility. Why should we hold -ourselves debtors either to the Greeks or to the barbarians? - -“Oh, we are not hard-hearted. We would live and let live. But we can -count it no part of our business to soil our fingers by lending a hand -to the poor wretch whose blind guide has led him into the miry ditch. - -“Let him who ‘despises his birthright’ just think for an instant what -citizenship on the continent of Europe means. You talk about finding -‘more fun’ in Paris and Vienna than here, yes, to be sure; for there you -have nothing to do but to skim the cream of everything and dream away -your youth surrounded by all that the thought of the ages and modern -science can devise to stimulate your already fastidious palate. But -suppose you were a _citizen_ of Germany or Austria or Russia, and must -spend from three to six of the best years of your life in active service -in the army; suppose you were taxed to the extent of over thirty per -cent. of your earnings like the people of Italy; suppose you knew that -your country was growing poorer and taxation was on the frightful -increase as is the case in continental countries; suppose you were taxed -to support a church in which you did not believe, and a government which -granted you no representation; suppose privilege and prejudice hung like -a millstone round every effort for your social advancement! - -“Why,” continued Mildred after a moment’s pause, “just imagine for an -instant all that is involved in the difference in comfort and mode of -life from the simple statement that during the ten years from 1870 to -1880, when the United States decreased its aggregate taxation nine per -cent., Germany increased hers over fifty per cent. Imagine, if you can, -what it means to the lives of millions of human beings when I say that -during a period when the wealth of Europe decreased per caput three per -cent. that of our country increased nearly forty per cent. - -“It is one thing, I have found, to travel in Europe untaxed, unmolested, -and unaffected by that gloomy war cloud which continually hovers over -every nation; where, even in times of peace, one man out of twenty-two -is withdrawn from productive industries to train himself to destroy his -fellow-beings. It is quite another thing to be an irresponsible -traveler, free to come and go and say what he pleases. - -“Let those who count their American citizenship of such slight worth -think what a delightful existence theirs would be if they were so -favored as to be one of the subjects of the Russian Tsar! Think of the -bliss of living in a land where one is never disturbed by the -encroachments of foreigners, or expected to attend caucuses and polls; -where, in fact, the less he knows about the government the better for -him and his! Fancy the pleasure in reading newspapers where the news of -the day is under such careful surveillance, through the kindness of the -censorship, that one is never disturbed by troublesome political -matters, and has always the calm consciousness that everything is going -well, although ninety per cent. of the hundred millions over whom the -Russian flag waves cannot write their names; where a man may not go from -one town to another without a passport; where for joining a club that -advocates a constitutional monarchy, as here you might join a club that -advocates Nationalism, you may be subject without a moment’s warning to -arrest and solitary confinement for a year or two without a trial! You -have read Kennan and Stepniak. You know these are hard facts. - -“So when I see men who have been ground between the millstones of caste, -priestcraft, and governmental oppression come here and turn against all -government, I have less contempt and more patience for them than for the -young men of our land, who owe almost every blessing that they enjoy to -this government, and who from mere indolence and apathy choose to allow -the demagogue and ignorant alien to shape its destiny. - -“You complain that we have a ‘stratified society.’ Are you not doing -your best to make it a stratified society and create a caste system when -you advocate a property qualification for the ballot, and would deny all -but the barest rudiments of education to the poor boy? One would think -that you had been brought up in a monarchy and did not realize that from -the people we must choose our legislators as well as our voters, and -that a system which can be tolerated in a country where rulers are -hereditary is most perilous for a government that is of ‘the people, by -the people, and for the people.’ - -“You say ‘there are no great men now,’ ‘no great issues.’ True, the war -is over, and Grant and Lincoln are dead, but - - ‘Life may be given in many ways, - And loyalty to truth be sealed - As bravely in the closet as in the field, - So bountiful is fate.’ - -“I do not doubt if our flag were openly dishonored you, too, would -spring to arms and give your life-blood as heroically as those who fell -at Manassas or in the Wilderness. - -“But how many young men have that kind of heroism that impels them to -devote their culture and ability to unostentatious, unceasing service to -the state, though it bring no glory or reward in fame or office? No, the -cowards are not so often to be found on the battlefield as at the -committee meeting and the caucus. - -“True, there seems to be nothing sublime in being a faithful health -commissioner, an Anthony Comstock, a General Armstrong, or a Felix -Adler; nothing glorious in busying one’s self with such prosy things as -labor statistics and tenement houses, with prison reform and sewage and -primary schools and ward politics. ’Tis a thankless task, and the large -per cent. of our Boston legal voters who did not vote yesterday -doubtless think, if they think at all, that even the casting of a ballot -once or twice a year is too great a sacrifice of their valuable time, -and more than ought to be expected of men whose private and social -interests are of far more importance than the welfare of the body -politic. - -“And as for caucuses, how preposterous to expect a man who has such -important matters as Art Club receptions, Psychical Research meetings, -and Longwood toboggan parties to attend, to spend one or two evenings a -year in the company of grocers and saloon-keepers, all for the sake of -defeating some lamplighter or pawnbroker who wants a nomination for the -city council! What difference does it make who is on the council, -provided taxes are not raised? - -“Yes,” continued Mildred, and a shade of melancholy replaced the quiet -scorn in her tone, “the last thing that you or they ever dream of is -that you have a debt to pay and are basely repudiating it.” - -The voice, whose tremor at last betrayed the intensity of the feeling -that had hitherto been carefully guarded, ceased, and suddenly starting -with a self-conscious look, and coloring deeply, Mildred glided softly -from the room. Aunt Madison followed her. - -The fire had burned low and the light was dim. The young men had -forgotten me in the sofa corner. - -There was not a word said for a minute or two as they sat looking into -the bed of coals and listening to the wind shuddering through the bare -branches of the elms outside. Mr. Mather sat leaning forward with his -elbows on his knees and his head on his hands; I could not see his face. -Presently he looked up and made a motion as if to speak, but apparently -he changed his mind, for he said nothing. At last Mr. Gordon’s voice -broke the silence. - -“I say, Madison,” he asked, with a studiously polite manner, “who is -this charming Miss Brewster who has favored us with the benefit of her -views?” - -“She is a sort of second cousin of my mother,” Will replied. “She has -just returned from abroad, and I haven’t seen much of her yet.” - -“Well,” rejoined the other, “with your permission, I will venture to say -that with all due respect to your mother’s second or third cousin, I -would as lief hear it thunder as to hear her talk. Why can’t a pretty -woman let well enough alone and not go into hysterics over what she -doesn’t know anything about? You would think, to hear her go on, that -the country was going to the devil, and that we were the cause of it.” - -“I wonder if all those facts about Russia and the thirty per cent. -taxation in Italy are really true,” interposed Mr. Conro, meditatively. -“She reeled off all those statistics like a schoolma’am saying dates.” - -“They are true if she says so, you can bet your life on that,” answered -Will, thoroughly nettled. “Being out at Cambridge most of the time, I -haven’t seen much of her, and I never heard her say so much on any -subject before to-night. I was about as much surprised as you were at -her coming out in that way; but if you and Gordon think she is the kind -of girl to go into hysterics over nothing, you are mightily mistaken. -Most people talk for the sake of talking, but I’ve seen enough of her to -know that when she says a thing it stands for something. What you said -hurt her in a way a fellow like you can’t understand. You’ve no interest -in a girl who has any notions beyond flattering you into thinking you -are the most stunning fellow going.” - -“Beg pardon,” drawled Gordon, “but”— - -“Hold on there,” interposed Mr. Mather, grimly; “you’ve said enough. -What she said was solid gospel, and you know it as well as I do.” - - - - - CHAPTER II. - - The books of Scripture only suffer from being subjected to - requirements which we have ceased to apply to the books of common - literature.—DEAN STANLEY, _History of the Jewish Church_. - - The Protestant Reformation shows how men tried to lodge infallibility - in the Bible.... The great point of our present belief is that there - is no such infallible record anywhere in church or council or - book.—PHILLIPS BROOKS, _Harvard Divinity Address, 1884_. - - - BOSTON, _Jan. 6._ 25 Louisburg Square. - -JESSIE DEAR,—I have been sitting for the last half hour in the broad, -cushioned window-seat of my cosy attic room, looking far out over the -mass of chimney-tops to the towers and spires beyond the hill and the -Public Garden. - -I love to sit here quietly on Sunday afternoons, and when the sunset -comes I throw aside my books and watch the shifting, brilliant colors -turning the blue Charles into a sheet of glimmering gold and dyeing with -rosy hues the snowy slopes of Corey Hill beyond. - -Have you been away so long as to have forgotten these dear old sights? -And do you recall that on this western slope of Beacon Hill from which I -write to you lived the hermit Blackstone of Shawmut, before Winthrop or -any Puritan had thought of settling Boston town? - -I like old places. I like to be on the oldest spot in this old, historic -town, as you may easily imagine, remembering all my antiquarian -enthusiasm when we were at school. Well, I have not outgrown it in the -least, in spite of all my modern radicalism about many things. - -I wonder, dear, what all these ten years have brought to you. I have -been sitting and thinking, as the sunset glow has faded in the western -sky, all its glory turning so soon to dull, cold gray, how in these few -minutes the past years seem typified. What glorious visions, what -radiant achievements illumined the heavens when we looked at them with -the eyes of eighteen! What would we not, what could we not, dream of -doing then? I remember how you vowed that I was a genius, and were sure -that ten years would not pass before I should win renown. And now, -to-night, on my twenty-eighth birthday, I sit here as dull and prosy and -commonplace a spinster as one can well find in this city of spinsters. - -After one is twenty-five and the birthdays begin to be a little -unwelcome, I suppose one is apt to be made a little morbid by them, -though I solace myself by thinking that since college girls in these -days rarely finish their studies before twenty-two, twenty-eight does -not seem so ancient as it was once thought to be. - -How strange that we should have known so little of each other, we who -vowed that “ocean-sundered continents” should never make our girlhood’s -love less warm! But after your change of name and transfer to the China -Mission, while I was at Smith College, I lost sight of you, and, missing -your letters, knew not where to write. So you will understand my long -silence and know that the Mildred of ten years ago is the same Mildred -to-day, only no longer a girl, but a woman. - -A woman, with many ambitions unsatisfied, with many heroes dethroned, -but with the same loves and hopes and fears, and with the same ideals, -although their attainment seems farther off with the growing years. - -I have slowly come to recognize and be reconciled to my mediocrity; to -know that I have not had a thought but has been common to humanity; that -I am no whit wiser or better than all my fellows; and that what you in -girlish enthusiasm flattered me into believing was creative power was -simply a capacity to appreciate and be moved by what was great. - -I have longed for power, but, believe me, not for name or fame. Simply -to have had the consciousness in myself that the world was better and -wiser for my having lived would have made all drudgery and toil a joy -and privilege. But the blessedness of giving and doing in a large -measure has not been granted to me. Not that I blame fate or -circumstance or environment. I have had health and freedom and friends; -no hindrances and no great sorrows since mother left me alone five years -ago. - -The failure lies with myself alone. Sometimes there has been an -unutterable loneliness and a longing for something, I know not what; but -I suppose it must be for the love which has not yet come to me, and -which now may never come. - -But I do not let that burden me overmuch. I have my daily task. I love -my work; and here, among my books, I thankfully count myself rich indeed -in the society of all the great and wise and good of whose treasures I -am the happy heir. I have traveled, too, and seen the Old World cities -and the castles, palaces, and ruins of which we used to dream. It was -not exactly the blissful experience I had fancied, for I was doomed to -be the companion of a stupid old dowager whose money bought my time and -service, and to whom I was useful as an interpreter of the arts and -languages with which she was unfamiliar. - -I saw a great deal and learned some things. It helped me a little -towards reaching that goal of culture at which I aim, whence I can truly -say that “I count nothing human foreign to me.” It helped to free me -somewhat from the narrowness of my age and environment. I have become a -little more of a Greek, a little less of a rugged Goth. Not that mere -travel did this; if my eyes had not begun to be opened before, I should -have seen nothing. I have verified nothing more thoroughly than -Emerson’s saying, “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful -we must carry it with us or we find it not.” - -I miss the picturesqueness and the charm of the Old World life. I am -surprised to find how shocked and annoyed I am at the crudities and -Philistinism of which I was once oblivious. But, after all, I am glad to -be back; glad to be in the current of real life again, and to take my -share in it. It is worth something to live in a land where one does not -have to despise the men or pity the women; where a man is not ashamed to -be seen carrying his own baby; where a girl can walk the streets alone -and unmolested, and where a lady can earn her daily bread and be thought -a lady still. - -I have a quiet home with my mother’s cousin—“auntie,” I call her; and I -have settled down to steady work with a concert or play or toboggan -party to give it a little zest now and then. My classes take me to -Dorchester and Cambridge and Longwood. Once a week I meet a score or so -of our Boston society women in a Commonwealth Avenue drawing-room, who -manage, among their thousand and one lectures, lessons, and engagements -of every sort, to squeeze in an hour to hear me discourse on the topics -of the day, when I try to teach them about some phases of our nineteenth -century life of which they, like most women, know but little. As these -ladies include all shades of religious and political belief and -non-belief, I have to choose my words, as you may imagine. - -I write a little occasionally for the “Transcript” or “Woman’s Journal,” -or some other equally inoffensive and unremunerative sheet. I visit my -North Enders, and think I am doing God more service in trying to keep -some of my small Hibernians from being sent to the Reform School than I -ever used to accomplish in teaching Jewish history at the Mission. - -I have given up Sunday-school work. Not that I disbelieve in it, but I -find myself less and less able to adapt myself to the requirements of -superintendents and “lesson helps,” and my conscience now forbids me to -teach what I could once repeat so glibly and confidently. - -Yes, let me say it frankly,—though I fear it will greatly shock you, you -dear, pious soul,—I have gone over to the “New Theology,” and I have -gone so far and so irrevocably that but few of those churches where my -childhood’s faith is still believed dare open their doors to me. - -I wonder if you can conceive how painful it has been to me to find the -friends for whom I care most condemning as irreligious every thoughtful -man or woman who ventures to treat the Hebrew scriptures in a reasonable -way. - -My last Sunday-school class was in the home school, where I had bright -girls of sixteen. I did my best to make the Bible a living book to them, -to make them study the history of the Jews in the same natural and -enthusiastic way that they studied their Greek history at school, but I -soon found that they considered this sacrilegious. They looked at me -with cold, critical glances when I tried to spiritualize their “Gates -Ajar” idea of heaven. I found that they had gone home and told their -mothers that I did not believe in God or heaven or hell, and, to my -bitter mortification and dismay, they left me one by one until I was -alone. - -Doubtless I had little wisdom. I was trying to teach them in a few -months what it had taken me years of growth to reach. In trying to -disabuse them of their anthropomorphic notions of God, I had succeeded -in making Him only a nonentity to them. In taking away a literal Garden -of Eden and the serpent, and substituting a theory of evolution, I had, -in their imaginations, abolished all inspiration and moral -responsibility. Not that they were girls who troubled themselves very -much about such things; they could dance and flirt as well as the best; -but as for really daring to face the evidence on such matters, that was -wicked and dangerous, in their opinion. - -Nor was this all. One good old clergyman, to whose church I brought a -letter of recommendation, and who after my candid talk felt obliged to -deny me a welcome, said, with tears in his eyes, that he hoped my -mother’s prayers would save me. - -It made me feel forlorn and homesick for a while. I like the strength, -sincerity, and earnestness which the old faith gave, and I cannot -lightly break away from it. I hate the lukewarmness and apathy of many -of the more radical faith, and I cannot make up my mind to cast my lot -with them. Besides, I have a half fear that, after all, they have not -begun, even intellectually, to probe to the bottom these great historic -beliefs on which the church has stood for ages. I fear that they treat -them too cavalierly, too superficially. I find about as much intolerance -among the so-called liberals as among the conservatives. - -To me sin is not an ailment to be cured with sugared plums. The -Puritanism in me rebels at the weakness and flabbiness of many who have -left the old faith for a broader one. However much my mind is forced to -accept their doctrine, my sympathies abide with the men of moral -earnestness who still think it their business to be “saving souls.” - -To me the doctrine of the Trinity is something more than a mathematical -absurdity, as the men of one party say; and, on the other hand, -something more than an inscrutable mystery to be accepted without deep -philosophic study, as the men of the other party hold. - -I pity and long to help the poor souls groping for some solution of the -religious problems peculiar to our day. There are thousands of them—more -than any one knows—inside the fold of the church itself, fed, but not -nourished, and famishing for the kind of food which their good pastors -know not how to give. - -How many times I have gone to church bewildered, utterly wretched, my -soul crying out for the living God, and listened to a cheap, well-meant -discourse against “Ingersoll, Emerson, and all other unbelievers in the -inspired Word of God,” with an earnest exhortation to refrain at our -peril from “searching into what are the hidden mysteries.” - -I understood the preacher’s standpoint, poor soul! I respected him and -his effort, but oh, how helpless he was to do anything for me who could -detect the sophistry and lack of discrimination in all this talk! - -Oh, if I could help those who have been driven to question the whole of -truth, when they thus find out a part of it to have been crude or false! -And I pity almost as much the many timid ones who, like myself, are -longing to stay in the mother church, to that end being sorely tempted -to quibble with creeds, but who find no place either in or out of the -church which would exactly express their true religious attitude. - -How strange all this must seem to you, who used to feel that heaven and -earth might fall, but that I should never give up my faith. - -No, please God, I shall never give up faith, nor hold less faithfully to -the eternal verities which alone make life worth living. Never have I -felt more deeply than to-day the truth of the old words of the -catechism, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” -But I do not hold that keeping the faith is an adherence to any creed or -an absolute acceptance of any book, even if it be the Book of books. - -I have come to feel that the teaching of my childhood which made -historic facts, or what were assumed to be historic facts, of equal -importance with the eternal and immutable laws of moral and spiritual -growth,—I have come, I say, to feel that his was false. Ah me, the pity -of it! - -I write you all this because I want you to know the strongest reason -that has prevented me from following in your footsteps and, as I once -dreamed of doing, giving myself up either at home or abroad to the grand -missionary work which still seems to me the most satisfying kind of work -in the world. No, I cannot be a missionary; I think I shall never dare -to teach any one; I don’t know how; but, thank God, I have come to see a -little more clearly some truths to which I think it is possible for the -human mind to attain. The vision thus gained, though still at times a -fleeting one, has, I firmly believe, placed me forever beyond the reach -of the nightmare of doubts and mortal terrors which first assailed me -after I dared trust myself to think and question. - -No one, not bred in a New England home with all the Puritan traditions -imbibed with every breath, can realize the fever and despair that I have -felt more than once after I dared to think and face the result of my -thought. But that torture can never come again. Not that I have relapsed -into indifference or have heeded the pleadings of my devout friends to -“only believe,” that so I might dread my doubts as impious and accept -without question the creed of my fathers. No! Kant, Hegel, and Fichte, -Carlyle and Emerson, Robertson, Stanley, Phillips Brooks, and, more than -all, the unprejudiced study of the Bible itself, have kept me from that. - -I no longer tremble at the question whether the record of the miracles -be fact or no; it touches not my spiritual life. The baby born next door -yesterday is a greater miracle to me than Lazarus raised from the dead; -the morning’s breakfast turned into vital force that guides this hand as -marvelous as water changed to wine. Whether the resurrection of Jesus be -literal fact or not, it in no wise affects my immortality. My faith -rests on something surer than the accuracy of any historic fact. - -Are you shocked? Yes, doubtless, for so should I have been once. I do -not expect you to understand me yet, unless you too have been climbing -up to the light by the same path in which I have been led. You will -think that I have been venturing on dangerous ground, but I could not -write to you without granting your request to tell you how it was with -me in my inmost self. - -You ask whether I am married or am going to be. The first question I -have answered; as to the second, the most that I can say is that when a -woman has lived a dozen years beyond sweet sixteen and has never been -very deeply in love, it argues either that she has lived like a nun, or -something rather uncomplimentary to her heart, and that there is -precious little prospect of her ever finding the right one after that. - -They say no woman ever fails of some time having at least one suitor. -Well, I have had my one. A burly, broad-chested business man he was, -with very decided ideas about protection and mining stock, with a good -deal of amused wonder at my independence of thought and action, and a -chivalrous old-fashioned pity for gentlewomen who had to earn their -living. He felt pretty desperately when I said “no,” and I had to say it -three or four times before he could believe it, for he had been so sure -that a poor young creature like me must long for his strong arm and good -bank account to shield her from the “world’s cold blasts.” I did like -him, I confess, but not enough; not as I must love the one to whom I -would gladly, heartily, pledge my whole self for life. - -So, one bright spring day he sailed away for South America and never -returned. He married a Spanish wife, I hear, who will inherit his -millions, for he made shrewd investments and became enormously wealthy. -The “Herald” had a dispatch yesterday morning announcing his death from -sunstroke. It gave me a shock. Yes, he was a good man, and I did like -him; but I am glad I am not his widow in spite of his millions. - -We were talking at lunch to-day about wealth, and when I answered the -question “How much money would you wish for if you could have your -wish?” by saying “Twenty-five millions,” every one looked aghast. - -“What, _you_, Mildred, of all persons! Why, you never cared for diamonds -or horses or yachts or anything grand,” exclaimed one. - -“What in the world would you do with it?” asked another. “You couldn’t -spend half a million with your modest tastes, and the rest would be -simply a dead weight. You would be bored to death with lawyers and -beggars, and have brain fever in six weeks.” - -“Oh no,” interposed a third; “she would buy shoes for all the barefoot -children, and build colleges from Alaska to Key West.” - -“If you were like most people you would find it the hardest thing in the -world to spend your money wisely,” said auntie, sagely. - -So I kept my counsel and said nothing. I can’t help wishing, though, to -know what will become of these millions which I might have had by saying -that one little word five years ago. It seems to me I should not be -utterly at a loss to find some wise uses for them, and it would not be -by building colleges which are not needed, or by encouraging -pauperism.... - - - - - CHAPTER III. - - (Extract from the “Boston Herald.”) - - MILDRED’S MILLIONS.—BOSTON’S BEAUTIFUL BELLE FALLS HEIRESS TO A - FORTUNE ESTIMATED AT THIRTY MILLIONS! MISS MILDRED BREWSTER THE SOLE - HEIRESS. - - -When the rumor in yesterday’s South American despatches hinted that the -colossal fortune amassed by the late Mr. William Dunreath was, according -to his will, to be transferred _in toto_ to a Boston lady, when -moreover, on investigation, the name of the aforesaid lady was disclosed -by her lawyer, an enterprising representative of the “Herald” was not -long in finding his way to the residence of this favored daughter of -fortune. - -Two other journalists, with pencil and pad in readiness, arrived almost -simultaneously and were shown into the reception room. - -Miss Brewster was out. - -Would her ladyship soon return? - -That was doubtful. - -A skillful use of some of Uncle Sam’s coin, however, secured an “aside” -in the library with the sable domestic whose acquaintance with desirable -facts proved a godsend. - -“Was Miss Brewster young?” - -Certainly. She had just celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday, or, to -quote our informant more literally, “Yes, sah, she is done gone -twenty-fo’ shuah, fo’ I made her buffday cake.” - -“Was Miss Brewster handsome?” - -In response to this momentous question this jewel of a Chloe produced -from a corner of the library a photograph album containing two cabinet -photographs, taken in Boston and Paris respectively, and representing -one of the most attractive types of petite female beauty. One picture -was taken in a jaunty riding habit, displaying to good advantage a -slender, trim figure, with a graceful poise to a very pretty head, and a -pair of fascinating dark eyes looking frankly at you from under the -hat-brim. The other was in a white evening dress modestly covering the -sloping shoulders, the hair worn Pompadour, and no ornaments save -flowers. There was a delicacy and refinement indicated in the small ear -and sensitive mouth, which betokened generations of the best blood and -culture. It was gratifying to perceive that the enviable possessor of -one of the largest private fortunes in New England was evidently richly -endowed by nature with every charm which could lend grace to the -brilliant position in society that she without doubt is destined to -fill. - -The “Herald” representative inquired further as to the past history of -Miss Brewster, and learned that she was the only child of a physician, -was born in Cambridge, has spent some years in foreign travel and study -under the chaperonage of a distinguished leader of society, was -presented at the Court of St. James, and received marked attention from -some of the scions of the oldest and noblest houses of England. - -She is supposed to have had a small independent fortune of her own, but -having literary and philanthropic tastes, has quietly devoted herself to -study and works of charity, thus depriving society of one peculiarly -fitted to be one of its brightest ornaments. - -The connection between the defunct millionaire and the charming girl -upon whom he has lavished all his wealth seems hard to prove. From all -that could be learned, however, it seems conclusive that an engagement -existed between them, and that the death of Mr. Dunreath was a great -shock to the fortunate lady of his choice. In the absence of any family -or near relatives, Mr. D. being an only son and a bachelor, she will -find no one to dispute the will. This latter point was confirmed by her -lawyer, Mr. Kilrain, of No. 55 Pemberton Square, who, however, remained -very provokingly non-committal on all other points of interest, -intimating that he was thus obeying the instructions of his fair client, -who modestly wishes to avoid the sudden notoriety which her fortune will -necessarily bring upon her. - -A call on some of her co-workers in the Associated Charities revealed -the fact that Miss Brewster is ardently absorbed in her work, and has -been peculiarly successful in winning the hearts of the street _gamins_ -in her district. She is interested in various charities, and it is -anticipated that her increased wealth will not lessen the time nor the -interest which she has devoted to her various benefactions. - -It was intimated from one source that Miss Brewster holds very -pronounced views upon women’s rights, and will probably use a great part -of her wealth in advancing the cause of female suffrage, but this we are -loth to believe. - -(Extract from the “Boston Globe.”) - -... After waiting an hour and calling at three different times, the -representative of the “Globe” was finally so fortunate as to encounter -the fair lady in whom the public is now feeling so warm an interest. She -had just returned home, and was standing in the hall with her little -toque of wine-colored velvet still crowning her chestnut tresses, and -her tall, stately figure draped from head to foot in a fur-trimmed cloak -of the same shade. - -She received the “Globe” representative most courteously, ushering him -into a cosy little reception room, and meanwhile drawing off the _gants -de suede_ which encased her shapely hands. She seemed nervous and tired, -but had a brilliant color which deepened perceptibly when requested to -grant an interview. The involuntary look of surprise and _hauteur_ which -accompanied this only enhanced her beauty, but quickly recovering -herself she replied without embarrassment that there was nothing -whatever that she wished to state to the public. She had not been -apprised of the nature of the will until within three days. Since then -she had been overwhelmed with business arrangements, and was very tired -and wished to see only her intimate friends. - -One question, however, she so far forgot herself as to answer, namely, -as to whether she should change her residence. She replied that she -purposed soon to leave town for an indefinite period. A further question -designed to draw out some information regarding her acquaintance with -Mr. Dunreath, whom it is certain she has for a long time corresponded -with, met with no reply beyond “I will bid you good evening.” - -Miss Brewster is certainly a very prepossessing lady. In addition to her -beauty her voice is particularly well modulated and pleasing. She is -decidedly above the medium height, and has a queenly air combined with a -brisk, business-like manner, which gives evidence that she is at once a -lady and a shrewd woman of the world,—an indication of anything but the -helpless state into which most inexperienced women would have been -thrown at so sudden and astounding a change of fortune. - -In the gaslight and with such a color Miss Brewster had the appearance -of being not over twenty-three; we learn, however, on unquestioned -authority from a former schoolmate of hers, that she is just twenty-six, -having had a birthday last week. - -Miss Brewster is said to be a very devout church-woman of the -ritualistic type, and usually attends the Church of the Advent. - -The Hub is certainly to be commiserated at the prospect of so soon -losing a lady who would otherwise become one of its most admired belles -as well as a leader of its most cultured society, and we trust that her -stay though indefinite may not be prolonged. - - -Three of the one hundred and twenty-seven letters received by Miss -Brewster during the first week after the above newspaper extracts -appeared will serve as types of the whole. - -LETTER NO. I. - - JONESPORT, PA., _Jan. — 18—_ - - DEREST MISS BREWSTER HONORED MISS - -God has been verry bountiful too you truly and no doubt your kind heart -is greatful for all his Mercies and anxshus to do your part in relieving -the wos of humanity. Henceforth your couch is down and your pathway -strude with roses. You have more money than you know what too do with -and will take it kindly for me suggest a most useful and feesable way to -do the greatest good to the greatest number which is the Christian’s -vitle breath. My dorter Rose Ethel Bangs is just turned sixtine and is -as smart and handsum a girl as ever trod shu lether. She is awful -musicle and is just dying to get a chance to go to the Boston -Conservatory, she plays the banjo best of anybody in the county and has -given solo peices at some of the best concerts she plays the melodeon at -meeting and the best critics say her voice is amazing a professor from -Philadelfy said he had heard a great many voices but he never heard a -voice that was as strong as her voice. A yere’s residens in Boston would -complete her education she has a young gentleman second cousin who is -anxshus to show her about to see the sites and 300 dollers with what her -pa can raise would just about do the bizness now dear miss when you have -it in your pour to bestough such a blessing how can you refrane. We -shall bless you and my dorter will be a credit to you and a jewel in the -crown which our Heavenly father will bestough on all who remember the -proverb it is more blessed to give than to receive. - - Yours with love and regards - MRS. MATTIE T. BANGS. - -P. S. I send Bose Ethel’s tintype took when she was fourtine she wears -her hair up now. - -LETTER NO. II. - - NEW YORK, N. Y., —— Street. - - DEAR MISS BREWSTER: - -Permit me at this moment of your joy and unprecedented good fortune to -present to you my most heartfelt congratulations. - -Perhaps you may not recollect my humble self, as you always impressed me -with such a sense of awe and dignity that I dared not venture to -disclose to you the _profound_ admiration which I have always felt for -your _exalted_ character. - -Rarely have I known such a nature as yours. One so endowed with all the -charms and graces of a _goddess_ and a _saint_ it has never been my -fortune to meet. Do not think I am flattering you, _mon ange_; but ever -since the first moment when my eyes fell on your face suffused with dewy -tears, as you bade good-by to your native land, you have been the ideal -of my fondest dreams. - -I sailed with you on the steamer, like you bound for those shores of -mystery and delight which from childhood’s hour had haunted my -imagination, now _hélas!_ never to be revisited, for I—how can I say -it?—have been doomed by fate to lose _all_ that is most dear to me. - -I had kept my diamond earrings until the last, but yesterday even those, -my last precious treasures, had to be sacrificed. How can I relate to -you the story of our disgrace! - -A year ago papa failed, and we were obliged to leave our palatial home -on Fifth Avenue and betake ourselves to a small hotel on W. Ninth -Street. I nearly cried my eyes out. I spent days and nights in weeping -over our sad fortunes, and as one by one I was obliged to surrender the -darling treasures of happier days I felt that if this were to go on I -should either become a _hopeless wreck_ with shattered nerves and end my -days in a lunatic asylum, or else that rather than suffer the mental -torture which I had endured I should with my own hand take the life -which was a _curse_ to me. - -Everything has gone from bad to worse, though I have fought against fate -with all the passion of _desperation_. Our friends have deserted us; -that is, all the young society which I care about and really need to -keep up my spirits and make me cheerful. I can find no congenial society -in the class with whom I am doomed to associate, and so I keep my room, -and solace my sad hours with works of fiction, which for the time being -take me out of myself, and with fancy work, which is the one little link -that connects me with my happy past. - -But now a crisis has come in papa’s affairs. He is offered a position in -Jersey City, and compels us to go with him to this _odious_ place, to -live in a second or third rate boarding-house, away from everything that -makes life endurable. - -I _cannot_ do it. I should simply be burying myself alive. To one of my -sensitive temperament the shock would be too great, and I know that I -should become but a wreck of my former self. - -I have racked my brains and tossed on my sleepless pillow many a night, -endeavoring to solve the problem that is before me. - -This morning a ray of light dawned upon the gloom which has enshrouded -me. I picked up the morning paper and read the delightful announcement -of the good fortune which has come to you. My heart throbbed with -sympathetic joy, _mon amie_, to think that in this desolate world at -least one whom I loved was _completely_ happy. - -The report says that you are soon to go abroad. Like an inspiration the -thought came to me, “Oh, if only I could go with her as a _companion_!” -The thought fairly suffocated me. Once the idea of attempting to go as a -paid companion, of accepting money for services rendered, no matter how -valuable they might be, would have brought the blush to my cheek. But my -pride has been humbled, and though even now I could not do it for every -one, for _you_ whom I _adore_ it would seem no sacrifice but a -privilege. - -I could be of invaluable service to you in shopping and in visiting -galleries. I speak French perfectly, and could play whist or sing to you -when you are tired. I know how to arrange flowers, to design toilettes, -to order dinners, and can read aloud without fatigue. I could relieve -you of all care, and this you will certainly require, as so many new -cares have devolved upon you, and you must be distracted with all the -new things you have to order and to attend to. - -What steamer shall you take? I like the North German Lloyd best,—don’t -you? - -I can be ready at a moment’s notice. I await your answer in an _agony_ -of suspense. - - Yours devotedly, - M. JEANETTE MASON. - -LETTER NO. III. - - E. GAINSBOROUGH, VT. - - MISS BREWSTER: - -DEAR MISS,—No doubt you will be very much surprised to get a letter from -me for you don’t know me at all and I don’t know you at all and I -persume you are not used to getting letters from strangers. But you are -a rich kind lady and as a last resorse I turn to you for my heart is -bleeding and my friends can’t do no more for me. I am an inventor as you -will be surprised to learn. Ever since I was able to hold a jack knife -and whittle I have been whittling out things and making inventions. Some -folks say I am a genius and if I had my rights I should be rolling in -welth and be able to keep a horse and carriage. - -My inventions have been about all sorts of things. I almost got a patent -for a clothes-wringer but a mean sneak of a fellow stole it from me -taking the bread from my children’s mouths. My wife took in sewing and -washing and the children milked the cow and kept the garden running and -sometimes I got odd jobs. But a month ago Susie and Jimmie took sick -with scarlet fever and wife she was up with them night and day and she -took sick too and first Jimmie died and then Susie, and mother the next -day. - -I did the best I could and the neighbors was kind and came in spite of -its being so catching. - -But now there all gone and nobody but the baby and me is left. He had it -light and wan’t down but a day or two. I feel most crazy when I think of -it all and wonder what I’m going to do. The neighbors cooked up some -vittles for a few days but there poor too and I can’t count on them for -doing much. - -I’ve got to do something right off and I an’t a cent of money more than -enough to pay the postage of this letter. - -Last night when Mis deacon Allen went by with the newspaper she had got -to the P. O. she stopped and read me all about your getting rich so -sudden and she said to me brother Silas if I was you I’d just write to -that Miss Brewster and if she’s a woman with a heart in her she’ll feel -for that poor motherless little feller there a toddlin about, and you -with your hands tied sos you cant leave him a minute. I’d take him -myself said she if my hands wasnt tied too. Which is true enough for -shes five of her own and one adopted. - -Now Miss Brewster if you could take my baby for a while, his name is -Orlando and he is 18 months old and help me make a man of him and get on -my feet a little and carry out a scheme I’ve got for an improved churn -I’d thank you to my dying day. I aint a great hand at farm work for I -cut my foot in a mowing machine and have been lame ever since and my -hearing is bad. So you see there aint much I can do except invent and -sometimes if it want for the inventing I think Id rather die. But I do -feel sure sometime if I can only get a chance I can invent something -that will sell and then I can repay you. - -If you send for Orlie to go to Boston I must stay there too. I couldn’t -bear to be so far away from him. I should die of lonesomeness. Couldn’t -you get me a chance there? I am forty-six years old and a professor.[1] - - Yr. ob’t servant, - SILAS KITTREDGE. - -Footnote 1: - - Of religion.—ED. - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - - Notwithstanding all that England has done for the good of India, the - missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined.—LORD - LAWRENCE, in 1871. - - ... all this is very surprising when it is considered that five years - ago nothing but the fern flourished here; native workmanship taught by - the missionaries has effected this change; the lesson of the - missionaries is the enchanter’s wand.... I look back to but one bright - spot in New Zealand, and that is Waimate with its Christian - inhabitants.—CHARLES DARWIN, _Journal of Researches in Natural History - and Geology_. - - - EXTRACT FROM MISS BREWSTER’S DIARY. - -For the first time since the lawyer’s call a week ago I sit down to -collect my wits after this whirl of excitement, and, like the old woman -in the nursery rhyme, ask myself if it can be that I am really I. - -I am frightfully tired, and it may be childish to write this all out for -no one’s eye but my own. I cannot sleep, however, and I feel as if it -would be a relief and might cool the fever in my veins to calmly make a -record of some of the momentous events of these last few days. So many -things are crowding upon me that I fear my mind will be a chaos if I do -not attempt something like this to help me to quiet and arrange my -thoughts. - -When Mr. Kilrain came with the cablegram and letters, I neither laughed -nor cried nor fainted. I was perfectly calm. I did not realize it in the -least, just as a girl never realizes what it all means when she kneels -before the altar as a bride, or when she stands beside the dead white -face that she has loved. - -After the real meaning of the thing dawned upon me and I began to -comprehend that I, whose golden dreams had been quietly put aside -forever, was now actually to realize those dreams, to exchange prose for -poetry, and insignificance and uselessness for tremendous power such as -I had always longed for,—when the possibilities of it all came over me -and I saw that I could now actually build all my air castles on this -earth, besides doing many other things of which I have dreamed,—it gave -me at first a thorough ague fit, followed by a burning fever which -nothing could allay until I had seen my will written, signed, and -witnessed. - -Every one thought it such an odd thing for me to think of at first. -Auntie said, “Wait and take time to think it over, dear. You are -laboring under a nervous strain now; wait and rest and enjoy yourself a -little while. Go to Hollander’s and order a fine outfit. I will help you -find a French maid, for you will need one, of course; then travel after -that, if you like. Take time to make up your mind. It isn’t possible for -you to know how to spend such an enormous sum wisely without great -thought.” - -I could find no rest, however, until I had put beyond a peradventure the -danger of my dying and leaving nothing done towards carrying out all the -projects which have been so dear to me. - -My will is made, and though I may change it next week,—doubtless I shall -change it more than once as I get more wisdom,—I know that it is in the -main as I shall let it stand. - -Mr. Kilrain’s partner and uncle Madison start at once for South America -to look after my interests, and transfer my stocks and landed property -as soon as possible into our government and railroad bonds. I cannot -bear to feel that I am employing hundreds of people whom I do not know, -and who may suffer from the extortion of villainous agents and overseers -whom I cannot control. If I could go to South America myself, and if I -understood enough of business to administer my affairs personally, I -might, perhaps, do as much good by giving employment to great numbers of -people there, and treating them in a helpful Christian fashion, as by -anything that I can do at home. - -But it would take me ten years at least to learn the language and know -the people and the business merely in its outlines. My lawyers say it -would require half a dozen of the shrewdest men simply to make -investments and oversee the overseers, and I can foresee that a woman -dependent on lawyers and agents is in no wise to be envied. So I am -determined to free myself from these worries as to the details of making -money, and devote my whole energies to making this fortune, which has so -strangely fallen to me, tell for good in the future of our country. - -I am sure that nowhere else in Christendom can money be made to produce -such far-reaching results. Last night I lay awake for hours, planning -this work. My mind is made up. For the next few years I shall travel and -study, first, the resources and necessities of our own country, and -after that the social and economic questions in the Old World. Meanwhile -I shall begin to carry out some of my schemes at once, and not wait for -lawyers and trustees to squabble over my money after my death. - -As I am planning to leave Boston soon, I determined to meet some of the -people whom I have chosen as trustees of certain funds. Accordingly I -invited five people of different religious faiths, the broadest-minded -and most public-spirited persons known to me,—Revs. P—— B——, A—— McK——, -E. E. H——, P—— M——, and Mrs. A—— F—— P——. Not one of them had an inkling -as to what it was all about, or knew who were invited beside himself. -Mr. Kilrain was there in obedience to my request. I wished him to see -that everything was done legally, and, besides, to draw up all the -necessary papers. - -I fairly shivered with delight and excitement as they came in one by one -and I introduced myself to them, feeling very much like a young queen -who has just ascended a throne and summons her generals and wise -counselors to plan a campaign. - -I had a dainty lunch served in a cosy little parlor, and as soon as the -servants were gone I began, rather tremulously, it must be confessed, to -make my little speech. They all knew, of course, that they were invited -to give me counsel on some philanthropic matter, but further than that -they were in the dark. As nearly as I can remember this is what I said:— - -“You are all aware that I have asked the favor of your company to-day in -order to discuss a serious matter involving the expenditure of a large -sum of money. I wish to avail myself of the united wisdom of those -present to enable me to use for good and not for evil the enormous -wealth which has so suddenly dropped from the skies, as it were, into my -hands. - -“I count myself as simply a steward, and know well that before my own -conscience, if before no other tribunal, I shall be called to account -for my stewardship. - -“It is stated that one of the seven greatest sources of pauperism in -London is foolish almsgiving. I am perfectly aware that I may ‘give all -my goods to feed the poor,’ and do more harm by it than if I threw my -offerings into the Charles River. - -“I am convinced that if I would help any man I must do it by giving him -the means to help himself, and thus to retain or gain his self-respect. - -“My thoughts and affections go out most strongly to our own country, and -therefore most of my money is to be spent in it. I feel that by helping -to outline the new paths which multitudes are to follow here, I shall -best help the progress of humanity everywhere. But I am not so -narrowminded as to think it right to wait until we get all the -industrial schools and kindergartens that we need here, before we teach -the first elements of decency to our brothers and sisters in Africa and -every other stronghold of heathenism and savagery. My childhood was -spent with earnest people who were interested in the missionary work. As -a child, I read the ‘Missionary Herald,’ and gave my mite towards -building the Morning Star. - -“But of late years I have lived in a society whose sentiment has been -more than half contemptuous of foreign missions. ‘Let us civilize the -heathen at home,’ they say; ‘let us do the duty that lies nearest, and -not meddle with what is none of our business.’ - -“I am tired of this prating and ignorant talk by would-be cultured -people who know nothing of the real results of missionary work. They -find no fault with actresses or sea-captains or Bohemians who choose -exile for gain or pleasure, but they are always ready to cry out against -the folly of one who goes to teach men the alphabet, and tell women that -they are something more than beasts of burden or mere child-bearing -animals. - -“I am constantly meeting people who talk as if Buddhism contained all -that is of value in Christianity, and who actually scoff at any attempt -to disturb what they call the picturesque, simple faith of their carvers -of ivory bric-à-brac. - -“I revere Buddha. I do not ignore the fact that in all ages God has not -left himself without a witness, and that many seers and prophets have -led the nations toward the light. But I prefer the sunlight to the -twilight, and what vision of truth has come to me I would pass along to -others. Especially do I long to help the women. Sometimes their -degradation and helplessness appeals so powerfully to my imagination -that I feel that I must give my money and my time without stint, until -selfish, indifferent Christendom is forced to remember what is the true -condition of two thirds of the world.” - -I was trembling all over with nervous excitement, and, as usual, was so -absorbed in what I was saying as to quite forget to wonder what these -five people, so much older and wiser and more experienced than I, must -think of my sitting there and talking to them in this fashion. I am -dreadfully afraid it must have seemed conceited or audacious or -something of the sort. However, they knew nothing about me or my ideas, -and as it was quite necessary that they should understand my position -before they could give me any counsel, I proceeded to make it known. - -“I am not content,” I said, “with most methods that have been used. -Sectarianism, bigotry, and ignorance have often perverted the best -results. The good souls who fear to send a preacher, no matter how -devoted, unless he preach exactly their ‘ism,’ seem to me to be -retarding by many years the consummation so devoutly to be wished. The -most Christlike men whom I know could not be sent out as missionaries by -the American Board. I believe there are hundreds of ardent young souls -who would be led to offer themselves for work in foreign lands if the -restrictions of creed did not stand in the way. - -“Do not misunderstand me. I do not condemn creeds. Doubtless every one -who thinks must have some kind of a creed, however short it be. But in -the making of bequests, in endowments which are to help affect the -thought of future generations, it seems to me difficult to avoid -ultimate lawsuits, temptation to mental dishonesty, and infinite harm, -unless the founder works on the broadest principles and sees the work -begun in his lifetime. - -“I have written my will this week and have devoted a very large sum of -money for the establishment of a fund, the amount of which I shall not -at present name, to be used as follows:— - -“For the management and expenditure of this fund I have chosen five -trustees. These shall fill vacancies in their number as they occur from -death, resignation, incapacity, or whatever cause. One member, at least, -shall always be a woman, and as many as three Christian denominations -shall always be represented among the five trustees. - -“The fund shall be called the ‘Christian Missionary Fund,’ and the work -shall be, so far as the trustees are concerned, entirely unsectarian, -though always distinctly Christian and Protestant. - -“The fund shall be devoted to the following purposes: - -“First, for promoting the spiritual and mental, and thus indirectly the -material, welfare of the most helpless and degraded people on the globe. - -“Second, for promoting Christianity and education in lands like Japan, -where there is already an awakened aspiration for better things, and -hence the most immediate results may be anticipated. - -“Third, for promoting such measures as shall diminish the slave-trade -wherever it exists, and for preventing the liquor traffic between -civilized and barbarous nations, for instance, such as is now disgracing -and desolating the Congo State. - -“Any man or woman who applies to be sent out as preacher, teacher, or -agent, for promoting any of these ends, shall be accepted if he or she -give satisfactory evidence to the committee of being fitted to do -sufficiently helpful work in the positions to which they are assigned. -No acceptation of any creed shall be required of any applicant. After -being enrolled for the work, however, all shall be required to leave -detailed written statements of their religious beliefs. These are to be -kept on file for statistical purposes, together with the records of the -subsequent work of the candidates, their methods of labor, and the -results accomplished. - -“Every woman employed by the trustees shall receive the same salary as a -man would receive for doing the same work. In sending out preachers and -pastors no distinction shall be made in regard to sex. All women -desiring to preach and to administer the sacraments shall be authorized -to do so if possessed of proper qualifications.” - -In regard to that latter clause I had had considerable discussion with -auntie previous to convening the trustees. - -“Isn’t that a little odd?” she asked. “I am afraid some clergymen would -be shocked at that.” - -“Aunt Madison,” I said, “if it is desirable to have the sacraments of -communion or baptism celebrated at all, I can see no reason why they -cannot be done by a woman’s hand as well as by that of a man? If the -hand that made the bread does not desecrate it, why may not that same -hand break and pass it, provided it be done in a proper spirit? Is a -man’s hand any more sacred than a woman’s?” - -“Oh, it isn’t that,” said auntie, fidgeting a little; “but it is the -words and the service which go with it, of course.” - -“Certainly,” said I,—rather bluntly, too, I am afraid,—“and those words -consist of quotations from the words of Christ and Paul, and a prayer. I -see no reason why quotations and prayer uttered by a female voice may -not be just as acceptable to the Almighty as if spoken by a male voice. -(I hate those words ‘male’ and ‘female,’ but I thought it would help her -to see the absurdity of our conventional notions about such things.)” - -“Well, dear, perhaps so, if you look at it that way,” she said; “but -what do you think the apostles would have thought of such a thing?” - -“As a matter-of-fact,” said I, “the members of the early church, who ate -at one table, and had all things in common, and celebrated their Lord’s -death at the close of their meal in the simplest way in the world, -probably passed the cup from one to the other informally, and women as -well as men took part in what little service there was. It seems to me -in this age of common sense on other subjects it is time we had a little -more of it in religion.” - -How saucy that appears as I write it. I wonder if I am getting -dictatorial. - -I told the trustees, that, although their work as trustees was to be -entirely undenominational, and that they were to discourage any -sectarian work in whatever schools and churches might be established, -this was not to be interpreted to mean a refusal to send good men and -women, even if they held narrow sectarian views. I hold myself too -liberal to refuse to send any one who can do any good, even though he -hold mediæval views on eschatology. If a man can persuade a savage to -wash his face and stop beating his wife, I am willing to allow him his -cassock and crucifix and all the joys of a celibate High Churchism, so -long, at least, as he holds himself responsible to no other body than -the committee of my choosing. I have observed that a fair amount of -civilization, intelligence, and real Christianity can co-exist with a -very crude theology. So any good man who cares enough about helping his -fellow-men to work hard on a moderate salary, as an exile in a heathen -land, shall not be hindered from going until enough better men offer -themselves to take his place. - -I told my guests that I wished to begin the work at once. Without -stating whether or not they were the trustees referred to in my will, I -asked them to assume for the next three years the responsibility of -disbursing two hundred thousand dollars annually in the way I had -specified. I shall keep the money in my own hands so that they need not -be troubled about investments, and shall pay the amount in installments, -as they call for it. - -I requested them to do exactly as they thought best, without any more -reference to me than if I were dead, except when they came to any -misunderstanding in regard to the interpretation of my wishes as -expressed above. - -I shall have accurate reports of their proceedings, and thus be able to -rectify any point that is left obscure, or that is capable of abuse. - -I requested that my name should not be made known in connection with all -this. - -When I had finished there was a pause; then Dr. H—— in his genial way -began—But I can write no more to-night. - -(Extract from an editorial in the “Church Inquisitor.”) - -It is with feelings of mingled interest and alarm that we report as the -most notable of recent events in the religious world the announcement of -an enormous bequest for foreign missionary work. - -“Why alarm?” may be asked. But a careful reading of the provisions of -the bequest which we publish in another column will assure the reader -that the conditions under which it is given are unprecedented and allow -possibilities so dangerous as to create great anxiety in the minds of -those who are well grounded in the faith and zealous for the maintenance -of pure doctrine. As it is needless to say that in matters of such -moment we hold that the most stringent regulations and careful scrutiny -should be exercised, it is evident that the utter abolishing of all -tests, allowing the teaching of the most dangerous heresies by -Unitarians, Universalists, Spiritualists, Christian Scientists and what -not,—and this to be done in the name of Christian Missions,—is -startling, to say the least. - -It will be readily seen that to the mind of the untutored savage unable -to distinguish genuine Christianity from that which is spurious, and as -likely to accept the one as the other, the danger of confounding the two -to the discredit of all true piety will be great, if the restrictions -laid down in the bequest are to be binding. - -To be sure, the men and women sent out by this fund must be presumed to -possess a fair amount of intellect and moral character, though how their -spiritual condition is to be ascertained before hearing a statement of -their creed we fail to see. Doubtless something may be done in the way -of building up schools and supplementing the work of those whom our -Board sends to preach the gospel. For this we rejoice and give thanks. -Knowing the genuine Christian character of some members of the -committee, we are led to hope that they will deem no one fit to send out -as a proclaimer of the doctrines of Christianity who holds the evidently -loose views of the framer of this singular bequest. As only one of the -trustees is a Unitarian, and as Unitarians are proverbially indifferent -to foreign missions, it seems to leave considerable ground for the hope -that none of that sect will apply, or, if applying, will be sent. - -The donor’s name is withheld, but it is shrewdly surmised to be the late -Mr. Albert Danforth of Springfield, formerly a noted Free-thinker, but -who is said to have had a deathbed repentance and to have attempted to -appease his conscience by bestowing his vast wealth in the manner -described. In this case why his name should be withheld remains a -mystery. - -It will be noticed that another peculiar feature of the bequest is that -one trustee at least shall always be a woman. In the course of time -there is nothing to prevent all of them being women, as four of the five -appointed are known to be in favor of female suffrage. As the late Mr. -Danforth, among his other radical notions, held the same unscriptural -view of woman’s functions, the promotion of “women’s rights” views by -the endowment in question is to be feared. - -It is, perhaps, well enough to pay women in the mission field the same -sum as that given to men for the same work, though this possibly would -be too attractive an allurement for some unworthy persons who might -assume the sacred duties in question for the sake of the loaves and -fishes. But what seems especially unwise as well as wholly unscriptural, -and of which we feel compelled to assert our disapproval, is the -provision that women shall be permitted to administer the holy -sacraments. See Corinthians i. 14, 34, and xi. 3, 7. - -There seems to be no serious objection to women preaching to assemblies -of their own sex where male missionaries cannot be admitted; but that -such an extreme step should be taken as to desecrate and turn into a -farce the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper by allowing them -to be administered by a woman, is something that we must deplore. - -Were it not that most of the trustees appointed represent the new school -of thought, which seems to rely more on reason than on the Written Word, -we should wonder at their being able to satisfy their consciences if -they accept responsibilities encumbered by such restrictions. - - - - - CHAPTER V. - - LETTER TO AN INTIMATE FRIEND. - - - FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK, _February —, 18—._ - -MY DEAR ALICE,—I ran away from Boston without saying good-by to you. Dr. -Wesselhoeft predicted all sorts of horrors—hysterics, St. Vitus’s dance, -nervous prostration, and I don’t know what else, if I did not at once -get away from the hosts of people who drove me distracted with an -incessant ringing of the door-bell from breakfast until bedtime. I was -not aware that I had so many friends before. Every pupil I have ever -had, every passing acquaintance even, has felt it to be his or her -privilege and duty to call and congratulate me and bore me to death with -their ecstasies and flatteries. - -I rather liked it at first, I must confess. It was all so novel to me, -and it showed some of my acquaintances in an entirely new light, which, -I found, gave me an admirable opportunity for a study of character on -its drollest side. Whenever I entered the reception room and found it -lined with callers waiting all on tiptoe for my appearance, I really -felt like a president beset by office-seekers during his first month at -the White House. - -But a few days of all this rather nauseated me, and I thanked my fortune -that it had not come at my birth, but had allowed me to make many true -and tried friends before bestowing on me what I fear will now always -make me suspicious of a lack of disinterestedness in every new-comer. - -However, in leaving Boston and coming to New York I fancy that I have -only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, for letters pursue me -everywhere. I devote every forenoon to reading them and dictating -replies to my amanuensis. Many of them are applications for money or -help of some sort, some of them outrageous, and some very pitiful -indeed. I had one some days ago from a poor fellow in Vermont, who -fancied himself an inventor. He had just lost his wife and two children, -and implored me to “help him make a man” of the only little one left to -him. His letter sounded so forlorn that it went to my heart, so I sent -telegrams of inquiry about him to the postmaster and the minister in his -native town. They answered my questions satisfactorily, and I sent at -once for the man to come. - -Such a dazed, bewildered-looking creature as he was, to be sure, when he -stepped out of the carriage, which I had sent for him, and stumbled -clumsily up the steps with his baby, tied up in an old red shawl, in his -arms! - -He told me the simple story of his life, its little ambitions and narrow -outlook; of his conversion and his courtship, and of the horrors of -disease and death and poverty, to which his pinched face and trembling -hands bore witness. The boy was a pathetic little morsel of humanity, -and his sad little mouth won my heart. I have taken charge of the child, -and, please God, I will “make a man of him.” The father is quite unfit -for hard work, and what to do with him I did not know, when suddenly I -bethought myself of a magazine article which you loaned me some time -ago, apropos of “A Universal Tinker.” The man is clever with tools, I -hear, and just the one to do odd bits of mending and attending to the -thousand and one things which are always getting out of order about a -house. So I sent him with a letter to all my Back Bay friends, and eight -of them have offered to pay him five dollars a month each, on condition -that he keep everything in their establishments in repair. I have given -him a chest of tools, and have found a good home for him. A widow in -straitened circumstances, whom also I wish to help, but who will not -accept charity, is glad to receive him and his child into her family. -Really, the man seems already like another creature. He has taken on a -new look of self-respect and courage that makes his commonplace, -weather-beaten face fairly radiant. - -This whole experience has given me intense satisfaction. I had almost -made up my mind to pay no heed to these calls, which demand so much of -my time and prove, at least half of them, to come from frauds and -impostors. In fact, it was merely as an experiment, and chiefly to -indulge my curiosity, that I heeded this case. I am now determined to -have every appeal for help that seems at all deserving thoroughly -investigated, and I foresee that I shall be obliged to have more than -one agent to attend to it all. - -I had an extraordinary experience last night, of which I must tell you, -though my ears tingle yet at the thought of it. I wonder if this is a -foretaste of the penalties which I am doomed to pay for the sin of being -a great heiress. I had always wondered how rich women could endure to -make such a display of diamonds at parties and balls as to necessitate -their being dogged by private detectives everywhere. I always maintained -that a woman was an idiot who would thus let herself become such a slave -to her wealth. I was sure that any one who lived simply, and did not -care for show, could go alone where she pleased, and have no fears; but -my theories are getting sadly shaken. However, I am digressing. Now -about this affair last night. - -I received a beautifully written note the other day, delicately -perfumed, and bearing a seal stamped with a coat of arms, and signed -Manuel Altiova. The writer intimated that he had been a friend of Mr. -Dunreath, and had matters of importance to tell me. He begged the favor -of an interview. I surmised that he was a scamp, but, on the other hand, -thought it possible that he might be some titled wealthy Spaniard who -had met Mr. Dunreath in South America, and who could give me some -information about the locality of my possessions. So I had my amanuensis -send him a formal note in reply asking him to call on me last evening. - -I told my maid Hélène to remain in the next room with the door ajar, and -when his card was sent up, followed almost immediately by himself, I -arose to receive him with some curiosity. - -Tableau. Enter, with many bows, a tall, black-eyed man of perhaps -thirty-five, clad in faultless dress; in short, to all outward -appearance, an elegant Adonis. - -I let him tell his story, and said nothing for awhile. He professed to -have been most intimately acquainted with Mr. Dunreath, and produced a -photograph of him. Subsequently, he showed me some letters in Mr. -Dunreath’s handwriting referring to some dishonorable business -transactions by which Mr. D. had greatly augmented his fortunes, and for -which he would have suffered the full penalty of the law except for the -timely and most self-sacrificing intervention of his “noble and devoted -friend,” Manuel Altiova. - -I was thunderstruck. The hot blood mounted to my temples, and for a -moment everything seemed to reel before me. Was all my happiness a -dream? Was I then enjoying the ill-gotten gains of a swindler? I looked -at the letters. There could be no mistake about the handwriting. That -very forenoon, with my lawyer, I had been carefully examining a dozen -documents in that same queer crabbed hand, which I had known so well in -the days when I was a girl and had a lover. - -Five years ago it was, but it seemed fifty, as I sat there staring -dizzily at those letters and trying to realize that this man whom I had -loved almost enough to marry, this man whom I would have sworn was honor -itself, was false, basely false. Oh, it seemed a thing incredible; yet, -as I thought of how in these last few years for month after month -society has been shocked by the fall of those who have stood most high -in our esteem, yet who have been tempted to sell their souls for gold, I -believed it all. - -I remember thinking vaguely of how I must try to find out the men whom -Mr. Dunreath had defrauded, and return to them this money, which was -theirs, not mine. Then I roused myself and questioned him, trying to -appear as indifferent and non-committal as possible, though I could feel -my temples throbbing, and I knew my cheeks were hot. He answered my -questions without the slightest hesitation, giving names, dates, and -localities with startling readiness and apparent sincerity. He mentioned -various little peculiarities of Mr. Dunreath’s,—his never eating butter, -his being left-handed, and so on. - -At last I could ask no more. I felt as though I should suffocate. The -man went on talking, however, telling his own family history. His father -was a learned professor, his mother a lady of noble birth. He was born -at Barcelona, had been destined from childhood to take orders in the -Romish Church, and was finally disinherited by his stern father for his -avowed Protestant and Republican doctrines, to say nothing of his -refusal to wed the woman of his father’s choice when all hope of his -entering the church had been abandoned. With his own little private -fortune of twenty thousand dollars he had sailed for Brazil, and had -entered the service of Mr. Dunreath. Soon he became the devoted friend -of that gentleman, was intrusted with his confidence, and became -cognizant of all his affairs. Mr. Dunreath had fully expected to return -to him the thousands which he had so generously made over to the -officials in the nick of time, thus preventing the pursuit which would -have ended in his arrest and conviction, with the subsequent surrender -to the state of many of his millions. - -Mr. Altiova, or rather Señor as he called himself, presently let me -understand the chief purpose of his visit. As you will readily guess, he -desired me to pay him the sum which he had spent, namely, twenty -thousand dollars, all his little fortune. In another letter which he -produced, Mr. Dunreath had promised to return this sum doubled, and this -promise was in the act of fulfillment on the very day of the fatal -sunstroke. - -Señor Altiova modestly disclaimed any desire that this generous offer -should be fulfilled by Mr. Dunreath’s heirs, and declared that he would -be quite content to receive only the sum which he had spent. He paused -for my reply. Meanwhile I had been gradually collecting my wits, and was -able to control my voice enough to say that I must first consult with my -lawyer. - -“But, Miss Brewster,” he urged, “that, you see, is impossible. Will you -disclose Mr. Dunreath’s felony? Will you create a needless scandal and -lose your fortune? No; if you will but settle this little business with -me (the sum, of course, is but a mere bagatelle to a rich lady like -you), the secret will remain forever buried in my bosom, and no mortal -shall know what has passed between us. The moment you hand me your check -for twenty thousand dollars, payable to the bearer, that moment you -shall with your own hand burn these incriminating letters.” - -I reiterated that in spite of the danger of bringing ignominy upon the -name of my old friend, I should consult my lawyer before taking any -steps in the matter. - -“But I can’t wait,” he retorted almost fiercely, and there was a look in -his eyes which made me start. My heart rose. Could it be that those -terrible letters were only clever forgeries? He instantly recollected -himself, however, and his tone assumed a touch of pathos. - -“Miss Brewster,” he said, and there was a tremor in his voice as he -looked at me beseechingly; “my mother, whom I have not seen for years, -is dying. The physician gives her at most only a month to live. Unknown -to my father she has cabled me to return instantly. Ah, my sweet -mother,” he murmured, as if speaking to himself, while his eyes were wet -with unshed tears, “the moments are years until I see her. Oh, if I -should be too late! And then—who knows? perhaps,—yes,—perhaps, if I may -stand beside my mother’s deathbed, my stern old father may be reconciled -to me—may bid me stay, and I may have the unspeakable comfort of -sustaining his declining years.” - -I watched him keenly. If this were acting, it had been very good acting -until now. But these last few words had a false ring in them, which even -my unpracticed ear detected. With a mournful sigh he showed me two -miniatures painted on ivory, one the face of a handsome, dark-eyed -woman, the other that of a scholarly-looking man of middle age. These, -he said, were the portraits of his father and mother, and as he returned -the latter to its velvet case he pressed it tenderly to his lips. - -It was very touching, and I was half convinced, especially when my eye -fell again on that curious handwriting whose peculiarities I knew so -well. The man evidently saw that I was agitated and afraid that his -story might, after all, be true. He continued:— - -“But, Miss Brewster, I have no money. I arrived here last week from Rio -Janeiro. My father has disinherited me, as I have told you. My little -private fortune, my mother’s gift, which I could have doubled in a -year’s time by my investments, was all given to save my friend. Madame!” -he cried, “where is your sense of justice—simple justice—if you refuse -me the paltry sum which saved the reputation and wealth of the man whose -heiress you now are? You have his own confession here before you, signed -with his name. The evidence is unimpeachable. If I bring it into court, -it may cost you half your millions. Madame, the Urania sails to-morrow, -I must go. I must have money, the money you owe me. If you refuse”— - -I rose to bring this extraordinary interview to an immediate close. I -was shaking from head to foot and thankful beyond measure that Hélène, -who had doubtless heard the whole conversation, understood too little -English to realize its import. I was convinced that I had to deal with a -very shrewd, clever villain, who had worked up his facts most adroitly, -and was trying a desperate confidence game. But he was not to be gotten -rid of so easily. Suddenly falling upon one knee, he grasped my hand as -I stood before him and poured out a torrent of words, of which I -remember nothing, for I was too indignant and astounded even to think of -calling upon Hélène. We must have looked for all the world like the -tragic pictures in the “Police Gazette,” which my naughty youngsters -used to display behind my back at the Mission School. - -Suddenly I came to my senses. I don’t suppose the whole scene lasted -half a minute at most. Tearing my hand away, I was rushing for -Hélène,—who, as I learned afterward, was sound asleep, with the door -blown to,—when, as a last bit of desperation, what did this man do, but -snatch a dainty little pistol from his hip pocket, and before I could -scream or even gasp an articulate word he aimed it at his temples and -seemed about to fire. I can hardly tell what I did then. I believe I -screamed, and I must have rushed upon the madman, for the next instant I -found myself with the pistol in my hand trying to fire it up the -chimney, while the Señor lay prostrate apparently in a swoon. But the -pistol would not fire; evidently it was not loaded. I dropped it into -the smouldering ashes, and staggered into the next room, where my stupid -maid lay soundly sleeping on the sofa. Faint and trembling I dropped -into the nearest chair. I could not have walked six inches further, and -was too weak to attempt to arouse Hélène. On the whole, I was glad not -to do so, for she would have been too frightened to be of the least use. -Moreover, she would have raised the neighborhood with her shrieks, while -I should have been ready to die with mortification and disgust. - -In imagination I saw the lurid head lines of the next day’s columns of -society gossip and scandal. “Dunreath’s Defalcation!” “How it Horrifies -His Heiress!!” I saw myself posing as the heroine of a sixth-rate dime -novel; on whose pages alone, as I had always supposed, such experiences -as this ever took place. It did not take three seconds for all this to -flash through my brain and make the cold sweat stand out in drops upon -my forehead. - -Just then I heard a faint click, and summoning courage to look into the -drawing-room, what was my unutterable relief to find the room empty. The -wretch had vanished. To tell the truth, at that juncture I came about as -near verifying the doctor’s prediction in regard to hysterics as I ever -did in my life. - -Now for the sequel. This afternoon I received the following note, which -I inclose for your benefit. - - MISS BREWSTER. - - MADAM,—John I. Carrigain, alias Court Peperino, alias Dr. Kametski, - alias Manuel Altiova, aged thirty-four years and seven months, was - born in Manchester, England, of an English father and Portuguese - mother, received a good education, was arrested for forgery at the age - of nineteen, served out a sentence of five years, and on release was - sent to New York by a charitable agency. He was suspected of being - accessory to one of the largest swindling operations ever undertaken - in New York city, but as nothing could be proved, he was released from - custody and began operations in Chicago, obtaining money under various - false pretences. At first he met with great success, but was finally - convicted and sentenced to six years in the state prison. He was - released from Joliet six months ago, but, until your communication - last night, had not been known to be in New York. A person answering - his description was seen to take the northern express last evening - with a ticket for some point in Canada. The man is a clever forger, - and it would require an expert to detect his work. It has been - ascertained that Carrigain was assistant clerk for Mr. Dunreath for a - few months seven years ago, which accounts for some of his information - regarding the habits of that gentleman; and as for the handwriting and - the South American details, he is quite clever enough to have worked - those carefully up in the last few weeks. - - It is needless to say that his career will henceforth be closely - watched. - - Yours respectfully, - J. ALLISON, - _Pinkerton Detective_. - -By the way, Alice, I am having my portrait painted, full-length, in a -blue velvet tea gown. I give a sitting every other afternoon, and on -alternate days visit tenement houses, industrial schools, and Castle -Garden. I saw two thousand filthy Italians of the lowest kind land -yesterday. - -I have just come home from a tour through the Mulberry Bend where these -creatures herd together. I felt as if I were in Naples again. I thought -some parts of Boston were bad enough, but I never saw anything on this -side of the water equal to the horrible squalor and loathsomeness of -these places. - -I mean to take all your good advice about being calm, and trying not to -feel that it devolves upon me to settle all our social problems this -month. I know even better than you the complexity of the difficulties in -our congested city life. I have little hope of doing much for this -generation of pauperism and vice, but I am determined to do whatever my -money and good will can do for laying the foundation of better things in -the generation to come. - -I am going to begin with tenement houses, for there, I believe, lies the -root of half of the trouble. I suppose my friends will think that I am -getting to be a dreadful doctrinaire. Well, it can’t be helped. I was -predestined for that, I believe. My consolation is that you at least -will not be bored by all my plans and theories, and will warn me if I -get too rabid.... - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - - -The night after I had first seen Mildred Brewster at aunt Madison’s I -lay awake for hours, feverishly tossing upon my pillow, and revolving -many thoughts. I then made one resolve. I would try to win the -friendship of this woman who had touched me, who had moved me in a way -that no one had ever done before. - -It was not so much by what she had said, for I had heard the same or -kindred thoughts expressed by other lips; but I had never before met a -woman so strong, well poised and thoughtful, a woman who united girlish -grace and charm with all the persistent ardor of one who, I was sure, -could not only die for an idea, but, what is far rarer, live for it day -by day and year by year, although forced to meet indifference and -coldness or the quiet contempt which cuts to the quick in every -sensitive nature. - -As I had sat by the firelight that night, watching the color come and go -in her face,—that changeful, eager face,—for the first time in a dreary -twelve-month I had felt my heart leap up with warmth and sympathy. From -a thoughtless, happy girlhood, from the life of a gay, pleasure-loving -young lady, I had been rudely summoned to face some of the bitterest -realities of life. No matter what they were. I am not writing about -myself. But though my life was still rich and full of opportunities, if -I had but known it, yet in my blindness and selfishness it had seemed -utterly wrecked to me. I had sunk into a dull, prosaic routine, and -under a proud mask of gay indifference was trying to hide a heart dead -to hope, ambition, and love. Yet, no! not dead to love, though I had -thought it so; but in the heart-hunger which was not satisfied, I was -fast becoming self-centred, cold, and cynical. - -Like a dreary desert the long years which must be lived stretched -desolately before me, and my only aim was to fill the minutes of each -day so full as to leave me no leisure for memory or thought. - -As I closed my eyes to sleep that night my last thought was, “Yes, I -_will_ know her. I _must_ know her. Oh, if I could only be like her, a -creature of thought and purpose, absorbed in some idea, caring for -something beside my wretched, silly self! Perhaps she can help me. I -will ask her. I can trust _her_.” - -I had been deceived in others; I had given my utmost trust to those who -had proved utterly unworthy, and in bitterness of spirit I had resolved -never to trust again, never to leave the gateway to my heart unguarded; -but now, before I knew it, the locks had yielded, and I stood with -lonely, outstretched arms, begging for love to enter in. After all, I -was still young, and very, very human. - -And love came. It came before my fallen pride had found words to ask for -it. I had something to live for now. _I had found a friend._ What -romance has ever been written that tells of woman’s love for woman? And -yet the world is full of it, despite the skeptics, and the Davids and -Jonathans find their counterparts in thousands of the unwritten lives of -women. Yes, I had found not a new acquaintance, but a warm heart-friend. -Thank God that she knew it and I knew it before the wealth which came so -fast upon the beginning of our friendship could create a gulf between -us, which, once established, my pride would never have allowed me to -cross. Mildred knew, she always knew, that I had loved her first, and -wanted her for herself alone. - -I knew, when the wealth came, that it would not make her any the less my -friend, but I was only one among her many friends. I knew that our paths -would be different now, and though she would always think kindly of me, -I could not expect to see and know her as I had fondly dreamed in the -first days of our friendship. - -“No, I can never return to her what she can give, what she has already -given to me; my little life can play but a small part in the large life -that has come to her,” I said drearily, as I turned back, after the -first shock of surprise, to readjust myself to the old routine of -thought and feeling, which, I had dared to hope, had been put behind me -forever. - -“Ah, well, I have made believe be happy before, I can do so again,” I -said to myself, grimly. - -But one day—how well I remember it—as I passed down Chestnut Street in -Salem noting the brilliant winter sunlight shining down from the -cloudless blue through the black lace work of branches high arching -overhead, and casting fantastic shadows on the brick walls of the -stately old mansions on either side, some one handed me a letter. This -is what it said:— - -... “You asked me to be your friend, you said I could help you, and now -I ask you to be my friend, to come here to this great city where I must -be for a time and help me. I felt brave and strong at first, I was not -afraid to be rich, but I begin to tremble now, to feel strangely weak -and girlish and unprotected; to feel, in short, that I need a friend, -that I need what I think you can be to me. After aunt Madison had been -with me only a few days she was obliged to return to Boston, leaving me -quite alone. Of course Madam Grundy says that I must have a chaperon, -but I do not want a chaperon, and I should be wretched with a -‘companion,’ perfunctorily trying to entertain me, learning all my plans -and secrets, and hypocritically assenting to everything I do and say. -No; I want an honest friend, one who knows the world as you do, who will -honestly speak her mind, who will take an interest in all my schemes, -and help to keep me from making blunders. - -“I believe I could talk more freely, think more clearly, and do better -work if you were beside me, your honest eyes looking into mine. For, let -me tell you the secret, dear, of what first drew me to you. You are most -strangely like the sister whom I lost years ago, and whose -companionship, if she had lived, would have made life so rich for me. I -feel myself so alone; never before have I had so keen a sense of -loneliness as now, here, in this modern Babylon, with my old life and -work abandoned, and the new perplexing life which my wealth has brought -me just begun. Like me, you are alone in the world, singularly alone; so -come and be to me what my little Ruby would have been. When you speak I -could almost believe that I hear her voice; when you look at me I see -her eyes again. Your face haunts me. Come to me and I shall feel that my -Ruby is with me again.” - -Standing in the sunshine beneath the old elms I read these loving words. -When I lifted my eyes again, the beautiful quaint old street was -suddenly transfigured. For months it had been to me but a bare -prison-house; now the sunshine was real sunshine, the sky was no longer -leaden, the world was, after all, a beautiful world, and I was glad to -live. - -So bidding farewell to quiet Chestnut Street and the staid, historic old -city, I went to the “modern Babylon” to meet Mildred, and the new life -began. As the days went on I perceived that she seemed to have a -feverish dread that she should die with her work undone. My constant -anxiety was that she would succumb to the fearful nervous strain which -her sudden accession to wealth and responsibility had brought upon her. -But nothing seemed to rest her or relieve her mind except the -accomplishment of some of the ends she had in view, and as every new -project was consummated, she showed a relief and delight that to the -average society woman would have appeared inexplicable and at the same -time amusing. - -“It seems to me,” said Mildred one day as we were strolling through the -park, after a morning on Cherry Street; “it seems to me that most people -have no imagination. It cannot be that all the pleasant, cultured people -whom one meets are so shamefully heartless and indifferent. They simply -have not the smallest realization of what is going on in this great -city, or any thought of their personal, individual responsibility about -it. They hear it all as a tale that is told. They have always heard it. -They are used to hearing it. From constant hearing it has become as -meaningless to them as the Lord’s Prayer has to most people. How many -who dare to say ‘Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven,’ ever -actually mean a word that they say, or lift a finger to bring it about?” - -We walked on in silence. Presently Mildred burst out again: - -“We are so apt to think that because we eat our three meals a day, and -can buy our opera tickets when we feel like it, that all the world is -doing well, and that if people are miserable it must somehow be their -own fault. - -“I am convinced that if any people ever needed missionary work, it is -the society belles and the well-bred, cultured men of the clubs, who -know so little and care still less for this vast multitude of the -ignorant and suffering and fallen here at their very doors, and who look -with calm indifference on these hideous sores upon our modern life. - -“I promise you, Ruby, after I get some of my irons out of the fire, I -mean to devote myself to a crusade to rescue what George Eliot calls the -‘perishing upper classes.’ - -“But ah,” she sighed, “it needs genius for that, and I have only money. -Oh, I would give half my millions if I had the scathing pen of a -Carlyle, or the power to plead for humanity like Mrs. Stowe or Walter -Besant or Dickens; if I could stir the hearts of the people with flaming -words that should help to sweep away the sloth, indifference, and -contemptible arrogance that makes one tenth of us forget that the other -nine tenths are our brothers and sisters!” - -“If every one were as self-sacrificing as you, Mildred”—I began; but she -interrupted me almost sternly. - -“Hush! never say that to me. What have I ever sacrificed? Nothing, -absolutely nothing. I have always had comforts; now I have everything -that heart can wish. In giving to others I deny myself nothing. Never -dare to let me for a moment imagine that I am doing anything more than -the simplest, most obvious duty. I must not cheat my conscience. I -should be the veriest hypocrite if I allowed myself to think that I am -generous. Is there anything generous in paying one’s debts, particularly -when one has not had to earn the money with which to pay them? - -“I have always observed,” she continued, “that a little decency in a -millionaire goes a long way. I am not above temptation, and I have -already discovered that I am in danger of coming to believe that my -simple good will, common sense, and capacity for sympathy are something -rare and remarkable. - -“Every one thinks to please me by telling me so. Do not let me deceive -myself. I have a clear vision now; help me to keep it and to be -faithful.” - -Mildred’s voice quivered, and she drew my arm in hers while we walked -back to our rooms in silence. - -“But the world is growing better, Mildred. Every intelligent person -admits that people are more kind and thoughtful than they used to be. No -one who has read history could deny it,” I resumed, as once more within -doors we sat down before the glowing grate to finish our talk. - -“You and I believe it, dear, because we believe in God, and because we -believe that this is God’s world and not the devil’s,” Mildred replied. - -“Half the women whom we saw parading their fine toilets this afternoon -believe it too, not because they know enough about history to see in it -the unfolding of the divine idea, but because they like to believe it; -because it makes them very comfortable to believe that by taking money -which some one else has earned and paying an annual fee out of it to -orphan asylums and hospitals, or to any outcome of our modern altruism, -they are thereby relieved from all further responsibility. - -“But here is an intelligent man,—an English university man, who has read -history as well as you and I, and he says it is false. This is what he -writes,” said Mildred, taking a thick letter from her writing-desk. She -held it unopened for a moment and continued: “I met him when I was in -England. We had many a talk in our rambles together at Kew and Hampstead -Heath. He is a friend of William Morris and like him a socialist of the -deepest dye. I don’t half accept the accuracy of all his statements, but -he is an honest man and a gentleman. I am glad to know him, for I cannot -afford to be ignorant of such a man’s views on our social problems, -however much I may dissent from them. Now let me read you his letter. - -... “You ask me to give you suggestions for the expenditure of your -wealth in benefiting humanity. This I must decline to do, my dear -friend. If I had your wealth I know what _I_ should do, or, at least, -what I ought to do, but _I_ am a socialist, and _you_ are not. I do not -believe in _laissez-faire_ as you do, and as a socialist I should use my -wealth and influence for a reorganization of society, not for a patching -up of what is at bottom false and rotten. Things are getting worse and -worse, and must continue to do so under the present social system. My -hope is that they will get so bad, so unutterably vile, that the people -will be compelled to throw aside their apathy and make a clean sweep. I -take no part in any of the hundred little schemes for ‘improving’ the -present system. I don’t want to improve the present system as you do. I -want to destroy it. - -“We improve things that are already fairly good and can be made better, -but we destroy whatever is thoroughly rotten; at least I think all -rational people do so. So far as the present order is at all bearable, -it is due to certain socialist innovations, such as interference with -the capitalist, trade unions, movements like that of the Irish against -the particular class of thieves called landlords, etc. - -“The people, the common people, who for centuries have silently suffered -and abjectly kissed the foot that kicked them and trod upon them, the -people, I say, are beginning to wake up. They are beginning to ask -questions, and they are questions which will have to be solved erelong, -even if it take another bloody French revolution to do it. I see no way -in which bloodshed is to be avoided. I look forward confidently to what -will seem to you very like a reign of terror ere this century closes. -Things must grow worse before they can get better. The crisis has not -come, but it is coming. Money has done much, but it cannot do -everything; the press will not always be bribed and muzzled as it is -to-day, nor Levi’s and Mulhall’s and Giffen’s statistics be doctored to -suit the capitalists who pay for them. The time is coming, Miss -Brewster, when the people _will be heard_; and _they will be heeded_, -for their words will be as short and sharp as fire and dynamite can make -them. - -“Do not think I am telling you of what I wish to see. I am telling you -of what I know will come. - -“The rich are not voluntarily going to heed the bitter cry of the -famishing, except in one way, the only way they have ever known, namely, -almsgiving. They will give alms because it is noble to be a benefactor, -because it appeases their consciences, because it might be made -extremely inconvenient for them if they did not. But they will not give -justice. Justice! they never learned the meaning of the word. - -“But some day these landed aristocrats ‘whose thin bloods crawl down -from some robber in a border brawl,’ who have never lifted their finger -to earn a penny in their lives, and who owe all that they have to these -same robber ancestors,—these people, I say, will some day be taught the -meaning of that same word ‘justice’ by some of the forty-five millions -of landless people in our little island. I shall not soon forget how -quickly the subscriptions for the poor went up a year or two ago, after -the riots. - -“You have no conception, Miss Brewster, you can have no conception, of -the state of things here at present. Six millions of our people are -living on the brink of pauperism. I tell you, when I sit down to my -omelette and toast in the morning and reflect that there are two hundred -thousand human beings within two miles of me who don’t know where they -are going to get their next meal, when I read of the hundreds of -children who habitually go to school without any breakfast, and who not -unfrequently faint dead away over their books, I tell you it doesn’t -make my own breakfast relish any better. - -“One night in the autumn, a year or two ago, I passed through Trafalgar -Square at twelve o’clock, and counted four hundred and eighty-three -homeless people lying out in the chill air upon the bare stones. Not one -of them had fourpence wherewith to pay for a night’s lodging. And this, -remember, was only one spot. - -“There were many others where a similar sight might have been seen. - -“‘Ah,’ but you say; ‘these are the dissolute and drunken, those who love -to be vagabonds.’ - -“I assure you that you are much mistaken. I have seen and talked with -thousands of these people, and a large number of them, probably a -fourth, are men from the country who can find no work there, and have -found none here—honest, hard-working British laborers. Two thirds of -these people are not vicious, or drunken, but they are out of work, they -are cold, they are hungry, they are naked, they are outcasts in this -Christian (?) land which has enough for all its children. All they ask -is work, hard work, dirty work, work for twelve hours a day, but that -they cannot get. Why? Because our accursed modern society is irrational, -wasteful, utterly selfish. Plenty of money, plenty of things worth -doing, plenty of men who would thank God if this work could be given -them to do; but what does our mad, maladjusted society say to them? -‘Emigrate! Clear the country! Away with you! We have no use for you.’ -Malthus was right, after all, and we must reverse Browning. - - ‘There’s no God in heaven; - All’s wrong with the world.’ - -“Do you know of the blacksmith women in the ‘black country’? I have -recently been there, giving some addresses. Oh, the hideousness of it -all, with its starving people, its wretched, stunted lives, its ghastly -ugliness, its brutalized men and women! One sees women, who should be at -home nursing their babies, standing on their feet from morning till -night doing the work of men, swinging the hammer amidst grime and soot -and incessant noise. And if one of them drops at her post from sheer -exhaustion, there is a fiendish clanging thing that bangs on the floor -and shakes every bone in the poor wretch’s body. - -“Mr. —— took Henry George to see the sight when he was here, and he told -me that George swore until he was black in the face. - -“Oh, I know you think I am a hot-head; you will say these are -exceptional cases. You will doubtless try to do what all the good rich -people do (I admit, you see, that there are _some_ good ones); you will -doubtless try to help palliate all these horrors. If you were here you -might build an old men’s home for the poor men to whom society has never -given a chance, who, through no fault of their own, have been forced -from their cradle to live in stifling attics or damp, unwholesome -hovels, breathing poison, working their fingers off to give their hungry -children bread. You might build a comfortable home where these decrepit, -useless old fellows might enjoy the food which you give in charity, wear -your charity uniform, and look forward to filling a pauper’s grave, as -does one in nine of all the people who die in London. Or you might build -a splendid marble palace of a hospital or asylum, and herd together vast -numbers of little boys or fallen women or cripples, and try in some big, -mechanical, institutional way to do with your pound of cure what an -ounce of prevention would have accomplished a thousand times better, if -it could have come in the way of justice, not charity. Charity! how I -loathe the word! It is the iron which sears the conscience of your rich -Christian as does nothing else. He thinks to buy heaven with that word. - -“I tell you, Miss Brewster, these people want what you and I want. They -want to preserve their self-respect, to have a chance once a week to -remember that they are human beings and not machines. They want to be -able in this Christian land to earn an honest living, to keep their -daughters from the streets, and to keep soul and body together without -sacrificing all decency and honor. - -“How much delicacy and fine moral sentiment, to say nothing of physical -comfort, do you suppose is to be had in the sixty thousand families of -London, each of which lives in one room? - -“Do you rich people suppose you are going to help this matter greatly by -leaving money in your wills to build asylums for the moral and physical -wrecks for which our incredible folly and selfish indifference is -responsible? - -“Your time will come; sooner or later you will find much the same -condition of things in your own great cities. Do not believe that in -some mysterious way—as your politicians and newspapers are trying to -teach you—you, in America, are different from us. - -“We are all in the same boat, because the structure of society is -everywhere the same. Money is literally king and god. It rules us -everywhere, and it is bringing about a state of things with which the -order imposed by a German Kaiser is a mild and beneficent régime. -Indeed, I am not sure but that the greatest social crash will come in -the United States, unless you soon come to recognize that a new order of -things must be brought about. You pride yourselves upon your universal -suffrage, but of what value is a vote to a poor man who must risk his -bread and butter if he dares to vote contrary to his employer’s wishes? -What avails universal suffrage when one third of your legislators can be -bought, and votes go to the highest bidder? No; universal suffrage is -totally inadequate to save us under the existing order of things. - -“I am a socialist simply because I am a rational human being, who knows -the facts; because I am—I venture to think—endowed with reason and -imagination. - -“I do not imagine, however, that socialism is going to produce any -perfect ideal order. I simply see that the economic order which has -sustained the civilized world for the past two or three hundred years is -now falling in pieces and must be replaced by something; that we are -approaching a period that will spell either socialism or chaos. - -“If unhappily chaos should come, it will be due to the opponents of -socialism, which is the only peaceful, rational method of social -organization under the new economic conditions, due to machine industry -and the contraction of the world by means of the great scientific -discoveries of our time. - -“If you want to see a fuller statement of my views and the grounds for -them, look at the article on Socialism in the ‘Forum’ last month. But we -socialists spend years in study, and we can’t give the results -adequately in a brief form. Miss Brewster, I feel that you are in -earnest, far more in earnest than most women whom I have met from your -country. I do not wonder that you are perplexed. I would not change -places with you. I would far rather have the sure conviction of the -truth as I see it, and be of little power in advancing the cause I -believe in, than to stand as you do, rich, powerful, overwhelmed with -responsibilities, not knowing how to use your power, and trying in vain -to patch up and prolong the existence of what is destined to be swept -away ere the next generation shall have come and gone. - -“Smile at my pessimism if you like; time will verify my words. If ever -you come to see this as I do, perhaps then I may suggest some things for -you to do with your millions.”... - -(Miss Brewster’s reply to the foregoing letter.) - -... “Your letter has deeply stirred me. Not that anything you say -surprises me, or is new to me; but behind the words, I know, are the -sad, dreadful facts for which they stand; and, being a creature endowed -with some imagination, I can in some measure realize what that simple -statement means, when you say that six millions of your people are on -the brink of pauperism. - -“Good God! what endless heartaches, what physical misery, what -degradation of mind and soul is implied in those few words! I am glad -you do not envy me my wealth. I am beginning to think that I am not so -much to be envied as I thought at first I might be. I have been amazed, -in these last few weeks, to learn from numberless sources of the -chagrin, disappointment, and perplexity of many rich men and women who -have thought to benefit the world by the ‘charity’ which you so despise. -They have put up great institutions, only to find that in many cases it -was the least helpful thing that they could do; that a large part of the -money was spent on taxes, insurance, agents, servants, go-betweens; -that, after all, when they had gathered their orphans or cripples or old -women together, they had brought about an utterly cheerless, artificial -state of things, and have proved that for the average human being with -natural human instincts the poorest home is often more preferable than -the most palatial asylum. - -“So, set your heart at rest. I am not going to spend my money in that -way. Whatever may be the political and social changes which will take -place in the next twenty years,—and doubtless they will be many and -great,—of one thing I am sure, no new condition of things can be made -permanent or harmonious except by means of two things. The first of -these is moral character. The second is intellectual insight into cause -and effect and relation. In any condition of things we must have -righteousness, and we must have trained minds. You will doubtless agree -with me that selfishness and ignorance are the two monster dragons that -are threatening now, as they always have done, to devour us, only we -should differ as to the way in which they are to be slain. You have a -definite theory as to how this is to be done, which I do not yet -thoroughly understand. I see your goal, but I do not understand how you -propose to reach it without doing away with individuality and crushing -out some of the deepest human instincts. True, many of our instincts are -brutish. There is still the tiger and the ape within us, which, as John -Fiske says, is our inheritance of ‘original sin’ from our brute -ancestors. I agree with you that such instincts must be eliminated, but -how? By dynamite, fear, revolution, legislation? - -“You are right: we may make the selfish fear, and that is often a very -salutary thing to do if nothing better can be done. A business man was -telling me only the other day of the different relations between -employers and employees in Fall River and other manufacturing places -since the strikes of the last few years. - -“But, after all, though fear and legislation can do something to convert -a brutal man into a decent man for a time, there must needs be something -else,—the gospel of love and humanity, which of his own free will he -must choose to accept and apply understandingly. - -“I shall not attempt to palliate any of the existing evils, nor, on the -other hand, shall I attempt to undermine our present social and -political system even if I could. Certainly I shall not try to do this -until I am very certain that I see the right method of substituting -something better in its place. - -“By the way, have you read Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward’? It is very -suggestive, and Nationalization of Industries is getting to be more of a -fad in Boston than Esoteric Buddhism or Christian Science. Bellamy tells -us what we must try to attain; but, alas! he gives little hint of what -must be our first step toward the attainment. This is the problem which -you and I must help our generation to solve. - -“Go on with your socialistic schemes. I believe they contain a half -truth; at all events, to talk about them as you do will make people -think, for you speak from the deepest conviction. Out of all this _sturm -und drang_ period must surely come clear insight and right action: at -least I am optimist enough to hope so; and my work shall be to think out -the solution, as far as I may, but at all events to do what in me lies -to set people to thinking; to make life a little sweeter and better; to -infuse into it more hope for a few of my generation, and thus help to -make their children ready for the new order of things if it comes. - -“In this great city money flows like water. There are streets where, for -a mile, every house must be the home of a millionaire, for no one else -could afford to live in such a one. Yet, within two miles of these -palaces there is the direst want, the most frightful squalor, and the -problem of New York is fast getting to be like the problem of London. - -“Most of our women dabble a little in charity now and then. They get up -charity balls and fairs to satisfy their consciences in that way, and -flatter themselves when they spend their money lavishly in luxuries for -their own pleasure that they are giving employment to the poor and doing -God service. They will sometimes give their money; they will sometimes -give a little time to cut out garments at a sewing circle; but not one -in five hundred will give her personal service even for a half day a -week in coming face to face with those who need the help of her -intelligence and her human sympathy. - -“Of this I am convinced: men are never to be uplifted permanently, -except by human sympathy, intelligently directed and expressed, and by -personal contact with those who do not come to them to dole out -‘charity,’ but who come as brothers to lend them a helping hand. - -“There are a few who begin the work; there are fewer still who continue -it. The other day a gentleman, who is giving his life to the rescuing of -street children, told me of the faintheartedness of his voluntary -helpers, who come a half dozen Sundays to his mission, but who rarely -come longer when they discover that, to use his own coarse but forcible -words, which you will pardon my quoting verbatim, ‘_they must be willing -to pick lice off those children for Christ’s sake_.’... - -“Well, dear friend, we are both working in very different ways. You -would tear down; I would build up, or ‘patch up,’ as you say. Which of -us is the wiser, time will tell; but however differently we may labor, -it is for the same end after all that we are striving,—‘putting society -on a just and rational basis,’ as you would phrase it, or bringing God’s -kingdom upon earth, as the Christ called it,—and so I bid you -God-speed.”... - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - - -One morning in April we had risen from a leisurely, late breakfast, a -luxury which, with our press of work, we did not often allow ourselves, -except when, as in this case, we had been up late the previous night. - -Hélène brought in the usual bulky bag of mail matter, and we settled -ourselves to our morning’s task, I taking charge of all letters that -were not of a private nature, and consigning to the waste basket -innumerable quires of paper devoted to more or less roundabout appeals -for aid, and lectures and advice _ad libitum_. - -Occasionally we stopped to read aloud to each other bits of the letters, -and discuss or laugh over their contents. This morning I remember I was -examining a document in regard to a prison reform society, containing a -request that Mildred would allow her name to be used as vice-president -of it, when an exclamation from her startled me into dropping the letter -and turning round. - -“Well, what now?” I asked, in response to the intimation from the -puckered forehead and pursed-up lips that something was the matter. -“Another love-sick poet? or is it a count this time? It must be time for -another suitor; you haven’t had an offer of marriage for at least ten -days, have you?” - -“Indeed, Ruby, this is no joke, I assure you,” replied Mildred, gazing -blankly at the letter in her hand. “It is from General Lawrence.” - -“What!” I exclaimed; “that distinguished-looking man who has written all -those books upon political economy? He talked with me in such an -entertaining way the other night and told the funniest stories. I was -afraid he would be awfully erudite and dry, but he wasn’t at all.” - -“No; he can be very entertaining,” sighed Mildred. “I have met him -several times since we have been in New York. He was a classmate of -papa’s at Yale and a gallant soldier in the war. Judge Matthews said he -thought him one of the clearest and ablest thinkers in the country, and -it seems that years ago he had achieved a European reputation.” - -“Yes,” I said, “I have seen his articles in the ‘Fortnightly’ and -‘Edinburgh’ reviews, and he spoke the other night as if he were well -acquainted with Browning and Froude and half of the literary people of -England.” - -“His wife wore fine sapphires, and I overheard her say that she was -devoted to German opera,” added Mildred, musingly. - -“Well, what of it?” I asked, much mystified at this apparently -irrelevant remark. - -“Why, only this,” answered Mildred, dryly; “this entertaining society -man, this famous political economist, writes to me this morning -piteously begging for an immediate loan of ten thousand dollars to keep -the sheriff out of his house.” - -“Heavens! Mildred. Why, I supposed he had enough money to live on,” I -cried, aghast. “He lives in one of those pretty two-thousand-a-year -apartments up by the park, does he not? I have heard people say what a -charming little home they had, and everything in such good taste. Pray -how have they managed it?” - -“Oh, in the simplest way in the world—on other people’s money,” replied -Mildred, with a shade of scorn in her tone. “The fact is, as all his -friends know, he is as poor as a church-mouse. But he has always been -accustomed to living well, and he has not the faintest idea of household -economy in spite of his fine theories of political economy. He is -generous and warm-hearted, and helped papa with a loan when he was in -college trying to live on three hundred a year, and I cannot forget a -kindness like that. Of course, it would be the easiest thing in the -world for me to give him the ten thousand outright. A loan would be a -gift for that matter, for he could never repay it, as his income is only -three thousand a year, I fancy, and his expenses are at least one or two -thousand more.” - -“Of course his wife must be the cause of all this,” I remarked. “Any -woman who will spend borrowed money on sapphires”— - -“Oh, they were probably heirlooms; she came of a rich family,” -interrupted Mildred. - -“No matter,” I continued; “any woman who will wear sapphires and has the -assurance to go to a dinner party with its attendant expenses of dress, -carriage, et cetera, when she cannot pay her debts and expects at any -minute to be sold out of house and home, is a woman who deserves to have -a pretty sharp lesson taught her, and I hope you will do it. Now, don’t -let those blue eyes of his and that majestic manner overawe you and -cajole you into feeling that you owe him a debt of gratitude to be paid -by getting him out of this emergency; for it will serve only to let him -teach his children that the highroad to comfort and ease is to go on the -principle that the public owes a genius a living.” - -“No, I do not mean to do that,” replied Mildred, thoughtfully; “but I -cannot let this disgrace come to them when I can help it as well as not, -and it is a rather awkward thing for me to dictate conditions to a man -who is old enough to be my father, one who has risked his life on many a -battlefield, and is a genius and a famous scholar. I cannot lay the -blame on his wife. She adores him, and he thinks her failures are better -than other people’s successes. The whole family in fact forms the most -genuine mutual admiration society. They seem utterly oblivious of the -fact that in letting their milkman’s bill go unpaid, and in giving their -children money to go riding in the goat carriage in the park, they are -doing anything dishonorable. - -“Every one who knows them says they have no more wisdom in bringing up -their children than two babies. They let them eat and drink what they -like, sit up as late as they like, and care more about their speaking -French and German well than about their knowing the multiplication -table, or anything practical. - -“If they were not such devout churchpeople, one would not be so amazed -at this extravagance,” ejaculated Mildred warmly, “though perhaps genius -may be pardoned for lacking common sense and common honesty,” she added, -grimly. - -Then rising, she continued, as she put on her hat and gloves: “I know -what I shall do. I have a scheme for helping him in a way that will be -something more than merely giving him immediate material aid. I know a -dear old lady who used to be papa’s friend and his, and I will go at -once to see her. She can tell me some facts that I need to know.” - -Two hours later, she had but just returned when the General called. - -He looked nervous and flushed, and I never saw Mildred seem more -embarrassed. In an adjoining room I awaited with some impatience the -close of the interview. - -At last she came into my room, and throwing herself down on the white -bear-skin rug before the grate, she exclaimed, with a little groan, -“There, I’ve done it, though it was the most painful thing I ever did in -my life. I felt that I must seem so mean and arrogant to make myself the -arbiter of the fate of a man like him, and to dictate terms which must -have been horribly humiliating. Think of my setting myself up to -instruct a man who has deserved the honor of the friendship of men like -Mazzini and Von Moltke and Carlyle and Sumner.” - -“How did you begin?” I queried, realizing for the first time what a -difficult thing this must have been to a generous-hearted girl like -Mildred. - -“Oh,” she said, “I began by reminding him of his kindness to papa, and -assuring him that I was ready and glad to be of assistance to him. He -looked so grateful that I found it almost impossible to screw up my -courage to continue. But, after stammering over it a minute, I put on a -bold front and went on to say that I felt it my duty to make my gift, -for it was to be a gift, not a loan, upon certain stringent conditions -in order that similar circumstances might not occur again. I would state -what they were, and then he might consult with his family and let me -know whether he would accept them or not. - -“He replied sadly, ‘I am in your hands, Miss Brewster. There is no -question of my volition in the matter.’ - -“It almost brought the tears to my eyes, Ruby, for he did look so grand -and noble, and it was so pathetic to think of a man of his powers forced -to humble himself before a girl like me. He said that for years this -shadow of debt had been over him, making life a purgatory for him, which -is true enough. I hear that he has long been borrowing from every one of -his own and his wife’s relatives, and has mortgaged everything they own, -even her jewels. One wonders what he can be made of to have endured such -shame and yet to have counted it less shame than to live in a small, -economical way within his income. But he spoke of his debts with all the -ingenuousness of a child, just as though they were an affliction sent by -Providence, for which he was in no wise responsible, and I really think -that he felt them so. - -“‘My first condition,’ I said, ‘is that you shall give me a full and -accurate statement of your financial affairs, including old debts which -are not pressing, insurance, mortgages, and everything of a money -nature.’ - -“Secondly, I asked that none of his children should receive private -lessons in dancing, French, or anything else, which were not paid for in -full in advance. I could see that this was a very bitter thing for the -General. One of his daughters is a girl of artistic talent, and he has -been giving her expensive lessons in painting, for which, as I knew, he -has never paid. - -“I asked General Lawrence pretty pointedly,” continued Mildred, “if, so -long as a fair education could be had in our schools without cost, he -felt justified in taking other people’s money to give his children -accomplishments.” - -“And pray what did he say to that?” I inquired. - -“Why, nothing,” answered Mildred. “He looked absolutely dazed, as if it -were a totally new idea. In fact, I do not think that it had occurred to -him that children could be brought up respectably without knowing French -and dancing. - -“I wanted to tell him,” said Mildred, “that I counted the best part of -my education to be the years that I spent studying geography and -arithmetic with both boys and girls, with white and black, with rich and -poor, with Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, in a public school, where -success was gauged by individual merit alone, and where we little bigots -and partisans learned to be tolerant and respectful toward one another. -One of the most salutary things I ever learned was that the son of a -ragpicker, in my class, was a better mathematician than I, and that a -mulatto girl across the aisle usually outranked me. - -“I told General Lawrence it was my firm conviction that his children -would be far more benefited by a few years’ study of ordinary English -branches with ordinary children than by anything else he could do for -them educationally, for I feared that they were growing up to know only -one side of life and only one class of people, and their knowledge and -sympathies would be narrow. He nodded assent, and I went on. - -“My third condition was, that he and his wife should sign a paper -promising for the next three years to allow no debts to any one but me, -or some agent authorized by me, to run beyond a month’s time. Any -failure to meet such debts promptly must be immediately reported to me -for settlement, for which I should take a mortgage on his furniture and -personal effects. - -“I told him that my intention was not merely to help his immediate and -pressing need, but to entirely free him from debt. Nevertheless, I was -unwilling to undertake this, unless he were ready to rigidly insist upon -living within his income, thus teaching his children some lessons of -self-sacrifice and thrift. I told him plainly that I was sure a little -different management would reduce his doctor’s bills, for I had reason -to think that his children’s constant ailing was due to the foolish way -in which they had been indulged. He looked amazed and annoyed at this, -and begged me to specify. - -“I replied, ‘Mrs. Lawrence herself told me of three parties which her -eight-year-old Gladys attended within a single week, and she afterwards -remarked incidentally that the child had a tendency to insomnia and -dyspepsia and was taking medicine all the time. Moreover, your older -daughter privately informed me that she had begun a diet of vinegar and -slate-pencils to reduce her plumpness. - -“‘No,’ I said, ‘I shall not presume to dictate to you as to the methods -which you are to pursue with your children. But I have seen them several -times and have an interest in them, and I believe that their character -will receive a permanent injury from the irregular life which they are -living and the false notions they have imbibed in regard to keeping up a -style which they cannot afford. So for their sake, and in addition to -paying all your debts, I am willing to send the oldest to good -boarding-schools where simple diet, regular hours, and systematic work -can help to make of them a stronger man and woman than there is prospect -of their becoming now.’ - -“I could see that it was terribly galling for him to have me sit there -and arraign him, as it were, for his conduct; but he clenched his teeth, -kept silence, and heard me to the end. Then he cleared his throat, and -after a moment said, hoarsely, without looking up: - -“‘Miss Brewster, you are very kind. With your permission I will call on -you to-morrow at eleven.’” - -The next morning, a half hour after the time appointed, General Lawrence -and his wife appeared, both looking as if they had passed a restless -night. Mrs. Lawrence, clad in an elegant gown, quite outshone Mildred, -who wore a quiet street costume of gray serge. That costly dress and the -queenly air of its owner nettled me. - -“Mildred,” I whispered, as she came back for a pencil, “do think twice -before you squander your thousands on saving those people from the just -penalty of their folly and sin.” - -“I am not thinking of them so much as of their children,” said she -gravely; “and it is far more folly than sin. Mrs. Lawrence is a Southern -woman, sweet-tempered and charming, but despising little economies as -petty Yankee meanness, and she will have to submit to receiving -instruction from me on that score, or else I shall let the sheriff -come.” - -But Mildred certainly did seem somewhat disconcerted when she learned -that the ten-thousand-dollar loan which had been asked for was less than -half of General Lawrence’s indebtedness. He confessed, she told me -afterward, that his expenses last year were over five thousand dollars, -while his receipts from his literary work, his sole income, were only -twenty-eight hundred. “We were obliged, actually obliged, to go into -society more or less on account of the General’s position,” said his -wife, apologetically. “General Lawrence is continually meeting important -people in the literary and political world, and can’t you see, my dear -Miss Brewster, how essential this is for his writing? And, of course, if -we are always well entertained ourselves, we have to treat people -decently when they come to see us. I have been my own seamstress, and -have economized in every way, but it is absolutely impossible for us to -live on three thousand a year. My husband’s writings would bring us -three times that if he could get what he deserves. But it is always so -with men of genius; their own generation never appreciates them,” she -added bitterly, while her husband fidgeted and took a turn around the -room. - -“Well, and what did you say to such rubbish as that?” I inquired of -Mildred. - -“I said,” answered she, “that Emerson and many others had found ‘plain -living and high thinking’ quite compatible, and that I thought a -residence in some suburban town would obviate the burdens of society, -and allow them to live within their income. At all events,” I said, -“although I stood ready to offer, as a gift, their entire immunity from -debt, this could not be done except by a strict construction of the -conditions which I had laid down. However, I offered General Lawrence an -opportunity to lay up a little money, telling him that I had various -projects in view, and should need the assistance of the pen of a ready -writer in carrying out many of them. I told him that I would put to his -credit in the bank ten dollars for every newspaper column which he would -write on subjects that I should give him: at the end of three years this -amount should be turned over to him, and meanwhile he must ‘cut his coat -according to his cloth,’ and manage in some way to live strictly within -his income.” - -“And what did Madam say to that?” I asked. - -“Oh, her pride kept the tears back; they both said nothing and signed -the papers; but I know that she must think me a hateful, close-fisted -Yankee, with no conception of granting a favor graciously and without -cruelly wounding the recipient’s feelings.” - -We saw very little of the Lawrences after this. It was understood that -little Gladys’s health required country air, and a cottage out of town -was engaged. The children were not sent to school, but kept up French -and read history and literature at home with their mamma, and although -they would have found it difficult to bound Missouri or do an example in -long division, they could talk glibly of Louis XI. and the Cid. - -Whether a beneficial reform was wrought in the domestic economy of the -family, I never knew, and I think Mildred had her doubts, though she was -not called upon to pay any more debts. - -We heard incidentally that the General’s cigar bills and physician’s -fees had not decreased, and that his last work on the Philosophy of the -Greek Tragedians had received unqualified praise from Professor Curtius. - -This little episode was only one of the many which marked our brief stay -in New York, and gave me an opportunity to study the many-sided -character of my friend. She had some aristocratic acquaintances in the -city who were only too happy to lionize her, and she was soon -overwhelmed with invitations to lunch parties, theatre parties, et -cetera, in which I was also kindly included. - -“You must go, dear; I want some one to back me up,” she used to say at -first. “I have courage enough to go into a pulpit and preach a sermon, -or to go down into the slums alone, or to do a thousand things which -would make most girls horrified, but I fairly shake in my shoes when I -have to be the target of the eyes of all these society women and -dollar-hunters. I know they would not care a jot for me were it not for -my money, and I cannot help thinking of it all the time. I feel -suspicious of every one in a way that makes me blush. - -“I can’t talk society small talk; I never could. I wonder how people -manage to do it and wax so eloquent over nothing,” she once said. “But I -suppose I must try to learn how,” she added, with a comical wry face. - -“Why try to learn, why not act your natural self?” I protested, for I -had quietly observed that Mildred’s simple and unaffected bearing and -transparent sincerity had proved far more attractive in society than the -persiflage and repartee of more brilliant women, though I knew that she -herself felt conscious of shyness and a sense that she was out of her -proper element. - -“Why not act my natural self?” repeated Mildred. “Because, my dear, I -like to be liked, and my natural, unconventional self would lead me to -talk of all sorts of things which society would not like. If I talked as -much as I wished to on the subjects that interest me most, I should be -voted a Boston bore, a woman with a mission, with hobbies, with -theories,—altogether a very unlikable person aside from my ducats.” - -“Nonsense, Mildred!” I cried. “I have seen a hundred times as much of -society as you have, and I can say that the greatest boon in the way of -novelty would be a little bit of the independence and freshness so -natural to you. You are a woman to whom real things mean something. You -are earnest. You like to talk about earnest things, and why should you -feel obliged to condescend to the level of society small talk and -meaningless compliments?” - -“Oh, I don’t propose to be a hypocrite,” said Mildred, with a little -amused laugh, at my unaccustomed vehemence in this line of thought. She -sat for a minute absently picking in pieces the Jacqueminot rose in her -corsage; then she said, “But you know, Ruby, there is such a thing as -being a doctrinaire and a dull dogmatist, and, on the other hand, being -full of tact and sympathy and wit, accomplishing the best results in an -indirect way, when no amount of direct preaching could do it. A woman of -character can make even her small talk a tremendous power if she only -knows how to go to work. - -“I want to be a power, I honestly confess that, but I have little -worldly wisdom, and I have much to learn. I have lived in a world of -books and ideas, and now I am thrown into this perplexing, brilliant, -kaleidoscopic world of society, and I feel as unsophisticated as a girl -of sixteen.” - -“But there is plenty of homage given you,” I remarked. “You were the -envy of every woman in the room the other night when Lord H—— took you -out to dinner.” - -“Homage to _me_? Homage to my money, you ought to say,” replied Mildred, -with a touch of bitterness, as she shook the rose-leaves from her lap -into the waste-basket. “I wore opals and satin, and am, as the papers -say, a ‘great catch;’ but how much attention do you suppose my lord -would have paid me six months ago if he had met me running down Joy -Street with my bag of books, to take a Cambridge car?” - -“But plenty of women are admired who are not rich,” I remarked; “it -doesn’t follow”— - -“No,” said Mildred, breaking in impetuously; “but women are not admired -for their real worth. It always used to madden me to see how the nice, -sensible girls, who really had original ideas and could say something -worth saying, were always left to be the wall-flowers. - -“Nine men out of ten actually like a little, helpless doll of a creature -who can talk by the hour and say nothing; and they don’t care for a -brave, self-helpful girl who has any independence of spirit, and who -does not flatter a man by demanding his attention and referring to his -opinion on every subject which requires more thought than crocheting or -tennis. - -“No,” after a moment’s pause. “Men do not find thoughtful women -interesting. I learned that long ago. I went to a mixed high school, and -when we young folks went on picnics or sleigh-rides, it was always the -poorest scholar in the class who had the smallest waist and wore the -most bracelets, a good-natured little society girl, who received the -most attention from the young men. But they were all callow boys, and I -did not think or care much about them. I knew a few men of the finest -sort who showed me what men could be, and I did not think then, what I -am coming to believe now, that many of the real gentlemen who mean to be -chivalrous, and who imagine that they give the highest honor to women, -actually admire the Howells-farce-type of woman above every other,—that -is to say, a pretty, prattling, conscientious, irrational little goose.” - -“I don’t know anything about Howells’s women,” said I, rather surprised -at this outburst; “and I didn’t suppose you ever condescended to -anything less than Hawthorne or George Eliot.” - -“Oh yes, I always read everything of Howells’s, though I abominate his -women. But he is so inimitably droll and bright, and then the local -Boston flavor of his stories is rather fascinating to a Bostonian, you -know.” - -“Very likely he does not admire his women himself; he may simply wish to -show up that type,” I suggested. - -“Yes, and a pretty common type I am finding it to be after all, though I -once used to scorn the idea,” said Mildred, despondingly. - -Then she added, as she nervously twirled the little silver Maltese -cross, the badge of the King’s Daughters, which she always wore, “I -suppose I have known as little and cared as little about men as any girl -who ever lived. But I have lived too much like a nun,” she sighed; “this -new life of these past few weeks has awakened me; I feel that I have -missed something. - -“I wish”— - -“Well, dear, what do you wish?” I asked, as she hesitated. - -“I wish,” said she decidedly, “that I could meet some thoroughly fine -men with brains and heart who liked me for myself, who liked what was -best in me. I honestly confess it is pleasant to be liked and sought -after, pleasanter than I used to think. I can see now how easy it is to -get one’s head turned.” Then, after a little pause: - -“But in society we can never be sure what the attraction is. Everything, -vulgarity, ignorance, immorality,—everything is pardonable with wealth.” - -“Hush, dear, you are getting desperate,” I said. “There are, no doubt, -many grades of New York society where all that may be pardoned on the -score of wealth; but you have not seen much of that, so far, and we have -met many really fine, cultivated people who have traveled and studied -and have real character. You spoke enthusiastically of the talk about -Art which you had the other night over in the bay window with Professor -Stuart and that English artist with all the letters after his name.” - -“Yes, indeed, they were as entertaining as possible, and gave me ideas I -had never thought of by myself; but then they were graybeards of fifty. -I was thinking of younger men whom one might”—and Mildred hesitated and -looked out of the window, blushing. - -“Why don’t you finish it,” I said mischievously; “whom one might marry?” - -But Mildred only laughed and said nothing. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - -One morning at breakfast, as we were sipping our chocolate, Mildred -cried out, “Oh, Ruby, I forgot to tell you! I am going to have a -symposium here to-night.” - -“A symposium!—of whom? and what is it all to be about? Let me hear your -latest scheme,” I queried, laying down my black Hamburgs and looking up -at her. Her face was very bright and animated, and the scheme, whatever -it was, evidently interested her considerably. - -Mildred leaned back in her chair and twirled the beautiful ruby ring -which she always wore. This ring had been her sister’s, and was an -heirloom; she rarely wore any other jewels, and when she was preoccupied -she had a habit of turning it round and round on her finger. - -“I mean,” said Mildred, “to get together all the wisdom on the tenement -house question that is available in New York and Brooklyn, and see what -the consensus of opinion is; and I am going to have my amanuensis take -notes for future reference. You know I have some coöperative theories of -my own in regard to the matter, and I wish to ascertain what these -practical workers think of them.” - -“Whom have you invited?” I inquired, beginning to be interested. - -“Oh, Professor Felix Adler, for one. He built those tenements that we -saw the other day down on Cherry Street, you remember, and he is also -very much interested in manual training. Then there is Mr. Pratt, who -founded that great Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, with all kinds of -industrial training and a free library and reading-room. Then—let me -see—I have invited Mr. Barnard of the Five Points House of Industry, -Mrs. Alice Wellington Rollins, who wrote ‘Uncle Tom’s Tenement,’ Mr. -Charles L. Brace of the Children’s Aid Society, most of the agents of -the model tenement houses that I have visited, several of the lady -visitors in the charity organizations, and one or two architects.” - -As it proved, however, not all who were invited came, but there were -enough to comfortably fill our pretty parlor. There were Jews and -Gentiles, radicals and high-churchmen, all interested in the same -subject, and many of them meeting each other for the first time. - -Mildred had chocolate and cakes and fruit served, and then proceeded to -business in the dignified, quiet way which so well became her. - -“I have asked you here this evening,” she said, “that I may get the -benefit of your united wisdom and experience. I seek enlightenment as to -the best way to solve the problem of the housing of the poor in a great -city. I wish to do something to make the conditions of existence a -little more bearable for some of the wretched creatures that I have been -seeing of late in such places as the Mulberry Street Bend, on Hester, -Forsyth, and Cherry streets, and a hundred other places. - -“For some years, in connection with the Associated Charity work of -Boston, I have visited poor families in the alleys of North Street, and -have made myself somewhat familiar with the problems that are besetting -us in the herding together of enormous numbers of people under -conditions that, I think I am safe in saying, never before existed. What -little I have seen in other cities is as nothing to what I find here. -And it is here in New York, where I am told you have the most thickly -populated square mile on the globe, and where the dregs from Castle -Garden remain, that I propose to do something. - -“As I have been about with your district visitors and have picked my way -among the garbage barrels and swarming mass of humanity in the Jewish -quarter, on their market day, I have wondered how it was possible for -morality to exist in the close personal contact and absolute want of -privacy which this lack of space necessitates. Now, tell me, what is to -be done to relieve this condition of things and permit those little -_gamins_ to grow up decent American citizens? Are things worse or are -they better than they used to be? I hear that a mint of money is spent -in charity, but I hear also that in the past one of the greatest causes -of pauperism has been found to be unwise philanthropy, and the more I -look into the question the more perplexed and uncertain I find myself. - -“What does your experience suggest?” asked Mildred, turning with one of -her winning smiles to a cheery-faced lady of perhaps fifty years of age, -who sat at her right. - -“That is a pretty hard question to answer,” was the reply. “I’ve been at -work for twenty-five years down on the East side near the river, and I -am free to say that I don’t see much improvement. Of course, things are -better in some ways; there is better sanitary inspection than there used -to be, and need enough there is of it too, with these filthy Italians -and Polish Jews who are pouring in here every week by the thousands. I -must say I haven’t much hope of them.” - -“Yes, of course; but haven’t you hope of the children?” inquired -Mildred, eagerly. - -“Yes, a little more hope for them, certainly,” responded the lady -somewhat dubiously, with a sigh that contrasted strangely with her -bright, hopeful face; “but I must say frankly, that the more I see of -the poor, the more hopeless I sometimes feel and the less able to make -generalizations and give advice. I used to think it a comparatively -simple thing, requiring merely money and hard work. Ten years ago I -could have given you advice very glibly, but I don’t feel so sure about -anything now; there are so many sides to everything, and so many -exceptions to every rule. - -“Of course, good tenement houses are a great thing, provided you can -have a janitor and a housekeeper to keep them in order. But the best -model tenement house in the world would be completely ruined if entirely -given over to the class of tenants I know about. They will just as -likely as not throw their ashes and garbage down the waste-pipes, and -pile all their bedding out on the fire-escapes, blocking them up so as -to make them almost useless in case of a fire. It requires the patience -of Job to deal with such people. They don’t care for your new -improvements, and they don’t propose to be restrained by any regulations -or rules. - -“As for the model tenement houses that we have, doubtless they are -excellent. But they don’t as a general thing reach the lowest class of -people, and in any event they are a mere drop in the bucket. There’s -just one consolation about it all, as I say to myself when I go -about,—these people have never been used to anything better, and they -don’t know how miserable they are.” - -“That is just what I think is the worst of it,” said Mrs. Rollins, as -the speaker paused. “The fact that they don’t know anything better, -don’t expect anything better, don’t want anything better, is the -frightful thing about it. As to whether things are getting better or not -I can’t say, but I know this, the tenement house has come to stay; it -cannot be eliminated from the modern problem of living. Thousands of our -well-to-do people are living in flats and suites simply to avoid the -burden and expense of having to entertain so much company, and these -buildings, like the Spanish flats or the Dacotah, are really only -another kind of tenement house. As I say, the tenement house has come to -stay. Separate houses for separate families are going to be fewer and -fewer in our large cities, where land is becoming more and more -valuable. The thing that remains for us to do is to build with more -skill and wisdom, so that while the separate house must more and more -give way, the home need not be sacrificed.” - -“Miss Brewster,” said a gray-bearded man whose name I did not learn, “as -to the question whether the charities and sanitary improvements of the -city have amounted to anything in the last twenty-five years, it seems -to me it is not well for us to rely wholly on personal impressions. -There are figures at command which can abundantly show that in two -respects at least—the lessening of the rates of mortality and the -reduction of arrests for crime—we have made an immense advance on -twenty-five years ago, in spite of the fact that the population has -nearly doubled. Permit me to state a few facts.” - -“Good; this is just what I want,” said Mildred with keen attention. - -He continued: “In 1864, when the sanitary examination of the city was -made, some wards were found to be peopled at the rate of 290,000 persons -to the square mile, while in the most densely populated part of London -the number was less than 176,000 to the square mile. To show what -sanitary regulations will do, let me say that the number of deaths in -London previous to a good sanitary government was one in twenty, and in -New York one in thirty-five, while after such regulations the number in -London was reduced to one in forty-five, and in New York to one in -thirty-eight and a half. - -“We think our tenement houses now are bad enough, but let me read you a -report of the condition of things in 1866. ‘At this time the cities of -New York and Brooklyn were filled with nuisances, many of them of years’ -duration. The streets were uncleaned; manure heaps, containing thousands -of tons, occupied piers and vacant lots; sewers were obstructed; houses -were crowded and badly ventilated and lighted; stables and yards were -filled with stagnant water, and many dark and damp cellars were -inhabited. The streets were obstructed, and the wharves and piers were -filthy and dangerous from dilapidation. Cattle were driven through the -streets at all hours of the day in large numbers. Slaughter houses were -open to the streets, and were offensive from the accumulated offal and -blood, or filled the sewers with decomposing animal matter. Gas -companies, shell-burners, and fat-boilers pursued their occupations -without regard to the public health or comfort, filling the air with -disgusting odors; and roaming swine were the principal scavengers of the -streets and gutters!’ - -“Moreover,” the gentleman continued, “owing to the general indifference -and ignorance concerning sanitary construction of houses, tenement -houses used often to be found having on one floor ten or twelve interior -rooms, with no means of ventilation or light except through other rooms; -and at night, when these rooms were occupied and the doors closed, one -may imagine the amount of poison which each person was compelled to -breathe. Now, all that has been remedied to a great extent. No such -houses are allowed to be built, and in lodging-houses there is a -wholesome regulation as to the number of cubic feet of air-space allowed -to each individual. Sanitary inspection is conducted by competent -officials at regular intervals. The public conscience has been aroused -in this matter. - -“As I look back thirty-five years, I find that among the better class of -people there is far more fastidiousness in regard to all matters of -personal cleanliness than there used to be. There are more bathing -facilities, a greater delicacy in manners at table, a greater tendency -to isolation and privacy in personal matters of the toilet, and so -forth, and therefore among every class of people a better sentiment in -regard to the enforcement of sanitary regulations than there used to be -when I was a boy. But those who are helping these things, although many -absolutely, are relatively pitifully few. Yet no one who knows the -condition of affairs twenty years ago can question that an advance has -been made. We are learning to organize charity better, we are spending -our efforts in more profitable directions, and we are training our -public not to increase pauperism by the old-fashioned, pernicious -methods of indiscriminate giving. In regard to the lessening of juvenile -crime I think Mr. Brace can give the most valuable opinion of any one -present.” - -All eyes were turned to Mr. Brace, and there was a hearty hand-clapping -as he prepared to speak. - -“Since 1852,” he said, “the society which I represent has been doing its -best to rescue the little wanderers of this city from lives of suffering -and degradation. The value of its work is too well known for me to -enlarge upon it. We are met here this evening to discuss tenement -houses, and I will therefore take the time to make only two or three -statements in reply to Miss Brewster’s inquiry as to whether the morals -of the community have improved, and whether charitable and reformatory -work is of much value. Now, in spite of the fact that the overcrowding -in the poor quarters is greater than ever, that the lowest of the -European population are pouring into our city to an alarming extent, -that our municipal government has often been notoriously corrupt, in -spite of all this, I say, by means of the efforts which have been put -forth, there has been a steady and most satisfactory decrease in crime -during all these years. Allow me to give you a few figures. In 1859 -there were more than five thousand five hundred commitments for female -vagrancy, and in 1886, notwithstanding the general increase in -population, there were less than two thousand five hundred commitments -for the same cause. In the eleven years preceding 1886, the decrease in -arrests for drunkenness among males was just about fifty per cent. I -will hand you a table, Miss Brewster, giving you the report of juvenile -crimes since 1875, and also the Police record containing the general -report for the city, the details of which you can read at your leisure. -I will simply say now that the net summing up of these reports shows a -remarkable decrease in crime of all sorts of twelve and a half per cent. -This, I think, will answer your question as to whether, on the whole, -our city is any better.” - -“There is another thing to be noticed,” said a little lady over in the -corner. “People of all classes think more of going into the country and -getting fresh air than they used to. Thousands of families who thirty -years ago would not have spent two or three weeks in the year out of the -city now think they must have two months at least. They have come to -consider this a necessity for themselves, and it makes them through -sympathy appreciate a little the needs of the very poor during the -fierce summer heat. The lovely charities of the Flower Mission, Country -Week, and the harbor excursions have grown out of this sympathy for -others. - -“I, for one, think that the world is far more kind and sympathetic than -it used to be, in all sorts of little ways, as is shown by the -multiplication of such societies as the ‘King’s Daughters’ and ‘Lend a -Hand’ clubs, by the increased tenderness with children, and prevention -of cruelty to animals. I don’t mean to say that people are much happier, -for they have a higher standard and are less content with objectionable -things than they used to be when I was a child forty years ago. But I -for one do not decry that kind of discontent with existing bad -circumstances. To me it seems to be only the precursor of reform. I do -not believe in encouraging the poor to be content with their lot. I -think, with Mrs. Rollins, that the worst thing possible is this fearful -apathy toward bad surroundings, of which one sees so much among our low -foreigners. The first thing to do in Americanizing them is to make them -discontented with living like the brutes.” - -“And what is the first step in that direction?” inquired Mildred, -thoughtfully. “Is it more legislation to regulate and limit this fearful -inflow of more people than we are able to cope with; or is it a large -concerted movement of capitalists to provide better tenements? Or is it -education and Christianization?” - -“As I hold, it is each and all of these,” said a blond-haired, keen-eyed -young man in the back part of the room, rising as he spoke and leaning -against the mantel. He spoke in a clear, crisp way which was pleasant to -hear. - -“Legislation is needed, after we first enforce the laws which we already -have; but it would hardly be worth while to petition for new ones when -we can make the old but little more than a dead letter. At present no -foreigner can be allowed by law to land who has not money enough to -support himself for a year; and yet how often is this law enforced? No; -as long as the pressure of taxation and the burden of a great standing -army exists in every country in Europe, as long as our unchristian -tariff prevents the natural inflow of foreign products and grinds down -the laborers of the old world, so long shall we be compelled to face -this problem of Americanizing two thirds of the population of our great -cities. We here in New York live in a foreign city. There are less than -fifteen per cent. of us whose parents were born in this country and bred -in its political, religious, and social traditions. One doesn’t realize -this in walking down Broadway or Fifth Avenue; but in some parts of the -city where most people do not often go, one would think himself in -Germany, or Italy, or Poland. - -“Now, you ask what is the first step toward Americanizing this foreign -element. _I_ say, education, Christianity, and better living. There -isn’t much use in trying to teach children when their stomachs are -empty; there is not much use in goody-goody Sunday-school talk without -the discipline in cleanliness, order, and industry which the day school -alone can compel; neither is there much use in giving these people -palaces to live in and supplying them with comforts and conveniences, -unless at the same time you bring some moral power to bear upon them, -while also helping them to a pretty good acquaintance with the three -R’s. You see, it works both ways. Clean and wholesome physical -surroundings create an opportunity for mental and spiritual growth, and -without the latter the former would not be appreciated or preserved.” - -“I quite agree with the last speaker,” said Professor Adler in his mild, -quiet way, contrasting with the briskness of the blond young man whose -common-sense talk had pleased us. “The supply of pure air, sanitary -regulations, and decent comforts must be the primary object of the -philanthropist who would solve the problem of the housing of the poor; -but it will avail little, unless it is invariably accompanied by -constant supervision, helpfulness, and sympathy. Every tenement house -should have a responsible resident agent,—not a mere perfunctory person -who shall issue orders and collect the rent, but one who in case of -sickness or trouble can give advice and help, and by living constantly -in friendly relations with tenants can initiate reforms in a wise way. -The stubbornness and conservatism of the ignorant in opposing what is -for their real good is one of the most surprising things we have to -contend with. One would think, for instance, that a coöperative grocery -store, situated in a tenement house, and giving good quality at as -reasonable prices as could be obtained elsewhere, would be an inducement -to the average tenant to buy. But so great is the suspicion that we are -trying to take advantage of them in some way, that they will often -prefer to go farther and pay more, simply to assert their independence.” - -“Do they take kindly to free kindergartens?” inquired Mildred. - -“Yes, when they come to understand them; but the announcement of a -kindergarten, free reading-room, and bath-rooms in connection with a new -tenement house rarely offers much inducement to the average laborer -looking for rooms. But a large room which can be used in the morning for -kindergarten purposes, and at other times for a gathering place for -clubs and singing-classes, is an invaluable thing in every large -tenement house. This gives a foothold for all kinds of work to be -conducted by young gentlemen and ladies who desire to uplift the youth -of these neighborhoods. Gymnastic classes and glee clubs form a sort of -neutral ground where all may meet on a common level, and where the -refinement, intelligence, and good breeding of those who are willing to -give their services once or twice a week will soon make itself felt. It -is not necessary that they should directly teach or preach; but if they -are well-bred, kind-hearted people, they will by their mere tones of -voice and their method of managing things exert a subtle influence which -in tune will give them the power to go further and attempt other things. - -“The quickest way to Americanize an ignorant foreigner is to give him -frequent object lessons in the shape of the best type of American -citizen.” - -“I think I understand you,” said Mildred, “and it is what I myself -thoroughly believe. The model tenement house question is not merely a -question of brick and stone, ventilation, bath-rooms, and four per -cent.; it is a question largely of providing the best means for -uplifting spiritually, mentally, and physically these swarming masses. -Speaking of four per cent., let me inquire whether tenement houses can -be considered a good money investment. Not that I, personally, am -anxious to make money out of them; but I suppose it goes without saying -that anything like this which does not pay a fair percentage, and is -really a charity, in the end tends to pauperize and is pernicious.” - -“Certainly,” replied Professor Adler; “and not only that, but most of -the poor are too proud to accept charity in that form, though, -inconsistently enough, they may be quite ready to accept it in other -ways. But anything which savors of an institution or charity, and that -puts them under obligations, is sure to fail. On the other hand, to hold -out to capitalists the idea that they had better put their money into -tenement houses because it is a good investment is something I do not -like to do. A man who wishes simply to make money would tell me that he -knows far better methods than mine, and would consider my advice an -impertinence. But every man, no matter how much of an egotist he may be, -likes to be thought unselfish, and if I can tell him that here is a -means of doing great good while at the same time he loses no money, then -he may listen to me. Money wisely put into tenements can provide for the -tenant far more advantages than he usually has; it can give light, air, -cleanliness, many conveniences in common with others, and yield to the -landlord four per cent. besides. Some good tenements pay six per cent., -but this is perhaps at a sacrifice of conveniences to the tenant, or is -due to some special reasons. However, as the security of the investment -is so great, four per cent. may be considered fair interest.” - -“Good; now as to the details,” said Mildred in her practical way. “I -want to tell you my scheme, and then let you criticise it to the utmost. -I suppose I was born with a bump for economy; at all events, nothing -tries me more than the excessive waste which I have seen around me all -my life. I don’t mean merely waste of money, but waste of time, waste of -energy and effort in every direction. Of course there is less of the -latter here than in the old world, for here Yankee ingenuity does not -have so hard a fight with prejudice, and every inventor of a -labor-saving machine is crowned with honor. Still, there is a terrible -amount of waste, especially in women’s work. I will not stop to speak of -all phases of it; but as I have observed men and women for years, and -have seen the suffering from needless backaches caused by climbing -stairs and doing housework in an unnecessarily hard way, as I have seen -the complexity and endless details of our modern life crowd out, in the -lives of all but the rich, the leisure which their children should have, -and which they need for their own self-development, I have racked my -brains to see what could be done to simplify the petty details of modern -housekeeping. - -“I believe that we are on the verge of a new era in this respect. The -prejudices of centuries must give way to the new requirements of a -civilization which will more and more create an urban population, and -also a higher standard of physical comfort. Now in this, time, strength, -and money must be better conserved, or we shall, as a nation, have -nervous prostration, I fear. - -“My only solution for this, or for a part of it at least, seems to me -coöperation, so that all shall get the greatest return for the least -outlay. I don’t mean for a moment that I believe hotel life or -boarding-house life to be the life of the family of the future. Heaven -forbid! That the privacy and seclusion of the individual and family -should be preserved is imperative. The home is the first consideration. -But that one’s food should be cooked, or one’s clothes made or washed, -inside the rooms occupied by the family, seems to me no essential -feature of the home, and I am convinced that where prejudice can be -removed, a great gain would be made by eliminating the first and last, -at least from the home of the city poor. - -“In regard to the value of a common laundry with set tubs, I think most -of you have found them successful. I have found only one person-an -attendant in the beautiful Astral flats of Green Point—who told me that -they were considered undesirable, as tending to encourage gossip and -quarreling. Now the dwellings which I mean to build are intended for a -lower class of people than any whom I have hitherto found occupying -model tenement houses. In those on Seventy-second Street, I was told -there were many mechanics earning three to four dollars a day. Such -people are not what I call poor, and I design my houses for people who -earn, at most, only half of that. I want to give them the greatest -possible return for their money, and at the same time make a fair per -cent. on the capital invested. The income thus derived I shall devote to -the erection of more houses. - -“I propose to make the buildings fairly fireproof, with iron staircases -and stone-paved halls. The interior walls will be of painted brick. Upon -the top of the house I propose to have a well-fenced, well-paved -playground, believing that the roof space which is so rarely utilized in -our great cities may be made of great service in this way. In most of -the tenement houses I find that the roof is not allowed to be used for -anything but drying clothes, the owners not caring to go to the extra -expense necessary to make it a perfectly safe place for children. But, -if it is all planned in the beginning, the expense will be comparatively -slight, and the open space thus provided will afford better air than any -interior court, and be, both physically and morally, a far safer place -than the street. By a simple arrangement of pulleys the drying clothes -can be elevated between strong, high posts quite above the heads of the -children, so that their play need not be interrupted. A stout wire -netting can be arranged to keep the clothes from blowing away. - -“On the upper floor of the house I shall have several store-rooms -adjoining a freight elevator and a kitchen. This will be connected with -every floor of the house by speaking-tubes and dumb-waiters, so that -meals can be cooked here for the whole number of tenants and delivered -hot when ordered. The charge will be simply for the cost of preparing -the food itself and the fuel; and as everything will be bought by the -quantity, the expense for each individual will be moderate. I believe -that thus, with proper arrangements, and suiting the food to the tastes -of the occupants, the whole question of the food supply may be solved, -and three women do the work of a hundred. How does this feature of the -house impress you?” - -As Mildred paused, three voices exclaimed in chorus,— - -“It would never work in the world!” “Perfectly impracticable!” “They -would not like it at all!” - -“Why not?” asked Mildred. - -“Well, first of all,” said a man who proved to be an agent in one of the -large model tenement houses, “what would all those women do if you take -away their work from them? They would be idle and shiftless, and just -spend their time in gossiping and quarreling. I know ’em.” - -“It seems to me,” said Mildred, rather tartly, “that if the average poor -man’s wife has not enough to do in washing, ironing, scrubbing, -sweeping, making and mending clothes for a household and attending to -her children, we need not feel any necessity laid upon us to fill up any -spare moment she may have for herself by an addition of needless work -for work’s sake. I know poor mothers in Boston who don’t get down so far -as the Common twice a year, who scarcely see a green tree from one -year’s end to another, who never think they can spare a moment’s time to -amuse their children, and who gladly turn the poor little ones into the -street to get them away from the hot cooking-stove which occupies the -best part of the only family living-room. It is to such mothers that I -would give a little freedom, and in time they will find something better -to do than quarreling and gossiping if they live in my tenements.” - -“But they will have to pay a little more for their food than if they -cooked it themselves. The wages of the cook must be paid, and even a -little more counts,” remonstrated another skeptic. - -“Not at all,” said Mildred, eagerly. “Think of the immense saving in -fuel to begin with. Why, most of these people, as you know well, buy -coal in small quantities, often by the hodful, paying for it at an -enormous rate when reckoned by the ton, to say nothing of the evil of -sending children out along the wharves to pick up dirty barrels and bits -of wood for kindling.” - -“But in winter they would need the fire just the same for warmth,” said -some one. - -“No; the whole house would have steam heat, thus making a valuable -saving of space as well, by doing away with the stove and place for -fuel. The halls of the model tenements now are heated by steam. I -estimate that the trifle extra which would be added to the price of the -room and the food would be no more than, probably not so much as, what -would be spent for food and fuel in the old way; for the poor that I -have known are the most extravagant people living. They buy a poor -quality of food at high rates, and through bad cooking and irregularity -of living waste and spoil much that they have. - -“Besides, I have had another thing in mind,—that is, the mothers who go -out to work by the day and have to let their children come home from -school to pick up any kind of cold dinner that they find, and who, so -far as my experience goes, invariably spend every cent they get upon -candy and innutritious cakes bought at the bakery.” - -“This is all a charming theory, Miss Brewster,” said a pale-faced lady -with auburn hair, who had hitherto remained silent; “but I am afraid -that until you have a more enlightened community to deal with it won’t -work. The conservatism, perhaps one might call it the stupidity, of the -lower classes is something we are fighting against all the time. Every -innovation has to be introduced with great caution in order not to -offend them. Strange as it may seem, these people who come from lands -where they have been down-trodden, with no privileges of any sort, -stickle more for their rights and independence, and are far less willing -to yield to restrictions than we. They don’t want to be ‘bossed.’ They -want to do as they please, even if they pay more for it and are not half -so well served. The idea of saving fuel and getting rid of the nuisance -of ash-barrels would not appeal to the low Italians. They cook their -little messes of macaroni over a few sticks, and would not dream of -using the fuel that an Irishman would require. - -“Let me tell you about a cheap lunch-room that was started as an -experiment some time ago. We gave good, nutritious food at the lowest -cost price, and what was the result? It remained on our hands, and we -could not sell it, and discovered to our surprise that the people for -whose advantage we had established it learned that if they waited until -the food was cold and ready to spoil they could come to the back door -and ask for it and get it for little or nothing. It would really have -been wiser to throw the food away. Yet the very same people who would do -this showed a decided pride when they suspected any supervision or -interference in their domestic affairs. A coöperative kitchen was -established in one of our tenement houses as an experiment, that is, a -range to be used in common, in order to save the fuel and heat in summer -of a fire in each separate room. But no one liked to use it. Each woman -was afraid of interfering or being interfered with.” - -“Naturally enough,” said Mildred; “and anything that should tend to mix -up families, where the yielding of personal preferences and ‘taking -turns’ is involved, would probably fail so long as human nature remains -human nature. I do not propose anything of that sort, you see.” - -“I think myself,” said Professor Adler, “that the idea is thoroughly -good, and if cautiously and wisely carried out would be a success. I -should like to see the experiment tried. I have all my life been -preaching coöperation, not only for the poor, but for ourselves as well, -but with small success.” - -“The chief objection, I suppose,” said Mildred, “is, that when food is -cooked in large quantities it never tastes so good. In time everything -seems to get a sort of boarding-house flavor, and individual tastes -cannot be consulted as in one’s own home. This may be made an objection -by the rich, but that a fastidiousness about a flavor should prevent -people from trying coöperation, who have all they can do to keep soul -and body together, seems to me more than ridiculous.” - -“It is more than ridiculous, and I for one have faith that people can be -taught to see it,” said the blond young man with the clear, crisp -speech. “The people who have lived in the model tenement houses have -already learned to use dumb-waiters, speaking-tubes, set tubs, -ash-shutes, and the like, and have seen the advantages of these modern -conveniences. Now, with patience on our part and a painstaking -explanation of your scheme, I think that they could be led to see the -saving in time, fuel, space, money, and quality of food as well as the -increased variety of food and cleanliness incident to an arrangement -such as you propose, and which I heartily hope you will carry out. The -thing to do, as Octavia Hill in her work in London has wisely taught us, -is to make sure that we put in the right sort of men and women to manage -such a place. As she once said, ‘We have more model tenements than we -know how to take care of. My present work is to train women who will go -down and oversee them.’ - -“If, beside the man who is employed to attend to the business part of it -and to see that the sanitary condition is good, you will also put in one -or two nice American women who will look after the families in a -friendly way, giving suggestions and advice with tact, and carefully -explaining the advantages of improvements, I will vouch for the success -of the experiment. If some object, there are enough people of common -sense in the city to fill one house at least.” - -“It seems to me,” said one speaker, “that we ought to be careful about -talking or even allowing ourselves to think of those whom we call the -‘lower classes’ as being essentially different from ourselves. They are -ignorant, of course, and dreadfully shiftless, some of them, but they -have the same instincts and affections as we, and I for one respect -their individuality and their privacy as I would our own. I shouldn’t -like to ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do myself under similar -circumstances. If _we_ aren’t ready for coöperation, how can we expect -them to be?” - -“I ask nothing of any one,” replied Mildred, “which I would not be glad -to do myself under the same conditions, or under better conditions. We -are learning to coöperate in a thousand ways of which our grandfathers -never dreamed. Under the pressure of new duties and interests which our -age has brought with it, we are learning to eliminate useless individual -work where combined work is better. The law of reciprocity is the divine -law. Wasteful individual effort belongs to the age of savagery. -Communism, the mingling of families, and absence of personal privacy can -never I am convinced be tolerated by civilized people; but coöperation -with one’s fellows in harnessing up the forces of nature to subserve our -material interests and leave man more free for the development of his -higher nature, seems to me the only rational thing for rational beings. -Any reluctance to see and accept this seems to me the result of -prejudice.” - -“I should put it even a little stronger than that,” said Professor -Adler, gently. “Under every objection which has been presented to me by -the friends with whom I have for years been laboring in this very line -of effort, I have felt that there was not mere prejudice but a real, -unconscious selfishness. All objections like the one you mention are -mere matters of detail which could be properly adjusted, and the freedom -of the wife from all petty details that eat up the greater part of her -life ought to more than compensate for the slight sacrifice of feeling -involved in doing an unaccustomed thing. I believe that we shall -gradually come to it; and meanwhile our boarding-houses and hotels will -shelter larger and larger numbers of women driven from housekeeping by -the weight of domestic cares. They will have lost their home in losing -their cook!” - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - - - FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL. - -DEAR ALICE: What an age it seems since I left Boston and exchanged the -peace and quiet of my dear old attic room for all this turmoil and whirl -of excitement! I have done more thinking in the last two months than -ever before in my life, and sometimes I feel as though every idea had -been squeezed out of my brain. If it were not that I insist upon getting -some hours every week for a canter in the park, I fear I should be in a -state of nervous collapse. However, I am beginning to see my way clear, -and hope to get away in a month or so and be off to the West. Then when -I get a conscience tolerably clear I shall run riot like a school-boy -out of school. - -Just now I am buried deep in tenement house problems. I have had two or -three conclaves of all the wiseacres I could get together, and I have -been considering their criticisms and suggestions, until now the details -of my scheme are pretty nearly complete, and I sign the papers with my -architect and builder to-night. - -You know about the plan for coöperative cooking which I used to -discourse upon to you to your infinite amusement. Well, half of the -people here opposed it at first just as you did. They said, for one -thing, that no one under heaven would be able to provide the kind of -food that would suit all tastes. There would be Jews who would want to -have meat killed after their own fashion; the Italians would want horrid -messes of garlic; the Irish would find fault if they didn’t have the -finest white bread and the strongest of tea, and not a blessed one of -them would eat oatmeal, the coarse cereals, nutritious soups, or any of -the suitable things that they ought to eat. - -All of which is more or less true, as I had wit enough to know myself -beforehand; but I don’t mean to let it daunt me. I shall let all my -tenants have an Atkinson kerosene stove in their rooms, if they wish to -pay for it, and on this they can do an endless amount of cooking at a -trifling cost for fuel, and a great saving of space as well as of heat -in summer. - -I have engaged one of the graduates of Mrs. Lincoln’s cooking school to -take my first kitchen in charge. Meantime, until the buildings are -ready, I am going to send her to study the system of marketing and -cooking for hotels; also the kinds of food which each nationality likes, -and the methods of its preparation. - -The kitchen will be arranged under her special supervision. She will -engage her own assistants and be the responsible head. She will have a -schedule of cooked dishes, with prices of each displayed on a bulletin -in the corridors. Special dishes will be cooked by request, and orders -for food can be sent in the day before. Of course at first there may be -a little waste until she gets familiar with the people and can -anticipate their wants; but she is a smart Yankee girl, and has a -good-natured, merry way with her which I am sure will win recognition. I -have told her to make it her first point to please the people, and when -that is accomplished she can gradually teach them to drink milk instead -of tea, and to eat brown bread instead of soda crackers. - -One objection which was brought up was that children would have no -chance to learn cooking, never seeing their mothers cook; but I said, -that not one woman in ten of those I have in mind knows how to cook -either in a cleanly or economical way. They have but little variety in -their cooking, moreover, and I thought the loss of the instruction which -might be imparted would be largely counterbalanced by the knowledge -which would be gained as to what well-cooked food tasted like. - -The _modus operandi_ of getting the food will be something like this. At -half-past six, Biddy Flanigan, who has to go out scrubbing at seven -o’clock, will deposit a dime with her teapot and an empty dish in the -dumb-waiter; she will call up through the speaking-tube that she wants -tea, fried potatoes, and three rolls; and in about seventy seconds the -dish full of potatoes done to a turn, and not soaked in fat, and a pot -full of tea will be at her elbow. From these and the nice home-made -rolls, neither burned nor sour nor underdone, she and little Patsy and -Maggie will have a hot breakfast. - -Then Maggie will wash the dishes with the hot water running at the sink; -there will have been no ashes to dump, or clinkers to pick out; no fuel -to be brought, or fire made; and Biddy can put on her hood and depart, -knowing that the children will not open all the draughts and waste the -coal, or set themselves on fire, or let the fire go out, and come home -from school to a dinner of cold scraps, with the necessity of building -up the fire again at night. For with a nickel in the dumb-waiter at -noon, and a tin can containing two big bowls full of hot soup, the -children will be well provided for. - -I have some little plans for the arrangements of rooms which I hope will -work well. The beds of the tenement houses have always been a great -trouble to me. Of all clumsy and unsanitary arrangements for sleeping -when one is obliged to sleep with four or five others in a small room, -ordinary bedsteads seem to me the worst. Now in order to introduce all -the improvements that I want, I am obliged to economize space. The -people must be crowded together, there is no other way out of that; so, -for the children, I mean to put up single beds, berth-fashion, over each -other. Strong iron sockets fastened to the wall will hold an iron frame -on which a little mattress with bedclothes will be strapped. In the -daytime these will be turned up, one under the other, and hooked against -the wall, out of the way, and a neat little curtain fastened to the -upper one will hang down and conceal both as if they were a set of -hanging shelves. At night the youngster in the upper berth will be -protected from all danger of falling out by two or three leather straps -fastened on to the upper part of the berth and hooked firmly to the -lower edge of the framework. I have thought all the details out one by -one as various objections were made to my scheme. - -I think this plan a fine solution for the dirt and vermin question. -Besides, the mattresses, being so small, could be very much more easily -aired and turned than if they were larger. But an agent, to whom I -explained it, protested, saying she wouldn’t encourage such an idea at -all. “People ought to live properly, in regular fashion, and not get -used to putting up with any such makeshifts as that. It wouldn’t be -living naturally.” - -“You old bigot!” said I inwardly, “your grandmother, I suppose, would -have protested against sleeping-cars and elevators and dumb-waiters as -being unnatural and artificial!” - -I am amazed every day to see how densely stupid some sensible people -are. I know a Frenchwoman who has always slept at home on a bed four -feet high, canopied and enshrouded with curtains. It is half a day’s -work to make it, and she feels out in the cold and all forlorn when put -into one of our little, open, low, brass bedsteads. I suppose she would -think it quite as unhomelike and as demoralizing in its tendency as my -agent thought my berth beds would be. - -The other day I explained the idea to a poor woman in a tenement house, -who with the greatest difficulty was trying to sweep under two -good-sized bedsteads in a tiny room. At first she did not seem to -comprehend, but when she did, she smiled and nodded and said, “I like -that, Mees; easy to sweep; children no kick each other all time; my -children sleep four in one bed—too much kick and cry.” - -I have thought of another thing, that is, of having low, stationary -settees made in suitable places against the wall, and having the seat a -cover which would turn up on hinges, showing space underneath where -clothes and all sorts of things could be kept out of sight, instead of -being put into trunks or left to lie around in an untidy way. I shall -have no closets, as I find that space can be better saved and -cleanliness more readily enforced by building stationary wardrobes, each -with a drawer underneath and shelves above extending to the ceiling. -Closets, I find, are rarely swept. - -On these shelves, which can be protected by a curtain, things not in -frequent use can be laid away, and every inch of space to the ceiling -utilized. I know you will not approve of this. You think closets are a -_sine qua non_; all of which is well enough if you are dealing with -people who are sure to keep them swept clean, and where room is not so -precious. But in this case I am planning to economize space to the -utmost, and at the same time give the number of hooks for hanging -clothes that there is in the ordinary closet. - -The rooms are to be only seven feet high, thereby saving much space and -making it possible for me to put on another story to the building. -Without this, by the closest planning, I could not afford all the -conveniences that I want and get my four per cent. interest, which, for -the success of the experiment, I feel bound to make. - -Of course these low-studded rooms would give too little air were it not -that I have taken extraordinary pains about the ventilation. I have been -using all my feminine ingenuity to devise all possible means to provide -the greatest amount of comfort and convenience for the smallest possible -amount of money and space. Understand that I am aiming to provide a -decent home for the very poorest, who cannot afford to pay more than -five dollars a month for rent. I mean to give them as much room as they -have now in their dirty, dark alleys and attics, and in addition to -that, warmth, pure air, cleanliness, and the saving of countless steps. - -I find my architects strangely unsuggestive about all this; they have -not enough imagination to put themselves in the place of a tired -ignorant woman who has to spend all her life in two rooms with her -husband and four or five untidy, restless children. - -Knowing how much afraid of the dark many of my North End people used to -be, and remembering how they used to keep a lamp burning all night in -their sleeping-rooms, where the windows were shut tight, I have planned -to have the upper eight inches of the walls of the room bordering on the -hall, of glass, which can be opened like a transom, to admit air and -much light at night from the lights in the hall, which I shall myself -provide. I mean also to have in every room, fastened against the wall, a -stationary table that can be put up or let down like an ordinary -table-leaf. - -I am going to have some experienced woman oversee all these little -details, for I never yet saw a builder who could not learn a great deal -from a practical housekeeper. - -In the basement there are to be bath-rooms and a barber’s shop, while in -some part of the building I shall have a large room which can be divided -by sliding-doors. One part shall be a nursery, where mothers who want to -go out can leave their children in good charge for a trifling fee, and -the other half of the room shall be used as a kindergarten. - -In the evening these rooms will be occupied by the grown people for club -meetings and a reading-room. When desired, both rooms can be thrown -together for a lecture or entertainment. - -I have in mind sewing schools and gymnastic classes and all sorts of -good things, for which this will be the centre. - -I am more and more convinced that the quickest way to revolutionize -whatever needs revolutionizing in this world is to get at the hearts and -souls of people. Open a man’s heart, give him an idea, in other words, -convert him, and self-respect, industry, and good manners will soon -appear. - -I think I have found just the right man and woman to help me make my -scheme feasible. They are a couple about fifty years old, Pennsylvania -Quakers, whose daughter has just been graduated from Professor Adler’s -kindergarten training school, and who is bubbling over with zeal to -begin her work. All three are to live in the building and give their -whole time to the work that may be needed, each one having his or her -separate department to attend to, and being responsible for everything -in that department. For all this a good salary will be paid to each of -the three. - -I have found that my original plan has grown on my hands, and as it is -often easier to do a thing on a large scale than on a small one, I have -decided to put up four large buildings around a hollow square, each one -to contain one hundred sets of tenements of from one to four rooms. Each -house will accommodate perhaps four or five hundred people. Most of the -suites will contain two rooms suitable for a family of four. But I shall -have also many single rooms for bachelors, there being a good demand for -them, I find. - -You know my enthusiasm for our Puritan history. Behold my opportunity to -indulge my taste in that direction! I am going to christen these hobbies -of mine, so long a dream, now so soon to be materialized, by bestowing -upon them some good old names that ought never to be forgotten. These -four are to be called the “Pilgrim Homes.” One will be named Scrooby, -another Leyden, one Plymouth, and one the Mayflower. If these prove -successful I shall have four more, named Bradford, Brewster, Carver, and -Winslow. However, I must not romance, for that perhaps will be far in -the future. - -You have no idea of the endless details I have had to consider. I have -been over every single model tenement I could find in New York and -Brooklyn, which is not saying much, for there are not many. Now, -although not a stone is yet laid, I feel as if a load had rolled off my -shoulders and the thing were nearly complete. - -I shall watch with the greatest anxiety the outcome of this experiment. -If it can be shown, as I think it can, that the lowest poor can be -comfortably housed at the prices which they now pay for their wretched -slums, and if it can be demonstrated, as I think it can, that health and -happiness increase and vice decreases in proportion to the opportunity -which is offered for decent living, then I shall be ready to devote a -goodly number of my millions to what seems to me about the best use that -can be made of them. - -As soon as it can be fully proved just what needs to be done, if a state -or city loan can be obtained, I mean to try to persuade some of these -wealthy men and women whom I have been meeting of late to join with me -and engage in the work of tenement house reform on a gigantic scale. -There is no good reason why the crying evils which now exist should be -perpetuated another year. Since planning all this I have been greatly -interested to learn of what Glasgow has recently been doing in this -direction; buying up and destroying a mass of vile old rookeries, and -building sanitary homes for the poor in place of them. - -There is money enough, brains enough, and good will enough in this city -to abolish these hideous conditions of life by which thousands of lives -are wrecked every year. I am very doubtful about much state socialism; -but municipal socialism to this extent seems to me the only rational -thing in view of the present evils. A century hence we shall look back -with wonder that our mania for individualism and dread of governmental -interference should have led us to tolerate these things a day. I was -never more convinced of anything than of this, and never more terribly -in earnest about anything in my life. Meanwhile my agents are buying up -and cleansing some of the worst old tenement houses in the city, and I -am searching in every direction for the right person to put in charge of -them. I find that this is the most important feature of it all. There -must be constant, tireless supervision, and I find that it really pays -to give one good tenant his rent free on condition that he keep the -building clean and orderly. He must, of course, be one who has enough -moral power to enforce all necessary rules. - -These details must sound very prosaic to you, I fear, in comparison with -all the delightful things which you are studying; but just at present I -am finding the subject of dumb-waiters and ash-shoots quite as -fascinating as I ever used to find Correggios or cryptogamia. - -By the way, I am going to see a beautiful private car which is to be -sold. I am thinking of buying it and taking aunt Madison and some -delightful people whom I know on a trip to the Yellowstone Park and -Puget Sound this summer. What do you say to joining us? By the time you -have finished at the Annex you will be ready to drop, and will be quite -unfit to think of getting up your trousseau. Tell that impatient young -professor that he must wait for three months, and give you a chance to -know how sweet it is to get a love-letter when it comes three thousand -miles.... - - FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Apr. 10_. - - To CHAS. W. TURNER, ESQ., Boston, Mass. - -_Dear Sir_,—Your letter has come to hand with the inclosed deed for the -eight lots on Huntington Avenue, each twenty-three by one hundred feet. - -I will now write you in detail about the buildings which I wish to put -upon those lots. I want you to understand my plans exactly, together -with my reasons for them, as I shall ask you to take the responsibility -of carrying them out. - -I want to try an experiment that I have long had in mind. I hope to have -it pay a fair per cent. and at the same time serve as a hint toward the -solution of some of the difficulties in the problems of modern -housekeeping. - -For the last twenty years we have been blundering our way toward better -methods of meeting the exigencies of our modern city life, but with -indifferent success. - -However, one thing is certain. In our great cities, where land is -growing more and more expensive, and where people are swarming in -constantly increasing numbers, building their houses higher and higher -into the air, something must be done to readjust the methods of living, -if life is to remain anything but drudgery to a large majority of wives -and mothers. - -The modern system of “flats” is a step in the right direction, but thus -far it has meant cramped quarters, great expense, and many -disadvantages, and I am convinced that it is a long way from being the -city home of the future. - -What I propose is to put up some houses where all the rooms in each -suite of apartments shall be on the same floor, but which shall in no -other particular resemble any “flats” that I have seen. - -I have found none where the rooms were spacious and all directly lighted -and ventilated from the outer air, unless they were at a price quite -beyond the income of a man who must live on three thousand dollars’ -salary. Even the best I have seen, although they are elegantly frescoed -and finished, are sure to have some small dark rooms, and give much less -good space for living purposes than a house bearing the same rental. - -Now I think there is no reason for this,—that is to say, no necessary -reason; nothing more in fact than that the demand for “flats” exceeds -the supply, and landlords make more on an investment in that direction. - -The never ceasing trouble with servants, the burden of entertaining -company, the fearful strain of the stairs incident to living in a house -where there are only two good rooms on a floor,—all these and other -things are more and more compelling people of moderate means either to -board or live in a “flat,” where one servant can do the work for which, -in an ordinary house, two would be required. - -I think the continual increase of boarding-houses marks a sign of -decadence in American social and home life, and yet I do not blame -delicate women for longing for freedom from the details of work, which -is often done at a great disadvantage, and for immunity from the -back-breaking stairs and other things that are the cause of so much -invalidism. - -Seeing these domestic problems and the wear and tear of the nervous -system contingent on the ordinary methods of city housekeeping, I have -determined to try in this experiment to see if for a moderate cost, say -nine or ten hundred dollars rental, it may not be possible to supply a -family with twelve good-sized rooms all on one floor, and with the back -yard of a size which is usual to an ordinary house. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -One great objection to the ordinary flat is the absence of a back yard -where clothes can be dried, and children can play. Families with -children find but little freedom and comfort in the ordinary flat, and I -propose to remedy this in the simplest way in the world,—at least, it -seems perfectly simple and feasible to me. If the architect you engage -makes any objections to the scheme, let me know what they are. - -Taking the eight lots which you have purchased, each one hundred feet -deep, let us devote say sixty feet to the back yards. This will admit of -flowerbeds, and a little playground, a very important item with a mother -of young children. These dimensions are the same as those of hundreds of -South End lots and houses. - -Then there will be left for the building of the eight homes an area of -eight lots, each forty feet deep and twenty-three feet wide. - -According to our ordinary wasteful system in the building of houses -vertically there would be eight sets of stone steps, eight doors and -lobbies, and allowing four stories to each house, there would be four -halls and three staircases, one over the other, in each of the eight -houses. Each hall would involve more or less expense in carpeting, much -time in sweeping and keeping clean; and beside, much physical energy -would be wasted in simply getting from dining-room to parlor and from -parlor to bedroom. - -Now it seems to me that instead of building these eight houses side by -side vertically, like so many bricks set up on end, we can do much -better. We can abolish seven of our doorsteps and entrance ways and use -one entrance for all, making it thereby much handsomer, and, if we -choose, seven times more expensive. Then instead of eight times three -flights of stairs we shall have simply three, one over the other, in a -broad central hall which will run from the street to the back yard, -having four tenements on either side of it, one tenement for each story. -The floors separating the tenements will be made as impervious to sound -as the partitions in houses built in the usual vertical fashion. The -central hall can be divided into two parts: a front hall containing a -passenger elevator and a handsome flight of stairs, and a back hall with -another flight of stairs and another elevator, the latter for servants -and freight. With the same amount of money that would have been required -for building and carpeting the extra stairs, these halls and staircases -can be made handsomer and absolutely fireproof. On the top story, -instead of the inconvenient ladder and trap-door leading to the roof, -which is usual in our vertically built tenements, there can be a -comfortable staircase, covered at the point where it reaches the roof -and giving exit through a door upon the roof, which can be thoroughly -guarded by a parapet or iron fence, thus affording a safe playground for -children. - -This will cost something, of course, but no more I think than would be -expended in the ordinary, wasteful method of building to which we resort -at present. - -Now perhaps you will say that with the exception of the back yards this -is not different from the ordinary apartment hotel; but wait a bit. What -I propose to do is to give to each person a suite of rooms equal in -cubical contents to what he would have had in his vertical four-story -house, and I shall arrange these rooms so that he shall have a frontage -on the street, not of twenty-three feet, but of ninety-two feet minus -ten feet which he will allow for the central hall. As his neighbor -across the hall will have the same frontage and also allow ten feet for -the hall, the latter, you see, will be a spacious apartment twenty feet -in width. - -Think of a flat having eighty-two feet of front, and with a set of four -back yards at the rear of each home, which is an area of sixty by -eighty-two feet! To be sure each one cannot use all that area. He will -have only one fourth of it for his special use, but it will be worth -something to have all that space ostensibly his own, and the outlook a -little different from each room. - -Of course your first question will be as to how these yards are to be -reached. - -My first purpose is to have these eight families who dwell under the -same roof use nothing but their halls and staircases in common. So in -the basement each family shall have a space at the rear of the house, -twenty-three feet in width, each having its own exit into its own yard -from the laundry and store-rooms which will be situated there. In the -front part of the basement, where in the average Boston house the coal -and furnace are usually found, will be the heating appliances for the -whole building, and heat will be provided in the different stories as it -is in the ordinary hotel. - -There will be speaking-tubes, of course, connecting each laundry with -its kitchen above, so that the mistress on the fourth floor can -communicate with her Bridget in the laundry, and the only disadvantage -will be that once a week the Bridget living on the top story will have -to descend four flights in the elevator to reach her laundry instead of -running down one flight of stairs, as she would do in the house of the -ordinary type. - -Although I prefer to leave the arrangement of rooms in the suites to the -taste of the architect, I will inclose a plan—the simplest possible one -which, so far as I know, will be thoroughly convenient. The only -objection to it that I can discover is, that it is rather stiff and -monotonous; but, as the same thing must be said of our houses as at -present constructed, I do not think this a very formidable objection. -However, I send a second plan, which will show how it is possible to -introduce considerable variety in the arrangement of rooms. In this, as -you see, the parlor is placed at the end of the hall, and is -thirty-eight feet long, being lighted at both ends. If it should be -thought best, half of the suites, _i. e._, the four on one side of the -hall, can be built after this second plan. - -The central passage-way running between the rooms in each suite will -receive light through transoms and glass doors, and will be lighter than -the halls in the average city house. - -[Illustration] - -As the kitchen does not communicate with this central passage-way, the -odors of cooking will not be so likely to permeate the house as they -usually do in the average Boston house with a basement dining-room. - -If I have made myself clear, I think you will see that, according to -this extremely simple plan of construction, the chief advantages of the -average flat and the average separate block house may be combined, and -the disadvantages of each nearly eliminated. - -The care of the sidewalk, stairs, central hall, and the management of -the heating apparatus, will be in the charge of a janitor, as is -customary in the ordinary apartment hotel, thus almost doing away with -the work of one servant in each family. In addition to the great -advantage of having all the rooms on one floor, these rooms will be -larger and more airy than in the ordinary block house. Then, too, they -will not only be more in number than those in the average flat, but they -will be more than in the vertical house of the same cubical contents. -For the space heretofore devoted to stairs can now be utilized for -living-rooms, and by simply opening the doors and windows a draught of -air can sweep straight through from front to back of the house. There -will be neither dark rooms nor rooms opening into a dismal brick -air-well, as in most of our modern flats, and, consequently, none of -that cramped, confined feeling that one always experiences when going -into their tiny rooms which seem designed for a family of three members -only, and where children have no right to be. - -Now I propose to offer this horizontal dwelling, with its eighty-two -feet front, and its yard at the back, with all its economy of space and -expense and physical exertion, for _precisely the same rental_ that the -vertical house with its twenty-three feet of front would cost. - -And, as I want permanent tenants, and desire to make them practically -the same offer as a sale of the property would be, you may give, to any -one who desires it, a lease for fifteen or twenty years. - -Doubtless before that time has expired we shall come to see that our -methods of living must be modified still more, and separate kitchens and -laundries will be relegated to the country, while some system of -coöperation will come into vogue in our cities. If so, such a house as I -propose to build can be easily modified to suit the new order of things. -The kitchens above could be metamorphosed into bedrooms, and part of the -space in the basement turned into a cooking centre for all the families. - -If this experiment should prove a success,—and I can see no reason now -why it should not,—this will be but the beginning of what I intend to do -on a large scale. I think I can do no better service for the hurried, -overworked wives and mothers of our great cities, than to simplify and -lighten the burdens of housekeeping, by adding to their comfort without -adding to their expense. - -I want very little frescoing and gilding in these houses, but there must -be fire-escapes at the rear, and every device for convenience that is -available. - -In regard to their outward appearance I have but one suggestion to make. -I should like to have the windows very broad and very low. It has always -seemed to me ridiculous to note the pains which is taken to cut a hole -in the wall and then immediately cover up two thirds of it in the most -elaborate manner with lambrequins and two or three sets of curtains, all -of which are never raised above the middle sash except when the servant -washes the glass. If it is desirable to admit a little subdued light -near the top of the room, this might be done by a few panes of stained -or ground glass, which would not be covered by a curtain. On the -exterior the bricks or stone, arranged in the form of an arch over each -window, would add much to the beauty of effect. - -If a window were five feet wide by three and a half high, the top being -no more than six and a half feet from the floor, the curtain question -would be somewhat simplified and our rooms made sunnier and more -beautiful. However, I leave this to the architect to decide. - -You will, I think, get my idea from the accompanying sketches. - - Yours sincerely, - MILDRED BREWSTER. - - - - - CHAPTER X. - - In achieving spiritual emancipation the mind must pass from - prescription to conscious reason, from mere faith to knowledge. There - must be nothing lost in the transition, only a gain in the form of - science to what was before held in the form of faith and tradition. - But this transition is the most painful one in history, although its - results are the most glorious.—WM. T. HARRIS, LL. D. - - -One evening Mildred and I had prepared for bed, and in our -dressing-gowns were sitting cosily before our open wood fire, watching -the flames dance and flicker and cast weird shadows on the wall. It had -been a hard day, the morning having been spent in writing and dictation -and in examining a half bushel of mail matter; the afternoon we had -spent in visiting tenement houses and industrial schools in Brooklyn. - -After dinner, however, I had beguiled Mildred into a merry hour over -some dashing Schubert duets, for music never failed to rest and soothe -her. Then, turning the lights down and drawing the _tête-à-tête_ before -the red glow of the firelight, we fell to talking, indulging in many -reminiscences of childish pranks and school-girl sentimentality. - -I had been bred outside of New England, and our lives had been wholly -unlike. Perhaps it was because we were so very unlike in many things -that we were more and more drawn to each other day by day, finding ever -new delight in exploring each other’s history and thoughts. - -I had seen more of the world, in a certain way, than Mildred,—that is, -more of society, in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. The -leisurely, easy-going life of a people to whom New England ideas and -“isms” were unknown had been the limits of my social, and -Presbyterianism and Episcopacy the limits of my spiritual, horizon. I -had scarcely dreamed of the existence of any other way of looking at -life among people in good society. - -A brisk canter on my red roan, with a gay company of young people, a -good dinner party, plenty of bouquets and dancing and young men, with -now and then a would-be-serious talk with some of the more -studiously-minded of them apropos of German poetry or Victor Hugo,—this -life I had known all about, and but little of any other. - -However, eight months previously, when reverses of fortune had cast my -fate in Salem, Massachusetts, among a family of Unitarians who had been -old-time abolitionists, and were now woman suffragists and zealous -reformers in every direction, my conception of life had enlarged a -little, and I was prepared not to be amazed at this radical, bookish -Boston girl who upset all my previous theories of what a charming woman -should be. - -She was charming; no one who had seen her sitting there, in her loose -gown of a delicate rose color, her dark wavy hair falling around her -shoulders as she gazed steadily into the glowing embers, her fine -features outlined by the firelight, but would have thought her so. We -had been laughing heartily over some droll accounts of my first New -England experiences and the horror which I had aroused in some precise -old maids by my frivolity, while I had been equally horrified by their -radical theology. I thought that it was wicked for them to read Renan, -and they thought it sinful for me to wear French corsets and moderately -high heels. - -After a time Mildred and I began to talk of love and lovers, as girls -will. I say “girls,” though I was six-and-twenty and she my senior. But -in New England, where late marriages are the rule and not the exception, -the term “girls,” as I have discovered, has an indefinite application. - -“Mildred, were you never in love?” I asked. - -I shouldn’t have dared quite so much as that, only somehow she had -invited my confidence, and I had told her all about my love affairs. I -couldn’t tell whether she blushed or not, for the firelight glowed on -her face. At first I thought that she was offended, for she waited a -minute before she answered, and we listened to the rain coming in great -gusts against the window pane, and the omnibuses rattling over the paved -street below. - -Mildred nestled a little closer to the fire and adjusted her cushions. -Then she said slowly, as she stretched out her slender fingers before -the blaze, “Why, yes, I suppose I really was in love, though I didn’t -know it at the time.” - -“Good heavens, Mildred, not with Mr. Dunreath!” I cried; “you told me -you never really cared for him.” - -“No, not with Mr. Dunreath,” replied Mildred quickly, and throwing her -head back she clasped her hands over her knee, swaying back and forth in -the firelight. Then she stopped again. I asked no more questions, for -there was a look in her eyes and a droop to the sensitive mouth which -meant I knew not what. Was it possible that this woman, who seemed so -enthusiastically absorbed in her plans and so cheerful and gay, was -really carrying about with her a secret heart-ache? I had watched her -curiously as we had been in society together, and had been amused at her -absolute lack of coquetry and matter-of-fact way of talking with -gentlemen, and, on the other hand, at her semi-consciousness that she -must try not to say too much about her theories and hobbies, and to -“learn to talk small talk,” as she said. I, who had had my fill of small -talk, and whom the late years were beginning to teach some serious -lessons, liked much better her simplicity and unusual earnestness about -things. Her bookishness, too, which at first I had rather dreaded, did -not mean pedantry or dullness. She had read but few books, she told me; -far less than I. She once showed me in her diary her list of books for -the past year. There were only six: Plato’s “Republic,” “Wilhelm -Meister,” Stanley’s “History of the Jews,” Thackeray’s “Newcomes,” Henry -George’s “Progress and Poverty,” and a volume of Fichte. - -“I like to be acquainted with the best people,” she once said; “there is -no reason why one should put up with the second-rate ones when one can -have the best.” - -“But it is not every one who can get the best society,” said I, not -understanding in the least what she meant. - -“Every one who can read can have the best friends of all ages,” she -replied. And they were her friends. But I am digressing. - -“I will tell you all about it,” said Mildred, with her eyes still fixed -on the coals. “There is no reason why I should not, though I never told -any one before, and I have hardly acknowledged it to myself. I think I -was in love; yes, I think I really was—in love. - -“It happened in this way. I had gone down to the Fitchburg station to -take the early morning train for Concord. By the way, were you ever at -Concord?” she asked abruptly. - -“What?” I answered, “Concord, New Hampshire?” - -“No, our own Massachusetts Concord; the Concord of Emerson and Hawthorne -and Thoreau and the Alcotts. I had been there but once before, but since -that time it has been a sort of Mecca of mine, and I have made many a -pilgrimage there. - -“I was going out to the Concord School of Philosophy, not, however, for -any special reason. I didn’t know and didn’t care to know anything about -philosophy, but I thought it might be fun to see for once the -long-haired men and short-haired women congregate and talk, as the -papers said, about the ‘thisness of the then and the whichness of the -where.’ Besides, I wanted to visit Hawthorne’s grave. I was full of his -romances then. - -“At the station I met my bosom-friend Julia Mason. ‘How fortunate!’ she -exclaimed. ‘Here is my cousin, bound for the Summer School, too. You -must philosophize together.’ She introduced us to each other, and then -hastened to take her own train, while the young man and I made our way -together to the express train for Concord. - -“He pleased my fancy at once. I was just at the age when a girl always -sees a possible lover in every handsome young man whom she chances to -know. Not that the thought occurred to me then, for he was far from -being the ideal lover whom I had dreamed of marrying. My lover must -combine all the graces of an Alcibiades with the virtues of a Bayard, a -knight _sans peur et sans reproche_, with classic features, curling -locks, and a voice and smile that should melt the very stones.” - -“You matter-of-fact old Mildred,” I laughed. “To think of your ever -being so romantic!” - -She smiled a little as she unclasped her hands from her knee and leaned -back. - -“Yes,” she said, “I had my dreams once.” - -Then she continued: - -“He was older than I, twenty-five, perhaps; tall, broad-shouldered, a -manly man every inch of him; a little clumsy and awkward at first, and -lacking in all the manifold little attentions which girls like. He did -not offer to carry my bag, I observed, and he entered the car-door -first. He was certainly not in the least like the courteous, gallant -knight of my girlish fancy. - -“But presently, as he began to talk in an animated way, his frank blue -eyes lighted up and lent to his by no means classic features a wonderful -charm. We got well acquainted on the short journey. He, it seems, had, -like myself, been at Concord only once before. It was on that raw, cold -day in ’75, when I, a young school-girl, with my mother, and he a -Phillips Academy boy, had, unknown to each other, essayed to board the -train in that same frightfully thronged station, and go to the -Centennial celebration. - -“I told him of my droll experience, wedged in between a dozen men and -women in the smoking-car. He, it seems, was not so fortunate as I, for -he took no lunch, and, like thousands of others who could buy nothing -for either love or money, almost starved. I told him about our -experience: how we marched with the women assembled at the town hall, -led by a lady with a little flag, around the road to the tent on Battle -lawn; how there we were nearly annihilated by the throng, and how at -last by some good fortune I was borne up to the platform’s very edge, -and stood there within a few feet of Grant and all his cabinet, and with -Curtis, Emerson, and Lowell all within arm’s reach. - -“How my heart beat at the sight of those faces! I have seen many famous -sights since, but nothing that ever stirred my blood like that,” said -Mildred, with glowing eyes. “I was scarcely more than a child, Ruby, but -I stood there for two mortal hours, unable to move forward or backward, -to right or left, quivering from head to foot with enthusiasm and -excitement. That day my American patriotism was born. I had studied a -little text-book at school, and learned names and dates; but not until -under the spell of Curtis’s eloquence, and face to face with the men -whose fathers had shed their blood in the brave fight one hundred years -before, did I begin to realize what it all meant. I remember -particularly a little old man with weather-beaten face, clad in a simple -suit,—his ‘Sunday best,’—who stood beside me listening with eager, -upturned face, his blue eyes filled with unshed tears. I could see his -lips quiver; and once, as if carried away by the fervor of his emotion, -he grasped my arm with his brown, withered hand and whispered huskily, -‘Little girl, when you get as old as I be, you’ll understand what all -this means.’ - -“Since then,” said Mildred gravely, “the words ‘my country’ have meant -something new to me. A distinctly new idea took hold of me, an idea that -some time I hope to make blossom into deeds.” - -I confess I was getting a little impatient for an account of the -love-making, and this did not sound much like it. But after musing a -bit, Mildred continued: - -“This little experience which my companion and I had in common made us -quickly acquainted. He frankly told me of his college life and of -himself. He had been studying for the ministry, he said, though whether -he was to be a clergyman or not I inferred was somewhat doubtful. - -“We passed Walden Pond, gleaming like silver in the sunshine, and he -talked of Thoreau, whom he seemed to know well, though I had at that -time read nothing of him. Presently we rolled up to the Concord station, -and while a crowd of people alighted and took the ‘barge,’ we went down -one of the long, shady streets, bordered by tall hedges and -close-clipped lawns, with comfortable, roomy mansions set back from the -street; past the little gem of a town library, on its carpet of emerald -green; past the cluster of shops and the cool-plashing fountain, and -down the famous old road which saw the redcoats’ flight, and which Hosea -Biglow, you remember, says he ‘most gin’ally calls “John Bull’s Run.”’ - -“Such a lovely, quiet old street! Dear, you must see it some day—with -the broad, green meadow lands on one side, and the hill crowned with -trees and vines on the other. - -“‘Along this ridge lived Hawthorne’s Septimius Felton,’ said my -companion. - -“‘And here,’ said I, as we passed a tiny antique house on the hillside -with curtains drawn, and no path through the grass that surrounded -it,—‘here, I am positive, an old witch with a black cat must have lived -a hundred years ago.’ - -“We jested and laughed as we went merrily on. We were young and happy -that brilliant summer morning. I remember how every leaf sparkled with -the heavy dewdrops, and the air seemed to fairly intoxicate one like a -draught of wine. I was fairly brimming over with delight. - -“We passed the old-fashioned white house with green blinds, peeping out -from behind the pines, which I needed no one to tell me had been the -home of the Concord seer; and a little further on appeared the -brown-gabled house, nestled in a green hollow, and guarded by giant -elms, where the Little Women lived their charming life. Just within -these grounds stood the vine-covered Hillside Chapel, whither our steps -were tending. We had passed little groups on our way, and now and then -we caught a word of what they were saying; ‘first entelechy,’ ‘pure -subjectivity,’ the ‘_ding an sich_,’ and so on, which in my hilarious -mood served as a further theme for jest. - -“As we took our seats beneath the bust of Pestalozzi and beside the -comfortable arm-chair always reserved for Mrs. Emerson, I scanned the -audience closely. It was not a stylish one, and I felt a little inclined -to poke fun at some of the antiquated bonnets; but my attention was -attracted by the evident eagerness with which my new friend was studying -the face of the speaker. - -“He was a middle-aged man, with close-clipped gray beard and spectacles, -and a face that seemed to be the very personification of thought. The -subject of the lecture was Immortality. I listened, vainly trying to -understand, and feeling as though the essence of a thousand books was -being crowded into that quiet morning’s talk. I had heard that this man -was a German rationalist, and was undermining the foundations of -Christianity; therefore I had prepared myself to see a cynic or a -scoffer. I had thought that I would go, for once, to hear what he had to -say; just to have an idea as to what it was all about. I felt all the -excitement of doing something a little venturesome. - -“Dear me,” laughed Mildred; “how droll it all seems now, and what an -ignorant little bigot I must have been! - -“I tried to follow the speaker and to get some meaning from those quiet, -clear-cut sentences as they dropped from his lips, and slowly forced -upon my incredulous mind the conviction that here at least was one man -who spoke whereof he knew. I had never done so hard thinking in my life. -He was taking me into a field of thought of which I had never dreamed, -and I was as unable to follow his giant strides as a child to follow the -man in seven-league boots. My temples began to throb; in despair I gave -up the attempt, and fell to watching my companion as with bated breath -he followed the speaker. Only one thing I remember, and that because I -jotted it down on the back of an envelope at the time. He said, ‘The -standpoint of absolute personality is the one to be attained. On this -plane, freedom, immortality, and God are the regulative principles of -science as well as of life; and they are not only matters of faith, but -matters of indubitable scientific certainty.’ - -“The lecture was nearly two hours long, and there was to be a discussion -following it; but we were both exhausted with the mental strain, and -quietly slipped out into the summer sunshine. - -“My companion said nothing. He walked with head erect and long strides, -and I felt considerably piqued to find that he seemed utterly oblivious -of my presence. Presently he turned to me, and in a tone which almost -startled me exclaimed, ‘Thank God for that man! More than any other man -living or dead has he kept me from making utter shipwreck of my faith.’ -I was surprised at his earnestness and touched by the simple frankness -with which he had revealed to me, almost an utter stranger, his inmost -thoughts. - -“Again he seemed to forget me, and we paced on in silence, past the -fountain, under gigantic elms, past the ‘town toothpick,’ as the -æsthetic scoffers have dubbed the obelisk that commemorates the soldiers -of the war, and turned down the road by Hawthorne’s gray old manse and -through the avenue of pines, to where, stretching across the sluggish -stream, we saw the - - ... ‘bridge that arched the flood’ - -where - - ‘Once the embattled farmers stood, - And fired the shot heard round the world.’ - -“Here we stopped to rest a while, under the spreading boughs of a -pine-tree, beside the graves of the two British soldiers that fell in -the famous fight. We shared our sandwiches and bananas, and threw crumbs -to the saucy squirrels that darted from limb to limb above our heads; -and then, like two children, we trimmed our hats with daisies and -buttercups from the fields close by. I watched him closely, with the -pleasing consciousness that my pretty dress and new hat were noticed -with evident approval on his part. Evidently he was able to enjoy some -other things as well as philosophy; and when he shook back the thick -blonde hair which rose from his broad forehead in a sort of Rubenstein -mane, and tossed over into the fields a great stone that had fallen from -the wall, I began to query whether a young man with locks and sinews -like a young Norse god might not be a very fascinating type of hero. - -“But I was curious to know what he meant by ‘shipwreck of his faith.’ As -we picked up our various belongings (this time I noted that he asked for -my bag) and walked over through the woods to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I -determined to probe him a little. - -“‘Mr. Everett,’ I began, ‘don’t you think, after all, that philosophy is -a rather dangerous thing for one to begin to study?’” - -I smiled mischievously as Mildred inadvertently disclosed the name which -hitherto she had adroitly concealed. She flushed a little, as if -annoyed. - -“After all,” she said, “you might as well know his name, for he has -gone, heaven knows where, and I shall never see him again.” - -A shade of sadness fell upon her face turned toward the firelight, but -she went quietly on: - -“He hesitated a moment before he answered, as if mentally to adjust -himself to my plane of ignorance. Then he asked, ‘And why dangerous, -Miss Brewster?’ - -“‘You know what I mean,’ said I, rather vexed at being obliged to put my -vague thoughts into words. ‘What good can all this theorizing and -speculation do? Don’t you think it would be a great deal better for all -these people here to spend their time in talking about something -practical? My feeling is, that people who begin to think and question -about God and immortality and such things, and aren’t satisfied with the -simple truths of the Bible, get to be skeptics before they know it, and -are ruined for life. My mother’s religion is good enough for me. If I -can live up to that I shall be satisfied, without racking my brains and -reasoning over things that God intended us to take on faith.’ - -“To tell the truth, this didn’t exactly represent my thought; but I had -often heard it said, and thought it sounded well. Besides, I was curious -to see what he would reply to it. - -“‘It would take hours to answer adequately what you have just said, Miss -Brewster,’ replied Mr. Everett; ‘but I will try to say something; for it -is precisely these same questions that I myself have been trying to -answer in the last few years.’ - -“We were climbing the little hill that like a crescent surrounded the -green hollow, where lie the sleepers in their last sleep. On the summit, -beneath the tall sighing pines, beside Emerson’s grave and within a -stone’s throw of the graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau, we sat down and -looked over the broad valley on the other side with the hills beyond. It -was so quiet, so peaceful, just where a tired soul would love to have -his last resting-place. - -“Mr. Everett was silent for a moment, as if to collect his thought; -then, not looking at me, but afar off at the glimpses of blue between -the swaying boughs, he began to speak, while I listened intently, every -word fairly burning itself upon my memory. I did not rest that night -until I had transmitted it all to my diary, to be read and reread over -and over again. - -“‘You say that your mother’s religion is good enough for you,’ he began. -‘Well, Miss Brewster, when I think of the love and devotion, of the -tender prayers and wise counsels that guided my boyish waywardness, when -I think of the saintliness and unselfishness of my own sainted mother, I -feel like saying that, too. If I could ever have one half her -spirituality and Christlikeness, I should count my life a grand success. -But I cannot say, and I know that truth and justice cannot compel me to -say, that my mother’s theology would be enough for me, for her life was -not the outcome of much in her theology. Her unquestioning faith in a -literal Adam and Eve had nothing to do with her sweetness and devotion -to duty. Nor was her unwavering belief in the sacredness of everything -in the sixty-six Hebrew and Christian books the cause of her infinite -patience and self-sacrifice. No; I want my mother’s religion, but I -cannot accept all of her theology. I should count it a sin against God -if I were to so stultify my intelligence as to do it. - -“‘You say, “Don’t you think all these people here had better be doing -something practical?” What is more practical, I ask you, than for a -human soul, to whom life is something more than meat and drink, to learn -of that which more than all else concerns that soul’s welfare? And what -can more help to this than the study of the wisest thought of all the -ages on just these very problems of life and death, things present and -things to come? As Novalis says, “Philosophy can bake no bread; but she -can procure for us God, Freedom, and Immortality.” I count that the most -practical as well as the most precious help that can be offered to any -questioning human soul who has come to see that man cannot live by bread -alone, and whose sorest need is to know the meaning and the end of this -life of ours.’ - -“‘But the Bible tells us that,’ I cried impatiently; ‘what more do we -need?’ - -“‘Perhaps you need nothing more,’ he answered quietly. ‘If so, well and -good. Clear insight is not essential to living a noble life. If you have -really grasped the spiritual meaning of Christianity it matters little -that you should hold it in a more naive and literal way than I am able -to. If in this age you can accept unquestioningly everything that has -been taught you, if you never have a doubt, I would be the last person -to raise one, for I know what mental misery would ensue in one educated -as you have been. But so long as your religious faiths have been -inherited, like your hair and eyes, and you have not examined them so as -to make them your own, pardon my saying that there is small virtue in -your holding them, and so far as your own thought goes you might as well -have been a Papist or a Mohammedan.’ - -“‘But what is the use of mental misery? Why should I encourage doubts -and unrest? Is it not far better to trust in God and not venture to -question all the strange things that he allows?’ - -“‘You ask two or three questions at once; let me take them one at a -time. Five years ago I asked just those same questions, and I know how -you feel.’ He spoke tenderly, and his voice comforted me. I was -beginning to get nervous and troubled and felt myself in deep waters. - -“‘No great thing is ever born into this world except by suffering. If we -are put here simply for pleasure, for calm content, for peace of mind, -let us banish all questioning and dread it as a precursor of the -nightmare. Yes, if immediate peace of mind is the primary consideration, -let us, like the ostrich, bury our heads in the sand, like the chicken -refuse to pick our way through the shell, and be turned out of our warm -corner into the bare, cold world outside. If peace of mind is our chief -aim, let us stop thinking once for all. It is dangerous. Yes, thinking -is always dangerous; dangerous to one’s love of ease and content with -existing ideas. The little shoot content with its environment in the -dark mould will never reach the sunlight until first it struggles upward -from the conditions that surround it. - -“‘Many a time in the last four years I have said to myself, in the night -of horror that swept over me, when I felt as if the foundations beneath -me had broken away, “whether the Bible be true, or life eternal, or God -a father, I do not know; but this one thing I do know: I must be true; I -must be unselfish; I must go on and seek the light;” and, thank God, I -have begun to find it at last.’ - -“Mr. Everett spoke with a quiet intensity of feeling that awed me. -However, I ventured to ask, rather timidly, ‘But you did find—you do -believe in the Bible now, don’t you?’ - -“‘That is a question which cannot be rightly answered by a “yes” or -“no,”’ he replied; ‘for neither answer would be true. I was brought up, -as perhaps you were, to look upon all these matters without the -slightest discrimination; to think a disbelief in Jonah’s whale -synonymous with the disbelief in the divine inspiration of any part of -the Bible; to think a disbeliever in the Bible necessarily a disbeliever -in God; and to count a disbeliever in immortality on a par with a -bigamist or a horse-thief. - -“‘When I dared trust myself to think and read this book, or rather -collection of books, with a calm, unprejudiced eye, I was amazed to find -how much I had been taught to claim for them which they never claim for -themselves. They became utterly new books to me, as if I had never read -them before; wonderfully rich and helpful and inspiring and full, as I -believe, of the truest religious inspiration, but not always a guide for -me in history and science, and not infallible as to fact. - -“‘Who shall find any authority for the doctrine that inspiration ceased -with the last one of those sixty-six books? No, Miss Brewster,’ said Mr. -Everett, looking at me earnestly, his shoulders thrown back, his head -erect, ‘God reveals himself to man to-day just as truly in this new -world as ever he did thousands of years ago to Hebrew seers. - -“‘You ask why I should crave any deeper reasons for my belief in God, -free will, and immortality than these writings give. Simply this: I -must. At first I fought against it, fearing it to be a temptation of the -devil. But I came to see that this fear, for me at least, was cowardice -and folly. The command was laid upon my soul to give an adequate reason -for the faith that I held, and I could not be recreant to this call of -conscience. I had been told to believe the Bible because it was God’s -Word, and then, following in a circle, to believe that there was a God -because God’s Word proved it. It did not take me long to see the -childishness of this, and though I put it off again and again, my -conscience would not be stilled until I had systematically set myself to -see whether or not anything could really be known, or whether inference, -conjecture, and hope were all that God had vouchsafed to the creature -made in his image. - -“‘I suppose few women ever feel this necessity. I do not say that it is -necessary for you or for any one to probe to the bottom of these things, -if you are content without doing so. I think, however, that it is of the -utmost importance for the thousand bewildered spirits in our day, who -long to know but who cannot themselves study, to come to see that -knowledge on the questions which are most vital to us all is to be had -by every rational being who has time and patience and follows the right -path of inquiry; and that in these matters, if we are willing to pay the -cost of time and labor, we may in truth see and know. - -“‘There are few who have the time or taste for any deep philosophic -study. There are fewer still who have any faith in the outcome of such -study, and of these few but a handful who get started on the right road -and persist until they attain results. Moreover, as truly in philosophy -as in religion must one be “born again”; and, unlike religious birth, it -cannot be instantaneous, for it is not a matter of will. It takes years -to bring about this new and deeper insight. - -“‘I rarely find a person whom I would advise to study philosophy, for -here, if anywhere, a little learning is a dangerous thing, and one is -maddened by the superficial talk of those who have not learned its -a-b-c, but yet presume to argue as if they had mastered everything from -Aristotle to Schelling. I have come to find that there are very few -people who even dream of what philosophy is. The average man fancies -that speculative philosophy must be simply guess-work or some vague -theorizing, unworthy of a Christian man who has any practical work to do -in this world in the way of earning his living and helping to hasten the -kingdom of God. - -“‘But the average Christian is largely materialistic in his thought. His -heaven, his hell, are localities; his God a huge, anthropomorphic being, -and the universe a kind of vast machine, guided by some external Power; -or a sort of precipitate or sediment, as it were, of the eternal -thought. - -“‘If this is true of a man who professes and in some measure accepts a -real spiritual faith, how much more true is it of the average worldly -man of common sense! He looks upon the ground he walks on as something -real. It is something that appeals to his senses, and he smiles with -calm contempt if you tell him that an idea is far more real than the -earth beneath his foot; that it is thought, and thought alone, that -sustains this planet; and that all the things that he considers real are -in fact mere passing phenomena, absolutely nothing in themselves, except -as they exist in relation to other things.’ - -“I looked up somewhat perplexed at this and was about to ask a question, -but Mr. Everett was too preoccupied with his own thought to notice this. -Leaning his head against a gray tree-trunk, he looked with absent eyes -far off at the purple hills. Presently he went on: - -“‘Just as the sensualist can never understand the spiritually-minded man -and his infinitely higher capacity for joy, so the man of mere _common_ -sense can never understand the man of philosophic insight, the man of -more than common sense, until he has been mentally born again, and has -transcended the materialistic phase of thought in which we all begin to -do our thinking, and which most of us never pass beyond. As said the man -whose dust lies at our feet, “Every man’s words, who speaks from that -life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on -their own part.”’ - -“‘But is it necessary to go through this tragic experience of which you -have spoken in order to reach right results?’ I asked. - -“‘Whether it be tragic or not depends upon the temperament and -traditions of the individual,’ he answered. - -“‘To me, brought up to know all that was possible of the loveliness of -Christian character, and taught to attribute it to a theology that was -more or less false, a change of belief was naturally almost as much to -be dreaded as a deterioration in moral character. From the cradle I was -destined for the missionary work; so you see that I had always the fear -of frustrating my parents’ most cherished hopes if I should deviate from -their standard of doctrine. In later years I gladly acquiesced in their -desire to see me in the ministry; it seemed to me, it still seems to me, -the most enviable life in the world.’ - -“I listened eagerly,” said Mildred, “as Mr. Everett said this. I, too, -had often thought of the missionary work, but I could not leave mother -then. - -“‘Well, Miss Brewster,’ Mr. Everett continued; ‘I was blessed or -afflicted, whichever you may please to call it, with a conscience which -would not let me rest content with tacit consent to what I came to see -was hardly more than a half truth, and my inward life since my senior -year at Yale three years ago has been, until recently, one of bitter -conflict. Night after night, after leaving the lecture-room at the -seminary, have I walked my floor until morning, too wretched to pray, my -brain half crazed with the ceaseless turmoil of my thoughts. “I have no -message to give to others,” I said, “for I am sure of nothing; no one is -sure of anything.” Like the sad Hindu king, I asked myself, - - “How knowest thou aught of God, - Of his favor or his wrath? - Can the little fish tell what the eagle thinks, - Or map out the eagle’s path? - - Can the finite the infinite seek? - Did the blind discover the stars? - Is the thought that I think a thought, - Or a throb of the brain in its bars?” - -“‘But at last help came, I have told you through whom, and now as I look -back upon it, I thank God for all that bitter experience. I know better -how to understand and sympathize with many a one whom I have found -struggling in the meshes of sophistry; earnest souls, who long for the -truth more than they long for life itself, and finding no one who can do -more for them than to simply say “Repent and believe.” - -“‘Not that I have learned much yet. I have only begun to get glimpses of -the truth. I feel sure of far less now than I did five years ago. But I -know this: I do know and see beyond peradventure that it is right to -probe to the uttermost the problems which confront me. I should have -been false to myself, unfaithful to my highest, truest instinct, if I -had listened to the tearful advice of my timid friends and turned my -back and shut my eyes to what God would reveal to me. I did not know -where I should be led; my knees knocked together with fear as I felt my -way through the gloom. But gradually, and chiefly from the writings of -that man whose teachings we heard this morning, have I learned not only -to believe, but to know the truths which he taught us to-day. Some men -call him skeptic, rationalist; at best they say, such talk must be -unpractical. Fools! not to know that to save a soul from hopeless -despair, to give life and health to an immortal spirit, is quite as -practical a thing as to pave streets and cut coats. - -“‘I look upon a true philosophy as the most completely useful thing in -the world.’ He stopped, and I looked up bewildered. - -“‘Useful?’ I asked. - -“‘Certainly; useful. Is not that useful which gives man a clear insight -into what must otherwise be forever obscure? Is it not useful to lift -him out of the domain of prejudice and mere opinion on vital matters, -and give him the key to the universe by making him to know the grounds -of his knowledge, of his being, and of his destiny?’ - -“‘But do you not believe in relying on faith at all? Do you accept -nothing that you do not understand?’ I asked. - -“‘I understand very few things that my reason compels me to accept,’ -answered Mr. Everett. ‘I do not understand the chemical change which -transmutes my food into living animal matter, and I do not understand a -million things which I believe. Certainly we must have faith. All -business and all life depends upon faith. But by faith I do not mean the -simple credulity of my childhood in everything that I was taught. By -faith I mean a steadfast reliance on what my reason tells me is true, -even though I have no immediate evidence of it, and imagination and -understanding fail to compass it. When I see the apparently useless -suffering and cruelty which the Supreme Power has permitted, I have -faith in his infinite goodness, not because any man or book has told me -that it is so, but because, thank God, I see that it is so; and it is -philosophic study alone which has made me see this. He who is afraid to -study and question into the nature of the universe “and trust the Rock -of Ages to his chemic test” is the man who has no true faith.’ - -“‘But after all,’ I said, ‘you must admit that the philosophers are but -little read. It is the practical, common-sense people of the world who -have done the work, and they have got on very well, too, without all -this theorizing.’ - -“‘There was never a greater mistake in the world,’ replied Mr. Everett -vehemently, too deeply in earnest to remember anything but the point -that he was trying to make. ‘The philosophers certainly have not been -widely read, but that by no means measures their influence. It is they -who have taught the teachers who have taught the masses, and as the -traveler knows perhaps nothing of the inventor of the engine which -carries him safely from one side of the continent to the other, and -makes life larger for him in a hundred ways, so we all, reaping every -day in every one of our human institutions the rich benefits which the -thinkers of the ages have bestowed upon us, say ungratefully that we owe -them nothing. We attribute all our speed to the visible engineer and -conductor who by another man’s genius have brought us to our -destinations.’ - -“‘Would you advise me to study philosophy?’ I inquired humbly, much -impressed with the point of his reply to what I had flattered myself was -a rather bright remark. - -“‘That depends,’ he said, ‘on what and how you study. If you wish to -study simply to be able to say or to feel that you have studied -philosophy, and can quote from this or that man, I advise you not to -study.’ - -“I must have flushed and looked a little hurt, for he quickly added, -‘Pardon me, Miss Brewster, I think that you are far too much in earnest -for that; but I have seen too many begin to read philosophy as a mere -amusement, a sort of fad, and with no real earnest purpose, learning -just enough to make them conceited or discouraged, and doing no good to -themselves or any one else, and bringing the study of philosophy into -disrepute. To me my philosophy has been a search for God, for truth. I -have studied for my soul’s sorest need, and in all my intellectual life -I have found nothing so satisfying, nothing that gives me such hope and -courage.’ - -“‘Should you advise me to begin with Herbert Spencer?’ I asked, thinking -that I would come to something definite. - -“‘No, as you value your power to grow. You are not ready for him yet. He -would fascinate you, and you could not refute his fallacies; but read -Plato, read Kant, Fichte, Hegel. Don’t begin with them, though. Read -first, perhaps, the “Introduction to Philosophy” by the man whom we -heard this morning. I will give you also an article of his which deals -with Spencer in a way that opened my eyes. - -“‘Don’t read much at a time, else it will utterly daunt you. Come back -to it again and again at intervals. You will be astonished to see your -growth. You will be surprised to find how digging at these tough -problems makes such mental muscle as renders other tasks easy. - -“‘It will open a new world to you; but you must have infinite patience. -I have made up my mind to that. I shall be more than thankful if in -twenty years I have mastered this book;’ and he drew a volume of Hegel -from his pocket. - -“The sun was sinking behind the trees as we rose to go homeward. -Stiffened with sitting so long, I tripped and fell. He sprang and caught -me in his great strong arms for one little moment; then—well—I trembled -a bit with the start it had given me, and finding that my foot had -really been hurt a little, I accepted his help as we descended the slope -and climbed upon the other side to the road again. It seemed very -pleasant to have his strong arm for a support. There had not been a word -of love, but his unaffected, frank talk had touched me as no compliments -or sentiment could ever have done. - -“I had thought his voice rather harsh at first when he spoke so -earnestly and vehemently, but it had grown very tender and quiet now, -and as we came back from the woods to civilization again we lapsed into -silence.” - -As Mildred ceased, the clock struck midnight. The noise outside had died -away, and the fire had burned low, too low for me to distinguish her -face clearly. - -“And was there no love-making at all?” I asked, much disappointed at the -prosaic ending of the little romance that I had been anticipating. A -talk on philosophy in a graveyard was not the kind of love-making that I -knew about, and I wondered if there ever were another girl like Mildred. - -“Oh, I didn’t say there was any love-making,” said Mildred rather dryly. -“I simply said that I think I really was in love.” - -“And is that all? Did you never see him again?” I persisted. - -“Yes, several times afterward,” she answered; “for I went regularly to -the school after that. At first I understood almost nothing, and much of -what he said was Greek to me. I met some delightful people there, but he -helped me more than any one else. He loaned me books, and we had many a -talk. - -“I felt that we were becoming fast friends, when suddenly he went West. -I received a note from him some months afterward, telling me that his -parents had died; but there was very little about himself. I heard -afterward that he was engaged; but after Julia died I lost all knowledge -of him. Probably he has forgotten me long ago, but I owe to that talk -the best things that have come to me since I was a woman. Yes, Ruby, -that first April-day and that second day in midsummer in old Concord are -the two red-letter days of my life.” - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - - (Extract from the New York “Tribune.”) - - - BOOKS FOR THE MILLION! HELP FOR THOSE WHO WILL HELP THEMSELVES. - -It has been understood that Miss Mildred Brewster, the Boston heiress -and philanthropist who has recently been making such a sensation in New -York society, was quite inaccessible to reporters. But yesterday a -member of the “Tribune” staff was so fortunate as to gain a gracious -reception, and to learn certain facts which will be of great interest to -the public in general. - -Miss Brewster was found in her pretty parlor at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, -dressed to attend a reception, in an exquisite robe of golden-brown -velvet, simply made, and worn with a unique girdle and collar of - - RARELY BEAUTIFUL CAMEOS. - -Miss Brewster said that she was waiting for her carriage, but was not in -haste, and would be pleased to make an authentic statement in regard to -certain facts of which there had been vague rumors in the papers of -late. - -She began by saying that she supposed the newspapers would learn it -indirectly sooner or later, and therefore she might as well give the -facts so that they should be stated accurately. What followed will be -given as nearly as possible in Miss Brewster’s own words. - -“When I was a child,” she said, “I spent several years in some of the -frontier towns of our Western states, where my father was vainly seeking -for a climate which would prolong his life. I had an opportunity there -to observe many things which I have never forgotten. I understood them -but dimly then, but as I grew to womanhood in my New England home, -surrounded with the privileges and traditions of an older and more -distinctly American civilization, I often contrasted my life with what -it would have been had I grown up among the German farmers, rough -cowboys, greedy land speculators, and half-starved home missionaries, -who formed the chief part of the people whom we met in the little towns -along the railroad on the Western prairies. - -“I was too young to appreciate the value of the indomitable energy of -this pioneer work. I saw only the sordid, unpicturesque side of it then. - -“I hated the tornadoes and blizzards; I loathed the sloughs and muddy -streams—the everlasting dullness of the prairie and the prosaic struggle -for existence in the little clusters of board shanties or in the -isolated log cabins and dug-outs. I longed for the hills and granite -bowlders, for the great elms and sparkling streams of New England, and -for the refinements and conveniences of my Eastern home. - -“How well I recall the tired, overworked women, toiling over their -cooking-stoves, with no household conveniences, milking, churning, -mending, washing, feeding the pigs, selling eggs, and making themselves -prematurely old that their children might have a ‘better chance.’ - -“I remember, with my insatiable love of reading, how my first glance on -entering a house was in search of book-shelves. Many a time, though in -the house of a man owning hundreds of cattle and a thousand acres of -land, I have found no literature beyond a copy of the Bible but little -used, the State Agricultural or Mining Reports, or a stray copy of -‘Godey’s Lady’s Book.’ - -“But, as an offset to this prosaic life, I remember also, as I look back -upon it now, the hopefulness and cheerfulness, the ambition and -self-sacrifice, and the sturdy courage and self-reliance which all this -new Western life engendered. - -“There was much that was admirable about it all, and that gave promise -of the development of great men and women and a glorious future for that -part of our country. Yet I know that in many instances, except where a -colony of Eastern people had settled and put up their schoolhouse and -church before there was an opportunity to build a gambling den and -saloon, the early influences which shaped the future of the towns were -like the sowing of dragon’s teeth, which have brought forth, as I have -taken pains to learn, most deadly fruit. - -“It is more than sixteen years since I have been in the West, and I -intend now to revisit it. Of course I shall see an astonishing change. I -read of opera houses and electric lights in the places that I remember -as mere shabby settlements of a hundred shanties. But the same condition -of things that I knew then is still to be found in a thousand places -further west, or off the line of the main roads, and it will continue -for a half century to come. Hundreds of thousands of ignorant emigrants -are pouring into this land, with throngs of alert young business men -from the East, all making a breakneck race for wealth. They are buying -the - - LAST REMNANTS OF GOVERNMENT LAND, - -and are developing the material resources of the country at an amazing -rate. The shanties will give place to brick blocks, and the sloughs to -paved streets, soon enough. I am not concerned as to that. - -“The luxuries of civilization will come as rapidly as one could wish, -but it is the tendency of things in regard to the development of morals -and character that alarms me. When I learn that one third of our school -population in this land of boasted educational privileges is ignorant of -the alphabet, and that in the Rocky Mountain states and territories -there is one saloon for every forty-three voters; when I read how the -peasants of Europe are flocking by the hundred thousand to this fair -Western land, and I see the possibilities of the future for good or -evil, it wakens all my ardor and enthusiasm to be up and doing and -lending a hand to help shape its destiny. - -“There are many who, not falling under good influences at once, lapse -into a selfish indifference to everything but their own worldly -advancement if they do not retrograde morally. I do not mean that they -are heartless. They have, of course, the proverbial Western generosity -and frank cordiality, which is one of the finest things in the world and -is very genuine; but it is often coupled with an absolute contempt for -everything beyond that which will advance their purely material -interests. In short, they are ‘Philistines.’ - -“I have seen many Western men who have made their ‘pile,’ as they say, -who would find it absolutely impossible to believe in any one’s having -such a real, disinterested enthusiasm for art, or science, or literature -as would permit a man like Agassiz to say: - - ‘I HAVE NO TIME TO MAKE MONEY.’ - -“Do not misunderstand me. I would throw no slurs on Western men. There -are thousands in New England as all-absorbed in money-getting as they, -only there is this saving difference: Here, these men are, in spite of -themselves, under the influence of traditions and institutions founded -by better men than they; and there, they are the creators of the -traditions and institutions which are to be and which will of a surety -be no better than they choose to make them. - -“It is the early settlers that shape the future of the country. -Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina are to-day what their first -settlers made them. - -“I believe in the New England principles, and in the men who sought New -England’s shores, not to find gold, to speculate in land, to buy bonanza -farms, but to found a commonwealth such as mankind had never seen, a -commonwealth whose corner-stones should be righteousness and ideas. - -“It is these New England principles that I would engraft upon that great -empire of the West, which to-day is so plastic in our hands, whose -future we, to-day, have power to shape, but which to-morrow we shall be -powerless to mould. - -“I would teach them that all their limitless material resources cannot -make them the real power in the land that little, sterile Massachusetts, -with her east winds and rocky soils, has been, unless they first plant -the seed that shall bring forth such men of character and thought as New -England has borne. - -“Why was it that so many of the men of this century, whom the nation -most delights to honor, Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Bryant, -Whittier, Holmes, Beecher, Curtis, Garrison, Phillips, Webster, were -sons of this New England soil? - -“I know that I am saying nothing new. All this is very trite, as trite -as the Ten Commandments. It has been said a thousand times; yet half our -people do not know it or believe it, and serenely smile at what they -call our ‘Eastern egotism.’ I confess that we have quite too much of -that. I, for one, have almost as hearty a contempt as any of them for -the men who - - ... ‘sit the idle slaves of a legendary virtue - Carved upon their fathers’ graves.’ - -“Let no one think that I am boasting of the New England of to-day. I am -simply saying that the principles which have made her a power in this -nation are the principles by which, in East and West, in North and -South, this nation must rise, or without which she must fall. And if the -nation is to be saved, - - THE WEST - -must be saved. No man needs to be told that _there_ is to be the true -seat of empire. - -“To me, this present war, waged between the forces of good and evil, for -the conquest of this land, has an all-absorbing interest. Surely, as I -have said, this generation will not pass away before the fate—that is to -say, the influences which are chiefly to control the destinies of -millions yet unborn—of this great nation will be settled.” - -As Miss Brewster uttered these words her cheeks glowed, and her whole -frame seemed to quiver with the intensity of her feeling. She rose and -restlessly paced the floor as she continued: - -“I have said all this because I want it understood why I intend to -devote a large share of my property to sowing all over the West and -South the seeds of what I count as best, in the form of - - FREE READING-ROOMS AND CIRCULATING LIBRARIES. - -“I have been for some time carefully studying into this subject, and I -have learned some facts which are rather startling when one considers -the inference which must be drawn from them. - -“Let me give you a few of these facts,” said Miss Brewster, seating -herself at her desk and drawing some papers from a pigeon-hole. - -“Taking all the libraries which contain more than one thousand volumes, -and are absolutely free to every one, I find that in Massachusetts there -are two hundred, and in other New England states—and some of the Middle -states as well—a number approximating that. But what do I find in the -West and South? I find that Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, -Montana, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Washington and Dakota -territories, and New Mexico, have - - NOT ONE FREE GENERAL LIBRARY. - -I find that Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Colorado have -but one each; and that Louisiana and Maryland have none outside of the -one largest city in each. - -“Of course what I have said does not imply that there are no libraries -in the states referred to. But it does mean that there are but few, and -that those few are either subscription libraries or else belong to -schools or institutions, and are not open to the general public. - -“How is this all to be explained? Is it sufficient to say that the West -is young and that the South is poor and sparsely settled? The West is -young, indeed, but not too young to have magnificent opera houses, -hundreds of millionaires’ palaces, and, in many of the new cities, -richer clothes for every one and more of them than the average New -Englander thinks he can afford. - -“The South is poor, very poor, and very sparsely settled compared with -the North. But the fact that in those Southern states which I have -mentioned there is not one free library open to all, such as one may -find in scores of little villages in the North, is not due entirely to -poverty. - -“Even New York State, with her superior wealth and population, and with -an aggregate number of all kinds of libraries nearly as great as that of -Massachusetts, has - - NO MORE THAN THIRTY - -which are absolutely free and general as compared with the two hundred -such in Massachusetts. And Pennsylvania, with all her wealth and -numbers, shows no more than ten such libraries. - -“The farther one travels from New England, the more surely does one find -public sentiment indifferent to these matters, and whole communities -preferring to tax themselves for the adornment of their cities, rather -than to provide every poor man with books. Books are considered a -luxury, not a necessity; to be indulged in only by those who can afford -to pay for them. - - LEARNING FOR ALL - -was the idea of the men who made the North what it is. Learning for the -few was the idea of the men who made the South what it is. And the men -of this generation are reaping the harvest of the seed which those men -sowed. - -“Now I propose, as soon as practicable, to assist in putting into -several thousand little communities in the West and South either a free -reading-room or a free circulating library, or both, thinking that it -will be the best possible use to which money can be put. - -“Perhaps it may be wondered at that I do not spend these millions in the -direction of Home Missionary work. I have several reasons for not doing -so, although I am heartily in sympathy with it. Never was there nobler, -more self-denying and more fruitful labor than that of the overworked -men and women in the Home Missionary field. But, in the first place, -there are one hundred needed where one can be found to go. The religious -denomination in which I was reared graduates but about one hundred -students from all its theological seminaries every year, scarcely -enough, one would think, to supply the vacancies in the pulpits of the -East, to say nothing of the West, and I presume the same is nearly true -of other denominations which I should be quite as ready to help as my -own. - -“The library can never take the place of the church, but I am convinced -that in many communities the provision of a comfortable, tastefully -furnished room, filled with periodicals, giving to every one access to -the best literary, political, scientific, and religious thought of our -time, will do quite as much for the morals of a town as anything that -could be devised. - -“Unlike a church, it will be open every day in the week. It will be a -counter attraction to the street and the saloon, and if there is a -circulating library as well as a reading-room, it will serve to -stimulate and open a larger life to every one who takes a book from it. -The home missionary shall not be lacking, but she shall appear under the -guise of a librarian instead of a preacher. - -“In regions where there is a large proportion of foreigners, there shall -be books and periodicals in their native tongues. Few who have not -looked into the matter realize the terrible mental strain to the mind of -the immigrant from the disruption of old associations and the necessity, -in middle life, of adapting himself to utterly new conditions, in a land -where his language is unspoken. Many succumb to this, and the statistics -of the numbers of - - OUR FOREIGN-BORN INSANE - -are startling. - -“The same is true of the insanity caused among herders’ and farmers’ -wives by their dreary, isolated lives on the treeless plains. We -commonly think of people living close to nature and absorbed in simple -daily tasks as being exceptionally healthy and placid. But a visit to -our hospitals for the insane will tell a different story. The lonely -woman, with no outlook but the prairie’s level floor, to whom a new -book, a new picture, a new idea never comes, is, as statistics show, as -much in danger of losing her mind as the man on Wall Street whose life -is a fever of excitement. - -“Now, to these tired, lonely women, to the young girls who as soon as -they are well into their teens begin to think of marrying and abandoning -all study, to the young men so eager to make money that self-culture is -counted an unnecessary luxury, to the boys who spend their evenings -listening to the vulgar talk of the teamsters at the corner grocery, to -the ministers and teachers who find that their scant salaries permit of -none of the new books and papers which are essential to their mental -life,—to all these people I should like to give the blessing of books. - -“The offer of a ‘St. Nicholas’ or ‘Youth’s Companion,’ from a pleasant -librarian, will be quite as effectual to keep a boy off the street of an -evening as an invitation from a home missionary to go to a -prayer-meeting. And to the man who may never enter the building, the -sight, as he passes to his work every day, of a beautiful little temple -devoted to the things of thought, will serve all unconsciously to make -life seem a little cleaner and sweeter and more dignified than it would -be without it. - -“Now as to the details of this. In the first place, I propose to help -only those who are willing to help themselves. That is my principle of -work in most matters. - -“This is not a new scheme of mine. I have thought of it for years, but -it was until recently only a dream of which there was no prospect of -realization. Now, however, I have taken steps, which, whether I live or -die, will scatter all over the states and territories west of the -Mississippi and south of the Ohio little centres of learning, which will -reach far more people, and, I must again repeat, do far more good than -any other way possible. - -“I have appointed two gentlemen, and they are to select three other -trustees, two of whom are to be ladies, who will act with them -conjointly in the management of the fund. I shall leave them largely to -choose their own methods of work, but I have made some stipulations in -regard to the disposal of the amount. - -“No sum whatever is to be given unconditionally. Except for special -reasons, no amount shall ever be given for the establishment of a -library or reading-room which shall be less than fifty or more than ten -thousand dollars, and the amount given must in every case be - - DUPLICATED BY THE RECIPIENTS. - -“That is to say, if a little rural community of five hundred people out -in Nebraska is able to raise one hundred dollars as a nucleus for a -reading-room, I will give an equal amount. Some room over a store, -perhaps, or in the church vestry, will be rented. It will be fitted up -with chairs, tables, and lamps, which may be contributed by individuals -independently of the fund. Then the remainder may be spent in -periodicals and a few reference books, to be selected by a committee -appointed by the town and by the agent whom I shall employ to look after -all details of the work. - -“I have already engaged a dozen persons, New England teachers chiefly, -women whom I know, whose good sense and executive ability are to be -trusted, and I have apportioned out the localities in which they are to -work. The first duty of each one will be to put herself in communication -with the state superintendent of education, and to receive his -indorsement. Then she will make the announcement in all the leading -papers of the state or territory, that she is the trustees’ accredited -representative, and is authorized to make such arrangements as may be -deemed fitting for the establishment of free reading-rooms and libraries -in every township. Getting a list of such towns as have no provision of -this kind for books and reading, she will proceed to communicate, either -by letter or by personal interviews, with the clergymen, mayors, and -leading men of the town, and, where any apathy in the matter exists, -will endeavor to arouse interest and stimulate them to raise a fund. - -“Wherever there is an interest and a desire to take immediate advantage -of my proposal by erecting a building, the agent will join with the town -in deciding on the plan of construction, and in the selection of a lot, -insisting always that it shall be ample enough to allow of the addition -of more rooms to the building as the town grows. - -“All the details of the arrangements will be submitted to the head -committee in New York, thereby insuring the consideration of many -matters essential to the success of the scheme, which might be -overlooked by the average selectman, more skilled in raising grain and -killing hogs than in the science of library construction. - -“Of course all this will require tact as well as business-like habits on -the part of the agent, but I can rely on those I have engaged for these -qualities, and I will risk their success anywhere. I shall urge them to -encourage, wherever they can, the erection of a small hall in connection -with the library building, which may serve for lectures and meetings, -and by pleasant, dignified surroundings give a tone to the character of -the proceedings held in it, which might not be obtained elsewhere. - -“I shall insist on making the buildings as fireproof and as beautiful as -the money will allow. I want to make the Library the most attractive -place in town. - -“In farming communities, where houses are few and far between, and an -hour an evening at a central reading-room would be an impossibility, I -shall suggest a circulation of periodicals after the fashion of our -Eastern book clubs. - -“One great demand which will be made on us, and which we are not yet -ready to supply, is for good librarians. I wish to call the attention of -intelligent young women to this field of work which is about to be -opened to them, provided that they are fitted for it. - -“In these new libraries, I propose to provide the librarian at my own -expense for the first two years, thereby insuring the judicious -management and consequent popularity of the scheme. - -“A librarian who has the missionary spirit can have, in a small town, -about as christianizing an influence as a home missionary. She will make -the library a pleasant place, where quietness and good manners are the -rule, and every one is made to feel at home; she will offer wise -suggestions as to the selection of books, and give occasional talks on -authors and good literature. - -“I mean to send out strong, earnest, college-bred young women, who will -take a missionary view of their work, and make it a means of great good. -I shall pay them well, and, as their terms expire, shall transfer them -from one place to another to do pioneer work, varying their salary -according to the amount of work done. - -“My reason for choosing women for the work is, that I think them to be -more faithful and conscientious than men, as a rule, and to have more -tact and knowledge of detail. Besides, there are more capable women than -men who would be benefited by the money and experience. - -“I am especially interested in the success of my scheme in the South, -where a circulating library, open to every one without distinction of -race or sex, is an almost if not quite an unheard-of thing. - -“The scarcity of reading matter among both colored and white teachers, -to say nothing of other people, is something fairly startling, and my -agents in the Southern states will probably be compelled to adopt -somewhat different measures from those used in the West. - -“A circulation of magazines and papers will be necessary in sparsely -settled districts, where people would otherwise have to walk two or -three miles to get any benefit from a reading-room. - -“Suppose, for instance, there is a little community of fifty families, -both black and white, whose cabins and clearings are scattered over an -area five miles square. There are hundreds of such places in the South -where the people are completely out of the world, and where not one -adult in five sees a weekly paper regularly or could read it if he saw -it. To these people, up on the mountain sides, in the pine forests or on -the river-bottoms, my - - BRAVE NEW ENGLAND TEACHER - -will go. She will call them together and have a meeting. She will get -them to pledge, say fifty dollars a year, and to this she will add -another fifty. Half of this, perhaps, will go for periodicals, chiefly -illustrated weeklies and magazines, and the remainder will be paid to -some of the more enterprising who can read, and who will agree to hold -neighborhood meetings weekly. The blacks will be with the blacks, and -the whites with the whites, probably, and the reading matter will be -read aloud for the benefit of all. - -“Some responsible committee will take charge of the reception, -distribution, and preservation of the papers and magazines, and at the -end of the year they will, perhaps, be sold at auction among the -contributors to the fund. - -“If the reading matter were given outright there would be some chance -against the success of the plan. People care little for what costs them -nothing. But having had to sacrifice something to bring it about they -will think it worth something.” - -“What would you do, Miss Brewster,” the writer inquired, “in towns where -reading-rooms were open to both whites and negroes? Have you any idea -that the whites would tolerate being brought into contact with blacks on -a par in a public reading-room?” - -“Probably not,” replied Miss Brewster; “for racial animosity is still -pretty strong in most sections, I imagine. But the difficulty could be - - EASILY OBVIATED - -by allowing certain days or certain hours for one race and other days or -hours for the other race, so that all could be benefited without setting -prejudices too much at defiance.” - -At this juncture, Miss Brewster’s carriage being announced, the -extremely interesting interview was terminated. - - BUGGSVILLE, MO. - - DEAR FRIEND: The trustees told me that they thought you would be glad - to receive a letter from me, telling you something about my - experiences in addition to the official report, a copy of which they - will forward. - - Buggsville, as you already know, is the first town to put up a library - building with aid from the Western and Southern Library Fund. - Therefore I naturally feel considerable pride and interest in this, - the first-fruits of my labors, so far as the erection of a building is - concerned. - - I will say, by the way, however, that I have been very successful in - starting reading-rooms in the little villages, sixty-eight little - towns already having them well equipped and beginning to produce a - marked result. - - Three months ago we started a reading-room at Onetumka, ten miles from - here. The people were a rough, ignorant set, for the most part. A good - many foreigners are there, and a number of land speculators and some - mill hands, for they have a good water-power, and are already - beginning to do a little manufacturing. - - It was really one of the most hopeless places I have ever seen. The - bad element had got the upper hand from the first. There were five - saloons, and several low dance-halls and pool-rooms. There was no - resident minister, and they had preaching only once in two weeks by an - overworked Baptist preacher with much goodwill and little tact in - managing so difficult a community. - - I always make it a point to get the ministers to help me first of all, - but here it was useless. So I appealed to the school-teacher, the - doctor, and the mill-owner. The latter took little interest, although - I assured him that anything that could entice his workmen from the - saloon would make them serve him better. - - The little school-mistress talked to her children about it, but with - no success; the doctor was indifferent, and, as I had a more promising - field elsewhere, I stayed in the town only a few days. - - But presently the county papers began to be full of the library - business, and I was asked to speak here and there in the little - schoolhouses and churches. At first I trembled at facing an audience - of one or two hundred, but I had not been a schoolma’am for nothing, - and I soon got over that, at last finding myself no more afraid of - them than of my fifty boys and girls in the old school-room at home. - - I found that this was the best way to arouse interest. I gave them a - practical talk, told them about book clubs, Chatauqua circles and - other things, and suggested ways and means of raising money. Most of - them live pretty comfortably, but money is scarce, and I find that - most of the farms are mortgaged. Generally, however, I found some - degree of enthusiasm, especially among the women, when they learned - that after the first month it could be so arranged that the magazines - might be taken from the reading-room and circulated. - - You can’t imagine how many times I have heard some tired farmer’s wife - say, often with tears in her eyes, “Miss Martyn, this’ll be a godsend - to me. I never get time to go anywhere, or to sit down and read a - book; but if I could have that ‘St. Nicholas’ or ‘Wide Awake’ for the - children, or just sit down once in a while and read an article, or - simply look at those beautiful pictures in ‘Harper’s’ and ‘The - Century,’ I feel as though I shouldn’t get so discouraged with the - work.” - - “Sometimes I feel as if I was forgetting all I ever knew, and the - children are growing up so rough and don’t know about any other kind - of life,” they will say, in a troubled way, and I feel sorry enough - for them. In many cases these women before coming west have had good - educations, and this monotonous life, in which there is so little - mental stimulus, is terribly hard for them to bear. - - Well, after a while, Onetumka heard what the other towns near by were - doing, and one or two of the mill hands wrote me that they had been - around collecting money and had secured fifty dollars, beside gaining - the free use of a suitable room. So I went there and succeeded in - raising the sum to seventy-five dollars, to which I added as much - more. Then I managed to get the selection of the periodicals myself, - and excluded the “Police Gazette” and some others that had been asked - for. As there is a large number of Germans here, I subscribed for - several German publications; also for a generous list of illustrated - papers of a harmless sort, knowing that “Puck” and “Life” would be - better appreciated than the “Fortnightly” or the “Contemporary.” Then - I saw that a committee was appointed to provide voluntary service in - looking after the room and circulating the magazines. I arranged that - the reading-room should be open and some one in attendance on Sunday - afternoon and evening, as that is the time when the men have a little - leisure and the saloons do a great business. - - In no place has there been so marked a result as in Onetumka. A record - is kept of the attendance, and it has averaged seventy-five every day. - - “The reading-room is really a means of grace,” the minister writes. I - myself am aware of that, and shall not fail to keep them stimulated - until they have a good library. - - I started a reading-room at Buggsville during my first six weeks in - the state. Here I found good ground for work. Most of the people were - ambitious, and some of the young ladies had formed a Chatauqua circle, - the only one that I have found thus far. - - There were three little feeble churches, Methodist, Presbyterian, and - Baptist, each having about half a congregation, and each unable by - itself to support a minister decently. They were willing to make - sacrifices for the library, however. I suggested that while waiting - for the new building they should make use of the vestry of the - Methodist church. This is a large and well-lighted room, and at a - slight expense for shelves could accommodate as many books as we could - buy, and also serve excellently for a reading-room. I found, however, - that this aroused a good deal of sectarian feeling and would not do. - The Presbyterians and Baptists said that if their children should get - accustomed to going there during the week they would want to go there - on Sunday, and their own Sunday-schools would dwindle. In order to - leave their vestry to be used solely as a reading-room, I suggested - that the Methodist Sunday-school should meet at the Baptist church, - holding its session at an hour when the two Sunday-schools should not - conflict. But this, I discovered, was even worse in the minds of these - would-be Christians, who were so afraid of each other, and I found - that I was sowing discord instead of harmony. - - At this juncture, fearing to lose all help from me if they did not - bestir themselves, one man gave a lot 100 × 200 feet, on condition - that a building should be put up within a year; another who owned a - quarry offered stone for the building; the town voted to give one - thousand dollars, and the young people, thus encouraged, set to work - earnestly, and by fairs and entertainments added considerably more. I - cheered them on with the inspiriting assurance that every cent they - earned meant two for the library. The enthusiasm and good spirit, when - they got fairly at work, were marvelous, and the people were drawn - together in a way to make them forget their differences in their zeal - for the common good. - - I found a good deal of strong opposition to having the building open - on Sunday. I had asked that the reading-room might be open on Sunday - afternoons when there was no church service, knowing that this would - prevent a good deal of lounging on street corners, and, moreover, - subdue much disorder among a set of restless street youth who are fast - becoming a terror to the town; but after a great deal of discussion - and hot blood over the matter, the conservatives won the day. - - Yesterday the building was dedicated, and I was requested to give one - of the eight addresses on the great occasion. The whole town turned - out, and it was a gala day. The stores were closed, and after a grand - procession, led by a German band hired from a neighboring town for the - celebration, we proceeded to the library, which is really the most - beautiful building in Buggsville. - - Every one felt a pride and personal interest in it, from the two solid - men of the town who had given the land and the stone, and were - consequently the heroes of the day, down to the small boys and girls - who had all given their coppers. I felt that every one in town was my - friend, and as I rode in state in the procession in a mud-bespattered - buggy, the boys cheered, the bells rang, and I think every one felt - that a new era had begun. The farmers’ boys and their “best girls” - came in from all the country around, and I can’t describe to you all - the droll and pathetic sights I saw. - - I gave them a little talk on “Books and how to use them,” as short and - as sensible as I could make it. At its close a white-haired old man, - whom I had never seen before, came and took me by the hand, and said - in a simple, childlike way: “Miss Martyn, I want to ask you to tell - that rich young lady who has made this thing possible for us here - to-day that the blessing of an old man rests upon her. - - “I was born down in Maine, and never had much schooling. I came to - this part of the country fifty-five years ago. My folks were killed by - the Indians. It was mighty different here fifty-five years ago, I can - tell you, Miss Martyn; there were Indians all about then, and wolves - too. We had taken up government land, and after the old folks were - killed I kept on the place as long as I could stand it, for the - Indians had by that time been driven off, and there was no more - danger. It was awful lonesome, though. There wasn’t a soul within - twelve miles to speak to. Sometimes I thought I should go insane from - lonesomeness. - - “I had only two books,—my mother’s little Testament, and another book: - perhaps you’ve heard of it: ’twas ‘Locke on the Human Understanding.’ - Well, I’d always been fond of books. Somehow I never took to farming, - and sometimes I felt as if I’d give every acre I had for a new book, - or a newspaper that would tell me what was going on in the world; - something that would give me new thoughts; I was so tired of thinking - the old ones over and over. - - “The fellows who were my nearest neighbors weren’t my kind; they - hadn’t any books, and, if you’ll believe it, I’ve ridden many a time - fifty miles to get a newspaper a week old. - - “Well, at last I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was ashamed to ask - any woman to be my wife, and to come out and live in my dreary log - cabin, even if I’d known any woman to ask, but I didn’t. Unmarried - women were scarce in those days. At last I sold all the land for a - song,—I should have been rich now if I’d only kept it,—and I moved a - little nearer folks. - - “I knew my Bible, and at last, though I hadn’t much education, I began - to go around preaching. But a home missionary without a salary has not - much money or time for books; besides, before the railroad, I couldn’t - get books any way if I’d had money, and sometimes I—perhaps you won’t - believe it, ma’am, but I’ve actually cried for books, I felt so sort - of hungry and starved. I was thirty years old before, to my knowledge, - I ever saw a book of poetry. It was Longfellow’s. Well, ma’am, that - book—I can’t tell you”—and the old man’s blue eyes filled with tears - and his voice choked. - - His simple, genuine feeling was so sweet and so unexpected that it - fairly thrilled me. I think I never realized in my life before what - mental starvation must be to a sensitive spirit. When I took him by - the hand and led him around to see all the books nicely covered and - numbered on the shelves, he could only smile through his tears, and - touching them almost reverently, say, “Thank the Lord! I never - expected to live to see so many books. Thank the Lord!” - - I inquired afterwards who he was, but no one knew; they said he was a - stranger who had come there simply for the day. I am sorry to have - lost sight of him; he was a rare soul, I am sure. - - I did the best I could with the money that you sent as a special gift - for the first library. I sent to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and bought - their large lithographs of the American poets, and had them nicely - framed in narrow oak frames, and hung around the reading-room, with a - little biographical sketch pinned up underneath each one. The rest of - the money I spent for a number of unmounted photographs from Soule’s, - which I taught the young people here to mount and arrange in home-made - frames. No doubt, most of them would have been much better pleased - with some cheap chromos, but I thought of what would please them best - ten years from now, and planned for that. - - They have already projected, at my suggestion, a course of reading in - the history of art; and whereas a year ago it would have been - impossible to get most of the young people to undertake anything - really serious, they now evidently consider it quite the thing. All - this greatly encourages me, especially as I see hopeful signs of the - good fashion spreading. - - This is a long letter, but I know your warm interest in all the - details of this work, so I make no apology, and congratulate myself - that you will consider it a signal success to have one building all - equipped and in running order in eight months from the time when you - indorsed the scheme. - - Ever yours faithfully, - HANNAH MARTYN. - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - - “Shall not that Western Goth of whom we spoke, - So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, - Find out some day, that nothing pays but God?” - (_Cathedral._) LOWELL. - - (Extract from the “Chicago Inter-Ocean.”) - - - GOOD CITIZENSHIP! HOW A BOSTON BEAUTY PROPOSES TO BRING IT ABOUT! - ANTIDOTE FOR ANARCHISM! - -In the arrival in our city last week of the rich Miss Brewster of -Boston, society has naturally felt a warm interest. First, because she -is young and charming; secondly, because she is reputed fabulously -wealthy; and thirdly, because she adds to these attractions a decided -mind of her own, which has fortunately turned itself in the direction of -alleviating some of the woes of human-kind. - -But the pertinacious reticence maintained by herself and the ladies and -gentlemen who are her traveling companions, and are understood to be _en -route_ for Alaska, has given our reporter more than one fruitless trip -to the Grand Pacific Hotel. It is currently rumored that more than one - - EUROPEAN CORONET - -has been laid at the feet of the bonny belle from Beacon Hill, but, like -the sensible little Puritan maiden that she is, she prefers to keep the -reins in her own hands a little longer, and her millions will not at -present pass to any of the bloated aristocracy of an effete despotism of -the Old World. - -It was ascertained yesterday from the waiters that the great parlors of -the hotel had been engaged by Miss Brewster for a large reception to -some of our most eminent citizens, chiefly in the clerical walks of -life. So a reporter in a ministerial rig presented himself, was -admitted, and taking refuge in a camp-chair at the rear of perhaps two -hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen, had a fair opportunity to report -proceedings. - -He soon discovered that the reception was nothing more than a business -meeting convened for the purpose of listening to some address or -discussion, the guests being seated facing a slightly raised platform. - -The assemblage seemed to be chiefly composed of gentlemen, and every -profession and sect was represented by some of its most eminent members. - -At precisely eight o’clock Miss Brewster, conducted by Rev. Dr. T——, -entered at a side door. They proceeded to the platform and took seats in -two velvet armchairs which were placed in readiness. - -Miss Brewster was simply dressed in white, with a corsage bouquet of -yellow roses and a yellow rose in her dark hair. - -As Dr. T—— rose to speak, the chatter ceased, and he said: - - “_Ladies and Gentlemen_: - - “Each one of you present has received a note of invitation requesting - your presence here this evening for the consideration of a plan which - shall be of benefit to our city. This plan, as it will be unfolded to - you - - BY ITS ORIGINATOR, - - will, I think, command your heartiest sympathy and coöperation. I - consider it a peculiar privilege to present to you this evening one - whose noble father was my valued friend, and who in her earliest years - was well known to me; and now that she returns to what was for a few - months the home of her childhood, it is with great pleasure that at - her request I have summoned here to-night so many representatives of - the thought and the moral force of this great city to listen to what - she has to propose, and in return to give her the benefit of their - united wisdom. - - “I have the honor to present to you Miss Mildred Brewster of Boston.” - -Every eye was fixed in admiration on the slender, girlish form that had -something queenly in its bearing, and there was a rustle of expectancy -as Dr. T—— ceased and Miss Brewster rose to speak. - -There was a slight tremor in her voice as with deepening color and -drooping eyes she uttered her first words. - -“Good friends,” she said, “I have asked you here to-night for a specific -purpose. - -“In the providence of God there has been placed in my hands within the -last few months the means to do much that for years I have felt ought to -be done, but have been powerless to do. And fearing lest my stewardship -be short, and I be called to give account and return with empty hands -and no fruit garnered, I have dared not delay, no, not for a day, except -to more seriously and wisely prepare for my task.” - -Miss Brewster gained courage as she proceeded, and in a clear, unshaken -voice continued: - -“In all lands on which the sun ever shone, probably there was never a -time when money wisely expended could set in play so many and such -powerful forces for good as it can do now and here. For here, in this -western land of unlimited possibilities, is the young giant born whose -savage strength may prove our nation’s weakness if we leave his infant -years to the guidance of his own wayward will. - -“Here, then, is the sorest present need in our land to-day, for here in -our hands lies the power to mould the influences which shall shape the -destiny of millions yet unborn. One hundred dollars now may prevent the -evil which, a century hence, one hundred thousand dollars could not -undo. - -“As I have driven about your magnificent boulevards and marked your -towers and palaces, I have been impressed even more than I expected to -be, and my expectations were great, with your wealth, and its solid, -satisfactory embodiment in enduring architecture and fine parks and -streets. But not only has your material advancement amazed me. I have -been most profoundly impressed with the seriousness of mind and the -depth of patriotic feeling that was shown in your notable celebration of -the centennial of the beginning of our constitutional government. - -“Historic old Boston, that of all other cities should have appreciated -the significance of the occasion, gave hardly a thought to the day. New -York gave herself to ostentatious pageantry and a glorification of -Washington alone; but in this new city of the West, unlinked by historic -ties with the past, have I found in press and people a deeper sentiment -and - - A MORE THOUGHTFUL READING - -of the lessons of the century. - -“I have been studying this wonderful city of yours that buys more of -Browning’s poems than any other city in the world, and is fast drawing -to itself not only the wealth and fashion of the land, but that culture -of which our older cities have fancied themselves the almost exclusive -possessors. - -“I have been looking at your schools, your churches, your -philanthropies, and, above all, at your poor, and that class from which -your - - ANARCHISTS AND CRIMINALS - -are recruited. - -“I have found, as I need not say, much to admire and much to deplore. -And it is to consider those tendencies which I deplore that I ask your -attention this evening. - -“Of all the dangers that threaten us as a nation, I find but two -unrepresented in this city, namely, Mormonism, and the amalgamation of -the white and other races. But against intemperance, licentiousness, -political corruption, and all the evils incident to a vast foreign -population, this city, with its numbers increasing by gigantic strides, -presents a field for work scarcely exampled on the continent. Not that -Chicago is a sinner above all other cities. In some respects, notably -its comparative freedom from the close crowding in tenement houses which -exists in New York, it is fortunate. - -“But, so far as I can learn, not another great city on the continent -contains so large a proportion of people of - - FOREIGN PARENTAGE. - -In driving through your beautiful avenues one can scarcely credit the -statement that only nine per cent. of your people are of strictly native -parentage; but in going through that section on the North side where -your Poles and Bohemians live—in seeing the Irish, Swedes, Germans, and -more recently the Italians, who are flocking to your city, one is made -to realize this in a measure. It is to this point that I chiefly wish to -call your attention. - -“This city is growing prodigiously; it is destined to grow. More and -more, as means of communication and transportation are increased, as you -well know, are the people of this age flocking to the cities. One -hundred years ago one in thirty lived in a city; now one in four is the -number which the census gives us. Especially is it true that foreigners -prefer city life. In far greater numbers proportionately to the native -population do they congregate in the centre of wealth, influence, and -political power, and often for the purpose of obtaining that political -power which through the negligence and indifference of our better class -of men is readily yielded to their demands. - -“Now that the municipal government in our great cities is largely in the -hands of the foreign-born, for which we have only ourselves to thank, we -are beginning to awaken to the fact, and the indignant cry ‘America for -Americans’ is heard. With this I cannot wholly sympathize. We have -opened our doors to the world, we have invited to our highest municipal -offices whoever could buy them, we have been eager to get rich, we have -had no time or interest in anything beyond satisfying our imperious -appetite for wealth and luxury and social position. - -“We have put behind us simplicity and calmness, the plain living and -high thinking which engendered all that we count best in our history, -and now we cry with ever-increasing wail, ‘Let us eat our cake and have -it.’ ‘Let us spend our whole life in selfish indifference to the public -weal; let us turn over our most sacred trusts into the hands of -ignorance and incompetence, and then let us reap what we have not sowed -and garner where we have not planted.’ - -“No, not America for the Americans, if it be such Americans! Rather let -those who have been willing slaves - - FEEL THE WHIP AND THE SHACKLES - -until they learn that justice and peace and righteousness within our -borders are not to be, except as the fruit of their love, their labor, -and their eternal vigilance. [Applause.] - -“No, not America for Americans, but America for American ideas and -institutions! And welcome be he, whether of our own land or any other, -who, seeing what God has destined this fair land to be as leader of the -nations, seeing it as its early Founders saw it, shall give heart and -brain and hand to purifying and redeeming it, lest indeed it be the land -of ‘Broken Promise.’ - -“I have nothing to say against foreigners as foreigners, but I look into -our criminal reports and find by a careful search that the proportion of -criminals to the foreign population is just about twice that to the -native. I learn that among our foreigners we find about two thirds of -our brewers, distillers, and liquor-sellers, and among these varied -nationalities, who have sustained the breaking up of old ties and -transplanting to utterly new conditions, a far greater tendency to -insanity than among the native stock. I see that the causes which tend -to immigration will in all probability continue, and the influx into our -great cities, especially your own favorably situated one, advance -indefinitely. Therefore, it has seemed to me that of all places in this -land Chicago was the best one in which to begin a concerted action for -the Americanization of its foreigners and for promoting the - - GOOD CITIZENSHIP - -of all its citizens whether native or foreign. It seems to me we must do -this in self-preservation. - -“In Boston, as you know, where we have had to learn some sad lessons -from our careless indifference in regard to municipal matters, we have -begun to arouse ourselves and have established a Society for Promoting -Good Citizenship whose object is to further in all thinking people, -mothers, voters, teachers, and students, a higher ideal of citizenship -and an active, unpartisan effort for its realization. - -“This work is done in various ways: by free lectures given by prominent -citizens, by suggestions for study in schools and colleges, and by the -encouragement of a deeper interest in the community in the study of -history, civil government, and political economy. The society is yet in -its infancy, and has thus far produced little perceptible effect; but, -in addition to the well-known Old South work in history, it shows a step -in the right direction. - -“Long before it was started it had been - - MY DREAM - -to see something of a similar tendency established in every large city -in our land, and it is because I wish to suggest to you certain measures -which have in view the attainment of good citizenship in your midst that -I am here to-night. - -“A Chicago gentleman recently said to me, ‘The fact is, we get careless -here. We are so busy about our own private affairs that we let our -voting go by for a year or two, till finally about once in seven years -things get so bad we can’t stand it, and then we all get mad and roll up -our sleeves and go in and have a general clearing out. After that, -things work well for a year or two, and then are as bad as ever.’ - -“I understand that at present you have a fairly good city government, -that your leading officials for the most part are not corrupt. But even -if this were sure of lasting, of what a thing to boast! - -“In the minds of too many I find the idea seems to prevail that so long -as taxation is not raised, and there is a police force competent to -quell turbulent strikers, and no infamous scandal at the City Hall, so -long there is nothing else to be done in the line of good citizenship -than to cast one’s vote, pay one’s taxes, and keep one’s sidewalk clean. - -“Now I hold that such a conception of the duties of citizenship is -unworthy a Christian and a patriot, and it is as Christians and patriots -that I am addressing you. - -“I am not here to remind you of the unequaled folly and expense of bad -government, and to point out to you the material benefits accruing to a -city where there is a pure and economical city government and an -incorruptible court. - -“I am not here to speak to you on the ground of mere utility and -expediency, though with a different audience such arguments might hold -the first place. But I speak to you as scholars, as men and women of -insight who need not to be reminded that the state, as one of the three -great human institutions by which civilized man has differentiated -himself from the savage, has higher functions than those which appeal -most forcibly to the ordinary man and woman of to-day. - -“We live in a - - MATERIALISTIC ATMOSPHERE, - -where the things of the senses allure far more than the things of -thought, where a man of ideals is laughed at by the majority as an -unpractical theorist, and shrewdness is esteemed the highest virtue. - -“I have been looking over your school reports and have been noting the -disproportionate number of girls who are graduated. - -“Your boys and young men are impatient for business. Even those in -well-to-do families leave school very early. I find that _ninety-two per -cent. of your children leave school before they ever study any text-book -of history_, and that seventy-five per cent. leave before they reach the -grade where a little historic information is given through the aid of -biographical sketches and stories. - -“Think of it! Seventy-five per cent., the majority of them our future -voters, who have never so much as heard of the Pilgrim Fathers or the -war of the Revolution, and who have far too feeble an educational -equipment to lead to much further study! - -“But even of those who have some smattering of history we find thousands -appearing at the polls every year, having heard a little of the cant and -the bluster of partisan politics, and having nothing more to fit them -for their duties as citizens in a land whose national and state and city -governments they have never studied. - -“Moreover, they have the wildest notions in regard to those great -questions of labor, wages, and reform which are agitating our country. -Such are the men who hold the ignoble conviction that every man is -selfish at heart, that to the victors belong the spoils, and that desire -for office is inevitably ambition for personal gain. - -“You have learned in the past somewhat of the cost to this city and -state of the presence of anarchists within your midst. But what are you -doing to make good citizens of the thousands of men, women, and children -who are said to be enrolled in anarchist Sunday-schools here in this -city? - -“What is being done to prevent the children of the mob that tears up -your horse-car tracks when you have a strike from following ten years -hence their fathers’ example? - -“But I am not speaking merely of rumsellers or anarchists, or of -ignorant foreigners or men who sell their votes. I am speaking of the -banker’s sons as well as the blacksmith’s. - -“There is among many of the hard-headed young business men of our time -whom I have met a - - TERRIBLE SKEPTICISM. - -They are skeptical of humanity, of virtue. There is a belief that every -man has his price, that politics is a machine, to be run for the benefit -of those who have it in charge. There is, even among honorable men, a -tendency to joke at public scandals, to sneer at Sunday-school politics -and womanish ideals. - -“Now, to me, this hard and cold skepticism betokens a rottenness and a -corruption in the body politic scarcely less terrible to contemplate -than the open, high-handed peculation which occasionally startles the -community and forms a nine days’ wonder. - -“For, as I need not say, a sick man is as sure to die from -blood-poisoning as from an open cancer. The latter may shock us more, -but the former is just as deadly. And the danger to this great city -to-day is not so much from the dynamite of the anarchist as from the -indifference and inactivity of the men and women who have your brains, -your wealth, your culture, and many of them your nominal Christianity. - -“Pardon me if I seem to be addressing you, my elders and betters, as if -I were presuming to tell you anything new or anything which you could -not state quite as forcibly as I may do. - -“It is not that I have anything new to say that I venture to speak thus, -but that I may clearly state my own position and grounds for action in -the matter which I shall soon present to you. - -“You have observed that I have used the more comprehensive term -‘citizen’ instead of ‘voter,’ and it is for this reason that I have used -it. The duties of the citizen apply to every one who is a recipient of -the benefits of the state, and this includes that half of the community -whom their own indifference and the - - PREJUDICES AND TRADITIONS - -of the majority of voters still exclude from their rightful share in -this matter of public housekeeping which we call municipal government. - -“It is the duty of the male citizen to vote, and not only to vote, but -to attend the caucuses which alone insure the possibility of having a -worthy candidate. It is also his duty to pay his taxes and keep his -sidewalk clean, but his duty does not end here. It is his imperative -duty as an honorable citizen to see that this subtle poison, which, bred -from germs of selfishness and ignorance, is creeping through the veins -of our people, shall be arrested ere a complete social upheaval teach us -the painful lesson that vigilance alone is the price of liberty. - -“It seems to me that the duty of the citizen is coextensive with life -and opportunity. It is not a duty which the man or woman of conscience -can lay aside between election days. The good citizen must be always a -refuter of error, an initiator of reform, in short, a person whose -conscience gives him no rest until what ought to be has been substituted -for what is. - -“The good citizen must, above all, have such a lofty conception of the -state and of statesmanship as shall lift it forever above the moral -plane where it has been allowed to rest by the average conscience dulled -to all the finer moral perceptions by the force of custom and -conventionality. - -“There are such citizens. I see many of them before me as I speak, but -that there shall be a thousand where there is now but one, am I here -to-night to speak to you. - -“And now, after this lengthy prelude, permit me to ask your attention to -the scheme which I suggest for helping to bring about in this city a -higher standard of good citizenship. Pardon a bit of personal -experience. - -“Scarcely a day goes by in which I am not importuned by various worthy -beggars to give thousands and even millions to endow this and that -college, hospital, and asylum. - -“The last project which was proposed to me was to put a million dollars -into a college to be devoted to fitting poor boys for the ministry free -of expense. And my importunate beggar was greatly offended when I said -that I should consider this one of the best means for promoting -hypocrisy and dependence, and that I thought a few scholarships wisely -distributed in colleges of repute would help the ministry more than a -million dollars expended chiefly on brick and mortar. - -“‘But what are you going to do with your money? Don’t you think you -ought to give it to the - - LORD’S POOR?’ - -I was asked with that delightful assumption of authority which certain -people who have the assurance of infallibly knowing the mind of the Lord -always adopt. - -“‘Certainly,’ I answered; ‘but the Lord has commissioned me to spend -what is intrusted to me where it will effect the best results, and I -prefer to put the next money that I spend into brains rather than into -bricks.’ - -“Now I propose to devote one hundred and fifty thousand dollars during -the next ten years to stimulating thought in this city in the direction -of Good Citizenship. [Applause.] - -“I shall ask a committee of twenty-five ladies and gentlemen, which you -shall choose from the number present, to select for me a man of ripe -experience, of scholarship, and disinterested devotion to the cause of -which I have spoken—a man of good presence and address, who can combine -the functions of business manager and orator, to whom I shall pay five -out of the fifteen thousand dollars which I propose to devote yearly for -the promotion of good citizenship in your city. - -“By the advice and consent of this same committee, which shall -constitute itself a board of directors, he shall spend the remaining ten -thousand for the best interests of the work in hand. - -“I put no restrictions on this expenditure and lay down no rules of -conduct beyond making the work of the organization absolutely unpartisan -and unsectarian. The superintendent elected by the directors shall be -free to use such methods as shall seem fit to him, being however held -responsible to the directors and removable at their option. - -“Although I leave everything to the judgment of the directors, I wish to -make a few suggestions which they are quite free to accept or reject. - -“First I suggest that for this work the city be divided into various -districts, and that each church constitute itself a centre for effective -work in some district, so that workers may be somewhat equally -distributed, and no part of the city neglected. These districts need not -be based necessarily upon the numbers of their inhabitants, but upon -their needs. - -“I would urge every minister either in or out of the pulpit, as he may -prefer, to make clear to his congregation the purpose of this -organization which is to be formed, and himself lead his people into -hearty coöperation with it. - -“I know that there are some well-meaning, religious people who might -object to this, dreading the preaching of politics from the pulpit and -the diversion of the attention of the young from strictly religious -work. They prefer to have everything pertaining to secular education -debarred from the church-building. - -“To me such people seem - - SADLY IRRELIGIOUS. - -I wonder that they can read their Bibles and fail to learn from the -examples of the Hebrew prophets what God would have man say concerning -the government and wise ordering of a backsliding people. Those brave -men of old were not afraid of preaching politics; and how can one, the -follower of him who taught us to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be -done on earth as it is in heaven,’ dare to make this but mere -lip-service? Surely they will be the first to give the influence of -their Christian manhood to bring that kingdom here and now in this city -of Chicago. The clergyman who fails to teach his people that God as -truly leads this nation now as in the days of old is recreant to his -trust, is unworthy of his calling, as it seems to me. - -“I would have our church vestries, which are closed and vacant a great -part of the week, thrown open at least one evening in a week for -discussions, lectures, debates, or small classes grouped together for -the study of subjects that will promote good citizenship. - -“I suggest that all classes of people, whether church-goers or not, who -are willing to join in this work, be divided into four sections. - -“First and largest of all would be the section containing those who know -little of American history, civil government, and political economy. -These would form themselves into bands for studying a well-selected -course of reading, beginning with elementary work, and proceeding from -such books as Mr. Dole’s ‘The Citizen and the Neighbor,’ to profound -works like Mulford’s ‘The Nation,’ or perhaps Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of -History.’ - -“I see no reason why with a proper system and the natural interest which -I think the subject will awaken there should not eventually result as -widespread and beneficent a work as that which the Chatauqua classes -have done. - -“There should be a secretary for each little centre of study to whom -reports of work should be made, and certificates or diplomas should be -bestowed by the directors on those who have successfully passed through -different courses. - -“I also suggest public debates and dissertations by members of both -sexes. It is not so difficult a matter as you may think to interest -young people in such work. I know of a teacher in Somerville, -Massachusetts, who for years has been the means of carrying on a -historical club of about seventy-five boys and girls under fifteen years -of age. These children meet regularly, conducting their meetings -themselves according to Cushing’s ‘Manual of Parliamentary Rules,’ and -girls as well as boys take part in a modest, fearless way. They get not -only much historical information on the subjects they discuss, but also -a very valuable discipline which renders them self-possessed in manner, -and discriminating in their thought, and is the best of training for -many duties of good citizenship. - -“All these results take time and patience and tact in the planners of -the classes, lest rivalry and jealousy and short-sightedness defeat the -end in view. But when a - - SCHEME IS ONCE THOUGHT OUT - -in its main features it is comparatively easy to follow, especially when -it is as flexible as the one I present to you, and when the leaders are -disinterested men and women. - -“The second of the four classes which I have suggested would contain a -much smaller number of persons, and would be those who have the time and -ability to teach. This would bring forth much latent talent for home -missionary work which does not find vent in our mission Sunday-schools. - -“The work should be especially prosecuted among the foreign population. - -“Let a course of say twenty-five weekly lectures be arranged to be -illustrated by the stereopticon, and treating in a simple way of the -growth of our nation from its beginning until the present time. I would -not have very much attention paid to the campaigns of the wars. It -matters little to the Bohemian who cannot read English or to the -Irishman who cannot write his name whether Braddock or King Philip -fought in the war of 1812 or not. - -“But it does matter that he should understand something of the early -life of the colonists, something of the dangers from which they fled, -the causes of the Revolution, the growth of slavery, the meaning of our -republican institutions, our great industrial development, and the -significance of such names as Franklin, Washington, Lincoln, Grant. - -“A cornet leading a chorus of school-children, who should sing national -airs, would add zest to such a lecture, the price of which should be -merely nominal. I think you will generally find it better to have a -price. - -“In such matters people usually undervalue and are a little suspicious -of what is given them freely. If a ticket costs ten cents, or if it is -given as a reward of merit to the children at school, it will be vastly -more appreciated. - -“These lectures would be given in English wherever possible, but in the -foreign districts of the city the same set could be given in -translations, the speaker being an intelligent man of the nationality of -the audience. - -“I think you will find it better among foreigners to give these lectures -in a hall rather than in a church, so as not to awaken religious -prejudices. With different speakers the same lectures and pictures can -be used in different parts of the city every evening in the week, thus -having six or seven - - SIMULTANEOUS COURSES - -of the same lectures. - -“After the completion of the first course much experience will have been -gained in the details of management, and other courses can be formed -illustrating the material resources, physical geography of our country, -and the biography and literature of our great men. - -“With a little music, plenty of pictures, and a speaker with a hearty, -ringing voice, I think there can be no question of winning attention -among these foreigners. After that, classes and clubs for reading and -discussion would easily follow. - -“I have spoken of two sections, the students and the teachers; the third -might comprise those who could give neither work nor study, but who -would give money. This money might go to any one of a dozen fields of -work which the organization would help support. - -“Each donor could specify the purpose for which he gives his money, -whether it be temperance-reform work, free kindergartens, industrial -schools, payment for detection and prosecution of law-breakers, or -general running expenses. You can readily see that although there may be -much voluntary, unpaid service, there will be great need of more money -than I have promised to contribute. - -“The fourth class would be one of the most important, comprising chiefly -the solid business men and practical, public-spirited women, such as I -have found here in your remarkably live Woman’s Club and other -organizations. These men and women would attend to such practical work -as is done by our Law and Order Leagues in the different states, -supplementing the often inefficient police service, and persistently -insisting that the existing laws _shall be enforced_. - -“This branch of the work alone would require more than one paid agent. -Another line of work for this fourth class of good citizens would be an -organized and ever-increasing vigilance in regard to the work of the -city’s servants, and the creation of a strong public sentiment which -shall demand a purer, cleaner press and a suppression of the vile -literature which is poisoning the imagination of thousands of our youth. - -“This class of workers would be the active agents of all reforms, and -unwavering in their efforts to make the primary meetings places where -the moral force and the intelligence of the city shall be most -powerfully felt. - -“Let me illustrate what I mean in speaking of the kinds of work which -this fourth class of workers can do to promote good citizenship. The -successful courses of lectures on history to young people under the -auspices of the - - COMMERCIAL CLUB - -which have been carried on here is just the kind of work which needs to -be done. The prizes for essays on historical subjects offered to the -school-children by the ‘Daily News’ is another good thing. The courses -of lectures by workmen and capitalists under the auspices of the Ethical -Culture Society is just the kind of work which I should like to see -multiplied a hundredfold. - -“All existing organizations for promoting the welfare of the community -can unite in this large organization without abandoning their own -methods and field of work. - -“Perhaps this scheme as I have outlined it may seem to you somewhat -utopian; but you will remember that what I have said is simply -suggestion. The methods I leave entirely to your own excellent judgment. -But whatever these may be, they will be watched with keen interest by -other cities to whom I shall make the same proposition that I have made -to you, provided that the results of your efforts shall justify my -action in this matter. - -“The little plan which I propose is - - ABSOLUTELY FLEXIBLE. - -One person or one circle may work in one way and one in another, each -according to his own tastes and opportunities. While any one of leisure -may belong to all four sections, no one need feel excluded from joining -in the general good work in some way, if he have but a dollar a year to -contribute, or but an hour a week for study or work. - -“May I not hope that the life and youth and moral power of Chicago will -join hand in hand in making this vast city great, not only in dimensions -and numbers and wealth, but great in that kind of greatness which alone -shall exalt a nation and give it memory. For - - ‘The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor sleep:— - Be therefore timely wise, - Nor laugh when this one steals and that one lies, - As if your luck could cheat those sleepless spies, - Till the deaf Fury comes your house to sweep.’” - -As Miss Brewster stood a moment with silently bowed head and then sank -into her chair there was a hush. Every one had been thrilled by the -clear, quiet, intense tones of her voice, and there was an instinctive -refrain from applause which marked the deep feeling which her words had -created. - -Dr. T—— rose to speak, but at this juncture the writer, whose office had -been discovered, was politely requested by an usher to withdraw. It was -subsequently learned, however, that a committee consisting of seven -ladies and eighteen gentlemen was elected from those present, and they -are to meet next week for selection of a superintendent, and to -establish their organization. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - -After leaving Chicago in June, we passed a wonderful fortnight among the -glories of the Yellowstone Park. Here Mildred seemed to throw off all -care, and to breathe freely for the first time in six months. - -After leaving the Park, some of our party were called back to the East, -but aunt, cousin Will, and Alice still accompanied us. - -On touching the Northern Pacific Railroad again our car was attached to -a train filled for the most part with immigrants. - -At the stations where stops were made we always alighted to take a -little exercise in walking up and down the platform, and to chat with -the Indians and half-breeds, who greatly interested Mildred. - -I must admit that for my part I found the wrinkled old crones and dirty -braves rather disgusting, though occasionally a few who still retained -their primitive adornments of vermilion paint and eagle’s feathers -furnished a bit of picturesqueness that was interesting. - -At one stopping-place, there being no Indians visible, we turned our -attention to the crowd of European peasants who poured out of the -immigrant cars, and strolling about among them we amused ourselves by -studying the stolid, square faces, and giving candy to the sturdy, -little flaxen-haired children who gazed in round-eyed wonder at us. - -Presently I saw that Mildred, who had slipped away from me, was holding -a hurried and earnest conversation with a sad-eyed little woman who with -quivering lips was telling the story of how her _Mann_ had died on the -voyage and been buried at sea, and how she was left to make the rest of -the long journey alone with her three helpless little ones. - -“It goes to my heart,” said Mildred as we returned to our car, “to think -of that woman and those poor, fatherless little things in this strange -land. Not one of the people with her is her friend and neighbor, and I -don’t know what is to become of her.” - -“How perfectly dreadful!” exclaimed Alice calmly as she scanned her -cards. - -“Gad, that’s tough!” ejaculated Will, and then we proceeded with our -whist, which had been interrupted by this little episode. - -I watched Mildred. I knew that this would not be the end of it with her, -though the others soon forgot about it. She played carelessly and was -beaten. She was thinking not of the game, but of the tired, -broken-hearted wife in the next car who had so courageously said good-by -to the Fatherland a month before with her brave Fritz, and must now end -the long, wearisome journey alone, poor and friendless. - -Presently she rose and left the car. - -“Let me go with you,” called Will, and followed her, while I lay down on -the sofa for a nap and knew nothing more until an hour later. Then I -waked to find Mildred kneeling by my side and smilingly patting my -cheeks. - -“What do you say to having an adventure, Ruby?” she asked. “I have a -capital scheme; just listen to it. Will and I have been to see that poor -little woman, and it is pathetic to see how she clings to us and looks -to us for assistance. She will be utterly helpless when she gets to the -end of her journey. Her passage is prepaid through, but that is all. She -has only three dollars left, and the agent who has all these people in -charge is a hard-faced man who cannot be trusted to concern himself in -the least about her. - -“She opened her whole heart to me while Will amused the children, and I -have learned all her simple little story. I hadn’t the heart to leave -her until I had promised to see her through to her journey’s end.” - -“But you forget, Mildred,” I cried astonished, and sitting up quickly; -“these people are all going to switch off at the Junction and go -twenty-five miles on another road. The conductor told us so, you know, -and we can’t follow them, for it would make us a day late in reaching -Tacoma, and auntie really must have her ulcerated tooth attended to.” -She had in fact hardly held her head up that day and was suffering -terribly. - -“Certainly,” said Mildred; “I have thought of all that, and it is all -arranged. Alice and Will are to go on with her in this car and take the -best of care of her, and if you will join Hélène [the maid] and me, we -will go with the immigrants and see little Frau Kopp well started in the -new home before we leave her. I consider it quite a fortunate -circumstance on the whole. I have wanted an excuse to mingle with the -people more and learn something further of frontier life than can be -seen from the windows of a parlor-car.” - -Will remonstrated vigorously, however. “See here, Mildred,” he said -seriously, “it will never do in the world for you to start off this way -at night into an unknown region, and ride in these wretched cars. Very -likely you will have to sleep on a straw bed in some vile little tavern -no one knows where. You can give this woman some money, and”— - -“I haven’t time to argue,” interposed Mildred, packing her bag. “I have -made up my mind to go. Don’t think me stubborn, but money can’t do for -that disconsolate, frightened little woman what I can do. She has not a -single friend; her baby is ill; some Yankee sharper would swindle her -out of her money; and, besides, I want to go. I want to know from -experience a little about the life of these people.” - -“Then if I can’t dissuade you I must go with you. Mother can”— - -“No, she can’t; and I can’t let you leave her, cousin Will,” replied -Mildred with quiet determination. “Nothing can possibly happen to us. We -are in a civilized land, and robbers are not wont to attack an immigrant -train. We shall not be hurt by ‘roughing it’ for twenty-four hours, and -if anything happens to delay us longer we will telegraph you.” - -“Let me go _instead_ of you,” insisted Will, still frowning upon the -project; “there is no need of you three interrupting your journey when I -can manage the affair perfectly well.” - -“But you don’t speak German and I do,” replied Mildred, decisively. - -There was nothing more to be said, and we bade them good-by, with no -misgiving on our part, and stepped into the uncomfortable, stuffy -immigrant cars. Mildred seated herself beside little Frau Kopp and held -in her lap chubby two-year-old Hans, dressed like a little old man in -the clumsy, German peasant fashion. Hélène and I meanwhile took turns in -occupying the only vacant seat in the car. The motley crowd of Swedes, -Norwegians, Danes, Germans, and Bohemians, who for five or six days and -nights had been traveling together in heat and discomfort, sat nodding -sleepily and apparently unexcited at the near approach of their long -journey’s end. - -All the afternoon it had looked lowering in the west, and as the dim -kerosene lamps were lighted one by one, we heard the dash of rain upon -the roof of the car, and by the flashes of lightning could discern with -our faces pressed close to the panes that we were just entering upon the -track of a storm. Trees were uprooted and lay in confusion beside the -track. But we could see little, and I gave scarcely a thought to it as I -sat on the hard, uncushioned seat, with my lap full of bags and wraps, -and watched Mildred a few seats in front of me as she talked cheerily to -the tired little children. Our destination was to be the little mining -town of Blivens, and we were to reach it at half-past eight. - -On we went whizzing through the darkness, the train rocking from side to -side, and the red-kerchiefed, brown faces of the women lighting up -picturesquely the dark mysterious shadows. We were about to reach our -destination, and I had just risen to rest my stiffened limbs, when -suddenly I was thrown headlong down the aisle, and a hideous grating, -jarring noise drowned every other sound. Then a sense of falling, -rolling, pitching, of absolute darkness, and of frightful pain. - -I lay I know not how long. One foot and hand were pinioned under -something hard and immovable, the other foot doubled under me, and my -head twisted awry and also immovable. I was lying between two bodies, -one above and one under me. Something warm was dripping down over my -face, and shrieks and dying groans rent the air. - -I was too stunned at first to think what it meant. I was conscious only -of pain, horrible pain, such as I had never dreamed of before. I could -not cry out, I could not move. Oh, would help never come? - -What was this horrible thing that had happened? A moment ago—no, was it -not an hour ago?—we were alive and well; and now? Oh, why had God let -this horrible thing happen? And Mildred—where was she? Perhaps she was -dead; and I should be dead too very soon, and nothing would matter much. - -I remember thinking then, strangely enough, “I am glad she has made her -will.” - -Suddenly a dull glow, a gleam of light, then a hoarse yell of despair -from a score of voices, “Da ist Feuer!” “_The train is on fire!_” - -My heart stopped beating. Were the horrors of a holocaust to be added to -this agony? - -Oh, the long, fearful minutes! A horrid glare lit up the blackness of -the night, and nearer, nearer crept the crackling flames! - -O Christ! will no one come to rescue us, will not the clouds in mercy -pour down their treasures to stop this demon flame! - -But no! The rain had ceased, and on, on, steadily on came the frightful -scorching flames. - -It was now as light as day. In the red glare I could see black figures -moving swiftly, men running wildly about and desperately pulling and -tearing at the splintered sides of the car. - -But oh, how feeble all their efforts! How utterly futile seemed all -human strength to cope with these frightful forces that held us -relentlessly in their grasp! - -“Well, it will soon be over, soon be over,” I groaned to myself. “The -torture shall not be long if with my free hand I can get a quicker -death,” I resolved in the desperation of my agony. - -It seemed hours to us wretches lying there ’twixt hell and heaven, but I -suppose it was only minutes. Then there was a cracking, a breaking. An -iron crowbar in the hands of a man had broken through the débris and was -lifting the frightful weight from my arm. - -I could see his face distinctly, as with the giant strength of a madman, -but with the clear eye of one who was a born general, he marshaled his -panic-stricken followers and bade them aid him. - -“Here, Jim,” he shouted hoarsely, his voice rising above the roar of the -flames, “hold on there! Now you and Tom and the rest, _pull!—pull as you -never pulled before_!” - -But it was all in vain; as well try to lift a mountain. - -“Take this child,” groaned a muffled voice at my side, and as the strong -arms of the stranger lifted little Hans limp and lifeless, and hastily -laid him in the soft dark mud behind him, I saw for the first time -Mildred’s white face beside me. - -“There ain’t no use, boss,” cried the men in a frenzy, and stopping to -wring their hands. “We can’t do nothing; _they’ve got to burn alive_!” - -“Then for God’s sake give me your pistol or your knife!” I cried -fiercely. - -“Yes, Mildred,” I protested, “it’s right, it’s right. If we must die, -let it be quickly, and not by inches.” - -But Mildred did not hear. She was looking at the stranger with wild, -staring eyes, and for an instant, as if paralyzed, he gazed at her. Then -a look of such agony as I never saw on a human face convulsed his -features, and he cried, “_Boys, once more! I must save this woman!_” and -while they stood wringing helpless hands, he, with knotted veins and -starting eyes, made one herculean effort, and Mildred was in his arms -and free. - -I saw them stagger and fall together, while the bright blood in a -crimson torrent poured from his lips and dyed her white, clinging hands. - -Then I knew nothing more. I have a vague recollection of a roar as of -Niagara filling my ears, a sense of being torn limb from limb, a -shuddering thought that this indeed was death and the end had come—and -then blackness. - -I knew not how many hours or days had passed. When I opened my eyes I -was lying on a hard straw bed on the floor of an unplastered attic room. -I could see nothing from where I lay but the corner of a window through -whose panes the sun streamed in, scarce hindered by the torn blue paper -curtain. It shone upon the gorgeous patchwork counterpane upon my bed. -It dazzled my eyes, which felt strangely weak. - -I tried to move, but could not stir; to speak, but could utter no sound. - -Presently, as I lay with closed eyes, I felt that some one had stooped -from behind and looked at me. Then I heard a husky whisper,— - -“She’s sleepin’ real nateral, don’t ye worry a mite. _She_’s agoin’ ter -git on, you can jest bet on that.” This was followed by a heavy tread -which jarred my head with every movement like that of a giant trying to -walk on tiptoe. There was a creaking of a door, then a slow, soft thump, -thump, thump down the uncarpeted stairs, and all was still. - -I lay quiet, wondering what it all meant. Where was I, and what could be -the matter? My head was confused. Was Mildred—hush, there was a voice -near by talking low; it seemed behind me. - -“But it was not so; how could you have thought it so?” - -The voice sounded like Mildred’s. It was weak and trembling. - -“I went East to find you after it was all over between Agnes and me, but -they said you were engaged, you had gone abroad. I could do nothing. I -came back; I had my work, and I tried to live.” - -The other voice I did not know; it was husky and broken. - -There was silence again, and I heard a bustling and tramping about -below, and outside the window locusts buzzing shrilly. - -Voices again. I could not but hear. It was Mildred’s voice. “But did you -love me then in the beginning?” - -There was no answer at first; then it came, a little stronger and -steadier than before. “I should have loved you then if I had dared, but -I was pledged to Agnes; she had promised to be my wife. There came a day -at Concord when I saw my danger. I knew that I must not dare to see you -again. I prayed that I might be kept from being false to the woman whom -I had asked to love me, so I went away and tried to forget. After all, I -had known you for only a few days, and I had known her from childhood. -She was true as steel. She trusted me; and when with her again I was -glad to find at last that life could still be rich and sweet, and I be -spared from baseness.” - -“Then why, why”—Mildred began; but she hesitated, and her voice died -away. - -“It came about in this way,” said the other voice after a pause. “I had -studied for the ministry, you know. Agnes had rejoiced to think that she -was to share my work. I had decided from the first to give myself to the -home mission work either in the far West or among the colored people at -the South. She was all enthusiasm and zeal. She was a noble woman; but -oh—well, it is a long story, a long story.” Another pause; then, “Do you -know how unjust and bitter a woman can be when she thinks that she alone -is intrusted with the decrees of the Almighty? - -“As her lover, I must be frank with her, I must conceal nothing. I told -her all, little by little, of what I had come to believe and see. It -only made her tremble with horror. She saw that I was not ready to -preach the gospel which she believed. She felt that I was going -no-whither. ‘You have denied God’s Word and made your reason your God,’ -she said. ‘I can never dare trust my future with you unless you promise -me once and forever to abandon reading these dreadful books which are -leading you farther and farther from the truth.’ - -“I tried argument, but it was of no avail. ‘I am no logician; I cannot -argue and reason with a college-bred man like you. You could readily -refute my simple talk to your own satisfaction,’ she said; ‘but all the -philosophy in the world cannot change my faith. My husband’s God must be -the one whom I serve.’ - -“I did not know how I had really loved her until I found I was breaking -her heart. It was pitiful. I tried to show her how I loved the same God -whom she served, but she said, while the tears choked her voice: - -“‘No, Ralph, let us not deceive ourselves; we look at the world in a -radically different way. There can be no compromises so long as this -exists.’ So we parted.” - -“And then you—you came here?” queried Mildred faintly. - -“Yes. My life at first seemed wrecked; but I had my work, and though I -could not ask any Missionary Board to send me out, I determined to come -alone and serve God, if not in the pulpit, then perhaps as well some -other way. - -“I came with the first miners. I lived with them and worked for them. I -helped them build their first log huts. I opened the first store here, -but as I sold no liquor it was hard to contend with the other shops -which soon were rivals of mine. - -“But I made enough to live on. That was all I cared for. I had come here -to save men, not to save money. - -“First I started a reading-room, here in my room. It was open to them -all, and after a while we had an evening class. Then I began a Sunday -school, and they all came at first just to oblige me because I asked -them, but afterwards because they liked it. Then at last I began a -regular Sunday service. - -“I love these rough fellows, and they have learned to love me. I do what -I can for them. I would not change my work for the richest parish in the -country. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am helping to shape -the future of this whole region. - -“These men have loved me in a rough, hearty way, and I thank God for it, -for sometimes the loneliness has been terrible. - -“Agnes married a missionary and went to India, and after a while I saw -that it was best so, though it was bitter to me at first. - -“I felt that you, the only other woman for whom I ever had cared, had -forgotten me. I did not dare to think that you had remembered me, but I -could not rest until I knew. I made the long journey East. I felt that I -could not be denied until I had heard the final word from your lips. I -reached Boston the very day that you sailed from New York; and I heard -that you were to marry a rich man on your return. - -“Well, I tried to bear it as best I could. I came back to my work. After -the little glimpse of civilization and comfort that I had had, this -dreary little place seemed drearier still; but I had brought books with -me, and they helped me. - -“One day, as I sat here feeling lonely, wretched, forlorn, I picked up -my Thomas à Kempis, and suddenly a light seemed to break in upon me, and -I said, ‘O fool, you with strength and vigor and opportunities, you who -have the inherited wisdom of the world at your command, you the heir of -all the ages, the son of a King!—shall _you_ mourn and complain because -Heaven denies you one boon? When was it ever decreed that you should be -so favored above all other mortals as to be completely happy in this -world of pain? Should the servant be above his Master?’ - -“So then I tried to learn to be content. I found something better than -happiness,—it has been blessedness. - -“I study when I can. But I am studying humanity chiefly. I am learning -how to fill the needs of these brothers of mine. I am trying to show -them that there is something better than the gold which seems to them -the only thing worth working for. Yes, I love my work.” - -There was a note of exultation in the voice, weak though it was, which -thrilled me. I think I must have dozed, for the voices again sounded -faint and far away. Presently as I returned to consciousness I heard the -voice saying in little broken gasps of pain, “But oh, Mildred darling, -do you know what this means? Do you know what it means when you promise -to be willing to take me for better or for worse? You love books and -pictures and music and beauty. Can I consent to see you deprived of them -all, to share my lot? - -“You do not know me yet. You are grateful to me for saving you; but it -was simple humanity—humanity, nothing more. I was a fool to speak out as -I did just now; it was only my weakness and selfishness. No, I cannot -let you bind yourself yet; wait till you are well, till your friends -come. - -“You say they have wealth. What will they think of your giving them all -up to settle in this dismal place and be the wife of a man who has not -five hundred dollars in the world, and can offer you nothing but a life -of toil? - -“No, you shall be free. Forget that I dared to speak, that I dared for a -moment to think—What? Why—why, Mildred, you are laughing!” - -“Oh,” said Mildred in a different tone, “I—that is, I was only thinking -of _love in a cottage_. I am not afraid of being poor; I can work too.” - -“Ah, yes; but being poor in Boston, where you have the largest public -library in the world, and the free Lowell lectures, and a glorious -symphony concert now and then for only fifty cents, is one thing; and to -be poor here, to stand at the washtub, and to scrub and clean and bake -and mend, is quite another. There would be little call here for the work -which you love and can do so well. These rough, hard-working men have -little time or inclination to hear of Goethe or Dante. - -“It would be cruel for me to let these soft, white hands grow hard and -rough, to let your life which elsewhere could be so rich run to waste -here.” - -“Would it not be far more cruel,” asked Mildred tenderly, “to keep me -from the man I love?” - -“Mildred dear, I am awake,” I tried to say, for through my bewildered -brain the meaning of all this had begun to penetrate, and I realized for -the first time that I had been hearing what was too sacred for any other -ears than those of Mildred and her lover, Ralph Everett. - -But the words choked in my throat, there was only an inarticulate -murmur, and the voices ceased. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - “And a voice said in mastery while I strove, - Guess now who holds thee?— - ‘Death,’ I said; - But there the silver answer rang, - ‘Not Death, but Love.’” - SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. - - -Some time elapsed ere I divined where we were, and then I discovered -that we had been carried to Mr. Everett’s house and were all lying in -the attic over the store. Mildred had been placed on his cot-bed by the -book-shelves, and he lay on a lounge a few feet distant. - -After a time my straw bed, which had been borrowed from a neighbor, was -turned about so that I could see them. I was too weak to talk, but I -loved to lie and look at them when the terrible pain gave me a moment’s -respite to think of anything beside my own woes. - -The little town was crowded; not a spare room but had been gladly given -up to the sufferers. - -Little by little I learned all that had happened. A tree had been -uprooted in the wild storm and had fallen across the track. The engine, -the baggage car, and the first car had been derailed. The loss of life -had not been great. Poor Hélène, the little German woman and her baby -were the only ones who had not been rescued. - -But in all the cottages around lay the helpless, wounded people, who had -come so far over land and sea only to meet this terrible fate. - -The telegraph lines had been thrown down in the storm, and it was two -days before word could be sent and the débris cleared away so that -trains could come from the west. The little German doctor who had set my -bones while I was unconscious, and had left medicine for us all, did not -appear but once or twice after the first call, for there were a score or -more of poor, maimed creatures, some of them his own countrymen, who -needed him even more sorely than we. - -What would have become of us during those three days of partial -unconsciousness and suffering and impatient waiting for our friends if -it had not been for “Jim”! - -Jim was a character. Not even the pain could so wholly banish my sense -of humor as to prevent my seeing that. - -I could not learn whether there was a woman in town or not, but I -afterwards heard that Jim had let it be understood that he was -commissioned by the “boss” to be his sole attendant, and warn every one -else to keep his distance. Half a dozen times a day the big, freckled, -red-haired fellow creaked up the stairs in his stocking feet, bringing -water and gruel and bouquets of gorgeous nasturtiums and crimson phlox -from his little garden patch across the way. Jim had an eye for the -beautiful, and thought it a pity that we should have nothing better to -look upon than the long rows of sombre books which lined one side of the -walls and formed Mr. Everett’s library. - -Accordingly the poor man had stripped his own bachelor premises of all -the precious adornments sent him by his sweetheart for the last three -Christmases. There was a gilded sugar-scoop tied with pink ribbons, and -a remarkable landscape painted on the concave surface of the interior. -There was also a rolling-pin with a covering of French blue plush, -adorned with gilded handles, and bearing on its surface a large -thermometer surmounted by a gilded spread eagle. - -These were especially devoted to my benefit, for which I was duly -appreciative. Over Mildred’s bed was hung a “God Bless Our Home,” -wonderfully worked in the national colors; and beside Mr. Everett’s sofa -was placed a gilded milking-stool of convenient height for holding vials -and glasses, the legs artistically interlaced with scarlet ribbons, and -the seat decorated with a painting, whether of Vesuvius in eruption or a -dish of crushed tomatoes, I was never quite sure. - -From the low window near which my bed was drawn Jim proudly pointed out -to me his own quarters opposite. The house was an unpainted wooden -structure of one story, and evidently possessed a slanting roof with -gables, though the architect had erected a sham façade which gave the -appearance, when one took a front view, of a house with a flat roof. - -Extending across the whole front of the house was a sign of unique -character painted in black on a pink ground, of which I subjoin an exact -copy. - - 1886. - FRANKLIN - PHILOSOPHIC - HERMITAGE - - INDEPENDENT SCIENTIFIC REPAIR SHOP. - CLOCKS, COOPERING, CHAIN SAWS FILED - TIN WARE, POLITICS & THEOLOGY TINKERED - HUZZAH FOR - THE UNION - LABOR PARTY. - -“Jim is an odd stick,” Mr. Everett once said with a feeble smile, as the -awkward fellow was heard anathematizing himself as he descended the -stairs after an accidental bang of the door, which made us all wince. - -“Jim is odd, but he has mighty good stuff in him. There isn’t anything -that fellow would not do for me, though when I first came here he was -pretty fiery; a regular dynamiter you would have thought. But since I -started the debating club, and got him to reading history a little, he -has calmed down a good deal, and has come to find that hard facts are -worth more than all his former rhetorical pyrotechnics about the -down-trodden workingman.” - -At last, with pale and terror-stricken faces, came aunt Madison and Will -and Alice with Dr. Ellsworth from Tacoma. Then ensued a new order of -things. Jim vanished, talking was forbidden, the noise everywhere -disappeared, and the clumsy carts passed silently beneath our window -over a thick bed of straw, while tall screens, improvised from sheets -and clothes-horses, separated us from each other the greater part of the -time. For there was not another room in town to be had, and the little -grocery below had been metamorphosed into sleeping apartments for our -four attendants. They alternately watched and slept. - -The new physician threw away the old medicines, substituted new ones, -and looked with grave anxiety on Mildred’s flushed face and bounding -pulse. She had no bones broken and but a slight wound, and had insisted -that my broken bones be set first. - -After the first shock, the excitement of meeting Mr. Everett and anxiety -for us all had sustained her, but now she was sinking fast. The delay in -attending to her at the beginning was telling upon her. Whether it was -the July heat, the sight of so many faces, and the necessary disturbance -when so many were forced to be in one room, I do not know, but as the -days went by none of us grew better. - -Mildred was too ill to be moved to her car. Mr. Everett, though in a -fair way to recover, was too weak to stir after his terrible hemorrhage -and the strain upon his whole system; while I could not endure to be -touched without extreme pain. So during the July days we lay there -together in the unfinished attic room, watching the doctor come and go, -and tended by loving hands that divided their ministrations and the -delicacies that they brought with the suffering ones who lay not far -distant. - -“Do everything for them that I would have had done,” were Mildred’s -words to cousin Will, which he understood as Mr. Everett did not. For no -one was allowed to tell him that this sweet girl lying there, who I -alone knew was his promised wife, was no longer the teacher whom he -thought her. - -But the doctor’s face looked graver and graver as the days wore on. He -sat up half the night with us, performing the combined duties of nurse -and physician. - -One morning, as he came in looking weary and jaded after but four hours’ -rest, he sat down by Mildred’s bed, with a face that in spite of his -habitual professional attempt at gayety could not conceal the gravest -concern. - -He felt her pulse and motioned furtively to aunt Madison, who stood with -brimming eyes studying his every motion. Mildred glanced up and read the -meaning of his look. She said nothing for a moment; then with an effort -to keep her voice steady she said, quietly, “Doctor, be honest with me: -shall I live?” - -“My dear, I”—and the doctor coughed and turned away his head; “I—we”—he -glanced at Mr. Everett, who with eyes that were blazing like coals in -their sockets had half risen on his elbow and seemed devouring every -word,—“my dear, I hope so.” - -“Yes, I understand,” replied Mildred calmly, after a searching look at -the physician’s half-averted face, “I understand, and I am not afraid; -but it is necessary that some things be done, and done quickly.” - -She lay a few moments quietly thinking. No one stirred or spoke, and the -silence was broken only by aunt Madison’s half-stifled sobs, as she -turned away to hide her emotion. Presently Mildred looked up. - -“Is there a lawyer in the village?” she asked. “I want to change my—that -is, I want to attend to a few little matters of business that must not -be left undone.” - -“No,” replied Mr. Everett huskily; “there was one who did a little -business, but he died a month ago.” - -Mildred said nothing for a few minutes, then looking up, with a pale -face and lips drawn tense, she said, “Auntie, I must be married to-day.” - -We all gave an involuntary cry. Mr. Everett drew his hand over his eyes. -Dr. Ellsworth and aunt Madison exchanged looks of amazement as if to -say, “Is the girl beside herself?” I alone understood what it all meant. - -“Yes, auntie,” Mildred continued. “I have not yet told you; I meant to, -by and by. I did not think it was to be here and now; I meant to have it -all so different; but my strength is going, I do not know whether I -shall—I dare not wait.” - -She gave a little gasp of pain, and was silent a moment; then she added, -in a voice which I could scarcely hear, “I have told Mr. Everett that I -love him. I have promised to be his wife.” - -No one spoke when Mildred had finished, and she lay with closed eyes, -while aunt Madison stood as if struck dumb, gazing incredulously from -one to the other. She had learned that they were old friends, that he -had saved her life; perhaps she had suspected more, but this sudden -announcement paralyzed her for a moment. - -Mr. Everett half rose again from his couch and leaned toward Mildred as -if to speak, but the words died on his lips, and he sank back exhausted -and lay motionless. - -Aunt Madison softly left the room, but soon returned, and kneeling by -Mildred’s side they whispered together. What was said I never knew, but -I was certain that Mildred’s thought was for Ralph’s inheritance. - -An hour later, another physician, who had been telegraphed for the -previous day, arrived. He stepped softly into the room, and for a long -time gazed intently at Mildred as she lay asleep, and then he slipped -out, and I heard faint murmurings of voices in the room below as the two -physicians held a consultation. - -“Oh, Mildred, my more than sister,” I inwardly groaned; “must I lie here -helpless and see your precious life going from us? Were you snatched -from the jaws of death but to fall back again a helpless victim? If this -must be, oh that we had died together before rescue came!” - -I had given my whole heart to this girl. I had loved her with a love -which made all other friendships of my life seem as nothing. In loving -her I felt that I had first learned what love meant, and my little, -petty life had been made deeper, broader, and full of hitherto -undreamed-of possibilities. - -The hours wore away, the hours of Mildred’s wedding-day. “Send Jim for -Mr. Lightfoot,” Mr. Everett had said to Will. “He will know where to -find him. He is the only regular clergyman within fifty miles.” - -He had been sent for post-haste, and that evening, just as the sun was -sinking in the west and lighting up in gorgeous splendor the little -attic where we lay, a tall, gray-haired man in a rusty, black -frock-coat, and with prayer-book in hand, climbed softly up the creaking -stairs and paused in the doorway, glancing in a tender, fatherly way at -the two pale faces which looked up to greet his coming. - -The windows were opened, and the blue paper curtains had disappeared to -be replaced by white muslin ones. A dozen pitchers were placed around -the room containing the brilliant wild flowers of the neighborhood that -had been sent in by Jim and his friends. A wreath of golden-rod and -purple asters at Jim’s desire was laid upon the white counterpane at -Mildred’s feet. For the news that there was for some strange reason to -be a marriage had spread like wildfire, and many a rough, sunburned man -had tapped softly at the door of the little shop to ask what it meant, -and beg Alice, who stood on guard, to be allowed to come up and stand, -if only in the doorway, and see the “boss” married. - -One day, a month later, Alice told me all about it. “You don’t suppose, -Miss, he’s agoin ter die?” asked one of them, as they stood around the -door in a quiet, awe-struck group. “I don’t know what we fellers ’ud -ever do without him,” he added huskily, as he drew the back of his grimy -hand across his eyes. - -“I don’t go much on religion,” said another, who sat on the doorstep -leaning his head in his hands; “but I’ll be blamed ef that ere feller, -with all his college larnin’ and soft-spoken ways, a-comin’ out here and -roughin’ it with us, and a-nursin’ and a-teachin’ and a-helpin’ of us -all,—I’ll be blamed if that ain’t the Christianest thing I ever see.” - -I did not wonder that these men loved their teacher. - -Ralph—I learned to call him that afterwards, so I call him so now, for -it seems more natural—Ralph Everett had a face such as one sees only -once or twice in a lifetime. I did not wonder that Mildred loved it so -that she kept awake to look at it as he slept. - -The forehead was broad and low, from which the brown hair rose thick and -abruptly, framing the strong, almost rugged face. The eyes—such eyes! -They were the frankest, truest eyes that ever glorified a human face. -Not even Mildred’s eyes were like those, although hers could sparkle or -command or grow wonderfully soft and tender. The chin and mouth were -hidden in a luxuriant blond beard, in which gleamed now and then a -silver thread. The broad chest, the sunburned face and hands which the -pallor of sickness was fast restoring to their pristine whiteness, all -evinced a strong, active life, strangely contrasting with the pitiful -helplessness which had now prostrated it. - -But surely strength and health would soon return; surely love would -triumph; and these two, so strangely reunited in the very jaws of death, -would some day make all previous joys as nothing to that deep, full, -complete satisfaction with which heaven should crown their lives; these -two, who seemed of all the world the ones most worthy of such -blessedness. - -I had dreamed it all out. Some beautiful day in the months to come I -should stand as bride’s-maid beside a happy, white-robed bride. There -would be flowers and music and smiles. There would be the strong, -gallant lover, the one man of all the world who was worthy to wed my -precious Mildred. The man whom she would always know had married her for -herself alone, a man whom wealth or happiness could not tempt, who -should nobly help her in the great work that she had set herself to do. - -To tell the truth, I had thought also, with almost a pang of jealousy, -what this would mean to me, and what my life would be without her. - -I could scarcely realize that now, here, in this brown, unplastered -attic room, in a dreary frontier mining town, with no music but the -chirping of the August crickets in the little field behind us, without -wedding-robe or wedding guests, my Mildred was to become a bride. - -They bolstered me up to see it all, as well as could be done with my -splintered leg and arm. I was trembling violently, and the doctor gave -me a sedative powder and sat by me with hand on my pulse. Ralph’s lounge -had been moved beside Mildred’s cot. His face was as deadly pale as her -own. - -“Mildred,” he whispered hoarsely,—they had not spoken to each other -since in the morning when she had said she would marry him,—“Mildred, -have you counted the cost? Think, darling, you may get well; do you -realize what you are doing?” - -“Yes, far better than you do,” she replied with a faint smile. - -The clergyman quietly took his place at the foot of the bed, and as the -solemn words of the Episcopal marriage service broke the silence, -Mildred, who had been lying with closed eyes, started visibly. She had -not before observed that the clergyman had a prayer-book. I could see -that she was greatly agitated, and instantly divined the cause. - -She had always declared that she would never under any conditions allow -herself to be married by that service. - -I knew her reasons for this and how strongly she felt about it, so I -understood what her consternation must be now. All this flashed through -my brain before the clergyman had read three lines. - -Then Mildred gave a little gasp. A crimson flush leaped into her cheeks, -and I knew her mind was made up. Instantly her voice broke in, strangely -clear and strong. - -“Please wait, sir,” she said. “I beg your pardon. I did not know this -service was to be used. I cannot be married by it. Can you not -substitute some other?” - -Every one but Ralph was thunderstruck; but they were getting inured to -surprises, and no one spoke while the clergyman, for a moment too -shocked to reply, gazed in blank amazement into Mildred’s earnest eyes. - -But Ralph understood, and said calmly, “No, dear, he cannot. I should -have thought of this before. I am not willing that you should promise -what this service contains. So, in the presence of God and of these -witnesses, we two alone will bind ourselves lawfully in the marriage -bond.” - -Then, holding Mildred’s right hand in his, while the minister stood -wonderingly aside, he said with clear, unshaken voice: - -“I take thee, Mildred, to be my lawful, wedded wife, to love and to -serve, to comfort and cherish, to honor and keep, so long as we both -shall live; and thereto, God helping, I plight thee my troth.” - -A deathly pallor had crept over Mildred’s face. Just then the last rays -of the setting sun for a moment streamed into the little room, -irradiating its bare walls, and transfiguring with magic light those two -faces on which we were gazing with breathless silence. - -Then, after a moment’s pause, Mildred with a great effort leaned an inch -nearer, and gently taking Ralph’s brown hand in both her slender white -ones, said, with blanched lips: - -“I take thee, Ralph, to be my lawful, wedded husband, to love and to -serve, to comfort and cherish, to honor and keep, so long as we both -shall live; and thereto, God helping, I plight thee my troth.” - -After the last words had died tremblingly away on Mildred’s lips, the -clergyman at a sign from her lifted his voice in prayer, while Alice -kneeled sobbing by the bedside, and over my eyes there came a mist. My -senses reeled, and I remember no more. - -Weeks afterward Alice told me that Mr. Lightfoot had gone away with a -fatherly benediction, and a purse the richer by a thousand dollars for -the marriage service which he did not perform. - -The days went by, and I knew but little. The tall, white screen shut out -everything from me. I was too weak to ask about Mildred, but I knew that -she had not left us. Surely God had been merciful. She was still to live -and love and bless the world. - -At last came a day,—it was the first day of September, I recall,—the -very day when we had planned to reach San Francisco on our return from -the Alaskan trip which we had contemplated; the screen was removed, and -Mildred and Ralph, still pale and wan, but with the glow of returning -health lighting up their happy faces, sat beside me and whispered words -of farewell. - -“Oh, Mildred, you did not die, you are alive,” I sobbed weakly, too -happy to keep the tears back. - -“Yes, darling,” she said, “for it was love that saved me. I had -something to live for, and I fought hard. Now I am to leave you for a -while. My husband and I” (how proudly she said that), “my husband and I -are going away.” - -“Her aunt Madison has kindly offered us her beautiful, private car, and -we are going away for a long rest before we come back to our work,” said -Ralph innocently, and I saw that for some reason Mildred had still kept -him ignorant of the fact that he had married a great heiress instead of -a poor teacher. “This is to be our honey-moon, you know,” he added, -looking at her with the lovelight shining in his eyes. “We are going -quietly. No one but Jim is to know of it, for the doctor says we must -spare ourselves the excitement of the good-byes which would have to be -said if the people knew we were going. The men have been clamoring for a -month to see me, and it has been hard for me to keep quiet and not let -them come.” - -“How would you feel,” asked his wife in a careless tone, “if you had -married a rich woman, who would ask you to go away and never come back -to work here again?” and Mildred, who was holding my hand, gave it a -mischievous little squeeze as she looked demurely out of the window and -awaited his reply. - -“I don’t know. I am afraid I could not quite forgive her unless she gave -me better work to do elsewhere. I could not be idle, you know, even with -you, darling,” he answered, smiling at the bright face beside him. - -“Ah, the world is large; there are many who need us; rich or poor, we -will find our work somewhere,” said Mildred softly, as if to herself. -Then as Jim’s steps were heard at the door she started. - -“Come, Ralph, one last look at your books and room, it may be long -before we return. Kiss Ruby, too; you must be her brother now, you -know.” - -Two warm kisses were on my cheek, then the door opened and shut, and -they were gone. - -Everything had been arranged for my comfort, and a month later, when I -was able to travel in a private car which Mildred had sent us, aunt and -Alice, cousin Will and I, were on the Northern Pacific Road again, bound -eastward. And with us went the motherless little Karl and Annchen to -find a new home and many friends. - -One day, as we were speeding along over the Dakota prairies, Alice and I -fell to talking as usual about the summer that was past and its strange, -strange ending. Suddenly Alice exclaimed, “But, Ruby, I never thought to -ask you before; _do_ you understand why Mildred, on her deathbed as we -supposed, should have stopped that minister? I thought I understood most -of her ideas, but _that_ was inexplicable to me.” - -“Yes, I understand it, I suppose, for I once had an argument with her -about it,” I replied. “I remember we had been to a stylish wedding at -Trinity. There were ten bridesmaids, and the bride was dressed like a -princess, and I remember how, as we drove away, Mildred exclaimed that -she would rather have been married in a print dress in a log-cabin and -promise what was honorable and true, than to have had the beautiful -display which this bride had, and make such promises as she had done. - -“‘It is the most beautiful service in the world,’ I stoutly maintained; -‘pray what can you object to in it?’ - -“‘In the first place, the giving away of the bride is a humiliating -thing,’ she said: ‘it is a relic of the feudal times, when a woman -actually _was_ given away. It implies dependence; a woman is thus simply -passed along from the guardianship of one man to that of another.’ - -“This was a novel idea which impressed me at first as being needlessly -crotchety. ‘Then, of course,’ I replied, ‘you object to the promise to -obey.’ - -“‘Certainly,’ said Mildred. ‘I should not respect myself if I could make -such a promise. Obedience implies authority, and a man and his wife are -equal. They do not stand in the relation of master and servant, employer -and employee, or parent and child.’ - -“‘Yes; but it doesn’t mean anything,’ I expostulated, ‘it is simply a -form.’ - -“‘So much the worse,’ was her uncompromising answer. ‘I will have no -idle forms, no humiliating promises which I should not intend to keep. -If I ever find the man whom I can marry, I think I shall love him enough -not to be selfish and willful, and he will love me enough to respect me -as his equal. There can be no question of authority and obedience in the -true marriage. - -“‘Then, moreover,’ she said, ‘I object to the man’s making the promise, -“With all my worldly goods I thee endow.” In nine cases out of ten he -does nothing of the sort, and the wife usually asks for every dollar -that she gets!’ - -“So you perceive that after hearing her say this I was not so much -astounded as the rest of you were,” I concluded. - -“Well,” said Alice, drawing a long breath and looking meditatively at -the diamond engagement-ring on her white finger, “I never in my life saw -such an extraordinary girl as Mildred. - -“Now, I have vowed that I would never be married but by that beautiful -time-honored service. Dear me! if we all took everything to heart as -literally as she does, what would become of society?” - -“It would probably learn to speak truth and not lies,” I answered. - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - - -In the next few months I had many letters from Mildred and Ralph, -letters full of the warm interest in life which came with returning -health and were an index of unceasing thought and activity in numberless -directions. Scarcely a state or territory from Utah to Virginia was left -unvisited and unbenefited by their brief stay. - -Their course was not merely in the beaten track, a superficial glimpse -of the larger towns and fashionable resorts, but far away from railroads -and civilization. On horseback tours in forest and mountain regions they -passed from cabin to cabin among poor whites and blacks, studying the -people and their possibilities, the country and its resources. - -The letters which Mildred sent me during these months would fill half a -volume, but I can find space for only one extract from them. - -“Oh, my dear,” she once wrote, “I thought I knew before how much there -was that needed to be done, but I am finding every day, after all, how -little I actually realized the true state of things. It is not so much -the physical discomfort that appeals to my pity, as the apathy, the -ignorance and lack of ambition for anything better; the bitter religious -and political prejudices that still linger, and the spectacle of a -population increasing in numbers and increasing in illiteracy. - -“Of course there are thousands of exceptions to all these observations. -I am not pessimistic. - -“The South is awaking, is advancing rapidly in many ways, and, as I pass -swiftly from place to place and see new facts and phases of life, I am -constantly forced to reconsider and readjust my previous convictions. -Yet on the whole the main impression which I had in the beginning -survives. Here is a vast territory practically not so well known to us -Northerners as most European countries, and with a people who know us -far less than we know them; and here, as I am sometimes almost compelled -to believe, is the field for all my work and energy. - -“If I had twice my wealth, I believe I should spend half of it in the -South. I would engage a few thousand of the best of our ‘surplus’ women -of New England and scatter them through the length and breadth of this -Southern land, and set them at work doing some of the things which so -need to be done. - -“As it is, I have picked out certain strategic places where I shall put -a few at work, and for the boy or girl who is willing to study and not -afraid of manual labor, I have made a good education possible. - -“That is the most that can be done. Putting the right persons in the -right places is the best that I can do, and then they must do the rest. - -“As you know, I have never felt inclined to put my money into building -new institutions, thinking it best to work in other ways, or to help -sustain those institutions already established. But in these last months -my heart has gone out to the thousands of neglected little colored -children of the South who are orphans, and who in many places have not -even a county poorhouse to shelter them. - -“I am thinking of establishing an orphanage in every one of the Southern -states similar to the one at Chattanooga which I have recently visited. -I could talk to you for hours about that brave Northern woman, Mrs. -Steele, who has so nobly been giving her life to this work. - -“At first persecuted, ostracized, and despised, her building erected at -her own cost burned by incendiaries, she has gone unflinchingly on, -until now she has won the respect and has the aid of the best society in -Chattanooga. - -“She has rescued hundreds of poor little orphan waifs from the -chain-gang where they were put for petty offenses, and from the street -where they roamed, with no bed but the sidewalk and gutter. She has -clothed them, fed them, taught them, mothered them, and saved them. In -all the South I can hear of but one other colored orphanage, for I find -that the people for the most part are not yet ready to tax themselves -for the support of ‘little nigger brats.’” - -I did not see Mildred until February. She had telegraphed me to meet her -in New York, saying in her message that she and Ralph were about to go -abroad for four years. - -By this time I had thrown away my crutch and was myself again, and I -hastened to meet her, as she had appointed, at our old rooms at the -Fifth Avenue Hotel. - -She was out when I arrived, and I watched eagerly from the window for -her coming. Presently I saw her,—how vividly I recall the picture,—her -hand on her husband’s arm, tripping along briskly in the winter air, the -roses in her cheeks, her tall, slight figure clad in a trim suit of dark -green, her head surmounted by a soft toque of the same color, trimmed -with rich green holly-leaves and red berries. - -How beautiful she was! More beautiful than ever, I thought, as in -glancing up she caught a glimpse of me waiting, breathless, and threw me -a kiss with girlish glee. In a moment we were in each other’s arms. - -How tall and stalwart Ralph looked as he seized my hand in his strong -grasp! - -I remembered that Mildred had once likened him to a young Norse god, and -I did not wonder. As for Mildred, after the first greetings were over -and we had ensconced ourselves on a _tête-à-tête_ for an evening’s talk, -I soon perceived that a certain indefinable change had come over her. I -could hardly tell what it was at first. - -There was a vivacity and charm and sprightliness that I had never seen -before. I had always thought her charming, though perhaps a bit too -reserved and dignified. Some people had thought her cold, but I knew -better. Now all the latent passion and warmth of her nature had been -aroused, and I saw that she had possibilities of which I had not -dreamed. - -“What is it, Mildred?” I asked, after Ralph had left us alone. “Somehow -you seem—I scarcely know what to say—you seem so young and happy, as -if”— - -Mildred finished, “as if I had been drinking of the elixir of life and -had become a new creature. Yes, dear,” she added, “and so I have. Oh, I -am so happy, so unspeakably happy!” - -Then suddenly turning impulsively and throwing her arms around me, her -face shining with a new light, she exclaimed, “How I wish every one else -were as happy too. - -“Sometimes it seems as if it were too much, as if in this sorrowful -world I had no right to be so supremely happy. So often in these last -months,” she added musingly, “I have said to myself those lines that -seemed written for me alone: - - “‘The face of all the world is changed, I think, - Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul, ... - Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink - Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, - Was caught up into love and taught the whole - Of life in a new rhythm....’ - -“Yes,” continued Mildred after a little pause, and her eyes grew soft -and tender, “a year ago I thought that love would never come, and I now -sometimes tremble at the thought of what I came so near missing. I do -not know how, once having learned the blessedness of this love, I could -have courage to live if Ralph were taken and I left. Oh,” she added in a -broken whisper, as for a moment she bowed her head in her hands, “if -when death comes it will only mercifully take us both together.” Ah me! -How little we both dreamed in what way that prayer was to be answered. - -Presently she raised her head and continued, while her warm arms were -about me again and my head lay pillowed on her shoulder. “Ralph is so -kind, so good, so tender, so unselfish! Really, at first he seemed -almost sorry when I told him my secret and he learned that he had -married an heiress, as if he had lost the joy of working for me. How he -thanked me for keeping the secret! - -“And oh, Ruby, the thought of what he is makes me so ashamed of myself,” -added Mildred humbly. “I have come to see how far beyond anything that I -have done was his noble consecration of all his time and culture and -ability to enrich the lives of those rough frontier men, while I have -done nothing but sit in a velvet chair and sign cheques for money which -I did not earn, and could never spend on myself.” - -Then, after a pause: “Well, little sister,” she continued, “you do not -know, and I have no words to tell you, of my happiness. I never dreamed -of what I was losing in all those years before love came. I used to feel -so strong and self-contained and independent, and now, it is strange -enough, but I hardly know whether I have a mind of my own or not. If I -have, I cannot tell what it is until I have asked Ralph;” and she -laughed a happy laugh. - -“Oh, Mildred, to think that I should ever live to hear you say that!” I -exclaimed, laughing too. “And do you still want to vote and decline to -obey? Is your haughty spirit quelled, and have”— - -“Yes,” said Mildred, ambiguously. “Ralph is even more of a suffragist -than I, and declares that this nation has no right to call itself a -republic so long as one half of the people are disfranchised. And he -says the most splendid thing he ever saw a woman do was my stopping that -clergyman;” and she laughed again a ringing, girlish laugh. - -After a while we began to talk about Mildred’s plans for the future. - -“I want you to know everything, dear,” she said in her frank, confiding -way. “We are going away for four years, perhaps longer, for I want to -study many things, and I want to see Australia before I return—that is a -country with a future. - -“We must go now, though I leave so much which is only begun and to which -I wish to give my constant personal attention. But the mental strain -this year has been great. I could not live through another like it. We -both want to get far away from our responsibilities and possessions for -a while. I want to gain perspective, to have time for quiet thought and -study. - -“This was my plan from the first, as you know, and now it is imperative. -It is impossible for Ralph to write his book with the cares and -distractions which we are constantly having.” - -“His book?” I asked; “I had not heard of that. Pray what is it about?” - -“It is to treat of the colored races in our country. He has been -gathering the material for a long time, and it will be an exhaustive -work,” she answered. Then she added, “I, too, have a little book -planned, but of a very different sort.” - -“What! you, Mildred, an authoress!” I cried. “Shall you really write a -book?” - -“Oh, that is nothing nowadays, when authors are as plenty as cooks and -the world is flooded with literary rubbish,” answered Mildred rather -disdainfully. “Any scribbler can write a book. It takes neither wit nor -wisdom for that.” - -“Of course; but you are not a scribbler, and you won’t write rubbish,” I -retorted: “But tell me, what is it to be about? will it be a story?” - -“No,” she answered. “The public does not need any more stories, at least -mediocre ones, and mine could never be anything else. I trust that I -have too much self-respect left to be guilty of inflicting another -purposeless book on the world’s already overstocked supply. Besides, you -know, Howells says all the stories have been told.” - -“Then what is it?” I asked. “Is it sermons? or sonnets? or”— - -“No,” interposed Mildred; “it is _Suggestions_,—suggestions to the idle -and thoughtless, the rich and the unconsciously selfish. I am confident -that there are some tens of thousands of people in this country who are -tolerably well-meaning, who have a superfluity of leisure and wealth and -strength which they are letting run to waste because no one has -suggested to them what they might do. - -“Few people like to take the initiative. They wait for some one to plan -and organize and tell them definitely what to do. - -“My first intention is to suggest to them that they are peculiarly -privileged mortals, and that life is worth living only on the condition -that one does something with it. That they are sinners above all other -sinners since civilization began, if they let themselves be ignorant of -what they should know and indifferent to the evil which they should -help; the more their culture and ability the greater their debt. - -“I mean to suggest some very practical things which might be done, which -need to be done. There will be suggestions for those who have time and -no money, suggestions for those who have much money and no time, -suggestions for people who think they have neither time nor money, and -suggestions for developing influence and talent where there seems very -little to start with. - -“Not that these will all be particularly new or original. That is not -necessary. We heedless mortals need to have a wise thing said many times -and in many ways before it makes much impression. - -“I shall not attempt to suggest many new principles of work, but simply -to make many new applications of the old ones. - -“Oh, Ruby,” exclaimed Mildred, her mobile features glowing with the -enthusiasm of the thought, “what a metamorphosis of this planet we -little mortals might make if we all did, and did wisely, what it is -quite in our power to do!” - -“Such a book is a capital idea,” I exclaimed, much impressed with her -plan, “and it will have double weight because you have already provided -the most effective object lessons as illustrations of what might be -done.” - -“That is not exactly what I mean,” replied Mildred, shaking her head. -“No; few persons have it in their power to work in the way that I have -done on a large scale. I am not sure after all that this is what is most -needed. - -“Model tenement houses and libraries are not going to save people from -selfishness. There must be the tireless, personal, face-to-face and -hand-to-hand work of men and women who have come to know themselves as -their brothers’ keepers. Institutions and paid agents can never do this -work.” - -“But they can help enormously towards it,” I replied. - -“Certainly,” said Mildred; “they will organize and start the work; but -then it is all these people for whom I shall write my suggestions who -must do the rest of the work, and they alone can make it effective. - -“Now, for instance, here is a plan which Ralph and I have just been -working out. It is to help save the half-grown boys and girls who night -after night find their chief delight in strolling arm in arm through the -streets, with smoking, and vulgar jests and silly laughter. - -“You know well enough what the social dangers are to underpaid, -giddy-headed girls shut up all day in shop or factory and longing for -freedom and companionship. - -“Night after night have Ralph and I walked up and down watching them, -listening to their silly giggles and cheap talk, noting their tawdry -jewelry and ribbons and frowzy bangs. - -“How I pity them! I should so like to make life a little better worth -living for them. Who can blame them for not wanting, after a hard day’s -work, to stay in their crowded, noisy homes or dreary boarding-house -hall-bedrooms? - -“Everywhere that we have been we have made it a practice to visit the -dime museums and cheap theatres, and to study the amusements which these -young people crave! Everywhere I find it the same. - -“I used to know in a vague way about this night-side of things, but not -until recently have I realized the awful temptations which are besetting -these empty-headed girls who have no resources in themselves. - -“Free lectures, or concerts, or libraries have small charm for such as -they. They want to exercise, to flirt, above all to talk and laugh to -their heart’s content. - -“The churches do not meet more than one in a hundred of such girls and -not more than one in a thousand of such young men. They have no desire -to spend an evening at a prayer-meeting, they would feel out of place at -a church sociable, and they are too tired and unambitious to care for -any classes or study. - -“They want a good time; they want ‘fun,’ and they have no idea that it -can be found among members of their own sex alone. And in this their -instinct is half right. - -“These young people ought to exercise and have ‘fun,’ and they ought to -have it together. - -“There are various coffee-rooms for temperate men, and various girls’ -club-rooms for girls alone, but, so far as I know, scarcely a -respectable place in the whole city where an honest, self-respecting, -poor girl can go and be able to meet honorable young men, under the -protection of those who would see that her natural instincts were -gratified without sacrifice of her womanhood. - -“It is just such a place as this that we have decided to establish, a -social club for young men and women, where they may laugh and talk to -their heart’s content and have plenty of innocent fun.” - -“And fall in love with each other?” I inquired. - -“Certainly,” was the reply. “Why not? Does not all experience show it to -be impossible to purify society by breaking natural instincts or -ignoring them? Oh, my dear,” continued Mildred earnestly, “the pure love -of man and woman should be the most blessed thing in life, and I who -know the joy of this love would gladly keep these brothers and sisters -of mine from letting it be trodden in the mire, or on the other hand -slip forever out of their lives.” - -“But how can this be done?” I questioned skeptically. “By simply -substituting for the sidewalk a room in which to giggle and flirt?” - -“Listen,” said Mildred. “We shall not begin by building until the -experiment is assured, but we have already hired ten places in different -parts of the city, where, with the help of the ‘King’s Daughters’ and -the young people of the Society for Christian Endeavor, we shall begin -this work. - -“The first thing we did was to engage a kind-hearted, middle-aged -married woman to be the responsible head of each social club. She is to -see that pleasant pictures are hung upon the walls, that potted plants -are put into the windows, and everything made homelike and cosy and in -good taste. - -“There are to be no printed rules and mottoes hung around the wall, as -if it were an institution and we were trying to do the people good. They -would be suspicious of anything of that sort.” - -“How many rooms have you in each place?” I asked. - -“Oh, that varies,” answered Mildred. “In most of them there is a small -hall with waxed floor and piano to be used for dancing or singing -classes or debating clubs. There is another room for gymnastics, with -apparatus and a piano, where a competent person will direct, and -gradually insinuate various sensible ideas in regard to high heels, -tightlacing and a bad carriage, and try to make physical culture seem a -desirable thing. - -“There will be another room for quiet games like checkers and dominoes, -several bath-rooms, and a parlor where the girls can bring their fancy -work and receive their friends.” - -“But, Mildred,” I cried in alarm, “you will get a perfect mob, if you -are not careful. They will bang your piano to pieces, they will have -rude kissing games, the girls will waltz with men whom they never saw -before; and then, if you make rules and don’t let them have their own -way, they won’t come. I know the kind of people whom you want to help, -and they are the most independent creatures living.” - -“Ah, but wait a minute,” replied Mildred calmly. “The ‘mob’ are not to -be invited to pour in from the street. Each one must apply for a -membership ticket, give name and address, and wait a few days before it -is granted. There may be, perhaps, a slight nominal fee. They will -appreciate it more to have this little formality about it. Moreover, the -lady who is at the head of the club, and who will be a person of -character and tact, will have authority to exclude any unruly member. -Nothing will be said about rules. They will be received as if they were -of course expected to behave well. - -“Five or six of the ‘King’s Daughters’ have agreed to be in attendance -every night, with as many gentlemen who are their escorts. They will -play for dancing and gymnastics whenever it is needed. They will act as -daughters of a host and receive and introduce their guests. They will -join in the singing and the games and the conversation, and, with the -gentlemen whom they bring, will, I think, be far more effectual in -encouraging good manners than any number of rules. - -“Now that everything has been planned and the wherewithal provided, I -have had no difficulty in getting some hundreds of agreeable, well-bred -young ladies from the different churches who have each pledged -themselves to bring some gentleman to assist them and to give one -evening a week faithfully to the social club. - -“It is distinctly understood that there is to be no authority exercised -by them, no patronizing tolerated, and charity, and that other odious -word philanthropy, not so much as thought of. - -“All are to meet on the same footing, simply as young people who are met -to have a good time in an orderly, pleasant way. - -“At first there will doubtless be hoidenish manners, a good deal of -simpering and whispering and flat talk, which of course must be ignored. -But by and by the presence of ten refined, Christian young gentlemen and -ladies with tact and quick wit will make itself felt. There will be -charades and word games like twenty questions, and a hundred such merry -ways of passing the time, of which these girls have never dreamed. They -will go home with new ideas about dress and manners and ways of having a -good time. The veriest boor, who may begin by tipping back in his chair -and picking his teeth, will not fail to observe finally that if he -wishes to retain the respect of his ‘best girl’ his manners must conform -a little more to those of that young law student who spent half an hour -the other night showing her how to play parchesi, and then helped her on -with her waterproof, put up her umbrella for her, and bowed her a -pleasant good evening. - -“I assure you,” continued Mildred, “I have made the discovery that the -best way to turn a silly little chit into a self-respecting woman is for -a gentleman to treat her as if she were one. And the best way to make a -stupid clown appear at his best is for a young lady of tact to try to -draw him out. - -“But this is not all. There are endless things that such a club might -do. - -“I hope it will develop all sorts of latent talent and mutual -helpfulness, and lead the way to discussion, comparison, and emulation -in a thousand ways. - -“It will give each member an opportunity to make fifty acquaintances -where now he or she has but one,—Protestants and Catholics, Jews and -Gentiles, mechanics, factory operatives, shop-girls, bookkeepers, young -professional men, teachers, millionaires’ daughters, all meeting on the -simple ground of their youth and American citizenship, and giving each -other the pleasure of their company, the benefit of their experience. -And the rich will find that they get even more than they give.” - -“But, after all,” I urged, “can you make oil and water mix? Is this a -feasible scheme?” - -“That is to say,” answered Mildred, “can people of different social -rank, education, and employments meet socially with mutual profit and -pleasure? That, I am convinced, depends entirely upon the tact and -spirit of genuine friendliness which is exercised by those of the higher -rank. - -“Anything that is done perfunctorily is sure to fail, but genuine -interest will create genuine interest. It all depends, you see, upon my -helpers. Without them my money can do nothing. I can only organize; they -must execute. But I am convinced that it is an experiment worth trying.” - -“So you are contemplating a social revolution,” said I, as Mildred -paused, her cheeks glowing with the excitement of the thought. “Well, -sister mine, if ever one is brought about, I think it will be by your -way of doing, by trying to put the right people in the right place. -After all, I suppose this one little scheme of yours and Ralph’s, that -may help to start thousands of lives in a different direction, probably -costs no more to permanently endow than what some families would pay for -diamonds and horses and yachts for themselves alone.” - - -“By the way, Ruby,” asked Mildred the next day, as we sat sipping our -after-dinner coffee, while Ralph had gone out to see some lawyers, “do -you remember the first time I saw you, a little more than a year ago, at -aunt Madison’s?” - -“Remember? I wonder if I shall ever forget it, or what you said to those -three rich good-for-nothing”— - -“No,” broke in Mildred, “not ‘good-for-nothing,’ though I fear I thought -them so at the time. I fancy I must have spoken pretty savagely, didn’t -I?” Then, without waiting for an answer, she continued: “I felt sure, as -I thought it over afterwards, that they would hate me, that is, if they -took the trouble to think about me at all. But, do you know, I think it -really startled them into asking themselves some pretty plain questions. - -“It set them to thinking, and” —she continued with a laugh— “I verily -believe that I was in a measure the humble means of grace which brought -two of them to conviction of sin and led to their conversion. - -“Let me read to you part of a letter which cousin Will received and -which he forwarded to me,” said she, drawing an envelope from her -pocket. “It is from Ned Conro, the one with the blond mustache, you -remember. - -“He says,—let me see,”—and she glanced down the first page, and, turning -the leaf, read aloud:— - - “I began for the first time to do a little thinking that last six - months at Cambridge. - - “Somehow that cousin of yours had said something, that night I was at - your house, which kept running through my head and bothered me every - now and then. I began to wonder if I weren’t about as useless a lot as - a fellow with two millions in his own right and a prospective Harvard - sheepskin ever gets to be. - - “I had shirked all the work that I dared to. I divided my time, as you - know, pretty evenly between the Boston Theatre and Young’s Hotel. I - had no incentive to work, and did not propose to follow in your steps - and study a profession. I planned after I left college to go abroad - for some years. I had some vague notion of a trip to India and - tiger-hunting. At all events I meant to have good sport and plenty of - it too. - - “The last thing I thought of was giving up any fun to stay at home and - play the home missionary. But every time I had settled the matter - completely in my own mind, those stinging words of that girl would - come back and make my ears tingle:— - - “‘Oh, the last thing that you ever dream of is that you have a debt to - pay and are basely repudiating it.’ - - “I had thought that all poppycock when she said it, but when she got - her money and set to work practicing what she had preached, giving not - only her money but her whole time with her money, that just stumped - me. - - “One day I took up a New York paper giving an account of her great - library scheme. ‘There,’ said I, ‘Miss Brewster has done what no man I - ever heard of would have thought of doing.’ - - “A man, now, would have put up a stunning ten-million-dollar library, - with his name in gilt letters on the front of it. He would put half of - the money into the building and half of the remainder into rare books - which no one would look at once a year. It would be a grand thing, no - doubt, but how many people would it reach compared with those whom - Miss Brewster’s little libraries will stimulate and help? - - “Why, a library can change the future of a whole community! I tell - you, Miss Brewster has found where to sow her seed so that it will - bring forth a hundredfold. - - “I wondered what _I_ could do. I could throw away my money easily - enough, endow another chair at Harvard, erect another statue to some - one, build a hospital; but, after all, what was _I_ to do, provided - that I did anything? - - “Well, one day—it was Thursday afternoon—Mather said, ‘Conro, let’s go - into chapel and hear Brooks.’ So we went. I hadn’t been inside the - place for months. My set, you know, didn’t go in for that sort of - thing much. - - “Somehow, something Brooks said that afternoon stirred me up all over - again and set me to thinking. Mather and I didn’t say anything as we - came out, but I knew he too was thinking. - - “We started off on a walk, and after a while, as we tramped along down - past old John Harvard’s statue and on past the gymnasium, he threw - back his head and, clapping me on the shoulder, burst out, ‘I say, old - fellow, that man is a brick!’ - - “We turned down Craigie Street and sauntered on. Presently John Fiske - turned the corner and nodded in a jolly way over his glasses at us. - ‘Did you know, Conro,’ asked Mather, after we had passed out of - hearing, ‘that Fiske could read fifteen languages, and knew no end of - history and everything else, and had made his mark, before he was as - old as we are by some years?’ - - “I didn’t know it, but I hadn’t time to say so before I looked up and - saw just in front of us the gray beard and brown eyes of the man whom - I, for one, think to be the greatest poet America has ever had. - - “I had just got hold of Lowell last winter. Those lines of his which - Miss Brewster quoted to us had set me to looking him up, and I was - amazed to see how little I had known of his power. - - “Well, whether it was Miss Brewster, or Phillips Brooks, or these men, - the two best writers of English on the continent, and the thought of - what they had made their lives mean in the world of ideas, I don’t - know, but suddenly it all came over me, the thought of earnest lives - that stood for something, and my own confounded folly, and I broke out - for the first time: ‘I say, Mather, if a fellow has been a deuced fool - for the first twenty-two years of his life, what is he likely to be at - the end of the next twenty-two?’ - - “Mather evidently didn’t think that was a question which required an - answer, and we tramped along together in silence for a while longer. - Then he began, ‘Conro, didn’t what Brooks said to-day make you think - of that night last winter when that black-eyed girl over there at - Louisburg Square just laid us fellows out? - - “‘Gracious! how she did seem to take it all to heart, as if we had - committed the unpardonable sin, as Gordon said. Whew!—didn’t it make - him mad, though?—but—well—somehow I don’t know but she was more than - half right after all. - - “‘Some things she said have been running through my head lately: - “Never a time or place where heart and brains and hands could find - such work to do and reap such far-reaching results.... Everything has - been done for us, to be sure, but we can’t be expected to go out of - our way to see that it is passed along.”’ - - “Well, Madison, that was the beginning of it all; and then we talked, - and the long and short of it is, that Mather and I didn’t take long in - coming to the conclusion that if a fellow ever proposed to make - anything of himself, twenty-two or three wasn’t any too early to begin - to think about it. We mulled over it a while, until finally we struck - on a scheme. - - “Mather’s mother had come from the South, and he had some far-away - cousins there who had been the hottest kind of rebs. Perhaps that was - what suggested it to us; but at any rate we are in for it now, and - have given each other our word of honor to stick to it for three years - at least, and then—well, we shall see. - - “I had two millions and he eight hundred thousand. I have no family, - you know, and he has only married brothers and sisters; so we are free - on that score; and we have decided to put half of our fortunes into - buying up enough stock in a lot of Southern papers to give us - practical control of the country papers over a large area down here.” - -“He writes from some little town in Alabama,” said Mildred in -parenthesis. Then she continued: - - “We have brought with us five or six bright Harvard boys whom we know, - and whom we are going to work in as editors of dailies in strategic - places. Each fellow will also have general supervision of a dozen - small weekly papers scattered through the states here. - - “These papers form almost the sole outlook upon the world’s affairs - which the people down here ever get, and, with the exception of the - locals with which they are padded, are about as useful as Rollins’ - Ancient History. - - “Mather and I are hard at work studying local history and politics and - prejudices, and are planning some of the tallest kinds of innovations. - We haven’t shown our hand yet, of course, and it is generally - understood that we are here to invest in land. - - “Of course we shan’t make a cent out of it all—too many niggers, and - the whites are frightfully poor—can’t pay for and don’t want anything - better than they have; but, by Jove, if I don’t succeed in shaking up - some of these consummate old Bourbons down here by the end of the next - three years, then my name isn’t Edwin G. Conro!—that’s all. However, - they aren’t all such a bad lot.” - -“Well,” said Mildred, as she skimmed through the last page in silence -and slowly returned the letter to the envelope, “whether these aspiring -youths succeed in bringing the millennium down there by the time they -are twenty-five remains to be seen, but at all events they will learn -some things Harvard College has not yet taught them, and whether they -help those people much or not they have taken the first step to save -themselves.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVI. - - -“Mildred Brewster Everett, do you mean to say that you, a woman worth -your tens of millions, are going to come down to living again in a brick -block with little narrow rooms? Are you going to give up the splendid -library, the gallery of rare paintings, the grand music-room, the -conservatories and stables, and all the lovely things that you had -planned?” - -Mildred dropped her wax and seal, and turned from her writing-desk with -a gesture of mock despair, as I continued, somewhat vehemently and -without pausing for a reply:— - -“Have you forgotten all those magnificent halls, those terra-cottas and -mosaic floors and glorious painted windows? Think of the many times that -we have planned it all out, the baronial fireplaces with the spreading -elk antlers overhead, and the big tiger-skin rugs; and then the cosy, -cushioned window-seats and quaintly carved lattices, the great organ -with golden pipes, and the high, wind-swept turrets with winding stairs! - -“Last spring you were planning to bring all this about when the tenement -houses and more necessary things should be under way, and now,” I -continued crossly, “to think of your fancying that you are too poor to -build a beautiful house for yourself, when you have money enough to buy -houses for every one else!” - -I think that Mildred had a passion for noble architecture. Her keen eyes -would detect beauties or incongruities where my untrained sight -perceived nothing. - -“If a man writes a bad poem, I am not compelled to read it; if he paints -a bad picture, I need not see it more than once,” she was wont to say; -“but if he erects an ugly building in my city he hurts me every time I -walk the street, and I am helpless.” - -“When constructive beauty costs no more than this fantastic ugliness, -why must such an absurdity be inflicted upon a long-suffering public?” -she once asked in despair, as we were contemplating an expensive -monument to architectural stupidity. And she never tempered her scorn -when railing at the angular, parti-colored houses, run mad in the -direction of ostentatious eccentricities, which are fast displacing the -simple white dwellings with green blinds that, as she once declared, “at -least have the merit of being modest and wholesome, and do not outrage -all one’s sense of the fitness of things.” - -“Wait until I build my house; then you shall see,” she would exclaim, -with a decided little nod which carried the conviction, to one listener -at least, that she would some time show what money and brains combined -could do towards creating an ideal home. - -Many an hour, when driving about together, we had amused ourselves, in -the intervals of serious work, in planning the charming mansion which -she would build, and she had entered into it all with great zest. - -“My idea of a house,” she had said, “is to have it even more beautiful -without than within, so that every line may be a positive delight to the -many who can never look within its doors. Think what a boon to the -thousands who never step inside a church are those Back Bay towers and -steeples which I used to see from my attic window on the hill. - -“A poor man has no money for a concert of good music; he has no time for -a visit to an art museum to see a good picture or statue, or to go to a -library to read a great poem; but in sunlight and in moonlight, seven -days in the week, as he looks from his window or passes to his work, the -beauty wrought in stone is his; it costs him neither time nor money, and -consciously or unconsciously it appeals to him. His life is larger and -richer for it. - -“A walk across the Public Garden on a winter afternoon, with that -campanile and the spires near it looming large and dark against the -crimson glow in the west, has made me fresh and strong after many a -tired day,” she used to say. - -So it was settled that when the walls of the House Beautiful should be -reared, the first thought should be, not for its inmates, but for the -countless unknown passers-by. - -Then the next requirement was that it should have ample room for the -many guests whom its hospitable mistress would always have around her. -There was to be air and sunshine everywhere, and nothing too fine for -constant use. - -Unlike most women, Mildred had little fancy for beauty of the fragile -sort. Exquisitely painted sèvres which a careless touch might shiver to -atoms; cobweb lace that had cost the eyesight and health of other women; -tapestry which had swallowed up years of another’s life, only to be -inferior to a painting, and become food for moths,—all this she -obstinately refused to have. - -“I want beautiful things about me,” she said; “but beauty that is so -perishable as to be a constant care to the owner, or else to entail an -army of servants, is a luxury which I think no rational being can -afford. I shall have everything rich and strong and yet simple; there -shall be no satin, gilded-legged chairs, no elaborate dust-catching -carvings; no draperies and carpets that cannot bear the sun; but there -shall be noble statues, pictures by great masters, luxurious rugs and -divans, glorious color from jewelled windows and precious, many-hued -marbles. I do not want a palace with dreary suites of high-studded rooms -and frescoed ceilings, and I do not want a house that is nothing but a -crowded museum of bric-à-brac, like so many I see. No; my house shall be -a stately mansion with far-seeing towers and turrets, with cosy, -low-studded rooms and wainscoted walls, with pillared arcades and richly -carved stone balconies. All Spain and Venice and Nuremberg shall be -studied for hints of beauty, and it shall be a home, a perfectly ideal -American home; beautiful without and within; built to stand while -generations come and go, graced by children, pets, and flowers, and the -charming society of noble men and women.” - -Where this home was to be built had not yet been decided. Sometimes -Mildred would in imagination place it on some smooth, green slope on the -banks of the Hudson; sometimes among the elms on some hilltop -overlooking the golden dome on Beacon Hill, with a glimpse of blue sea -and white sails on the far horizon beyond. - -Of course I was to have the fun of helping to plan about it all, and -Mildred was to bring home hosts of treasures from Europe after her -sojourn abroad. But now, this morning, all this dream of the beauty that -was to be had been ended by what Mildred had been saying. - -“I have settled one hundred thousand dollars on Ralph,” she had said, -“for his own personal use. He would not accept any more, and I have -decided to set apart for myself the same sum. The interest on two -hundred thousand dollars ought, I think, to provide all the travel and -luxuries that two reasonable mortals need; and the rest of the money -which I had at first thought of spending on myself we are going to -devote to several things, rather better worth doing than building a -house, which not one in a hundred thousand could afford to maintain -after we have gone.” - -“But, Mildred,” I expostulated, “you have always asserted that it was -right to encourage art; that it was folly to refuse to buy a picture or -a jewel just because there were still starving people in existence -somewhere. I have heard you say repeatedly that money thus spent gave -employment to labor, encouraged art, and”— - -“Yes,” she interrupted, “that is true in a certain way, no doubt; but -listen: I have been thinking this over a great deal of late. Suppose now -that I spend half a million or so in employing a certain number of -people to make and furnish a magnificent house. Grant that it is a real -work of art, and will be a thing of beauty and a joy forever. My husband -and a score of friends and I enjoy it; the workmen are paid; ‘art is -encouraged.’ - -“Now suppose again that, instead of erecting an expensively beautiful -house for myself, I employ the same number of people to provide a -beautiful building which shall be for the use, in the course of its -existence, of scores of thousands whose eyes are inured to ugliness and -into whose lives a bit of beauty rarely comes. - -“Suppose that the spacious marble staircases, the tiles and wood -carvings and painted windows, are put where they shall awaken the -imagination and delight the soul of tired mothers and little children -who have known nothing beyond their narrow alley and grimy chimney-pots; -of girls who stand all day before a machine, or over a hot stove, and -who spend their money for the bits of tawdry finery which are the -nearest approach to beauty that their means can compass? Which building -would encourage art the most, think you? - -“Why, Ruby,” said Mildred, wheeling around from her desk, while I stood -opposing to her ardor a face of grim discontent; “do you fancy that I -could sit in my great, palatial house, remembering the sights that I -have seen this year in the one-roomed sod houses on bleak Western -prairies, in the dingy, cheerless cabins of the colored people at the -South, and in the vile-smelling tenements of this great city, and -satisfy my soul by saying that I gave employment to the men who did this -work for me? - -“Could I honestly call myself in any sense a follower of Him who had not -where to lay his head, and know that this wealth of beauty was kept for -me and a dozen or so cultivated people who need it scarcely more than I, -while a thousand beauty-loving natures were starving who might be fed by -my superabundance?” - -“Mildred, you are positively morbid,” I exclaimed, thoroughly vexed. “To -be sure, no one has a right to be selfish, to think of himself -first,—but that you have not done. You planned your house in the -beginning for the pleasure of others far more than for yourself. You -meant to make your home a perfect retreat for all the poor artists and -students and broken-down teachers that it could hold, and I say you are -making a great mistake if you think that you are going to serve humanity -better by building a big art museum down at the Mulberry Bend for the -benefit of the ragpickers and stevedores, than by giving the hospitality -of such a home as yours would be to those to whom it would be a rest and -an inspiration.” - -Mildred laughed heartily as I paused, and dropping upon the hassock -beside me, she drew me close to her, while I prepared to renew my -expostulations. - -“Not so fast, my dear,” she said, forestalling me. “Pray don’t imagine -that I am bereft of my senses, and propose to reform the slums by giving -them free access to a gallery of casts from the antique. It would -require a small army of policemen and scrubbing-women to preserve it in -decent condition, if the rabble were admitted indiscriminately, and I do -not propose to give people that form of beauty which they do not want -and could not possibly appreciate.” - -“But you blame all the rich, who, no matter how much they may give away, -still reserve enough to buy steam yachts and build fine houses and -indulge their æsthetic tastes to the extent of one thirtieth of their -fortune,” I said pettishly. - -“No,” said Mildred, slowly; “I do not blame them. I am not their judge. -I cannot speak for others: it is right, more than that, it is necessary, -that man should create beauty, for he cannot live by bread alone. - -“But I cannot help feeling that the beauty should be for all; should be -where all may see and enjoy it. The old Greeks were right about that, -when the temples, the agora, the gymnasia were consecrated to beauty, -and it was the glory of the rich to minister to the state and not spend -lavish sums in collecting private treasures. - -“No, dear. Once I thought to have all that was rich and fine, and that -could delight the eye, around me in my own home. I felt that I had a -right to it, provided that I thought of others first and most. But now I -see things differently. I wonder that I ever could have been so selfish. - -“Yes, Ruby,” she added, almost sternly, as she saw my look of protest, -“it was selfishness. I meant, in spite of all my giving, to sacrifice -nothing. But I have been trying these last few months,—yes, since that -time last summer when my power to make life better for others seemed -about to be forever taken from me,—I have been trying, and Ralph has -helped me, oh, so much, to look at all this short life of ours in its -beginning here on this little planet, as I shall look back upon it with -the eyes of eternity, when it has all gone into the irrevocable past. -How will it seem then, little sister, when all our foolish ambitions and -traditions and false social standards have been swept away? Shall I be -glad or sorry then, do you think, to remember that the one talent which -was placed in my hands was used to its utmost, that nothing was withheld -but what was needed to make me the better fitted for my work? Ah, when -my naked soul shall stand before the judgment bar of its own conscience -and the moral law, and hears the sentence, ‘This ought ye to have done, -and not to have left the other undone,’ what shall I plead in excuse?” - -Mildred’s voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and her eyes were filled -with unshed tears. We did not speak for a few moments. I felt a lump -rising in my throat and could only choke it down while I stroked the -dear head that lay warm against my arm. My foolish questionings were -stilled. The clear insight of this simple, true-hearted woman had -pierced through and through my flimsy protests, and I sat awed and -abashed. Presently she went on in her natural, common-sense way to -explain more definitely what she meant. - -“I mean to make a little more beauty in this world, if I can,” she said, -“and accomplish some more important things as well; but the art of all -arts which I shall try to learn and teach is the one which we Americans -most need to study, the art of simple living. - -“I shall have the pictures and the books, the statues and the music that -I love; but what matters it whether they are all in my own home or not, -or whether or not I seek them in galleries open to all alike? Not until -our glaring, stony streets are made less dreary by more trees and -fountains and statues, not until there is a little beauty for every one, -can I claim the moral right to spend a fortune on Meissoniers or ancient -Satsuma, for my own private delight. - -“For a long time I have been thinking of what could bring the greatest -stimulus and joy into the lives of the wretched poor in our great city; -the washerwomen and truckmen and foul-mouthed, dirty little street -_gamins_ whose highest bliss is reached with the attainment of a full -stomach and the sight of a street fight or a circus procession. It would -be folly to give them money outright; but here in amusements, just as I -have found it in regard to tenement houses and everything else, -coöperation is the key to success. - -“The gift of a Peabody Museum or a Hemenway Gymnasium does not offend -the pride or help to pauperize the Harvard student, nor do the Lowell -lectures make the most cultivated people of Boston count themselves -recipients of charity when they crowd the hall to hear Professor Morse -talk about Japanese pottery, or the Englishman Haweis discourse on -music. Money given like that, in a large way, in the enjoyment of which -all unite, never does the harm that the gift to the individual would -surely do. - -“Now, I propose to set up a counter-attraction to the delights of the -saloon and the dance-hall and the street; and I shall put it right where -it is most needed. There shall be one substantial, clean, beautiful -building, a beacon light of beauty and delight in a square mile of -dinginess and discomfort. - -“It shall be of brick, and I shall enjoin upon my architect to show what -beautiful lines and arches can be wrought in simple material. In a -street of ugly straight lines and right angles, this shall stand as an -object-lesson in the power of creating perpetual pleasure to the eye by -such simple devices as the substitution of the curve for the straight -line over door and window. - -“Then within there shall be a dozen immense rooms connected by -folding-doors, with sand heaps and swings and blocks for the delight of -the gutter child, too old to be in the cradle and too young to be in -school. From morning until night, if he behaves himself, he shall be -sheltered and warm and happy under the charge of some good woman. At -night these rooms shall be filled with older boys and girls learning the -use of tools, sawing, planing, hammering, and finding it better fun to -vent their energies in manufacturing something which they can take home -for their own use than in playing tag around the ash-barrels on the -corner.” - -“What, would you have boys and girls together?” I asked. - -“Certainly,” said Mildred; “they would be together on the street, and -why not here?” - -“But what is the use of a girl learning carpentering?” I asked. “I -should think she might much better learn sewing. Besides, girls can’t do -it, and I don’t believe they would like to, if they could.” - -“In regard to that, you don’t know those girls so well as I do. They -will sit by a smoky lamp in a close room and grow round-shouldered and -near-sighted in crocheting edging and working blue cats on cardboard; -but as to plain sewing, they think it a bore. After a day at school or -in the shop they don’t want to sit demurely on a bench and ‘backstitch’ -and sew ‘over and over.’ Then, too, a course in carpentry would do more -for them physically than a course at the gymnasium. There is no danger -that city girls will not walk enough at all times; what they lack is -development of arms and chest. Moreover, this is not an experiment. I -once visited a summer class in carpentering for girls at the Tennyson -Street school in Boston, and I can assure you I haven’t forgotten the -neat book-racks and little tables those girls of fourteen were making -for themselves, nor the good time they were having in doing it, either. -Such muscle as they were developing! However, there can be cooking -classes and sewing classes too, if they want them, though my House -Beautiful is not to be primarily a manual training school. The city may -provide that for the child; but I want to do what it cannot do, and that -is to give innocent amusement and a bit of beauty to lives that know -nothing of it. - -“So above these rooms is to be a great auditorium arranged like an -amphitheatre, and capable of seating comfortably three thousand people. -There shall be no cushions, and no need of them, for every seat shall be -planned with reference to the human figure, and will require no padding -to insure absolute comfort. - -“There shall be a golden-piped organ and ‘storied windows richly dight,’ -not casting a ‘dim religious light,’ but shedding warm, rich color upon -the thousand shabby coats and shawls gathered from the alleys and street -corners of a Sunday afternoon. Every night in the week, and all day on -Sunday, this is to be opened free to every man or woman who wants to sit -in a comfortable seat, see interesting pictures, hear sweet music, and -give tired nerves and body a respite from the noise and confusion of the -tenement and street.” - -“And what do you propose to give them,—symphony concerts, or Stoddard -lectures?” - -“Neither,” answered Mildred calmly, ignoring my attempt at sarcasm, -“though you have touched my idea. I mean to give them something as -nearly like it as possible. - -“There shall be simple talks on every conceivable subject that could -interest them which admits of illustration by the stereopticon. By the -aid of great pictures thrown upon the screen they shall travel over land -and sea. Then there shall be story nights, when a clear-voiced student -from the school of oratory will read stories to them. Think what it -would be to these men and women, half of whom cannot read or write, to -whose minds the facts of history and geography have no meaning, whose -knowledge of life is limited to a little village in the Old Country, a -steerage passage, and the crowded slums of New York; think what it would -be to them to step from the cold and dinginess without into a brilliant, -beautiful hall, with warmth and light and comfort insured for one hour -at least out of the twenty-four; and then to sit and listen to the -charming story of Little Lord Fauntleroy, or Robinson Crusoe, or to -thrilling stories of exploration and adventures. - -“The story or lecture shall last no more than an hour, as their -attention must be held, so that they will want to come again. Then those -who have heard enough may go, if they wish, and make room for others to -come in to listen to a half-hour concert. There will be no Brahm’s -symphonies, but there will be cornet solos of such classics as the -‘Swanee River,’ and ‘Home! Sweet Home!’ and a select orchestra of half a -dozen pieces will render Strauss waltzes, airs from ‘Pinafore,’ and the -like. - -“On Sunday, all day long, there shall be services of song led by the -great organ and a trained chorus. Not oratorio music, though a Handel -Largo or a ‘Lift Thine Eyes’ might sometimes be ventured on; but simple -devout church music, in which all who can may join. - -“Of course no preaching would be advisable, else the priests would -rapidly diminish the audience; but all the power of music shall be -brought to bear to uplift and beautify these poor, pinched lives and -bring a glimpse of sweetness and light into the prosaic details of their -daily struggle for existence. - -“The Romish church has always been wise enough to see the power of music -in swaying the emotions of the masses. It is time that we learned a -lesson from it.” - -“What shall you do with your other rooms on Sunday? Shall you let them -be vacant or permit the carpentering by the boys to go on below, while -their elders are hearing the music in the great hall above?” - -“Neither,” answered Mildred. The rooms shall all be open, but not for -work. The tables and tools will have disappeared, and settees will take -their places. In one room will be perhaps a debating club of young men, -discussing the last strike, and finding this a pleasanter place to meet -for that purpose than the street corner or the saloon. In the next room -will be a set of children clustered around a young lady who comes down -from Fifth Avenue and gives her Sunday evenings regularly to telling -stories to them. She is not a creature of my imagination, either, Ruby. -Last week I met her at a friend’s house. She came in flushed and radiant -from an hour’s romp with the children in the nursery. ‘I believe my one -talent must be story-telling,’ she said, as the children appeared on the -scene clamoring after her; and her mother fondly said, ‘Ah, there are no -stories like sister Helen’s, all the children think.’ - -“‘So,’ I thought, ‘that is just the girl I want. Her talent shall find a -larger field for development; she shall tell stories to forty children -instead of four.’ I told her my plan, and she almost cried with delight. -‘Oh, Mrs. Everett, do you really think that I could do any good in that -way? I never dreamed of it, and I should be so glad. I’ve always felt as -if I wanted to do something, but mamma won’t let me visit in the -Charities. She says I am too young. My eyes won’t admit of my reading to -the blind or sewing for the poor, and I began to think there wasn’t -anything that I could do.’ - -“I tell you, Ruby, I am finding every day dozens of girls like her, who -are only waiting for some one to say, ‘This is what you can do; here is -your work; here is the place; and here are the ones who need you.’ I am -beginning to learn that the putting of the right person in the right -place is the main thing, after all. The best thing that my money can do -is to make it possible for those who can give, to find those who need -just what they can give. - -“I shall find not only one charming story-teller, but a score, who will -meet their circles of little street Arabs week after week and month -after month, and if they are half as pretty and entertaining as the girl -I know, you may rest assured those youngsters will count it a privilege -to come. - -“Not every one will be admitted; a clean face and hands and good -behavior will be the prerequisite for retaining the ticket of membership -to all the classes. Then in another room will be a class of young people -listening to an emergency lecture, given by some bright, young medical -student, who will arouse their interest by objective illustrations, such -as the bandaging of sham wounds and the resuscitating of a person -supposed to be drowned. - -“In still another room, perhaps, some one will be reading the newspapers -aloud to a score of men who are enjoying their pipes. - -“All the rooms will be filled with men, women, and children, from nine -o’clock in the morning until ten at night; one set coming as another -goes; and each having one hour at least, in the day of rest, which shall -open to him a little larger outlook on life, and shall give him -something to look forward to through the six days of drudgery. - -“Of course all this will require a system and a plan; but I shall have -as few officials and as few restraints as possible. A neat, white-capped -woman, with her badge of authority, will, I think, be quite as efficient -as a big policeman; for any unseemly behavior will result in the -immediate surrender of the numbered metal check which will serve as a -card of entrance; and when admission is recognized as a privilege it -will be coveted. - -“No one will stay away because he is too shabby to come, and no one will -be made to feel that he has no right or share in it all; but every week -twenty-five thousand men, women, and children shall have one or two -hours of peace and happiness offered them, just because,—think of it, -Ruby,—just because I did not build the House Beautiful for myself.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII. - - “And whether we shall meet again I know not, - Therefore our everlasting farewell take.” - JULIUS CÆSAR. - - -The days sped away all too fast, crowded full of work and talk and -earnest thought. I entered eagerly into all of Mildred’s plans; she -always knew that she could rely on me to do that, in spite of the -protestations and objections with which I generally greeted the first -announcement of each new scheme. I think she rather liked my objecting, -as it gave her so fine an opportunity to state her case clearly and -triumph over all obstacles. - -“Do be charitable and indulge my garrulous propensities a little,” she -would laughingly plead. “You may congratulate yourself that I was not -born a man,—such a stump orator as I should have made, with all my -hobbies!” - -In spite of her gayety and happiness, however, I could see that the -strain of attending to multitudes of things was beginning to tell, even -on her apparently boundless strength. The day before the last she was -with her lawyers, signing last papers, seeing that nothing was -neglected, no one forgotten. In the evening there was a farewell -reception for hosts of friends, at which all good-byes were said. - -“I want no one but you to see me sail, Ruby dear,” she said; and so the -hour of her departure was not announced. They had planned, first of all, -a sailing voyage to the West Indies, and thence they were to go to -Spain. - -“I can’t bear Europe just yet,” said Mildred. “I want to put letters, -despatches, and newspapers even, out of reach for a few weeks; to forget -immigrants, cooking schools, tenement houses, libraries, and lawyers, -and all the several problems that have been besetting me these last -bewilderingly busy months. - -“I must get time to stop and think. I want to sail idly through purple -tropic seas; to skirt the green shores of volcanic islands; I want to -feel for the time being that I have banished conscience and -responsibility; in fact,” she added, laughing, “I want to become a pagan -for a while, if I can.” - -“The most sensible thing that I ever heard you say,” I remarked with -decision. “If there ever was a girl who has earned a vacation, it is -you.” - -They were going on the Nanepashemet, manned by Captain Roberts, a -weather-beaten seaman of Marblehead, who twenty years ago had dandled -the little Mildred on his knee. He now counted it the greatest honor of -his life that she had not forgotten him, and that he had been invited to -take this bonny bride on his plain little sailing vessel. - -“Why, jest think of it, Miss,” he proudly remarked to me, “she might -jest as easy hev bought one of them crack steam yachts with fancy -fixins, and have gone in reg’lar Vanderbilt style. But it’s jest like -her, jest like her. She wa’n’t never one of the kind to make a splurge. -I knew when she got her money ’twouldn’t turn her head.” - -One day Ralph and I had been down to inspect the craft and attend to -certain alterations in the cabin which were to be made for the -accommodation of the two passengers, when the captain grew quite -communicative on his favorite theme. - -“I knew that little chick ’ud make something when she wa’n’t no higher -than that,” he remarked, holding his brown, tattooed hand about three -feet above the deck. - -“I didn’t cal’late on her turnin’ out so mighty rich, of course,” he -continued, meditatively, leaning against the rail and evidently pleased -to find an appreciative listener, “but I allus knew, by the way the -little thing kep’ askin’ questions about everything under heaven, that -she’d got a headpiece on her that ’ud make things spin one o’ these -days. Full o’ fun, too. She could swim like a duck, and row a boat with -them little pipe-stem arms of hers, and yet—wal—she was sort o’ -pious-like too, and allus askin’ me to tell her about my trips to the -East Injies, and whether I see any women a-throwin’ their babies to -crocodiles and a-bowin’ down to idols of wood and stone. - -“‘I tell you, Cap’n Roberts,’ that little thing ’ud say, a-settin’ there -in my boat, when her ma let me take her out,—‘I tell you, when I get to -be a grown-up woman I’m goin’ out there and just teach those people -better.’ - -“‘Did you ever hear about Judson?’ says she. ‘No,’ says I; ‘was he a -sea-cap’n?’ - -“‘He was a missionary,’ says she, real solemn; ‘a missionary; and that’s -what I’m going to be; and you’ll take me out there in your ship, won’t -you, cap’n?’ says she. ‘And oh, I’m goin’ to take a whole trunk full of -story-books for all those poor little girls that have to get married and -don’t have any.’ - -“Wal, wal,” he continued, as he filled his pipe, “she begun it young, ’n -I warn’t a mite surprised when I heerd she’d got her money and see what -she was a-beginnin’ to do for those nasty Italians down to the Mulberry -Bend. She never forgits anybody, Millie don’t. Excuse me, I s’pose I -orter say Mis’ Everett now. She’s been a-talkin’ to me about the -sailors; says when we git out to sea she wants a long talk with me about -’em; wants to know what they read, and everything of that sort.” - -“And that is the way she proposes to turn pagan,” I soliloquized. - -The last day had come, and we were on board the ship. Mildred, in her -long, gray ulster and bright steamer hood, paced the deck arm in arm -with me, taking her last look at the bridge, the towers and spires, the -bronze goddess looming up against the blue, and all the dear, familiar -sights. The sky was cloudless; the soft south-wind gently swelled the -white sails overhead; the sea, the fawning, treacherous sea, shone -brilliantly in the golden sunlight and seemed to murmur caressingly in -our ears, as if to beguile us to forget its cruel power hidden for the -time under this shining mask. - -We paced up and down in silence, breaking it now and then by trying to -say the last words, which were so hard to speak. Ralph had kindly gone -below, ostensibly to look after a hamper of fruit. There was a lump in -my throat; I could not speak. - -How was it that this woman, whom I had met but little more than a year -ago, had come to be nearer to me than any kith or kin? Life had -broadened, had grown rich, since her life had come into mine. In my -little narrow routine, fashioned according to the demands of society and -its conventionalities, I had never before dreamed of its possibilities. - -Mildred tried to talk, but I could not answer. At last, breaking down -completely, I sobbed out, “Oh, Mildred, Mildred, I _cannot_ let you go. -I have no one in the wide world but you. You will never, never come -back.” - -I had meant to be brave and not to sadden these last moments by my -selfish grief, but a sudden premonition of evil had taken hold of me. I -was not superstitious, but I felt a convulsive clutch at my heart as I -looked up into her beautiful dark eyes through the mist in my own. - -“Don’t be morbid, darling,” said she, trying to speak cheerfully, and -drawing my arm closer in her embrace. But her voice sounded to me -strange and far away. - -“There are few women ever blessed with such a sister as you have been to -me,” she said tenderly. “You alone among women have made me feel this -last year that you loved me for myself, and would have loved me just the -same were I the lonely teacher among my books instead of a favored, -flattered, rich woman. Others have given me adulation, you have given me -love. And now, dear, that you may know that I know how real a sister you -have been to me, until we meet again wear this for me.” - -I saw the red gleam of the rare jewel in her white hand, as over my -finger, held in her own warm grasp, she slipped the ruby ring, her dead -sister’s ring which I had always seen her wear. - -I said no word of thanks. I scarcely realized what she had done. I was -dumb with the misery of those moments—a death’s-knell seemed sounding in -my ears. - -We paced on again in silence, letting the precious moments pass. -Presently she said, as if in reply to the wild outburst of emotion which -had passed and left me numb and speechless, “Yes, dear, it may be as you -fear. Whether we meet again, God only knows. But whether it be you or I -that goes first into the great wonderful Beyond, of which we have so -often talked, I think we shall not be sorry, we shall not be afraid. - - “‘For from the things we see - We trust the things to be, - That in the paths untrod, - And the long days of God, - Our feet shall still be led, - Our hearts be comforted.’ - -“But life is sweet, oh, so sweet. I want to live, there is so much to -do,” said Mildred earnestly. Yet in a moment she added, hastily, “But -what folly for me to fancy that _I_ am needed to do the work. - - “‘Others shall sing the song, - Others shall right the wrong, - Finish what I begin, - And all I fail of, win.’” - -We said no more, but still paced the deck together, looking at sea and -shore and sunny sky, finding no words to tell of all that was in our -hearts. - -At last the signal was given, and the tug that was to carry me back to -the city steamed alongside. I knew that the moment of parting had come, -and, like an exile summoning all his fortitude to help him take bravely -the last step across the border line which divides him from home and -country, I said, calmly, “Well, dear,— - - “‘If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; - If not, why, then, this parting were well made.’” - -I felt her warm, red lips against my cheek. I heard Ralph’s strong “God -bless and keep you, little sister,” and then, almost before I knew it, I -had slipped over the vessel’s side, and they were gone. I saw them wave -a last adieu. I saw, as in a dream, the white-winged ship, bearing its -precious freight, sail out into the dazzling east, over the dimpling -sea, the shimmering, golden sea, the cruel, cruel sea. - - -There is no more to tell. The world knows the rest. Seven days of calm -weather, and then from the coral reefs of the southern sea to the rocky -headlands of the north, the storm-king raged. Madly the fierce Atlantic -lashed its waves on cliff and beach and sunken ledge, sending dumb -terror to the hearts that had seen their loved ones go down unto the sea -in ships. - -Somewhere on that wild waste of waters, whether in the chill, gray dawn -or in midnight blackness, amid the lightning’s flash and thunder’s -peal,—God only knows,—a little ship went down. And when the sharp, swift -summons came, two brave hearts went forth together into the great -Unseen, knowing of a surety that this, thank God, was not the end—only -the end of the beginning. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in - spelling. - 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - 4. 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