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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lifted Masks
+       Stories
+
+Author: Susan Glaspell
+
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7368]
+This file was first posted on April 21, 2003
+Last Updated: March 15, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFTED MASKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIFTED MASKS
+
+STORIES
+
+By Susan Glaspell
+
+1912
+
+
+TO
+
+THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
+
+JENNIE PRESTON
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I “ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS”
+
+II THE PLEA
+
+III FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS
+
+IV FRECKLES M'GRATH
+
+V FROM A TO Z
+
+VI THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
+
+VII HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA
+
+VIII THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES
+
+IX “OUT THERE”
+
+X THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE
+
+XI HIS AMERICA
+
+XII THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG
+
+XIII AT TWILIGHT
+
+
+
+
+LIFTED MASKS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+“ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS”
+
+
+“N'avez-vous pas--” she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she saw
+that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly dangling
+two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured young woman
+assured him were _bien chic_ was edging nearer her. She was never
+so conscious of the truly American quality of her French as when
+a countryman was at hand. The French themselves had an air of “How
+marvellously you speak!” but fellow Americans listened superciliously
+in an “I can do better than that myself” manner which quite untied
+the Gallic twist in one's tongue. And so, feeling her French was being
+compared, not with mere French itself, but with an arrogant new American
+brand thereof, she moved a little around the corner of the counter and
+began again in lower voice:
+
+“_Mais, n'avez_--”
+
+“Say, Young Lady,” a voice which adequately represented the figure broke
+in, “_you_, aren't French, are you?”
+
+She looked up with what was designed for a haughty stare. But what is a
+haughty stare to do in the face of a broad grin? And because it was such
+a long time since a grin like that had been grinned at her it happened
+that the stare gave way to a dimple, and the dimple to a laughing: “Is
+it so bad as that?”
+
+“Oh, not your French,” he assured her. “You talk it just like the rest
+of them. In fact, I should say, if anything--a little more so. But do
+you know,”--confidentially--“I can just spot an American girl every
+time!”
+
+“How?” she could not resist asking, and the modest black hose she
+was thinking of purchasing dangled against his gorgeous red ones in
+friendliest fashion.
+
+“Well, Sir--I don't know. I don't think it can be the
+clothes,”--judicially surveying her.
+
+“The clothes,” murmured Virginia, “were bought in Paris.”
+
+“Well, you've got _me_. Maybe it's the way you wear 'em. Maybe
+it's 'cause you look as if you used to play tag with your brother.
+Something--anyhow--gives a fellow that 'By jove there's an American
+girl!' feeling when he sees you coming round the corner.”
+
+“But why--?”
+
+“Lord--don't begin on _why_. You can say _why_ to anything. Why don't
+the French talk English? Why didn't they lay Paris out at right angles?
+Now look here, Young Lady, for that matter--_why_ can't you help me
+buy some presents for my wife? There'd be nothing wrong about it,” he
+hastened to assure her, “because my wife's a mighty fine woman.”
+
+The very small American looked at the very large one. Now Virginia was a
+well brought up young woman. Her conversations with strange men had been
+confined to such things as, “Will you please tell me the nearest way
+to--?” but preposterously enough--she could not for the life of her
+have told why--frowning upon this huge American--fat was the literal
+word--who stood there with puckered-up face swinging the flaming hose
+would seem in the same shameful class with snubbing the little boy who
+confidently asked her what kind of ribbon to buy for his mother.
+
+“Was it for your wife you were thinking of buying these red stockings?”
+ she ventured.
+
+“Sure. What do you think of 'em? Look as if they came from Paris all
+right, don't they?”
+
+“Oh, they look as though they came from Paris, all right,” Virginia
+repeated, a bit grimly. “But do you know”--this quite as to that little
+boy who might be buying the ribbon--“American women don't always
+care for all the things that look as if they came from Paris. Is your
+wife--does she care especially for red stockings?”
+
+“Don't believe she ever had a pair in her life. That's why I thought it
+might please her.”
+
+Virginia looked down and away. There were times when dimples made things
+hard for one.
+
+Then she said, with gentle gravity: “There are quite a number of women
+in America who don't care much for red stockings. It would seem too bad,
+wouldn't it, if after you got these clear home your wife should turn out
+to be one of those people? Now, I think these grey stockings are lovely.
+I'm sure any woman would love them. She could wear them with grey suede
+slippers and they would be so soft and pretty.”
+
+“Um--not very lively looking, are they? You see I want something to
+cheer her up. She--well she's not been very well lately and I thought
+something--oh something with a lot of _dash_ in it, you know, would just
+fill the bill. But look here. We'll take both. Sure--that's the way out
+of it. If she don't like the red, she'll like the grey, and if she don't
+like the--You like the grey ones, don't you? Then here”--picking up two
+pairs of the handsomely embroidered grey stockings and handing them to
+the clerk--“One,” holding up his thumb to denote one--“me,”--a vigorous
+pounding of the chest signifying me. “One”--holding up his forefinger
+and pointing to the girl--“mademoiselle.”
+
+“Oh no--no--no!” cried Virginia, her face instantly the colour of the
+condemned stockings. Then, standing straight: “Certainly _not_.”
+
+“No? Just as you say,” he replied good humouredly. “Like to have you
+have 'em. Seems as if strangers in a strange land oughtn't to stand on
+ceremony.”
+
+The clerk was bending forward holding up the stockings alluringly.
+“_Pour mademoiselle, n'est-ce-pas_?”
+
+“_Mais--non!_” pronounced Virginia, with emphasis.
+
+There followed an untranslatable gesture. “How droll!” shoulder and
+outstretched hands were saying. “If the kind gentleman _wishes_ to give
+mademoiselle the _joli bas_--!”
+
+His face had puckered up again. Then suddenly it unpuckered. “Tell you
+what you might do,” he solved it. “Just take 'em along and send them to
+your mother. Now your mother might be real glad to have 'em.”
+
+Virginia stared. And then an awful thing happened. What she was thinking
+about was the letter she could send with the stockings. “Mother dear,”
+ she would write, “as I stood at the counter buying myself some stockings
+to-day along came a nice man--a stranger to me, but very kind and
+jolly--and gave me--”
+
+There it was that the awful thing happened. Her dimple was showing--and
+at thought of its showing she could not keep it from showing! And how
+could she explain why it was showing without its going on showing? And
+how--?
+
+But at that moment her gaze fell upon the clerk, who had taken
+the dimple as signal to begin putting the stockings in a box. The
+Frenchwoman's eyebrows soon put that dimple in its proper place. “And
+so the _petite Americaine_ was not too--oh, not _too_--” those French
+eyebrows were saying.
+
+All in an instant Virginia was something quite different from a little
+girl with a dimple. “You are very kind,” she was saying, and her mother
+herself could have done it no better, “but I am sure our little joke had
+gone quite far enough. I bid you good-morning”. And with that she
+walked regally over to the glove counter, leaving red and grey and black
+hosiery to their own destinies.
+
+“I loathe them when their eyebrows go up,” she fumed. “Now _his_ weren't
+going up--not even in his mind.”
+
+She could not keep from worrying about him. “They'll just 'do' him,” she
+was sure. “And then laugh at him in the bargain. A man like that has no
+_business_ to be let loose in a store all by himself.”
+
+And sure enough, a half hour later she came upon him up in the dress
+department. Three of them had gathered round to “do” him. They were
+making rapid headway, their smiling deference scantily concealing their
+amused contempt. The spectacle infuriated Virginia. “They just think
+they can _work_ us!” she stormed. “They think we're _easy_. I suppose
+they think he's a _fool_. I just wish they could get him in a business
+deal! I just wish--!”
+
+“I can assure you, sir,” the English-speaking manager of the department
+was saying, “that this garment is a wonderful value. We are able to let
+you have it at so absurdly low a figure because--”
+
+Virginia did not catch why it was they were able to let him have it at
+so absurdly low a figure, but she did see him wipe his brow and look
+helplessly around. “Poor _thing_,” she murmured, almost tenderly, “he
+doesn't know what to do. He just _does_ need somebody to look after
+him.” She stood there looking at his back. He had a back a good deal
+like the back of her chum's father at home. Indeed there were various
+things about him suggested “home.” Did one want one's own jeered at? One
+might see crudities one's self, but was one going to have supercilious
+outsiders coughing those sham coughs behind their hypocritical hands?
+
+“For seven hundred francs,” she heard the suave voice saying.
+
+_Seven hundred francs_! Virginia's national pride, or, more accurately,
+her national rage, was lashed into action. It was with very red
+cheeks that the small American stepped stormily to the rescue of her
+countryman.
+
+“Seven hundred francs for _that_?” she jeered, right in the face of the
+enraged manager and stiffening clerks. “Seven hundred francs--indeed!
+Last year's model--a hideous colour, and “--picking it up, running it
+through her fingers and tossing it contemptuously aside--“abominable
+stuff!”
+
+“Gee, but I'm grateful to you!” he breathed, again wiping his brow. “You
+know, I was a little leery of it myself.”
+
+The manager, quivering with rage and glaring uglily, stepped up to
+Virginia. “May I ask--?”
+
+But the fat man stepped in between--he was well qualified for
+that position. “Cut it out, partner. The young lady's a friend of
+_mine_--see? She's looking out for me--not you. I don't want your stuff,
+anyway.” And taking Virginia serenely by the arm he walked away.
+
+“This was no place to buy dresses,” said she crossly.
+
+“Well, I wish I knew where the places _were_ to buy things,” he replied,
+humbly, forlornly.
+
+“Well, what do you want to buy?” demanded she, still crossly.
+
+“Why, I want to buy some nice things for my wife. Something the real
+thing from Paris, you know. I came over from London on purpose. But
+Lord,”--again wiping his brow--“a fellow doesn't know where to _go_.”
+
+“Oh well,” sighed Virginia, long-sufferingly, “I see I'll just have to
+take you. There doesn't seem any way out of it. It's evident you can't
+go _alone_. _Seven hundred francs_!”
+
+“I suppose it was too much,” he conceded meekly. “I tell you I _will_
+be grateful if you'll just stay by me a little while. I never felt so up
+against it in all my life.”
+
+“Now, a very nice thing to take one's wife from Paris,” began Virginia
+didactically, when they reached the sidewalk, “is lace.”
+
+“L--ace? Um! Y--es, I suppose lace is all right. Still it never struck
+me there was anything so very _lively_ looking about lace.”
+
+“'Lively looking' is not the final word in wearing apparel,” pronounced
+Virginia in teacher-to-pupil manner. “Lace is always in good taste,
+never goes out of style, and all women care for it. I will take you to
+one of the lace shops.”
+
+“Very well,” acquiesced he, truly chastened. “Here, let's get in this
+cab.”
+
+Virginia rode across the Seine looking like one pondering the destinies
+of nations. Her companion turned several times to address her, but it
+would have been as easy for a soldier to slap a general on the back.
+Finally she turned to him.
+
+“Now when we get there,” she instructed, “don't seem at all interested
+in things. Act--oh, bored, you know, and seeming to want to get me away.
+And when they tell the price, no matter what they say, just--well
+sort of groan and hold your head and act as though you are absolutely
+overcome at the thought of such an outrage.”
+
+“U--m. You have to do that here to get--lace?”
+
+“You have to do that here to get _anything_---at the price you should
+get it. You, and people who go shopping the way you do, bring discredit
+upon the entire American nation.”
+
+“That so? Sorry. Never meant to do that. All right, Young Lady, I'll do
+the best I can. Never did act that way, but suppose I can, if the rest
+of them do.”
+
+“Groan and hold my head,” she heard him murmuring as they entered the
+shop.
+
+He proved an apt pupil. It may indeed be set down that his aptitude was
+their undoing. They had no sooner entered the shop than he pulled out
+his watch and uttered an exclamation of horror at the sight of the time.
+Virginia could scarcely look at the lace, so insistently did he keep
+waving the watch before her. His contempt for everything shown was open
+and emphatic. It was also articulate. Virginia grew nervous, seeing the
+real red showing through in the Frenchwoman's cheeks. And when the price
+was at last named--a price which made Virginia jubilant--there burst
+upon her outraged ears something between a jeer and a howl of rage, the
+whole of it terrifyingly done in the form of a groan; she looked at
+her companion to see him holding up his hands and wobbling his head as
+though it had been suddenly loosened from his spine, cast one look at
+the Frenchwoman--then fled, followed by her groaning compatriot.
+
+“I didn't mean you to act like _that_!” she stormed.
+
+“Why, I did just what you told me to! Seemed to me I was following
+directions to the letter. Don't think for a minute _I'm_ going to bring
+discredit on the American nation! Not a bad scheme--taking out my watch
+that way, was it?”
+
+“Oh, beautiful _scheme_. I presume you notice, however, that we have no
+lace.”
+
+They walked half a block in silence. “Now I'll take you to another
+shop,” she then volunteered, in a turning the other cheek fashion, “and
+here please do nothing at all. Please just--sit.”
+
+“Sort of as if I was feeble-minded, eh?”
+
+“Oh, don't _try_ to look feeble-minded,” she begged, alarmed at seeming
+to suggest any more parts; “just sit there--as if you were thinking of
+something very far away.”
+
+“Say, Young Lady, look here; this is very nice, being put on to the
+tricks of the trade, but the money end of it isn't cutting much ice,
+and isn't there any way you can just _buy_ things--the way you do in
+Cincinnati? Can't you get their stuff without making a comic opera out
+of it?”
+
+“No, you can't,” spoke relentless Virginia; “not unless you want them to
+laugh and say 'Aren't Americans fools?' the minute the door is shut.”
+
+“Fools--eh? I'll show them a thing or two!”
+
+“Oh, please show them nothing here! Please just--sit.”
+
+While employing her wiles to get for three hundred and fifty francs
+a yoke and scarf aggregating four hundred, she chanced to look at her
+American friend. Then she walked rapidly to the rear of the shop,
+buried her face in her handkerchief, and seemed making heroic efforts
+to sneeze. Once more he was following directions to the letter. Chin
+resting on hands, hands resting on stick, the huge American had taken
+on the beatific expression of a seventeen-year-old girl thinking of
+something “very far away.” Virginia was long in mastering the sneeze.
+
+On the sidewalk she presented him with the package of lace and also with
+what she regarded the proper thing in the way of farewell speech. She
+supposed it _was_ hard for a man to go shopping alone; she could see how
+hard it would be for her own father; indeed it was seeing how difficult
+it would be for her father had impelled her to go with him, a stranger.
+She trusted his wife would like the lace; she thought it very nice, and
+a bargain. She was glad to have been of service to a fellow countryman
+who seemed in so difficult a position.
+
+But he did not look as impressed as one to whom a farewell speech was
+being made should look. In fact, he did not seem to be hearing it. Once
+more, and in earnest this time, he appeared to be thinking of something
+very far away. Then all at once he came back, and it was in anything but
+a far-away voice he began, briskly: “Now look here, Young Lady, I don't
+doubt but this lace is great stuff. You say so, and I haven't seen man,
+woman or child on this side of the Atlantic knows as much as you do.
+I'm mighty grateful for the lace--don't you forget that, but just the
+same--well, now I'll tell you. I have a very special reason for wanting
+something a little livelier than lace. Something that seems to have
+Paris written on it in red letters--see? Now, where do you get the
+kind of hats you see some folks wearing, and where do you get the
+dresses--well, it's hard to describe 'em, but the kind they have in
+pictures marked 'Breezes from Paris'? You see--_S-ay!_--_what_ do you
+think of _that?_”
+
+“That” was in a window across the street. It was an opera cloak. He
+walked toward it, Virginia following. “Now _there_,” he turned to her,
+his large round face all aglow, “is what I want.”
+
+It was yellow; it was long; it was billowy; it was insistently and
+recklessly regal.
+
+“That's the ticket!” he gloated.
+
+“Of course,” began Virginia, “I don't know anything about it. I am in a
+very strange position, not knowing what your wife likes or--or has. This
+is the kind of thing everything has to go _with_ or one wouldn't--one
+couldn't--”
+
+“Sure! Good idea. We'll just get everything to go with it.”
+
+“It's the sort of thing one doesn't see worn much outside of Paris--or
+New York. If one is--now my mother wouldn't care for that coat at all.”
+ Virginia took no little pride in that tactful finish.
+
+“Can't sidetrack me!” he beamed. “I _want_ it. Very thing I'm after,
+Young Lady.”
+
+“Well, of course you will have no difficulty in buying the coat without
+me,” said she, as a dignified version of “I wash my hands of you.” “You
+can do here as you said you wished to do, simply go in and pay what they
+ask. There would be no use trying to get it cheap. They would know that
+anyone who wanted it would”--she wanted to say “have more money than
+they knew what to do with,” but contented herself with, “be able to pay
+for it.”
+
+But when she had finished she looked at him; at first she thought she
+wanted to laugh, and then it seemed that wasn't what she wanted to
+do after all. It was like saying to a small boy who was one beam over
+finding a tin horn: “Oh well, take the horn if you want to, but you
+can't haul your little red waggon while you're blowing the horn.” There
+seemed something peculiarly inhuman about taking the waggon just when he
+had found the horn. Now if the waggon were broken, then to take away
+the horn would leave the luxury of grief. But let not shadows fall upon
+joyful moments.
+
+With the full ardour of her femininity she entered into the purchasing
+of the yellow opera cloak. They paid for that decorative garment the sum
+of two thousand five hundred francs. It seemed it was embroidered, and
+the lining was--anyway, they paid it.
+
+And they took it with them. He was going to “take no chances on losing
+it.” He was leaving Paris that night and held that during his stay
+he had been none too impressed with either Parisian speed or Parisian
+veracity.
+
+Then they bought some “Breezes from Paris,” a dress that would “go with”
+ the coat. It was violet velvet, and contributed to the sense of doing
+one's uttermost; and hats--“the kind you see some folks wearing.” One
+was the rainbow done into flowers, and the other the kind of black hat
+to outdo any rainbow. “If you could just give me some idea what type
+your wife is,” Virginia was saying, from beneath the willow plumes. “Now
+you see this hat quite overpowers me. Do you think it will overpower
+her?”
+
+“Guess not. Anyway, if it don't look right on her head she may enjoy
+having it around to look at.”
+
+Virginia stared out at him. The _oddest_ man! As if a hat were any good
+at all if it didn't look right on one's head!
+
+Upon investigation--though yielding to his taste she was still vigilant
+as to his interests--Virginia discovered a flaw in one of the plumes.
+The sylph in the trailing gown held volubly that it did not _fait rien_;
+the man with the open purse said he couldn't see that it figured much,
+but the small American held firm. That must be replaced by a perfect
+plume or they would not take the hat. And when she saw who was in
+command the sylph as volubly acquiesced that _naturellement_ it must be
+_tout a fait_ perfect. She would send out and get one that would be oh!
+so, so, _so_ perfect. It would take half an hour.
+
+“Tell you what we'll do,” Virginia's friend proposed, opera cloak
+tight under one arm, velvet gown as tight under the other, “I'm
+tired--hungry--thirsty; feel like a ham sandwich--and something. I'm
+playing you out, too. Let's go out and get a bite and come back for the
+so, so, _so_ perfect hat.”
+
+She hesitated. But he had the door open, and if he stood holding it that
+way much longer he was bound to drop the violet velvet gown. She did not
+want him to drop the velvet gown and furthermore, she _would_ like a cup
+of tea. There came into her mind a fortifying thought about the relative
+deaths of sheep and lambs. If to be killed for the sheep were indeed no
+worse than being killed for the lamb, and if a cup of tea went with the
+sheep and nothing at all with the lamb--?
+
+So she agreed. “There's a nice little tea-shop right round the corner.
+We girls often go there.”
+
+“Tea? Like tea? All right, then”--and he started manfully on.
+
+But as she entered the tea-shop she was filled with keen sense of
+the desirableness of being slain for the lesser animal. For, cosily
+installed in their favourite corner, were “the girls.”
+
+Virginia had explained to these friends some three hours before that she
+could not go with them that afternoon as she must attend a musicale some
+friends of her mother's were giving. Being friends of her mother's, she
+expatiated, she would have to go.
+
+Recollecting this, also for the first time remembering the musicale, she
+bowed with the _hauteur_ of self-consciousness.
+
+Right there her friend contributed to the tragedy of a sheep's death by
+dropping the yellow opera cloak. While he was stooping to pick it up the
+violet velvet gown slid backward and Virginia had to steady it until
+he could regain position. The staring in the corner gave way to
+tittering--and no dying sheep had ever held its head more haughtily.
+
+The death of this particular sheep proved long and painful. The legs
+of Virginia's friend and the legs of the tea-table did not seem well
+adapted to each other. He towered like a human mountain over the dainty
+thing, twisting now this way and now that. It seemed Providence--or
+at least so much of it as was represented by the management of that
+shop--had never meant fat people to drink tea. The table was rendered
+further out of proportion by having a large box piled on either side of
+it.
+
+Expansively, and not softly, he discoursed of these things. What did
+they think a fellow was to do with his _knees_? Didn't they sell tea
+enough to afford any decent chairs? Did all these women pretend to
+really _like_ tea?
+
+Virginia's sense of humour rallied somewhat as she viewed him eating
+the sandwiches. Once she had called them doll-baby sandwiches; now that
+seemed literal: tea-cups, _petit gateau_, the whole service gave the
+fancy of his sitting down to a tea-party given by a little girl for her
+dollies.
+
+But after a time he fell silent, looking around the room. And when he
+broke that pause his voice was different.
+
+“These women here, all dressed so fine, nothing to do but sit around and
+eat this folderol, _they_ have it easy--don't they?”
+
+The bitterness in it, and a faint note of wistfulness, puzzled her.
+Certainly _he_ had money.
+
+“And the husbands of these women,” he went on; “lots of 'em, I suppose,
+didn't always have so much. Maybe some of these women helped out in the
+early days when things weren't so easy. Wonder if the men ever think how
+lucky they are to be able to get it back at 'em?”
+
+She grew more bewildered. Wasn't he “getting it back?” The money he had
+been spending that day!
+
+“Young Lady,” he said abruptly, “you must think I'm a queer one.”
+
+She murmured feeble protest.
+
+“Yes, you must. Must wonder what I want with all this stuff, don't you?”
+
+“Why, it's for your wife, isn't it?” she asked, startled.
+
+“Oh yes, but you must wonder. You're a shrewd one, Young Lady; judging
+the thing by me, you must wonder.”
+
+Virginia was glad she was not compelled to state her theory. Loud and
+common and impossible were terms which had presented themselves, terms
+which she had fought with kind and good-natured and generous. Their
+purchases she had decided were to be used, not for a knock, but as a
+crashing pound at the door of the society of his town. For her part,
+Virginia hoped the door would come down.
+
+“And if you knew that probably this stuff would never be worn at all,
+that ten to one it would never do anything more than lie round on
+chairs--then you _would_ think I was queer, wouldn't you?”
+
+She was forced to admit that that would seem rather strange.
+
+“Young Lady, I believe I'll tell you about it. Never do talk about it
+to hardly anybody, but I feel as if you and I were pretty well
+acquainted--we've been through so much together.”
+
+She smiled at him warmly; there was something so real about him when he
+talked that way.
+
+But his look then frightened her. It seemed for an instant as though he
+would brush the tiny table aside and seize some invisible thing by the
+throat. Then he said, cutting off each word short: “Young Lady, what
+do you think of this? I'm worth more 'an a million dollars--and my wife
+gets up at five o'clock every morning to do washing and scrubbing.”
+
+“Oh, it's not that she _has_ to,” he answered her look, “but she
+_thinks_ she has to. See? Once we were poor. For twenty years we were
+poor as dirt. Then she did have to do things like that. Then I struck
+it. Or rather, it struck me. Oil. Oil on a bit of land I had. I had just
+sense enough to make the most of it; one thing led to another--well,
+you're not interested in that end of it. But the fact is that now we're
+rich. Now she could have all the things that these women have--Lord
+A'mighty she could lay abed every day till noon if she wanted to!
+But--you see?--it _got_ her--those hard, lonely, grinding years _took_
+her. She's”--he shrunk from the terrible word and faltered out--“her
+mind's not--”
+
+There was a sobbing little flutter in Virginia's throat. In a dim way
+she was glad to see that the girls were going. She _could_ not have them
+laughing at him--now.
+
+“Well, you can about figure out how it makes me feel,” he continued,
+and looking into his face now it was as though the spirit redeemed the
+flesh. “You're smart. You can see it without my callin' your attention
+to it. Last time I went to see her I had just made fifty thousand on a
+deal. And I found her down on her knees thinking she was scrubbing the
+floor!”
+
+Unconsciously Virginia's hand went out, following the rush of sympathy
+and understanding. “But can't they--restrain her?” she murmured.
+
+“Makes her worse. Says she's got it to do--frets her to think she's not
+getting it done.”
+
+“But isn't there some _way_?” she whispered. “Some way to make her
+_know_?”
+
+He pointed to the large boxes. “That,” he said simply, “is the meaning
+of those. It's been seven years--but I keep on trying.”
+
+She was silent, the tears too close for words. And she had thought it
+cheap ambition!--vulgar aspiration--silly show--vanity!
+
+“Suppose you thought I was a queer one, talking about lively looking
+things. But you see now? Thought it might attract her attention, thought
+something real gorgeous like this might impress money on her. Though I
+don't know,”--he seemed to grow weary as he told it; “I got her a lot of
+diamonds, thinking they might interest her, and she thought she'd stolen
+'em, and they had to take them away.”
+
+Still the girl did not speak. Her hand was shading her eyes.
+
+“But there's nothing like trying. Nothing like keeping right on trying.
+And anyhow--a fellow likes to think he's taking his wife something from
+Paris.”
+
+They passed before her in their heartbreaking folly, their tragic
+uselessness, their lovable absurdity and stinging irony--those
+things they had bought that afternoon: an _opera cloak_--a _velvet
+dress_--_those hats_--_red silk stockings_.
+
+The mockery of them wrung her heart. Right there in the tea-shop
+Virginia was softly crying.
+
+“Oh, now that's too bad,” he expostulated clumsily. “Why, look here,
+Young Lady, I didn't mean you to take it so hard.”
+
+When she had recovered herself he told her much of the story. And the
+thing which revealed him--glorified him--was less the grief he gave
+to it than the way he saw it. “It's the cursed unfairness of it,”
+ he concluded. “When you consider it's all because she did those
+things--when you think of her bein' bound to 'em for life just because
+she was _too faithful doin' 'em_--when you think that now--when I could
+give her everything these women have got!--she's got to go right on
+worrying about baking the bread and washing the dishes--did it for me
+when I was poor--and now with me rich she can't get _out_ of it--and
+I _can't reach_ her--oh, it's _rotten!_ I tell you it's _rotten!_
+Sometimes I can just hear my money _laugh_ at me! Sometimes I get to
+going round and round in a circle about it till it seems I'm going crazy
+myself.”
+
+“I think you are a--a noble man,” choked Virginia.
+
+That disconcerted him. “Oh Lord--don't think that. No, Young Lady, don't
+try to make any plaster saint out of _me_. My life goes on. I've got to
+eat, drink and be merry. I'm built that way. But just the same my heart
+on the inside's pretty sore, Young Lady. I want to tell you that the
+whole inside of my heart is _sore as a boil_!”
+
+They were returning for the hats. Suddenly Virginia stopped, and it
+was a soft-eyed and gentle Virginia who turned to him after the pause.
+“There are lovely things to be bought in Paris for women who aren't
+well. Such soft, lovely things to wear in your room. Not but what I
+think these other things are all right. As you say, they may--interest
+her. But they aren't things she can use just now, and wouldn't you like
+her to have some of those soft lovely things she could actually wear?
+They might help most of all. To wake in the morning and find herself in
+something so beautiful--”
+
+“Where do you get 'em?” he demanded promptly.
+
+And so they went to one of those shops which have, more than all the
+others, enshrined Paris in feminine hearts. And never was lingerie
+selected with more loving care than that which Virginia picked out that
+afternoon. A tear fell on one particularly lovely _robe de nuit_--so
+soothingly soft, so caressingly luxurious, it seemed that surely it
+might help bring release from the bondage of those crushing years.
+
+As they were leaving they were given two packages. “Just the kimona
+thing you liked,” he said, “and a trinket or two. Now that we're such
+good friends, you won't feel like you did this morning.”
+
+“And if I don't want them myself, I might send them to my mother,”
+ Virginia replied, a quiver in her laugh at her own little joke.
+
+He had put her in her cab; he had tried to tell her how much he thanked
+her; they had said good-bye and the _cocher_ had cracked his whip when
+he came running after her. “Why, Young Lady,” he called out, “we don't
+know each other's _names_.”
+
+She laughed and gave hers. “Mine's William P. Johnson,” he said. “Part
+French and part Italian. But now look here, Young Lady--or I mean, Miss
+Clayton. A fellow at the hotel was telling me something last night that
+made me _sick_. He said American girls sometimes got awfully up against
+it here. He said one actually starved last year. Now, I don't like that
+kind of business. Look here, Young Lady, I want you to promise that if
+you--you or any of your gang--get up against it you'll cable William P.
+Johnson, of Cincinnati, Ohio.”
+
+The twilight grey had stolen upon Paris. And there was a mist which the
+street lights only penetrated a little way--as sometimes one's knowledge
+of life may only penetrate life a very little way. Her cab stopped by a
+blockade, she watched the burly back of William P. Johnson disappearing
+into the mist. The red box which held the yellow opera cloak she could
+see longer than all else.
+
+“You never can tell,” murmured Virginia. “It just goes to show that you
+never can tell.”
+
+And whatever it was you never could tell had brought to Virginia's
+girlish face the tender knowingness of the face of a woman.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PLEA
+
+
+Senator Harrison concluded his argument and sat down. There was no
+applause, but he had expected none. Senator Dorman was already saying
+“Mr. President?” and there was a stir in the crowded galleries, and an
+anticipatory moving of chairs among the Senators. In the press gallery
+the reporters bunched together their scattered papers and inspected
+their pencil-points with earnestness. Dorman was the best speaker of
+the Senate, and he was on the popular side of it. It would be the great
+speech of the session, and the prospect was cheering after a deluge of
+railroad and insurance bills.
+
+“I want to tell you,” he began, “why I have worked for this resolution
+recommending the pardon of Alfred Williams. It is one of the great laws
+of the universe that every living thing be given a chance. In the case
+before us that law has been violated. This does not resolve itself into
+a question of second chances. The boy of whom we are speaking has never
+had his first.”
+
+Senator Harrison swung his chair half-way around and looked out at the
+green things which were again coming into their own on the State-house
+grounds. He knew--in substance--what Senator Dorman would say without
+hearing it, and he was a little tired of the whole affair. He hoped that
+one way or other they would finish it up that night, and go ahead with
+something else. He had done what he could, and now the responsibility
+was with the rest of them. He thought they were shouldering a great deal
+to advocate the pardon in the face of the united opposition of Johnson
+County, where the crime had been committed. It seemed a community
+should be the best judge of its own crimes, and that was what he, as the
+Senator from Johnson, had tried to impress upon them.
+
+He knew that his argument against the boy had been a strong one. He
+rather liked the attitude in which he stood. It seemed as if he were
+the incarnation of outraged justice attempting to hold its own at the
+floodgates of emotion. He liked to think he was looking far beyond the
+present and the specific and acting as guardian of the future--and the
+whole. In summing it up that night the reporters would tell in highly
+wrought fashion of the moving appeal made by Senator Dorman, and then
+they would speak dispassionately of the logical argument of the leader
+of the opposition. There was more satisfaction to self in logic than
+in mere eloquence. He was even a little proud of his unpopularity. It
+seemed sacrificial.
+
+He wondered why it was Senator Dorman had thrown himself into it so
+whole-heartedly. All during the session the Senator from Maxwell had
+neglected personal interests in behalf of this boy, who was nothing to
+him in the world. He supposed it was as a sociological and psychological
+experiment. Senator Dorman had promised the Governor to assume
+guardianship of the boy if he were let out. The Senator from Johnson
+inferred that as a student of social science his eloquent colleague
+wanted to see what he could make of him. To suppose the interest merely
+personal and sympathetic would seem discreditable.
+
+“I need not dwell upon the story,” the Senator from Maxwell was saying,
+“for you all are familiar with it already. It is said to have been the
+most awful crime ever committed in the State. I grant you that it was,
+and then I ask you to look for a minute into the conditions leading up
+to it.
+
+“When the boy was born, his mother was instituting divorce proceedings
+against his father. She obtained the divorce, and remarried when Alfred
+was three months old. From the time he was a mere baby she taught him
+to hate his father. Everything that went wrong with him she told him was
+his father's fault. His first vivid impression was that his father was
+responsible for all the wrong of the universe.
+
+“For seven years that went on, and then his mother died. His stepfather
+did not want him. He was going to Missouri, and the boy would be a
+useless expense and a bother. He made no attempt to find a home for him;
+he did not even explain--he merely went away and left him. At the age of
+seven the boy was turned out on the world, after having been taught one
+thing--to hate his father. He stayed a few days in the barren house,
+and then new tenants came and closed the doors against him. It may have
+occurred to him as a little strange that he had been sent into a world
+where there was no place for him.
+
+“When he asked the neighbours for shelter, they told him to go to his
+own father and not bother strangers. He said he did not know where his
+father was. They told him, and he started to walk--a distance of fifty
+miles. I ask you to bear in mind, gentlemen, that he was only seven
+years of age. It is the age when the average boy is beginning the third
+reader, and when he is shooting marbles and spinning tops.
+
+“When he reached his father's house he was told at once that he was not
+wanted there. The man had remarried, there were other children, and
+he had no place for Alfred. He turned him away; but the neighbours
+protested, and he was compelled to take him back. For four years he
+lived in this home, to which he had come unbidden, and where he was
+never made welcome.
+
+“The whole family rebelled against him. The father satisfied his
+resentment against the boy's dead mother by beating her son, by
+encouraging his wife to abuse him, and inspiring the other children to
+despise him. It seems impossible such conditions should exist. The only
+proof of their possibility lies in the fact of their existence.
+
+“I need not go into the details of the crime. He had been beaten by his
+father that evening after a quarrel with his stepmother about spilling
+the milk. He went, as usual, to his bed in the barn; but the hay was
+suffocating, his head ached, and he could not sleep. He arose in the
+middle of the night, went to the house, and killed both his father and
+stepmother.
+
+“I shall not pretend to say what thoughts surged through the boy's brain
+as he lay there in the stifling hay with the hot blood pounding against
+his temples. I shall not pretend to say whether he was sane or insane as
+he walked to the house for the perpetration of the awful crime. I do not
+even affirm it would not have happened had there been some human being
+there to lay a cooling hand on his hot forehead, and say a few soothing,
+loving words to take the sting from the loneliness, and ease the
+suffering. I ask you to consider only one thing: he was eleven years old
+at the time, and he had no friend in all the world. He knew nothing of
+sympathy; he knew only injustice.”
+
+Senator Harrison was still looking out at the budding things on the
+State-house grounds, but in a vague way he was following the story. He
+knew when the Senator from Maxwell completed the recital of facts and
+entered upon his plea. He was conscious that it was stronger than he had
+anticipated--more logic and less empty exhortation. He was telling of
+the boy's life in reformatory and penitentiary since the commission
+of the crime,--of how he had expanded under kindness, of his mental
+attainments, the letters he could write, the books he had read, the
+hopes he cherished. In the twelve years he had spent there he had been
+known to do no unkind nor mean thing; he responded to affection--craved
+it. It was not the record of a degenerate, the Senator from Maxwell was
+saying.
+
+A great many things were passing through the mind of the Senator from
+Johnson. He was trying to think who it was that wrote that book, “Put
+Yourself in His Place.” He had read it once, and it bothered him to
+forget names. Then he was wondering why it was the philosophers had
+not more to say about the incongruity of people who had never had any
+trouble of their own sitting in judgment upon people who had known
+nothing but trouble. He was thinking also that abstract rules did not
+always fit smoothly over concrete cases, and that it was hard to make
+life a matter of rules, anyway.
+
+Next he was wondering how it would have been with the boy Alfred
+Williams if he had been born in Charles Harrison's place; and then he
+was working it out the other way and wondering how it would have been
+with Charles Harrison had he been born in Alfred Williams's place.
+He wondered whether the idea of murder would have grown in Alfred
+Williams's heart had he been born to the things to which Charles
+Harrison was born, and whether it would have come within the range of
+possibility for Charles Harrison to murder his father if he had been
+born to Alfred Williams's lot. Putting it that way, it was hard to
+estimate how much of it was the boy himself, and how much the place the
+world had prepared for him. And if it was the place prepared for him
+more than the boy, why was the fault not more with the preparers of the
+place than with the occupant of it? The whole thing was very confusing.
+
+“This page,” the Senator from Maxwell was saying, lifting the little
+fellow to the desk, “is just eleven years of age, and he is within three
+pounds of Alfred Williams's weight when he committed the murder. I ask
+you, gentlemen, if this little fellow should be guilty of a like crime
+to-night, to what extent would you, in reading of it in the morning,
+charge him with the moral discernment which is the first condition of
+moral responsibility? If Alfred Williams's story were this boy's story,
+would you deplore that there had been no one to check the childish
+passion, or would you say it was the inborn instinct of the murderer?
+And suppose again this were Alfred Williams at the age of eleven, would
+you not be willing to look into the future and say if he spent twelve
+years in penitentiary and reformatory, in which time he developed the
+qualities of useful and honourable citizenship, that the ends of justice
+would then have been met, and the time at hand for the world to begin
+the payment of her debt?”
+
+Senator Harrison's eyes were fixed upon the page standing on the
+opposite desk. Eleven was a younger age than he had supposed. As he
+looked back upon it and recalled himself when eleven years of age--his
+irresponsibility, his dependence--he was unwilling to say what would
+have happened if the world had turned upon him as it had upon Alfred
+Williams. At eleven his greatest grievance was that the boys at school
+called him “yellow-top.” He remembered throwing a rock at one of them
+for doing it. He wondered if it was criminal instinct prompted the
+throwing of the rock. He wondered how high the percentage of children's
+crimes would go were it not for countermanding influences. It seemed the
+great difference between Alfred Williams and a number of other children
+of eleven had been the absence of the countermanding influence.
+
+There came to him of a sudden a new and moving thought. Alfred Williams
+had been cheated of his boyhood. The chances were he had never gone
+swimming, nor to a ball game, or maybe never to a circus. It might even
+be that he had never owned a dog. The Senator from Maxwell was right
+when he said the boy had never been given his chance, had been defrauded
+of that which has been a boy's heritage since the world itself was
+young.
+
+And the later years--how were they making it up to him? He recalled
+what to him was the most awful thing he had ever heard about the State
+penitentiary: they never saw the sun rise down there, and they never saw
+it set. They saw it at its meridian, when it climbed above the stockade,
+but as it rose into the day, and as it sank into the night, it was
+denied them. And there, at the penitentiary, they could not even look up
+at the stars. It had been years since Alfred Williams raised his face
+to God's heaven and knew he was part of it all. The voices of the night
+could not penetrate the little cell in the heart of the mammoth stone
+building where he spent his evenings over those masterpieces with which,
+they said, he was more familiar than the average member of the Senate.
+When he read those things Victor Hugo said of the vastness of the night,
+he could only look around at the walls that enclosed him and try to
+reach back over the twelve years for some satisfying conception of what
+night really was.
+
+The Senator from Johnson shuddered: they had taken from a living
+creature the things of life, and all because in the crucial hour there
+had been no one to say a staying word. Man had cheated him of the things
+that were man's, and then shut him away from the world that was God's.
+They had made for him a life barren of compensations.
+
+There swept over the Senator a great feeling of self-pity. As
+representative of Johnson County, it was he who must deny this boy the
+whole great world without, the people who wanted to help him, and what
+the Senator from Maxwell called “his chance.” If Johnson County carried
+the day, there would be something unpleasant for him to consider all the
+remainder of his life. As he grew to be an older man he would think of
+it more and more--what the boy would have done for himself in the world
+if the Senator from Johnson had not been more logical and more powerful
+than the Senator from Maxwell.
+
+Senator Dorman was nearing the end of his argument. “In spite of the
+undying prejudice of the people of Johnson County,” he was saying, “I
+can stand before you today and say that after an unsparing investigation
+of this case I do not believe I am asking you to do anything in
+violation of justice when I beg of you to give this boy his chance.”
+
+It was going to a vote at once, and the Senator from Johnson County
+looked out at the budding things and wondered whether the boy down
+at the penitentiary knew the Senate was considering his case that
+afternoon. It was without vanity he wondered whether what he had been
+trained to think of as an all-wise providence would not have preferred
+that Johnson County be represented that session by a less able man.
+
+A great hush fell over the Chamber, for ayes and noes followed almost in
+alternation. After a long minute of waiting the secretary called, in a
+tense voice:
+
+“Ayes, 30; Noes, 32.”
+
+The Senator from Johnson had proven too faithful a servant of his
+constituents. The boy in the penitentiary was denied his chance.
+
+The usual things happened: some women in the galleries, who had boys
+at home, cried aloud; the reporters were fighting for occupancy of the
+telephone booths, and most of the Senators began the perusal of the
+previous day's Journal with elaborate interest. Senator Dorman indulged
+in none of these feints. A full look at his face just then told how much
+of his soul had gone into the fight for the boy's chance, and the
+look about his eyes was a little hard on the theory of psychological
+experiment.
+
+Senator Harrison was looking out at the budding trees, but his face too
+had grown strange, and he seemed to be looking miles beyond and years
+ahead. It seemed that he himself was surrendering the voices of the
+night, and the comings and goings of the sun. He would never look at
+them--feel them--again without remembering he was keeping one of his
+fellow creatures away from them. He wondered at his own presumption
+in denying any living thing participation in the universe. And all the
+while there were before him visions of the boy who sat in the cramped
+cell with the volume of a favourite poet before him, trying to think how
+it would seem to be out under the stars.
+
+The stillness in the Senate-Chamber was breaking; they were going ahead
+with something else. It seemed to the Senator from Johnson that sun,
+moon, and stars were wailing out protest for the boy who wanted to know
+them better. And yet it was not sun, moon, and stars so much as the
+unused swimming hole and the uncaught fish, the unattended ball game,
+the never-seen circus, and, above all, the unowned dog, that brought
+Senator Harrison to his feet.
+
+They looked at him in astonishment, their faces seeming to say it would
+have been in better taste for him to have remained seated just then.
+
+“Mr. President,” he said, pulling at his collar and looking straight
+ahead, “I rise to move a reconsideration.”
+
+There was a gasp, a moment of supreme quiet, and then a mighty burst
+of applause. To men of all parties and factions there came a single
+thought. Johnson was the leading county of its Congressional district.
+There was an election that fall, and Harrison was in the race. Those
+eight words meant to a surety he would not go to Washington, for the
+Senator from Maxwell had chosen the right word when he referred to the
+prejudice of Johnson County on the Williams case as “undying.” The
+world throbs with such things at the moment of their doing--even though
+condemning them later, and the part of the world then packed within the
+Senate-Chamber shared the universal disposition.
+
+The noise astonished Senator Harrison, and he looked around with
+something like resentment. When the tumult at last subsided, and he saw
+that he was expected to make a speech, he grew very red, and grasped his
+chair desperately.
+
+The reporters were back in their places, leaning nervously forward.
+This was Senator Harrison's chance to say something worth putting into a
+panel by itself with black lines around it--and they were sure he would
+do it.
+
+But he did not. He stood there like a schoolboy who had forgotten his
+piece--growing more and more red. “I--I think,” he finally jerked out,
+“that some of us have been mistaken. I'm in favour now of--of giving him
+his chance.”
+
+They waited for him to proceed, but after a helpless look around the
+Chamber he sat down. The president of the Senate waited several minutes
+for him to rise again, but he at last turned his chair around and
+looked out at the green things on the State-house grounds, and there
+was nothing to do but go ahead with the second calling of the roll. This
+time it stood 50 to 12 in favour of the boy.
+
+A motion to adjourn immediately followed--no one wanted to do anything
+more that afternoon. They all wanted to say things to the Senator from
+Johnson; but his face had grown cold, and as they were usually afraid of
+him, anyhow, they kept away. All but Senator Dorman--it meant too much
+with him. “Do you mind my telling you,” he said, tensely, “that it was
+as fine a thing as I have ever known a man to do?”
+
+The Senator from Johnson moved impatiently. “You think it 'fine,'” he
+asked, almost resentfully, “to be a coward?”
+
+“Coward?” cried the other man. “Well, that's scarcely the word. It
+was--heroic!”
+
+“Oh no,” said Senator Harrison, and he spoke wearily, “it was a clear
+case of cowardice. You see,” he laughed, “I was afraid it might haunt me
+when I am seventy.”
+
+Senator Dorman started eagerly to speak, but the other man stopped him
+and passed on. He was seeing it as his constituency would see it, and
+it humiliated him. They would say he had not the courage of his
+convictions, that he was afraid of the unpopularity, that his judgment
+had fallen victim to the eloquence of the Senator from Maxwell.
+
+But when he left the building and came out into the softness of the
+April afternoon it began to seem different. After all, it was not he
+alone who leaned to the softer side. There were the trees--they were
+permitted another chance to bud; there were the birds--they were allowed
+another chance to sing; there was the earth--to it was given another
+chance to yield. There stole over him a tranquil sense of unison with
+Life.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS
+
+
+“Sure you're done with it?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” replied the girl, the suggestion of a smile on her face, and
+in her voice the suggestion of a tear. “Yes; I was just going.”
+
+But she did not go. She turned instead to the end of the alcove and sat
+down before a table placed by the window. Leaning her elbows upon it she
+looked about her through a blur of tears.
+
+Seen through her own eyes of longing, it seemed that almost all of the
+people whom she could see standing before the files of the daily papers
+were homesick. The reading-room had been a strange study to her during
+those weeks spent in fruitless search for the work she wanted to do, and
+it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When tired and disconsolate
+and utterly sick at heart there was always one thing she could do--she
+could go down to the library and look at the paper from home. It was not
+that she wanted the actual news of Denver. She did not care in any vital
+way what the city officials were doing, what buildings were going up, or
+who was leaving town. She was only indifferently interested in the fires
+and the murders. She wanted the comforting companionship of that paper
+from home.
+
+It seemed there were many to whom the papers offered that same sympathy,
+companionship, whatever it might be. More than anything else it perhaps
+gave to them--the searchers, drifters--a sense of anchorage. She would
+not soon forget the day she herself had stumbled in there and found the
+home paper. Chicago had given her nothing but rebuffs that day, and in
+desperation, just because she must go somewhere, and did not want to go
+back to her boarding-place, she had hunted out the city library. It was
+when walking listlessly about in the big reading-room it had occurred to
+her that perhaps she could find the paper from home; and after that when
+things were their worst, when her throat grew tight and her eyes dim,
+she could always comfort herself by saying: “After a while I'll run down
+and look at the paper.”
+
+But to-night it had failed her. It was not the paper from home to-night;
+it was just a newspaper. It did not inspire the belief that things would
+be better to-morrow, that it must all come right soon. It left her as
+she had come---heavy with the consciousness that in her purse was eleven
+dollars, and that that was every cent she had in the whole world.
+
+It was hard to hold back the tears as she dwelt upon the fact that it
+was very little she had asked of Chicago. She had asked only a chance to
+do the work for which she was trained, in order that she might go to the
+art classes at night. She had read in the papers of that mighty young
+city of the Middle West--the heart of the continent--of its brawn and
+its brain and its grit. She had supposed that Chicago, of all places,
+would appreciate what she wanted to do. The day she drew her hard-earned
+one hundred dollars from the bank in Denver--how the sun had shone that
+day in Denver, how clear the sky had been, and how bracing the air!--she
+had quite taken it for granted that her future was assured. And now,
+after tasting for three weeks the cruelty of indifference, she looked
+back to those visions with a hard little smile.
+
+She rose to go, and in so doing her eyes fell upon the queer little
+woman to whom she had yielded her place before the Denver paper.
+Submerged as she had been in her own desolation she had given no heed
+to the small figure which came slipping along beside her beyond the bare
+thought that she was queer-looking. But as her eyes rested upon her now
+there was something about the woman which held her.
+
+She was a strange little figure. An old-fashioned shawl was pinned
+tightly about her shoulders, and she was wearing a queer, rusty little
+bonnet. Her hair was rolled up in a small knot at the back of her head.
+She did not look as though she belonged in Chicago. And then, as the
+girl stood there looking at her, she saw the thin shoulders quiver, and
+after a minute the head that was wearing the rusty bonnet went down into
+the folds of the Denver paper.
+
+The girl's own eyes filled, and she turned to go. It seemed she could
+scarcely bear her own unhappiness that day, without coming close to the
+heartache of another. But when she reached the end of the alcove she
+glanced back, and the sight of that shabby, bent figure, all alone
+before the Denver paper, was not to be withstood.
+
+“I am from Colorado, too,” she said softly, laying a hand upon the bent
+shoulders.
+
+The woman looked up at that and took the girl's hand in both of her
+thin, trembling ones. It was a wan and a troubled face she lifted, and
+there was something about the eyes which would not seem to have been
+left there by tears alone.
+
+“And do you have a pining for the mountains?” she whispered, with a
+timid eagerness. “Do you have a feeling that you want to see the sun
+go down behind them tonight and that you want to see the darkness come
+stealing up to the tops?”
+
+The girl half turned away, but she pressed the woman's hand tightly in
+hers. “I know what you mean,” she murmured.
+
+“I wanted to see it so bad,” continued the woman, tremulously, “that
+something just drove me here to this paper. I knowed it was here because
+my nephew's wife brought me here one day and we come across it. We took
+this paper at home for more 'an twenty years. That's why I come. 'Twas
+the closest I could get.”
+
+“I know what you mean,” said the girl again, unsteadily.
+
+“And it's the closest I will ever get!” sobbed the woman.
+
+“Oh, don't say that,” protested the girl, brushing away her own tears,
+and trying to smile; “you'll go back home some day.”
+
+The woman shook her head. “And if I should,” she said, “even if I
+should, 'twill be too late.”
+
+“But it couldn't be too late,” insisted the girl. “The mountains, you
+know, will be there forever.”
+
+“The mountains will be there forever,” repeated the woman, musingly;
+“yes, but not for me to see.” There was a pause. “You see,”--she said it
+quietly--“I'm going blind.”
+
+The girl took a quick step backward, then stretched out two impulsive
+hands. “Oh, no, no you're not! Why--the doctors, you know, they do
+everything now.”
+
+The woman shook her head. “That's what I thought when I come here.
+That's why I come. But I saw the biggest doctor of them all today--they
+all say he's the best there is--and he said right out 'twas no use to do
+anything. He said 'twas--hopeless.”
+
+Her voice broke on that word. “You see,” she hurried on, “I wouldn't
+care so much, seems like I wouldn't care 't all, if I could get there
+first! If I could see the sun go down behind them just one night! If I
+could see the black shadows come slippin' over 'em just once! And then,
+if just one morning--just once!--I could get up and see the sunlight
+come a streamin'--oh, you know how it looks! You know what 'tis I want
+to see!”
+
+“Yes; but why can't you? Why not? You won't go--your eyesight will last
+until you get back home, won't it?”
+
+“But I can't go back home; not now.”
+
+“Why not?” demanded the girl. “Why can't you go home?”
+
+“Why, there ain't no money, my dear,” she explained, patiently. “It's a
+long way off--Colorado is, and there ain't no money. Now, George--George
+is my brother-in-law--he got me the money to come; but you see it took
+it all to come here, and to pay them doctors with. And George--he ain't
+rich, and it pinched him hard for me to come--he says I'll have to wait
+until he gets money laid up again, and--well he can't tell just when 't
+will be. He'll send it soon as he gets it,” she hastened to add.
+
+“But what are you going to do in the meantime? It would cost less to get
+you home than to keep you here.”
+
+“No, I stay with my nephew here. He's willin' I should stay with him
+till I get my money to go home.”
+
+“Yes, but this nephew, can't he get you the money? Doesn't he know,” she
+insisted, heatedly, “what it means to you?”
+
+“He's got five children, and not much laid up. And then, he never seen
+the mountains. He doesn't know what I mean when I try to tell him about
+gettin' there in time. Why, he says there's many a one living back in
+the mountains would like to be livin' here. He don't understand--my
+nephew don't,” she added, apologetically.
+
+“Well, _someone_ ought to understand!” broke from the girl. “I
+understand! But--” she did her best to make it a laugh--“eleven dollars
+is every cent I've got in the world!”
+
+“Don't!” implored the woman, as the girl gave up trying to control the
+tears. “Now, don't you be botherin'. I didn't mean to make you feel so
+bad. My nephew says I ain't reasonable, and maybe I ain't.”
+
+The girl raised her head. “But you _are_ reasonable. I tell you, you
+_are_ reasonable!”
+
+“I must be going back,” said the woman, uncertainly. “I'm just making
+you feel bad, and it won't do no good. And then they may be stirred up
+about me. Emma--Emma's my nephew's wife--left me at the doctor's office
+'cause she had some trading to do, and she was to come back there for
+me. And then, as I was sittin' there, the pinin' came over me so strong
+it seemed I just must get up and start! And”---she smiled wanly---“this
+was far as I got.”
+
+“Come over and sit down by this table,” said the girl, impulsively, “and
+tell me a little about your home back in the mountains. Wouldn't you
+like to?”
+
+The woman nodded gratefully. “Seems most like getting back to them to
+find someone that knows about them,” she said, after they had drawn
+their chairs up to the table and were sitting there side by side.
+
+The girl put her rounded hand over on the thin, withered one. “Tell me
+about it,” she said again.
+
+“Maybe it wouldn't be much interesting to you, my dear. It's just a
+common life--mine is. You see, William and I--William was my husband--we
+went to Georgetown before it really was any town at all. Years and years
+before the railroad went through, we was there. Was you ever there?” she
+asked wistfully.
+
+“Oh, very often,” replied the girl. “I love every inch of that country!”
+
+A tear stole down the woman's face. “It's most like being home to find
+someone that knows about it,” she whispered.
+
+“Yes, William and I went there when 'twas all new country,” she went
+on, after a pause. “We worked hard, and we laid up a little money. Then,
+three years ago, William took sick. He was sick for a year, and we had
+to live up most of what we'd saved. That's why I ain't got none now. It
+ain't that William didn't provide.”
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+“We seen some hard days. But we was always harmonious--William and
+I was. And William had a great fondness for the mountains. The night
+before he died he made them take him over by the window and he looked
+out and watched the darkness come stealin' over the daylight--you know
+how it does in them mountains. 'Mother,' he said to me--his voice was
+that low I could no more 'an hear what he said--'I'll never see another
+sun go down, but I'm thankful I seen this one.'”
+
+She was crying outright now, and the girl did not try to stop her.
+
+“And that's the reason I love the mountains,” she whispered at last. “It
+ain't just that they're grand and wonderful to look at. It ain't just
+the things them tourists sees to talk about. But the mountains has
+always been like a comfortin' friend to me. John and Sarah is buried
+there--John and Sarah is my two children that died of fever. And then
+William is there--like I just told you. And the mountains was a comfort
+to me in all those times of trouble. They're like an old friend. Seems
+like they're the best friend I've got on earth.”
+
+“I know what you mean,” said the girl, brokenly. “I know all about it.”
+
+“And you don't think I'm just notional,” she asked wistfully, “in pinin'
+to get back while--whilst I can look at them?”
+
+The girl held the old hand tightly in hers with a clasp more responsive
+than words.
+
+“It ain't but I'd know they was there. I could feel they was there all
+right, but”--her voice sank with the horror of it--“I'm 'fraid I might
+forget just how they look!”
+
+“Oh, but you won't,” the girl assured her. “You'll remember just how
+they look.”
+
+“I'm scared of it. I'm scared there might be something I'd forget. And
+so I just torment myself thinkin'--'Now do I remember this? Can I
+see just how that looks?' That's the way I got to thinkin' up in the
+doctor's office, when he told me there was nothing to do, and I was so
+worked up it seemed I must get up and start!”
+
+“You must try not to worry about it,” murmured the girl. “You'll
+remember.”
+
+“Well, maybe so. Maybe I will. But that's why I want just one more look.
+If I could look once more I'd remember it forever. You see I'd look to
+remember it, and I would. And do you know--seems like I wouldn't mind
+going blind so much then? When I'd sit facin' them I'd just say to
+myself: 'Now I know just how they look. I'm seeing them just as if I had
+my eyes!' The doctor says my sight'll just kind of slip away, and when I
+look my last look, when it gets dimmer and dimmer to me, I want the last
+thing I see to be them mountains where William and me worked and was
+so happy! Seems like I can't bear it to have my sight slip away here
+in Chicago, where there's nothing I want to look at! And then to have a
+little left--to have just a little left!--and to know I could see if I
+was there to look--and to know that when I get there 'twill be--Oh, I'll
+be rebellious-like here--and I'd be contented there! I don't want to be
+complainin'--I don't want to!--but when I've only got a little left I
+want it--oh, I want it for them things I want to see!”
+
+“You will see them,” insisted the girl passionately. “I'm not going to
+believe the world can be so hideous as that!”
+
+“Well, maybe so,” said the woman, rising. “But I don't know where 'twill
+come from,” she added doubtfully.
+
+She took her back to the doctor's office and left her in the care of the
+stolid Emma. “Seems most like I'd been back home,” she said in parting;
+and the girl promised to come and see her and talk with her about the
+mountains. The woman thought that talking about them would help her to
+remember just how they looked.
+
+And then the girl returned to the library. She did not know why she
+did so. In truth she scarcely knew she was going there until she found
+herself sitting before that same secluded table at which she and the
+woman had sat a little while before. For a long time she sat there with
+her head in her hands, tears falling upon a pad of yellow paper on the
+table before her.
+
+Finally she dried her eyes, opened her purse, and counted her money. It
+seemed that out of her great desire, out of her great new need, there
+must be more than she had thought. But there was not, and she folded
+her hands upon the two five-dollar bills and the one silver dollar and
+looked hopelessly about the big room.
+
+She had forgotten her own disappointments, her own loneliness. She was
+oblivious to everything in the world now save what seemed the absolute
+necessity of getting the woman back to the mountains while she had eyes
+to see them.
+
+But what could she do? Again she counted the money. She could make
+herself, some way or other, get along without one of the five-dollar
+bills, but five dollars would not take one very close to the mountains.
+It was at that moment that she saw a man standing before the Denver
+paper, and noticed that another man was waiting to take his place. The
+one who was reading had a dinner pail in his hand. The clothes of the
+other told that he, too, was of the world's workers. It was clear to the
+girl that the man at the file was reading the paper from home; and the
+man who was ready to take his place looked as if waiting for something
+less impersonal than the news of the day.
+
+The idea came upon her with such suddenness, so full born, that it made
+her gasp. They--the people who came to read the Denver paper, the people
+who loved the mountains and were far from them, the people who were
+themselves homesick and full of longing--were the people to understand.
+
+It took her but a minute to act. She put the silver dollar and one
+five-dollar bill back in her purse. She clutched the other bill in
+her left hand, picked up a pencil, and began to write. She headed the
+petition: “To all who know and love the mountains,” and she told the
+story with the simpleness of one speaking from the heart, and the
+directness of one who speaks to those sure to understand. “And so I
+found her here by the Denver paper,” she said, after she had stated
+the tragic facts, “because it was the closest she could come to the
+mountains. Her heart is not breaking because she is going blind. It is
+breaking because she may never again look with seeing eyes upon those
+great hills which rise up about her home. We must do it for her simply
+because we would wish that, under like circumstances, someone would do
+it for us. She belongs to us because we understand.
+
+“If you can only give fifty cents, please do not hold it back because
+it seems but little. Fifty cents will take her twenty miles nearer
+home--twenty miles closer to the things upon which she longs that her
+last seeing glance may fall.”
+
+After she had written it she rose, and, the five-dollar bill in one
+hand, the sheets of yellow paper in the other, walked down the long room
+to the desk at which one of the librarians sat. The girl's cheeks were
+very red, her eyes shining as she poured out the story. They mingled
+their tears, for the girl at the desk was herself young and far from
+home, and then they walked back to the Denver paper and pinned the
+sheets of yellow paper just above the file. At the bottom of the
+petition the librarian wrote: “Leave your money at the desk in this
+room. It will be properly attended to.” The girl from Colorado then
+turned over her five-dollar bill and passed out into the gathering
+night.
+
+Her heart was brimming with joy. “I can get a cheaper boarding place,”
+ she told herself, as she joined the home-going crowds, “and until
+something else turns up I'll just look around and see if I can't get a
+place in a store.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One by one they had gathered around while the woman was telling the
+story. “And so, if you don't mind,” she said, in conclusion, “I'd like
+to have you put in a little piece that I got to Denver safe, so's they
+can see it. They was all so worked up about when I'd get here. Would
+that cost much?” she asked timidly.
+
+“Not a cent,” said the city editor, his voice gruff with the attempt to
+keep it steady.
+
+“You might say, if it wouldn't take too much room, that I was much
+pleased with the prospect of getting home before sundown to-night.”
+
+“You needn't worry but what we'll say it all,” he assured her. “We'll
+say a great deal more than you have any idea of.”
+
+“I'm very thankful to you,” she said, as she rose to go.
+
+They sat there for a moment in silence. “When one considers,” someone
+began, “that they were people who were pushed too close even to
+subscribe to a daily paper--”
+
+“When one considers,” said the city editor, “that the girl who started
+it had just eleven dollars to her name--” And then he, too, stopped
+abruptly and there was another long moment of silence.
+
+After that he looked around at the reporters. “Well, it's too bad you
+can't all have it, when it's so big a chance, but I guess it falls
+logically to Raymond. And in writing it, just remember, Raymond, that
+the biggest stories are not written about wars, or about politics, or
+even murders. The biggest stories are written about the things which
+draw human beings closer together. And the chance to write them doesn't
+come every day, or every year, or every lifetime. And I'll tell you,
+boys, all of you, when it seems sometimes that the milk of human
+kindness has all turned sour, just think back to the little story you
+heard this afternoon.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Slowly the sun slipped down behind the mountains; slowly the long
+purple shadows deepened to black; and with the coming of the night there
+settled over the everlasting hills, and over the soul of one who had
+returned to them, that satisfying calm that men call peace.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FRECKLES M'GRATH
+
+
+Many visitors to the State-house made the mistake of looking upon the
+Governor as the most important personage in the building. They would
+walk up and down the corridors, hoping for a glimpse of some of the
+leading officials, when all the while Freckles McGrath, the real
+character of the Capitol, and by all odds the most illustrious person in
+it, was at once accessible and affable.
+
+Freckles McGrath was the elevator boy. In the official register his
+name had gone down as William, but that was a mere concession to
+the constituents to whom the official register was sent out. In the
+newspapers--and he appeared with frequency in the newspapers--he was
+always “Freckles,” and every one from the Governor down gave him that
+title, the appropriateness of which was stamped a hundred fold upon his
+shrewd, jolly Irish face.
+
+Like every one else on the State pay-roll, Freckles was keyed high
+during this first week of the new session. It was a reform Legislature,
+and so imbued was it with the idea of reforming that there was grave
+danger of its forcing reformation upon everything in sight. It happened
+that the Governor was of the same faction of the party as that dominant
+in the Legislature; reform breathed through every nook and crevice of
+the great building.
+
+But high above all else in importance towered the Kelley Bill. From
+the very opening of the session there was scarcely a day when some of
+Freckles' passengers did not in hushed whispers mention the Kelley Bill.
+From what he could pick up about the building, and what he read in the
+newspapers, Freckles put together a few ideas as to what the Kelley Bill
+really was. It was a great reform measure, and it was going to show the
+railroads that they did not own the State. The railroads were going to
+have to pay more taxes, and they were making an awful fuss about it; but
+if the Kelley Bill could be put through it would be a great victory for
+reform, and would make the Governor “solid” in the State.
+
+Freckles McGrath was strong for reform. That was partly because the
+snatches of speeches he heard in the Legislature were more thrilling
+when for reform than when against it; it was partly because he adored
+the Governor, and in no small part because he despised Mr. Ludlow.
+
+Mr. Ludlow was a lobbyist. Some of the members of the Legislature
+were Mr. Ludlow's property--or at least so Freckles inferred from
+conversation overheard at his post. There had been a great deal of talk
+that session about Mr. Ludlow's methods.
+
+Freckles himself was no snob. Although he had heard Mr. Ludlow called
+disgraceful, and although he firmly believed he was disgraceful, he did
+not consider that any reason for not speaking to him. And so when Mr.
+Ludlow got in all alone one morning, and the occasion seemed to demand
+recognition of some sort, Freckles had chirped: “Good-morning!”
+
+But the man, possibly deep in something else, simply knit together
+his brows and gave no sign of having heard. After that, Henry Ludlow,
+lobbyist, and Freckles McGrath, elevator boy, were enemies.
+
+A little before noon, one day near the end of the session, a member of
+the Senate and a member of the House rode down together in the elevator.
+
+“There's no use waiting any longer,” the Senator was saying as they got
+in. “We're as strong now as we're going to be. It's a matter of Stacy's
+vote, and that's a matter of who sees him last.”
+
+Freckles widened out his ears and gauged the elevator for very slow
+running. Stacy had been written up in the papers as a wabbler on the
+Kelley Bill.
+
+“He's all right now,” pursued the Senator, “but there's every chance
+that Ludlow will see him before he casts his vote this afternoon, and
+then--oh, I don't know!” and with a weary little flourish of his hands
+the Senator stepped off.
+
+Freckles McGrath sat wrapped in deep thought. The Kelley Bill was coming
+up in the Senate that afternoon. If Senator Stacy voted for it, it would
+pass. If he voted against it, it would fail. He would vote for it if he
+didn't see Mr. Ludlow; he wouldn't vote for it if he did. That was the
+situation, and the Governor's whole future, Freckles felt, was at stake.
+
+The bell rang sharply, and he was vaguely conscious then that it had
+been ringing before. In the next half-hour he was very busy taking down
+the members of the Legislature. Strangely enough, Senator Stacy and the
+Governor went down the same trip, and Freckles beamed with approbation
+when, he saw them walk out of the building together.
+
+Stacy was one of the first of the senators to return. Freckles sized him
+up keenly as he stepped into the elevator, and decided that he was still
+firm. But there was a look about Senator Stacy's mouth which suggested
+that there was no use in being too sure of him. Freckles considered the
+advisability of bursting forth and telling him how much better it would
+be to stick with the reform fellows; but just as the boy got his courage
+screwed up to speaking point, Senator Stacy got off.
+
+About ten minutes later Freckles had the elevator on the ground floor,
+and was sitting there reading a paper, when he heard a step that made
+him prick up his ears. The next minute Mr. Ludlow turned the corner. He
+was immaculately dressed, as usual, and his iron-grey moustache seemed
+to stand out just a little more pompously than ever. There was a
+sneering look in his eyes as he stepped into the car. It seemed to be
+saying: “They thought they could beat me, did they? Oh, they're easy,
+they are!”
+
+Freckles McGrath slammed the door of the cage and started the car up. He
+did not know what he was going to do, but he had an idea that he did
+not want any other passenger. When half way between the basement and the
+first floor, he stopped the elevator. He must have time to think. If
+he took that man up to the Senate Chamber, he would simply strike
+the death-blow to reform! And so he knelt and pretended to be fixing
+something, and he thought fast and hard.
+
+“Something broke?” asked an anxious voice.
+
+Freckles looked around into Mr. Ludlow's face, and he saw that the
+eminent lobbyist was nervous.
+
+“Yes,” he said calmly. “It's acting queer. Something's all out of
+whack.”
+
+“Well, drop it to the basement and let me out,” said Mr. Ludlow sharply.
+
+“Can't drop it,” responded Freckles. “She's stuck.”
+
+Mr. Ludlow came and looked things over, but his knowledge did not extend
+to the mechanism of elevators.
+
+“Better call someone to come and take us out,” he said nervously.
+
+Freckles straightened himself up. A glitter had come into his small grey
+eyes, and red spots were burning in his freckled cheeks.
+
+“I think she'll run now,” he said.
+
+And she did run. Never in all its history had that State-house elevator
+run as it ran then. It rushed past the first and second floors like
+a thing let loose, with an utter abandonment that caused the blood to
+forsake the eminent lobbyist's face.
+
+“Stop it, boy!” he cried in alarm.
+
+“Can't!” responded Freckles, his voice thick with terror. “Running
+away!” he gasped.
+
+“Will it--fall?” whispered the lobbyist.
+
+“I--I think so!” blubbered Freckles.
+
+The central portion of the State-house was very high. Above that part
+of the building which was in use there was a long stretch leading to
+the tower. The shaft had been built clear up, though practically unused.
+Past floors used for store-rooms, past floors used for nothing at
+all, they went--the man's face white, the boy wailing out incoherent
+supplications. And then, within ten feet of the top of the shaft, and
+within a foot of the top floor of the building, the elevator came to
+a rickety stop. It wabbled back and forth; it did strange and terrible
+things.
+
+“She's falling!” panted Freckles. “Climb!”
+
+And Henry Ludlow climbed. He got the door open, and he clambered up. No
+sooner had the man's feet touched the solid floor than Freckles reached
+up and slammed the door of the cage. Why he did that he was not sure at
+the time. Later he felt that something had warned him not to give his
+prisoner's voice a full sweep down the shaft.
+
+Henry Ludlow was far from dull. As he saw the quick but even descent of
+the car, he knew that he had been tricked. He would have been more than
+human had there not burst from him furious and threatening words. But
+what was the use? The car was going down--down--down, and there he was,
+perhaps hundreds of feet above any one else in the building--alone,
+tricked, beaten!
+
+Of course he tried the door at the head of the winding stairway, knowing
+full well that it would be locked. They always kept it locked; he had
+heard one of the janitors asking for the keys to take a party up just
+a few days before. Perhaps he could get out on top of the building and
+make signals of distress. But the door leading outside was locked also.
+There he was--helpless. And below--well, below they were passing the
+Kelley Bill!
+
+He rattled the grating of the elevator shaft. He made strange, loud
+noises, knowing all the while he could not make himself heard. And then
+at last, alone in the State-house attic, Henry Ludlow, eminent lobbyist,
+sat down on a box and nursed his fury.
+
+Below, Freckles McGrath, the youngest champion of reform in the
+building, was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and he
+whistled. He took people up and down with as much nonchalance as if he
+did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were
+straining themselves for a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses were
+descending, literally, upon his stubby red head.
+
+It was a great afternoon at the State-house. Every one thronged to the
+doors of the Senate Chamber, where they were putting through the Kelley
+Bill. The speeches made in behalf of the measure were brief. The great
+thing now was not to make speeches; it was to reach “S” on roll-call
+before a man with iron-grey hair and an iron-grey moustache could come
+in and say something to the fair-haired member with the weak mouth who
+sat near the rear of the chamber.
+
+Freckles was called away just as it went to a vote. When he came back
+Senator Kelley was standing out in the corridor, and a great crowd of
+men were standing around slapping him on the back. The Governor himself
+was standing on the steps of the Senate Chamber; his eyes were bright,
+and he was smiling.
+
+Freckles turned his car back to the basement. He wanted to be all
+alone for a minute, to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was he,
+Freckles McGrath, who had won this great victory for reform. It was he,
+Freckles McGrath, who had assured the Governor's future. Why, perhaps he
+had that afternoon made for himself a name which would be handed down in
+the histories!
+
+Freckles was a kind little boy, and he knew that an elegant gentleman
+could not find the attic any too pleasant a place in which to spend the
+afternoon, go he decided to go up and get Mr. Ludlow. It took courage;
+but he had won his victory and this was no time for faltering.
+
+There was something gruesome about the long ascent. He thought of
+stories he had read of lonely turrets in which men were beheaded, and
+otherwise made away with. It seemed he would never come to the top, and
+when at last he did it was to find two of the most awful-looking eyes
+he had ever seen--eyes that looked as though furies were going to escape
+from them--peering down upon him.
+
+The sight of that car, moving smoothly and securely up to the top, and
+the sight of that audacious little boy with the freckled face and the
+bat-like eyes, that little boy who had played his game so well, who had
+wrought such havoc, was too much for Henry Ludlow's self-control. Words
+such as he had never used before, such as he would not have supposed
+himself capable of using, burst from him. But Freckles stood calmly
+gazing up at the infuriated lobbyist, and just as Mr. Ludlow was saying,
+“I'll beat your head open, you little brat!” he calmly reversed the
+handle and sent the car skimming smoothly to realms below. He was
+followed by an angry yell, and then by a loud request to return, but he
+heeded them not, and for some time longer the car made its usual rounds
+between the basement and the legislative chambers.
+
+In just an hour Freckles tried it again. He sent the car to within three
+feet of the attic floor, and then peered through the grating, his
+face tied in a knot of interrogation. The eminent lobbyist stood there
+gulping down wrath and pride, knowing well enough what was expected of
+him.
+
+“Oh--all right,” he muttered at last, and with that much of an
+understanding Freckles sent the car up, opened the door, and Henry
+Ludlow stepped in.
+
+No word was spoken between them until the light from the floor upon
+which the Senate Chamber was situated came in view. Then Freckles turned
+with a polite inquiry as to where the gentleman wished to get off.
+
+“You may take me down to the office of the Governor,” said Mr. Ludlow
+stonily, meaningly.
+
+“Sure,” said Freckles cheerfully. “Guess you'll find the Governor in his
+office now. He's been in the Senate most of the afternoon, watching 'em
+pass that Kelley Bill.”
+
+Mr. Ludlow's lips drew in tightly. He squared his shoulders, and his
+silence was tremendous.
+
+In just fifteen minutes Freckles was sent for from the executive office.
+
+“I demand his discharge!” Mr. Ludlow was saying as the elevator boy
+entered.
+
+“It happens you're not running this building,” the Governor returned
+with a good deal of acidity. “Though of course,” he added with dignity,
+“the matter will be carefully investigated.”
+
+The Governor was one great chuckle inside, and his heart was full of
+admiration and gratitude; but would Freckles be equal to bluffing it
+through? Would the boy have the finesse, the nice subtlety, the real
+master hand, the situation demanded? If not, then--imp of salvation
+though he was--in the interest of reform, Freckles would have to go.
+
+It was a very innocent looking boy who stood before him and looked
+inquiringly into his face.
+
+“William,” began the Governor--Freckles was pained at first, and then
+remembered that officially he was William--“this gentleman has made a
+very serious charge against you.”
+
+Freckles looked at Mr. Ludlow in a hurt way, and waited for the Governor
+to proceed.
+
+“He says,” went on the chief executive, “that you deliberately took him
+to the top of the building and wilfully left him there a prisoner all
+afternoon. Did you do that?”
+
+“Oh, sir,” burst forth Freckles, “I did the very best I could to save
+his life! I was willing to sacrifice mine for him. I--”
+
+“You little liar!” broke in Ludlow.
+
+The Governor held up his hand. “You had your chance. Let him have his.”
+
+“You see, Governor,” began Freckles, as if anxious to set right a great
+wrong which had been done him, “the car is acting bad. The engineer said
+only this morning it needed a going over. When it took that awful shoot,
+I lost control of it. Maybe I'm to be discharged for losing control of
+it, but not”--Freckles sniffled pathetically---“but not for anything
+like what he says I done. Why Governor,” he went on, ramming his
+knuckles into his eyes, “I ain't got nothing against him! What'd I take
+him to the attic for?”
+
+“Of course not for money,” sneered Mr. Ludlow.
+
+The Governor turned on him sharply. “When you can bring any proof of
+that, I'll be ready to hear it. Until you can, you'd better leave it out
+of the question.”
+
+“Strange it should have happened this very afternoon,” put in the
+eminent lobbyist.
+
+The Governor looked at him with open countenance. “You were especially
+interested in something this afternoon? I thought you told me you had no
+vital interest here this session.”
+
+There was nothing to be said. Mr. Ludlow said nothing.
+
+“Now, William,” pursued the Governor, fearful in his heart that this
+would be Freckles' undoing, “why did you close the door of the shaft
+before you started down?”
+
+“Well, you see, sir,” began Freckles, still tremulously, “I'm so used to
+closin' doors. Closin' doors has become a kind of second nature with me.
+I've been told about it so many times. And up there, though I thought I
+was losin' my life, still I didn't neglect my duty.”
+
+The Governor put his hand to his mouth and coughed.
+
+“And why,” he went on, more secure now, for a boy who could get out
+of that could get out of anything, “why was it you didn't make some
+immediate effort to get Mr. Ludlow down? Why didn't you notify someone,
+or do something about it?”
+
+“Why, I supposed, of course, he walked down by the stairs,” cried
+Freckles. “I never dreamed he'd want to trust the elevator after the way
+she had acted.”
+
+“The door was locked,” snarled the eminent lobbyist.
+
+“Well, now, you see, I didn't know that,” explained Freckles
+expansively. “Late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test
+the car--and there you were! I never was so surprised in my life. I
+supposed, of course, sir, that you'd spent the afternoon in the Senate,
+along with everybody else.”
+
+Once more the Governor put his hand to his mouth.
+
+“Your case will come before the executive council at its next meeting,
+William. And if anything like this should happen again, you will be
+discharged on the spot.” Freckles bowed. “You may go now.”
+
+When he was almost at the door the Governor called to him.
+
+“Don't you think, William,” he said--the Governor felt that he and
+Freckles could afford to be generous--“that you should apologise to the
+gentleman for the really grave inconvenience to which you have been the
+means of subjecting him?”
+
+Freckles' little grey eyes grew steely. He looked at Henry Ludlow, and
+there was an ominous silence. Then light broke over his face. “On behalf
+of the elevator,” he said, “I apologise.”
+
+And a third time the Governor's hand was raised to his mouth.
+
+The next week Freckles was wearing a signet ring; long and audibly had
+he sighed for a ring of such kind and proportions. He was at some pains
+in explaining to everyone to whom he showed it that it had been sent him
+by “a friend up home.”
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+FROM A TO Z
+
+
+Thus had another ideal tumbled to the rubbish heap! She seemed to be
+breathing the dust which the newly fallen had stirred up among
+its longer dead fellows. Certainly she was breathing the dust from
+somewhere.
+
+During her senior year at the university, when people would ask: “And
+what are you going to do when you leave school, Miss Willard?” she would
+respond with anything that came to hand, secretly hugging to her mind
+that idea of getting a position in a publishing house. Her conception of
+her publishing house was finished about the same time as her class-day
+gown. She was to have a roll-top desk--probably of mahogany--and a big
+chair which whirled round like that in the office of the under-graduate
+dean. She was to have a little office all by herself, opening on
+a bigger office--the little one marked “Private.” There were to be
+beautiful rugs--the general effect not unlike the library at the
+University Club--books and pictures and cultivated gentlemen who spoke
+often of Greek tragedies and the Renaissance. She was a little uncertain
+as to her duties, but had a general idea about getting down between nine
+and ten, reading the morning paper, cutting the latest magazine, and
+then “writing something.”
+
+Commencement was now four months past, and one of her professors had
+indeed secured for her a position in a Chicago “publishing house.” This
+was her first morning and she was standing at the window looking down
+into Dearborn Street while the man who was to have her in charge was
+fixing a place for her to sit.
+
+That the publishing house should be on Dearborn Street had been her
+first blow, for she had long located her publishing house on that
+beautiful stretch of Michigan Avenue which overlooked the lake. But
+the real insult was that this publishing house, instead of having a
+building, or at least a floor, all to itself, simply had a place
+penned off in a bleak, dirty building such as one who had done work in
+sociological research instinctively associated with a box factory. And
+the thing which fairly trailed her visions in the dust was that the
+partition penning them off did not extend to the ceiling, and the
+adjoining room being occupied by a patent medicine company, she was face
+to face with glaring endorsements of Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and
+Bladder Cure. Taken all in all there seemed little chance for Greek
+tragedies or the Renaissance.
+
+The man who was “running things”--she buried her phraseology with her
+dreams--wore a skull cap, and his moustache dragged down below his chin.
+Just at present he was engaged in noisily pulling a most unliterary pine
+table from a dark corner to a place near the window. That accomplished,
+an ostentatious hunt ensued, resulting in the triumphant flourish of
+a feather duster. Several knocks at the table, and the dust of many
+months--perhaps likewise of many dreams--ascended to a resting place
+on the endorsement of Dr. Bunting's Kidney and Bladder Cure. He next
+produced a short, straight-backed chair which she recognised as brother
+to the one which used to stand behind their kitchen stove. He gave it a
+shake, thus delicately indicating that she was receiving special favours
+in this matter of an able-bodied chair, and then announced with brisk
+satisfaction: “So! Now we are ready to begin.” She murmured a “Thank
+you,” seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did not
+whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did not even dream
+in mahogany.
+
+In the _other_ publishing house, one pushed buttons and uniformed
+menials appeared--noiselessly, quickly and deferentially. At this
+moment a boy with sandy hair brushed straight back in a manner
+either statesmanlike or clownlike--things were too involved to know
+which--shuffled in with an armful of yellow paper which he flopped down
+on the pine table. After a minute he returned with a warbled “Take Me
+Back to New York Town” and a paste-pot. And upon his third appearance he
+was practising gymnastics with a huge pair of shears, which he finally
+presented, grinningly.
+
+There was a long pause, broken only by the sonorous voice of Dr. Bunting
+upbraiding someone for not having billed out that stuff to Apple Grove,
+and then the sandy-haired boy appeared bearing a large dictionary,
+followed by the man in the skull cap behind a dictionary of equal
+unwieldiness. These were set down on either side of the yellow paper,
+and he who was filling the position of cultivated gentleman pulled up a
+chair, briskly.
+
+“Has Professor Lee explained to you the nature of our work?” he wanted
+to know.
+
+“No,” she replied, half grimly, a little humourously, and not far from
+tearfully, “he didn't--explain.”
+
+“Then it is my pleasure to inform you,” he began, blinking at her
+importantly, “that we are engaged here in the making of a dictionary.”
+
+“A _dic--?_” but she swallowed the gasp in the laugh coming up to meet
+it, and of their union was born a saving cough.
+
+“Quite an overpowering thought, is it not?” he agreed pleasantly. “Now
+you see you have before you the two dictionaries you will use most, and
+over in that case you will find other references. The main thing”--his
+voice sank to an impressive whisper--“is _not_ to infringe the
+copyright. The publisher was in yesterday and made a little talk to the
+force, and he said that any one who handed in a piece of copy infringing
+the copyright simply employed that means of writing his own resignation.
+Neat way of putting it, was it not?”
+
+“Yes, _wasn't_ it--neat?” she agreed, wildly.
+
+She was conscious of a man's having stepped in behind her and taken a
+seat at the table next hers. She heard him opening his dictionaries and
+getting out his paper. Then the man in the skull cap had risen and
+was saying genially: “Well, here is a piece of old Webster, your first
+'take'--no copyright on this, you see, but you must modernise
+and expand. Don't miss any of the good words in either of these
+dictionaries. Here you have dictionaries, copy-paper, paste, and
+Professor Lee assures me you have brains--all the necessary ingredients
+for successful lexicography. We are to have some rules printed
+to-morrow, and in the meantime I trust I've made myself clear. The main
+thing”--he bent down and spoke it solemnly--“is _not_ to infringe the
+copyright.” With a cheerful nod he was gone, and she heard him saying to
+the man at the next table: “Mr. Clifford, I shall have to ask you to be
+more careful about getting in promptly at eight.”
+
+She removed the cover from her paste-pot and dabbled a little on a piece
+of paper. Then she tried the unwieldy shears on another piece of paper.
+She then opened one of her dictionaries and read studiously for fifteen
+minutes. That accomplished, she opened the other dictionary and pursued
+it for twelve minutes. Then she took the column of “old Webster,” which
+had been handed her pasted on a piece of yellow paper, and set about
+attempting to commit it to memory. She looked up to be met with the
+statement that Mrs. Marjory Van Luce De Vane, after spending years under
+the so-called best surgeons of the country, had been cured in six
+weeks by Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. She pushed the
+dictionaries petulantly from her, and leaning her very red cheek
+upon her hand, her hazel eyes blurred with tears of perplexity and
+resentment, her mouth drawn in pathetic little lines of uncertainty,
+looked over at the sprawling warehouse on the opposite side of Dearborn
+Street. She was just considering the direct manner of writing one's
+resignation--not knowing how to infringe the copyright--when a voice
+said: “I beg pardon, but I wonder if I can help you any?”
+
+She had never heard a voice like that before. Or, _had_ she heard
+it?--and where? She looked at him, a long, startled gaze. Something made
+her think of the voice the prince used to have in long-ago dreams. She
+looked into a face that was dark and thin and--different. Two very
+dark eyes were looking at her kindly, and a mouth which was a baffling
+combination of things to be loved and things to be deplored was
+twitching a little, as though it would like to join the eyes in a smile,
+if it dared.
+
+Because he saw both how funny and how hard it was, she liked him. It
+would have been quite different had he seen either one without the
+other.
+
+“You can tell me how _not_ to infringe the copyright,” she laughed. “I'm
+not sure that I know what a copyright is.”
+
+He laughed--a laugh which belonged with his voice. “Mr. Littletree isn't
+as lucid as he thinks he is. I've been here a week or so, and picked up
+a few things you might like to know.”
+
+He pulled his chair closer to her table then and gave her a lesson in
+the making of copy. Edna Willard was never one-half so attractive as
+when absorbed in a thing which someone was showing her how to do. Her
+hazel eyes would widen and glisten with the joy of comprehending; her
+cheeks would flush a deeper pink with the coming of new light, her mouth
+would part in a child-like way it had forgotten to outgrow, her head
+would nod gleefully in token that she understood, and she had a way
+of pulling at her wavy hair and making it more wavy than it had been
+before. The man at the next table was a long time in explaining the
+making of a dictionary. He spoke in low tones, often looking at the
+figure of the man in the skull cap, who was sitting with his back to
+them, looking over copy. Once she cried, excitedly: “Oh--I _see_!” and
+he warned, “S--h!” explaining, “Let him think you got it all from him.
+It will give you a better stand-in.” She nodded, appreciatively, and
+felt very well acquainted with this kind man whose voice made her think
+of something--called to something--she did not just know what.
+
+After that she became so absorbed in lexicography that when the men
+began putting away their things it was hard to realise that the morning
+had gone. It was a new and difficult game, the evasion of the copyright
+furnishing the stimulus of a hazard.
+
+The man at the next table had been watching her with an amused
+admiration. Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from
+perplexity to satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head and
+the pucker of her face, took him back over years emotionally barren to
+the time when he too had those easily stirred enthusiasms of youth. For
+the man at the next table was far from young now. His mouth had never
+quite parted with boyishness, but there was more white than black in his
+hair, and the lines about his mouth told that time, as well as forces
+more aging than time, had laid heavy hand upon him. But when he looked
+at the girl and told her with a smile that it was time to stop work,
+it was a smile and a voice to defy the most tell-tale face in all the
+world.
+
+During her luncheon, as she watched the strange people coming and going,
+she did much wondering. She wondered why it was that so many of the men
+at the dictionary place were very old men; she wondered if it would be a
+good dictionary--one that would be used in the schools; she wondered if
+Dr. Bunting had made a great deal of money, and most of all she wondered
+about the man at the next table whose voice was like--like a dream which
+she did not know that she had dreamed.
+
+When she had returned to the straggling old building, had stumbled down
+the narrow, dark hall and opened the door of the big bleak room, she saw
+that the man at the next table was the only one who had returned from
+luncheon. Something in his profile made her stand there very still. He
+had not heard her come in, and he was looking straight ahead, eyes
+half closed, mouth set--no unsurrendered boyishness there now. Wholly
+unconsciously she took an impulsive step forward. But she stopped, for
+she saw, and felt without really understanding, that it was not just
+the moment's pain, but the revealed pain of years. Just then he began
+to cough, and it seemed the cough, too, was more than of the moment. And
+then he turned and saw her, and smiled, and the smile changed all.
+
+As the afternoon wore on the man stopped working and turning a little in
+his chair sat there covertly watching the girl. She was just typically
+girl. It was written that she had spent her days in the happy ways of
+healthful girlhood. He supposed that a great many young fellows had
+fallen in love with her--nice, clean young fellows, the kind she would
+naturally meet. And then his eyes closed for a minute and he put up his
+hand and brushed back his hair; there was weariness, weariness weary of
+itself, in the gesture. He looked about the room and scanned the faces
+of the men, most of them older than he, many of them men whose histories
+were well known to him. They were the usual hangers on about newspaper
+offices; men who, for one reason or other--age, dissipation, antiquated
+methods--had been pitched over, men for whom such work as this came as
+a godsend. They were the men of yesterday--men whom the world had rushed
+past. She was the only one there, this girl who would probably sit here
+beside him for many months, with whom the future had anything to do.
+Youth!--Goodness!--Joy!--Hope!--strange things to bring to a place
+like this. And as if their alienism disturbed him, he moved restlessly,
+almost resentfully, bit his lips nervously, moistened them, and began
+putting away his things.
+
+As the girl was starting home along Dearborn Street a few minutes later,
+she chanced to look in a window. She saw that it was a saloon, but
+before she could turn away she saw a man with a white face--white with
+the peculiar whiteness of a dark face, standing before the bar drinking
+from a small glass. She stood still, arrested by a look such as she had
+never seen before: a panting human soul sobbingly fluttering down into
+something from which it had spent all its force in trying to rise.
+When she recalled herself and passed on, a mist which she could neither
+account for nor banish was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes.
+
+The next day was a hard one at the dictionary place. She told herself
+it was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because her fingers
+ached, because it tired her back to sit in that horrid chair. She did
+not admit of any connection between her flagging interest and the fact
+that the place at the next table was vacant.
+
+The following day he was still absent. She assumed that it was
+nervousness occasioned by her queer surroundings made her look around
+whenever she heard a step behind her. Where was he? Where had that look
+carried him? If he were in trouble, was there no one to help him?
+
+The third day she did an unpremeditated thing. The man in the skull cap
+had been showing her something about the copy. As he was leaving, she
+asked: “Is the man who sits at the next table coming back?”
+
+“Oh yes,” he replied grimly, “he'll be back.”
+
+“Because,” she went on, “if he wasn't, I thought I would take his
+shears. These hurt my fingers.”
+
+He made the exchange for her--and after that things went better.
+
+He did return late the next morning. After he had taken his place
+he looked over at her and smiled. He looked sick and shaken--as if
+something that knew no mercy had taken hold of him and wrung body and
+soul.
+
+“You have been ill?” she asked, with timid solicitude.
+
+“Oh no,” he replied, rather shortly.
+
+He was quiet all that day, but the next day they talked about the work,
+laughed together over funny definitions they found. She felt that he
+could tell many interesting things about himself, if he cared to.
+
+As the days went on he did tell some of those things--out of the way
+places where he had worked, queer people whom he had known. It seemed
+that words came to him as gifts, came freely, happily, pleased, perhaps,
+to be borne by so sympathetic a voice. And there was another thing about
+him. He seemed always to know just what she was trying to say; he never
+missed the unexpressed. That made it easy to say things to him; there
+seemed a certain at-homeness between his thought and hers. She accounted
+for her interest in him by telling herself she had never known any one
+like that before. Now Harold, the boy whom she knew best out at
+the university, why one had to _say_ things to Harold to make him
+understand! And Harold never left one wondering--wondering what he had
+meant by that smile, what he had been going to say when he started to
+say something and stopped, wondering what it was about his face that one
+could not understand. Harold never could claim as his the hour after
+he had left her, and was one ever close to anyone with whom one did not
+spend some of the hours of absence? She began to see that hours spent
+together when apart were the most intimate hours of all.
+
+And as Harold did not make one wonder, so he did not make one worry.
+Never in all her life had there been a lump in her throat when she
+thought of Harold. There was often a lump in her throat when the man at
+the next table was coughing.
+
+One day, she had been there about two months, she said something to him
+about it. It was hard; it seemed forcing one's way into a room that had
+never been opened to one--there were several doors he kept closed.
+
+“Mr. Clifford,” she turned to him impetuously as they were putting away
+their things that night, “will you mind if I say something to you?”
+
+He was covering his paste-pot. He looked up at her strangely. The
+closed door seemed to open a little way. “I can't conceive of 'minding'
+anything you might say to me, Miss Noah,”--he had called her Miss Noah
+ever since she, by mistake, had one day called him Mr. Webster.
+
+“You see,” she hurried on, very timid, now that the door had opened a
+little, “you have been so good to me. Because you have been so good to
+me it seems that I have some right to--to--”
+
+His head was resting upon his hand, and he leaned a little closer as
+though listening for something he wanted to hear.
+
+“I had a cousin who had a cough like yours,”--brave now that she could
+not go back--“and he went down to New Mexico and stayed for a year, and
+when he came back--when he came back he was as well as any of us. It
+seems so foolish not to”--her voice broke, now that it had so valiantly
+carried it--“not to--”
+
+He looked at her, and that was all. But she was never wholly the same
+again after that look. It enveloped her being in a something which left
+her richer--different. It was a look to light the dark place between two
+human souls. It seemed for the moment that words would follow it, but
+as if feeling their helplessness--perhaps needlessness--they sank back
+unuttered, and at the last he got up, abruptly, and walked away.
+
+One night, while waiting for the elevator, she heard two of the men
+talking about him. When she went out on the street it was with head
+high, cheeks hot. For nothing is so hard to hear as that which one has
+half known, and evaded. One never denies so hotly as in denying to one's
+self what one fears is true, and one never resents so bitterly as in
+resenting that which one cannot say one has the right to resent.
+
+That night she lay in her bed with wide open eyes, going over and over
+the things they had said. “_Cure?_”--one of them had scoffed, after
+telling how brilliant he had been before he “went to pieces”--“why all
+the cures on earth couldn't help him! He can go just so far, and then
+he can no more stop himself--oh, about as much as an ant could stop a
+prairie fire!”
+
+She finally turned over on her pillow and sobbed; and she wondered
+why--wondered, yet knew.
+
+But it resulted in the flowering of her tenderness for him. Interest
+mounted to defiance. It ended in blind, passionate desire to “make it
+up” to him. And again he was so different from Harold; Harold did not
+impress himself upon one by upsetting all one's preconceived ideas.
+
+She felt now that she understood better--understood the closed doors. He
+was--she could think of no better word than sensitive.
+
+And that is why, several mornings later, she very courageously--for
+it did take courage--threw this little note over on his desk--they
+had formed a habit of writing notes to each other, sometimes about the
+words, sometimes about other things.
+
+“IN-VI-TA-TION, _n._ That which Miss Noah extends to Mr. Webster for
+Friday evening, December second, at the house where she lives--hasn't
+she already told him where that is? It is the wish of Miss Noah to
+present Mr. Webster to various other Miss Noahs, all of whom are
+desirous of making his acquaintance.”
+
+She was absurdly nervous at luncheon that day, and kept telling herself
+with severity not to act like a high-school girl. He was late in
+returning that noon, and though there seemed a new something in his
+voice when he asked if he hadn't better sharpen her pencils, he said
+nothing about her new definition of invitation. It was almost five
+o'clock when he threw this over on her desk:
+
+“AP-PRE-CI-A-TION, _n._ That sentiment inspired in Mr. Webster by the
+kind invitation of Miss Noah for Friday evening.
+
+“RE-GRET, _n._ That which Mr. Webster experiences because, for reasons
+into which he cannot go in detail, it is impossible for him to accept
+Miss Noah's invitation.
+
+“RE-SENT-MENT, _n._ That which is inspired in Mr. Webster by the
+insinuation that there are other Miss Noahs in the world.”
+
+Then below he had written: “Three hours later. Miss Noah, the world is
+queer. Some day you may find out--though I hope you never will--that it
+is frequently the things we most want to do that we must leave undone.
+Miss Noah, won't you go on bringing me as much of yourself as you can
+to Dearborn Street, and try not to think much about my not being able
+to know the Miss Noah of Hyde Park? And little Miss Noah--I thank you.
+There aren't words enough in this old book of ours to tell you how
+much--or why.”
+
+That night he hurried away with never a joke about how many words she
+had written that day. She did not look up as he stood there putting on
+his coat.
+
+It was spring now, and the dictionary staff had begun on W.
+
+They had written of Joy, of Hope and Life and Love, and many other
+things. Life seemed pressing just behind some of those definitions,
+pressing the harder, perhaps, because it could not break through the
+surface.
+
+For it did not break through; it flooded just beneath.
+
+How did she know that he cared for her? She could not possibly have
+told. Perhaps the nearest to actual proof she could bring was that he
+always saw that her overshoes were put in a warm place. And when one
+came down to facts, the putting of a girl's rubbers near the radiator
+did not necessarily mean love.
+
+Perhaps then it was because there was no proof of it that she was most
+sure. For some of the most sure things in the world are things which
+cannot be proved.
+
+It was only that they worked together and were friends; that they
+laughed together over funny definitions they found, that he was kind to
+her, and that they seemed remarkably close together.
+
+That is as far as facts can take it.
+
+And just there--it begins.
+
+For the force which rushes beneath the facts of life, caring nothing for
+conditions, not asking what one desires or what one thinks best, caring
+as little about a past as about a future--save its own future--the force
+which can laugh at man's institutions and batter over in one sweep what
+he likes to call his wisdom, was sweeping them on. And because it could
+get no other recognition it forced its way into the moments when he
+asked her for an eraser, when she wanted to know how to spell a word.
+He could not so much as ask her if she needed more copy-paper without
+seeming to be lavishing upon her all the love of all the ages.
+
+And so the winter had worn on, and there was really nothing whatever to
+tell about it.
+
+She was quiet this morning, and kept her head bent low over her work.
+For she had estimated the number of pages there were between W and Z.
+Soon they would be at Z;--and then? Then? Shyly she turned and looked
+at him; he too was bent over his work. When she came in she had said
+something about its being spring, and that there must be wild flowers in
+the woods. Since then he had not looked up.
+
+Suddenly it came to her--tenderly, hotly, fearfully yet bravely, that it
+was she who must meet Z. She looked at him again, covertly. And she
+felt that she understood. It was the lines in his face made it clearest.
+Years, and things blacker, less easily surmounted than years--oh yes,
+that too she faced fearlessly--were piled in between. She knew now that
+it was she--not he--who could push them aside.
+
+It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love and
+life and desire may crowd from the page.
+
+Perhaps she would not have thrown it after all--the little note she had
+written--had it not been that when she went over for more copy-paper she
+stood for a minute looking out the window. Even on Dearborn Street the
+seductiveness of spring was in the air. Spring, and all that spring
+meant, filled her.
+
+Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of
+far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press she
+could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was strong,
+the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to his desk:
+
+“CHAFING-DISH, n. That out of which Miss Noah asks Mr. Webster to eat
+his Sunday night lunch tomorrow. All the other Miss Noahs are going to
+be away, and if Mr. Webster does not come, Miss Noah will be all alone.
+Miss Noah does not like to be lonely.”
+
+She ate no lunch that day; she only drank a cup of coffee and walked
+around.
+
+He did not come back that afternoon. It passed from one to two, from two
+to three, and then very slowly from three to four, and still he had not
+come.
+
+He too was walking about. He had walked down to the lake and was
+standing there looking out across it.
+
+Why not?--he was saying to himself--fiercely, doggedly. Over and over
+again--Well, _why_ not?
+
+A hundred nights, alone in his room, he had gone over it. Had not life
+used him hard enough to give him a little now?--longing had pleaded.
+And now there was a new voice--more prevailing voice--the voice of her
+happiness. His face softened to an almost maternal tenderness as he
+listened to that voice.
+
+Too worn to fight any longer, he gave himself up to it, and sat there
+dreaming. They were dreams of joy rushing in after lonely years, dreams
+of stepping into the sunlight after long days in fog and cold, dreams
+of a woman before a fireplace--her arms about him, her cheer and her
+tenderness, her comradeship and her passion--all his to take! Ah, dreams
+which even thoughts must not touch--so wonderful and sacred they were.
+
+A long time he sat there, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The force
+that rules the race was telling him that the one crime was the denial
+of happiness--his happiness, her happiness; and when at last his fight
+seemed but a puerile fight against forces worlds mightier than he, he
+rose, and as one who sees a great light, started back toward Dearborn
+Street.
+
+On the way he began to cough. The coughing was violent, and he stepped
+into a doorway to gain breath. And after he had gone in there he
+realised that it was the building of Chicago's greatest newspaper.
+
+He had been city editor of that paper once. Facts, the things he knew
+about himself, talked to him then. There was no answer.
+
+It left him weak and dizzy and crazy for a drink. He walked on slowly,
+unsteadily, his white face set. For he had vowed that if it took the
+last nerve in his body there should be no more of that until after they
+had finished with Z. He knew himself too well to vow more. He was not
+even sure of that.
+
+He did not turn in where he wanted to go, but resistance took the last
+bit of force that was in him. He was trembling like a sick man when he
+stepped into the elevator.
+
+She was just leaving. She was in the little cloak room putting on her
+things. She was all alone in there.
+
+He stepped in. He pushed the door shut, and stood there leaning against
+it, looking at her, saying nothing.
+
+“Oh--you are ill?” she gasped, and laid a frightened hand upon him.
+
+The touch crazed him. All resistance gone, he swept her into his arms;
+he held her fiercely, and between sobs kissed her again and again. He
+could not let her go. He frightened her. He hurt her. And he did not
+care--he did not know.
+
+Then he held her off and looked at her. And as he looked into her eyes,
+passion melted to tenderness. It was she now--not he; love--not
+hunger. Holding her face in his two hands, looking at her as if getting
+something to take away, his white lips murmured words too inarticulate
+for her to hear. And then again he put his arms around her--all
+differently. Reverently, sobbingly, he kissed her hair. And then he was
+gone.
+
+He did not come out that Sunday afternoon, but Harold dropped in
+instead, and talked of some athletic affairs over at the university. She
+wondered why she did not go crazy in listening to him, and yet she could
+answer intelligently. It was queer--what one _could_ do.
+
+They had come at last to Z. There would be no more work upon the
+dictionary after that day. And it was raining--raining as in Chicago
+alone it knows how to rain.
+
+They wrote no notes to each other now. It had been different since that
+day. They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of
+commonplace words.
+
+Both of them had tried to stay away that last day. But both were in
+their usual places.
+
+The day wore on eventlessly. Those men with whom she had worked, the
+men of yesterday, who had been kind to her, came up at various times for
+little farewell chats. The man in the skull cap told her that she had
+done excellent work. She was surprised at the ease with which she could
+make decent reply, thinking again that it was queer--what one could do.
+
+He was moving. She saw him lay some sheets of yellow paper on the desk
+in front. He had finished with his “take.” There would not be another to
+give him. He would go now.
+
+He came back to his desk. She could hear him putting away his things.
+And then for a long time there was no sound. She knew that he was just
+sitting there in his chair.
+
+Then she heard him get up. She heard him push his chair up to the table,
+and then for a minute he stood there. She wanted to turn toward him; she
+wanted to say something--do something. But she had no power.
+
+She saw him lay an envelope upon her desk. She heard him walking away.
+She knew, numbly, that his footsteps were not steady. She knew that he
+had stopped; she was sure that he was looking back. But still she had no
+power.
+
+And then she heard him go.
+
+Even then she went on with her work; she finished her “take” and
+laid down her pencil. It was finished now--and he had gone.
+Finished?--_Gone?_ She was tearing open the envelope of the letter.
+
+This was what she read:
+
+“Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vender, and girl to be loved, if I
+were a free man I would say to you--Come, little one, and let us learn
+of love. Let us learn of it, not as one learns from dictionaries, but
+let us learn from the morning glow and the evening shades. But Miss
+Noah, maker of dictionaries and creeper into hearts, the bound must not
+call to the free. They might fittingly have used my name as one of the
+synonyms under that word Failure, but I trust not under Coward.
+
+“And now, you funny little Miss Noah from the University of Chicago,
+don't I know that your heart is blazing forth the assurance that
+you don't _care_ for any of those things--the world, people, common
+sense--that you want just love? They made a grand failure of you out at
+your university; they taught you philosophy and they taught you Greek,
+and they've left you just as much the woman as women were five thousand
+years ago. Oh, I know all about you--you little girl whose hair tried
+so hard to be red. Your soul touched mine as we sat there writing
+words--words--words, the very words in which men try to tell things, and
+can't--and I know all about what you would do. But you shall not do
+it. Dear little copy maker, would a man standing out on the end of a
+slippery plank have any right to cry to someone on the shore--'Come out
+here on this plank with me?' If he loved the someone on the shore,
+would he not say instead--'Don't get on this plank?' Me get off the
+plank--come with you to the shore--you are saying? But you see, dear,
+you only know slippery planks as viewed from the shore--God grant you
+may never know them any other way!
+
+“It was you, was it not, who wrote our definition of happiness? Yes, I
+remember the day you did it. You were so interested; your cheeks grew so
+very red, and you pulled and pulled at your wavy hair. You said it was
+such an important definition. And so it is, Miss Noah, quite the most
+important of all. And on the page of life, Miss Noah, may happiness be
+written large and unblurred for you. It is because I cannot help you
+write it that I turn away. I want at least to leave the page unspoiled.
+
+“I carry a picture of you. I shall carry it always. You are sitting
+before a fireplace, and I think of that fireplace as symbolising the
+warmth and care and tenderness and the safety that will surround you.
+And sometimes as you sit there let a thought of me come for just a
+minute, Miss Noah--not long enough nor deep enough to bring you any
+pain. But only think--I brought him happiness after he believed all
+happiness had gone. He was so grateful for that light which came after
+he thought the darkness had settled down. It will light his way to the
+end.
+
+“We've come to Z, and it's good-bye. There is one thing I can give you
+without hurting you,--the hope, the prayer, that life may be very, very
+good to you.”
+
+The sheets of paper fell from her hands. She sat staring out into
+Dearborn Street. She began to see. After all, he had not understood her.
+Perhaps men never understood women; certainly he had not understood
+her. What he did not know was that she was willing to _pay_ for her
+happiness--_pay_--pay any price that might be exacted. And anyway--she
+had no choice. Strange that he could not see that! Strange that he could
+not see the irony and cruelty of bidding her good-bye and then telling
+her to be happy!
+
+It simplified itself to such an extent that she _grew_ very calm. It
+would be easy to find him, easy to make him see--for it was so very
+simple--and then....
+
+She turned in her copy. She said good-bye quietly, naturally, rode down
+in the lumbering old elevator and started out into the now drenching
+rain toward the elevated trains which would take her to the West Side;
+it was so fortunate that she had heard him telling one day where he
+lived.
+
+When she reached the station she saw that more people were coming down
+the stairs than were going up. They were saying things about the trains,
+but she did not heed them. But at the top of the stairs a man in uniform
+said: “Blockade, Miss. You'll have to take the surface cars.”
+
+She was sorry, for it would delay her, and there was not a minute to
+lose. She was dismayed, upon reaching the surface cars, to find she
+could not get near them; the rain, the blockade on the “L” had caused
+a great crowd to congregate there. She waited a long time, getting more
+and more wet, but it was impossible to get near the cars. She thought
+of a cab, but could see none, they too having all been pressed into
+service.
+
+She determined, desperately, to start and walk. Soon she would surely
+get either a cab or a car. And so she started, staunchly, though she was
+wet through now, and trembling with cold and nervousness.
+
+As she hurried through the driving rain she faced things fearlessly. Oh
+yes, she understood--everything. But if he were not well--should he not
+have her with him? If he had that thing to fight, did he not need her
+help? What did men think women were like? Did he think she was one to
+sit down and reason out what would be advantageous? Better a little
+while with him on a slippery plank than forever safe and desolate upon
+the shore!
+
+She never questioned her going; were not life and love too great to be
+lost through that which could be so easily put right?
+
+The buildings were reeling, the streets moving up and down--that
+awful rain, she thought, was making her dizzy. Labouriously she walked
+on--more slowly, less steadily, a pain in her side, that awful reeling
+in her head.
+
+Carriages returning to the city were passing her, but she had not
+strength to call to them, and it seemed if she walked to the curbing she
+would fall. She was not thinking so clearly now. The thing which took
+all of her force was the lifting of her feet and the putting them
+down in the right place. Her throat seemed to be closing up--and her
+side--and her head....
+
+Someone had her by the arm. Then someone was speaking her name; speaking
+it in surprise--consternation--alarm.
+
+It was Harold.
+
+It was all vague then. She knew that she was in a carriage, and
+that Harold was talking to her kindly. “You're taking me there?” she
+murmured.
+
+“Yes--yes, Edna, everything's all right,” he replied soothingly.
+
+“Everything's all right,” she repeated, in a whisper, and leaned her
+head back against the cushions.
+
+They stopped after a while, and Harold was standing at the open door
+of the cab with something steaming hot which he told her to drink. “You
+need it,” he said decisively, and thinking it would help her to tell it,
+she drank it down.
+
+The world was a little more defined after that, and she saw things which
+puzzled her. “Why, it looks like the city,” she whispered, her throat
+too sore now to speak aloud.
+
+“Why sure,” he replied banteringly; “don't you know we have to go
+through the city to get out to the South Side?”
+
+“Oh, but you see,” she cried, holding her throat, “but you see, it's the
+_other_ way!”
+
+“Not to-night,” he insisted; “the place for you to-night is home. I'm
+taking you where you belong.”
+
+She reached over wildly, trying to open the door, but he held her back;
+she began to cry, and he talked to her, gently but unbendingly. “But you
+don't _understand!_” she whispered, passionately. “I've _got_ to go!”
+
+“Not to-night,” he said again, and something in the way he said it made
+her finally huddle back in the corner of the carriage.
+
+Block after block, mile after mile, they rode on in silence. She felt
+overpowered. And with submission she knew that it was Z. For the
+whole city was piled in between. Great buildings were in between, and
+thousands of men running to and fro on the streets; man, and all man
+had builded up, were in between. And then Harold--Harold who had always
+seemed to count for so little, had come and taken her away.
+
+Dully, wretchedly--knowing that her heart would ache far worse to-morrow
+than it did to-night--she wondered about things. Did things like rain
+and street-cars and wet feet and a sore throat determine life? Was it
+that way with other people, too? Did other people have barriers--whole
+cities full of them--piled in between? And then did the Harolds come and
+take them where they said they belonged? Were there not _some_ people
+strong enough to go where they wanted to go?
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
+
+
+The elements without were not in harmony with the spirit which it was
+desired should be engendered within. By music, by gay decorations,
+by speeches from prominent men, the board in charge of the boys'
+reformatory was striving to throw about this dedication of the new
+building an atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will--an atmosphere
+vibrant with the kindness and generosity which emanated from the State,
+and the thankfulness and loyalty which it was felt should emanate from
+the boys.
+
+Outside the world was sobbing. Some young trees which had been planted
+along the driveway of the reformatory grounds, and which were expected
+to grow up in the way they should go, were rocking back and forth in
+passionate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being spit viciously through
+the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape which Philip Grayson, he who
+was to be the last speaker of the afternoon, saw stretching itself down
+the hill, across the little valley, and up another little hill of that
+rolling prairie state. In his ears was the death wail of the summer.
+It seemed the spirit of out-of-doors was sending itself up in mournful,
+hopeless cries.
+
+The speaker who had been delivering himself of pedantic encouragement
+about the open arms with which the world stood ready to receive the most
+degraded one, would that degraded one but come to the world in proper
+spirit, sat down amid perfunctory applause led by the officers
+and attendants of the institution, and the boys rose to sing. The
+brightening of their faces told that their work as performers was more
+to their liking than their position as auditors. They threw back their
+heads and waited with well-disciplined eagerness for the signal to
+begin. Then, with the strength and native music there are in some three
+hundred boys' throats, there rolled out the words of the song of the
+State.
+
+There were lips which opened only because they must, but as a whole
+they sang with the same heartiness, the same joy in singing, that he
+had heard a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the week
+before. When the last word had died away it seemed to Philip Grayson
+that the sigh of the world without was giving voice to the sigh of the
+world within as the well-behaved crowd of boys sat down to resume their
+duties as auditors.
+
+And then one of the most important of the professors from the State
+University was telling them about the kindness of the State: the State
+had provided for them this beautiful home; it gave them comfortable
+clothing and nutritious food; it furnished that fine gymnasium in which
+to train their bodies, books and teachers to train their minds;
+it provided those fitted to train their souls, to work against the
+unfortunate tendencies--the professor stumbled a little there--which had
+led to their coming. The State gave liberally, gladly, and in return it
+asked but one thing: that they come out into the world and make useful,
+upright citizens, citizens of which any State might be proud. Was that
+asking too much? the professor from the State University was saying.
+
+The sobbing of the world without was growing more intense. Many pairs of
+eyes from among the auditors were straying out to where the summer
+lay dying. Did they know--those boys whom the State classed as
+unfortunates--that out of this death there would come again life? Or did
+they see but the darkness--the decay--of to-day?
+
+The professor from the State University was putting the case very
+fairly. There were no flaws--seemingly--to be picked in his logic. The
+State had been kind; the boys were obligated to good citizenship.
+But the coldness!--comfortlessness!--of it all. The open arms of the
+world!--how mocking in its abstractness. What did it mean? Did it mean
+that they--the men who uttered the phrase so easily--would be willing to
+give these boys aid, friendship when they came out into the world? What
+would they say, those boys whose ears were filled with high-sounding,
+non-committal phrases, if some man were to stand before them and say,
+“And so, fellows, when you get away from this place, and are ready to
+get your start in the world, just come around to my office and I'll help
+you get a job?” At thought of it there came from Philip Grayson a queer,
+partly audible laugh, which caused those nearest him to look his way in
+surprise.
+
+But he was all unconscious of their looks of inquiry, absorbed in the
+thoughts that crowded upon him. How far away the world--his kind of
+people--must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The speeches
+they had heard, the training that had been given them, had taught
+them--unconsciously perhaps, but surely--to divide the world into two
+great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who made speeches
+and those who must listen, the so-called good and the so-called bad;
+perhaps--he smiled a little at his own cynicism--those who were caught
+and those who were not.
+
+There came to him these words of a poet of whom he used to be fond:
+
+    In men whom men pronounce as ill,
+    I find so much of goodness still;
+    In men whom men pronounce divine,
+      I find so much of sin and blot;
+    I hesitate to draw the line
+      Between the two, when God has not.
+
+When God has not! He turned and looked out at the sullen sky,
+returning--as most men do at times--to that conception of his childhood
+that somewhere beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God care for the boys
+of the State Reformatory? Was that poet of the western mountains right
+when he said that God was not a drawer of lines, but a seer of the good
+that was in the so-called bad, and of the bad in the so-called good, and
+a lover of them both?
+
+If that was God, it was not the God the boys of the reformatory had been
+taught to know. They had been told that God would forgive the
+wicked, but it had been made clear to them--if not in words, in
+implications--that it was they who were the wicked. And the so-called
+godly men, men of such exemplary character as had been chosen to address
+them that afternoon, had so much of the spirit of God that they, too,
+were willing to forgive, be tolerant, and--he looked out at the bending
+trees with a smile--disburse generalities about the open arms of the
+world.
+
+What would they think--those three hundred speech-tired boys--if some
+man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and lay bare
+his own life--its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its crimes--and tell
+them there was weakness and there was strength in every human being, and
+that the world-old struggle of life was to overcome one's weakness with
+one's strength.
+
+The idea took strange hold on him. It seemed the method of the world--at
+any rate it had been the method of that afternoon--for the men who stood
+before their fellows with clean hands to plant themselves on the far
+side of a chasm of conventions, or narrow self-esteem, or easily won
+virtue, and cry to those beings who struggled on the other side of that
+chasm--to those human beings whose souls had never gone to school: “Look
+at us! Our hands are clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful it
+is to be good! Come ye, poor sinners, and be good also.” And the poor
+sinners, the untaught, birthmarked human souls, would look over at the
+self-acclaimed goodness they could see far across the chasm, and even
+though attracted to it (which, he grimly reflected, would not seem
+likely) the thing that was left with them was a sense of the width of
+the chasm.
+
+He had a sense of needless waste, of unnecessary blight. He looked down
+at those three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human waste;
+and it was human stupidity, human complacency and cowardice kept those
+human beings human drift.
+
+With what a smug self-satisfaction--under the mask of benevolence--the
+speakers of that afternoon had flaunted their virtue--their position!
+How condescendingly they had spoken of the home which we, the good,
+prepare for you, the bad, and what namby-pambyness there was, after all,
+in that sentiment which all of them had voiced--and now you must pay us
+back by being good!
+
+Oh for a man of flesh and blood to stand up and tell how he himself had
+failed and suffered! For a man who could bridge that chasm with strong,
+broad, human understanding and human sympathies--a man who would stand
+among them pulse-beat to pulse-beat and cry out, “I know! I understand!
+I fought it and I'll help you fight it too!”
+
+The sound of his own name broke the spell that was upon him. He looked
+to the centre of the stage and saw that the professor from the State
+University had seated himself and that the superintendent of
+the institution was occupying the place of the speaker. And the
+superintendent was saying:
+
+“We may esteem ourselves especially fortunate in having him with us this
+afternoon. He is one of the great men of the State, one of the men
+who by high living, by integrity and industry, has raised himself to a
+position of great honour among his fellow men. A great party--may I say
+the greatest of all parties?--has shown its unbounded confidence in him
+by giving him the nomination for the governorship of the State. No man
+in the State is held in higher esteem to-day than he. And so it is with
+special pleasure that I introduce to you that man of the future--Philip
+Grayson.”
+
+The superintendent sat down then, and he himself--Philip Grayson--was
+standing in the place where the other speakers had stood. It was with
+a rush which almost swept away his outward show of calm that it came to
+him that he--candidate for the governorship--was well fitted to be
+that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself was
+within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into the
+very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a man of
+sins and virtues, of weaknesses and strength, a man who had had much to
+conquer, and for whom the fight would never be finally won, was standing
+before them stripped of his coat of conventions and platitudes, and in
+nakedness of soul and sincerity of heart was talking to them as a man
+who understood.
+
+Almost with the inception of the idea was born the consciousness of what
+it might cost. And as in answer to the silent, blunt question, Is it
+worth it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of eyes--eyes
+behind which there was good as well as bad, eyes which had burned with
+the fatal rush of passion, and had burned, too, with the hot tears of
+remorse--eyes which had opened on a hostile world.
+
+And then the eyes of Philip Grayson could not see the eyes which were
+before him, and he put up his hand to break the mist--little caring
+what the men upon the platform would think of him, little thinking what
+effect the words which were crowding into his heart would have upon his
+candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now: to bring upon that ugly
+chasm the levelling forces of a common humanity, and to make those boys
+who were of his clay feel that a being who had fallen and risen again,
+a fellow being for whom life would always mean a falling and a rising
+again, was standing before them, and--not as the embodiment of a distant
+goodness, not as a pattern, but as one among them, verily as man to
+man--was telling them a few things which his own life had taught him
+were true.
+
+It was his very consecration which made it hard to begin. He was fearful
+of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between them and him
+that very thing he was determined there should not be.
+
+“I have a strange feeling,” he said, with a winning little smile, “that
+if I were to open my heart to-day, just open it clear up the way I'd
+like to if I could, that you boys would look into it, and then jump back
+in a scared kind of way and cry, 'Why--that's me!' You would be a little
+surprised--wouldn't you?--if you could look back and see the kind of boy
+I was, and find I was much the kind of boy you are?
+
+“Do you know what I think? I think hypocrisy is the worst thing in the
+world. I think it's worse than stealing, or lying, or any of the other
+bad things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of the
+hypocrisy comes from? I think it comes from the so-called self-made
+men--from the real good men, the men who say 'I haven't got one bad
+thing charged up to my account.'
+
+“Now the men out campaigning for me call me a self-made man. Your
+superintendent just now spoke of my integrity, of the confidence reposed
+in me, and all that. But do you know what is the honest truth? If I am
+any kind of a man worth mentioning, if I am deserving of any honour, any
+confidence, it is not because I was born with my heart filled with good
+and beautiful things, for I was not. It is because I was born with much
+in my heart that we call the bad, and because, after that bad had grown
+stronger and stronger through the years it was unchecked, and after it
+had brought me the great shock, the great sorrow of my life, I began
+then, when older than you boys are now, to see a little of that great
+truth which you can put briefly in these words: 'There is good and there
+is bad in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer
+the bad with the good.' What I am trying to say is, that if I am worthy
+any one's confidence to-day, it is because, having seen that truth, I
+have been able, through never ceasing trying, through slow conquering,
+to crowd out some of the bad and make room for a little of the good.
+
+“You see,” he went on, three hundred pairs of eyes hard upon him now,
+“some of us are born to a harder struggle than others. There are people
+who would object to my saying that to you, even if I believed it. They
+would say you would make the fact of being born with much against which
+to struggle an excuse for being bad. But look here a minute; if you were
+born with a body not as strong as other boys' bodies, if you couldn't
+run as far, or jump as high, you wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't
+be expected to do much; I wasn't born right.' Not a bit of it! You'd
+make it your business to get as strong as you could, and you wouldn't
+make any parade of the fact that you weren't as strong as you should be.
+We don't like people who whine, whether it's about weak bodies or weak
+souls.
+
+“I've been sitting here this afternoon wondering what to say to you
+boys. I had intended telling some funny stories about things which
+happened to me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood has
+come over me, and I don't feel just like those stories now. I haven't
+been thinking of the funny side of life in the last half-hour. I've been
+thinking of how much suffering I've endured since the days when I, too,
+was a boy.”
+
+He paused then; and when he went on his voice tested to the utmost the
+silence of the room: “There is lots of sorrow in this old world. Maybe
+I'm on the wrong track, but as I see it to-day human beings are making
+a much harder thing of their existence than there is any need of. There
+are millions and millions of them, and year after year, generation after
+generation, they fight over the same old battles, live through the same
+old sorrows. Doesn't it seem all wrong that after the battle has been
+fought a million times it can't be made a little easier for those who
+still have it before them?
+
+“If a farmer had gone over a bad road, and the next day saw another
+farmer about to start over the same road, wouldn't he send him back?
+Doesn't it seem too bad that in things which concern one's whole life
+people can't be as decent as they are about things which involve only an
+inconvenience? Doesn't it seem that when we human beings have so much in
+common we might stand together a little better? I'll tell you what's the
+matter. Most of the people of this world are coated round and round with
+self-esteem, and they're afraid to admit any understanding of the things
+which aren't good. Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit
+he had been over that road, and so had said: 'From what I have read in
+books, and from what I have learned in a general way, I fancy that road
+isn't good.' Would the other farmer have gone back? I rather think he
+would have said he'd take his chances. But you see the farmer said
+he _knew_; and how did he know? Why, because he'd been over the road
+himself.”
+
+As he paused again, looking at them, he saw it all with a clarifying
+simplicity. He himself knew life for a fine and beautiful thing. He had
+won for himself some of the satisfactions of understanding, certain rare
+delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the spirits of these
+boys to whom he talked; wanted to show them that spirits could free
+themselves, indicate to them that self-control and self-development
+carried one to pleasures which sordid self-indulgences had no power to
+bestow. It was a question of getting the most from life. It was a matter
+of happiness.
+
+It was thus he began, slowly, the telling of his life's story:
+
+“I was born with strange, wild passions in my heart. I don't know where
+they came from; I only know they were there. I resented authority. If
+someone who had a right to dictate to me said, 'Philip, do this,' then
+Philip would immediately begin to think how much he would rather do the
+other thing. And,” he smiled a little, and some of the boys smiled with
+him in anticipation, “it was the other thing which Philip usually did.
+
+“I didn't go to a reform school, for the very good reason that there
+wasn't any in the State where I lived.” Some of he boys smiled again,
+and he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party managers
+sitting close to him. “I was what you would call a very bad boy. I
+didn't mind any one. I was defiant--insolent. I did bad things
+just because I knew they were bad, and--and I took a great deal of
+satisfaction out of it.”
+
+The sighing of the world without was the only sound which vibrated
+through the room. “I say,” he went on, “that I got a form of
+satisfaction from it. I did not say I got happiness; there is a vast
+difference between a kind of momentary satisfaction and that thing--that
+most precious of all things--which we call happiness. Indeed, I was very
+far from happy. I had hours when I was so morose and miserable that I
+hated the whole world. And do you know what I thought? I thought there
+was no one in all the world who had the same kind of things surging up
+in his heart that I did. I thought there was no one else with whom it
+was as easy to be bad, or as hard to be good. I thought that no one
+understood. I thought that I was all alone.
+
+“Did you ever feel like that? Did you ever feel that no one else knew
+anything about such feelings as you had? Did you ever feel that here was
+you, and there was the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world
+didn't know anything about you, and was just generally down on you? Now
+that's the very thing I want to talk away from you to-day. You're not
+the only one. We're all made of the same kind of stuff, and there's none
+of us made of stuff that's flawless. We all have a fight; some an easy
+one, and some a big one, and if you have formed the idea that there is
+a kind of dividing-line in the world, and that on the one side is the
+good, and on the other side the bad, why, all I can say is that you have
+a wrong notion of things.
+
+“Well, I grew up to be a man, and because I hadn't fought against any of
+the stormy things in my heart they kept growing stronger and stronger. I
+did lots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am bitterly ashamed.
+I went to another place, and I fell in with the kind of fellows you can
+imagine I felt at home with. I had been told when I was a boy that it
+was wrong to drink and gamble. I think that was the chief reason I took
+to drink and gambling.”
+
+There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party
+manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat.
+It was the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the boys'
+reformatory. The boys were leaning forward--self-forgetful, intent. “One
+night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, and one of the
+men, the best friend I had, said something that made me mad. There was a
+revolver right there which one of the men had been showing us. Some kind
+of a demon got hold of me, and without so much as a thought I picked up
+that revolver and fired at my friend.”
+
+The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the
+superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say
+a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened faces
+before him: “I suppose you wonder why I am not in the penitentiary. I
+had been drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was with friends, and it
+was hushed up.”
+
+He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen
+landscape. His voice was not steady as he went on: “It's not an easy
+thing to talk about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before in
+all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to create
+a sensation. I'm telling it,” his voice grew tense in its earnestness,
+“because I believe that this world could be made a better and a sweeter
+place if those who have lived and suffered would not be afraid to reach
+out their hands and cry: 'I know that road--it's bad! I steered off to a
+better place, and I'll help you steer off, too.'”
+
+There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted
+upon the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and defiance
+had fallen from them. They were listening now--not because they must,
+but because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being poured the
+very sustenance for which--unknowingly--they had yearned.
+
+“We sometimes hear people say,” resumed the candidate for Governor,
+“that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've lived
+through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I can say
+that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after I went home
+that night no one in this world will ever know. Words couldn't tell it;
+it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere near. My whole life
+spread itself out before me; it was not a pleasant thing to look at. But
+at last, boys, out of the depths of my darkness, I began to get a little
+light. I began to get some understanding of the battle which it falls
+to the lot of some of us human beings to wage. There was good in me,
+you see, or I wouldn't have cared like that, and it came to me then, all
+alone that terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away
+somewhere in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so--all alone,
+boys--I began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do
+you know--this is the truth--it was with the beginning of that battle I
+got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this world
+than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is like opening
+a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in a minute. This
+is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But it's a fight that can
+be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth the winning. I'm not saying
+to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.' Maybe you won't succeed. Life
+as we've arranged it for ourselves makes success a pretty tough
+proposition. But that doesn't alter the fact that it pays to be a decent
+sort. You and I know about how much happiness there is in the other kind
+of thing. And there is happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to
+develop what's in you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having
+done your part,--that bully sense of having put up the best fight you
+could.”
+
+He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. “I don't know, I am
+sure, what the people of my State will think of all this. Perhaps they
+won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to kill another man.
+But,” he looked around at them with that smile of his which got straight
+to men's hearts, “there's only one of me, and there are three hundred
+of you, and how do I know but that in telling you of that stretch of bad
+road ahead I've made a dozen Governors this very afternoon!”
+
+He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word
+which would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did say
+was: “And so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into the
+world to get your start, if you find the arms of that world aren't quite
+as wide open as you were told they would be, if there seems no place
+where you can get a hold, and you are saying to yourself, 'It's no
+use--I'll not try,' before you give up just remember there was one man
+who said he knew all about it, and give that one man a chance to show
+he meant what he said. So look me up, if luck goes all against you, and
+maybe I can give you a little lift.” He took a backward step, as though
+to resume his seat, and then he said, with a dry little smile which took
+any suggestion of heroics from what had gone before, “If I'm not at the
+State-house, you'll find my name in the directory of the city where your
+programme tells you I live.”
+
+He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled,
+heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants this
+time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And when the
+clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were raised to
+eyes which had long been dry.
+
+The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party
+manager standing by his side. “It was very grand,” he sneered, “very
+high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know,” jerking his hand
+angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the
+opposition was writing, “that you've given them the winning card.”
+
+As he replied, in far-off tone, “I hope so,” the candidate for Governor
+was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new cry for
+the opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of new
+understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them filing
+out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a last look,
+and as he turned then and looked from the window it was to see that
+the storm had sobbed itself away, and that along the driveway of the
+reformatory grounds the young trees--unbroken and unhurt--were rearing
+their heads in the way they should go.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA
+
+
+They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every
+hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the stairways
+and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's to the
+custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet. A
+long whistle had sounded through the building. There was magic in its
+note.
+
+“What's the matter with you fellows?” asked the attorney-general,
+swinging around in his chair.
+
+“Strike,” declared one of the men, with becoming brevity.
+
+“Strike of what?”
+
+“Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One,” replied the man, kindly gathering up
+a few tacks.
+
+“Never heard of it.”
+
+“Organised last night,” said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat.
+
+“Well I'll--” he paused expressively, then inquired: “What's your game?”
+
+“Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the State-house
+has refused our demands.”
+
+“What are your demands?”
+
+“Double pay.”
+
+“Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have double
+pay?”
+
+“Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get
+every carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon. Now
+you know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you ever get
+rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was anxious as
+anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this afternoon. But
+there's reason in all things.”
+
+“Yes,” agreed his auditor, “there is.”
+
+The man looked at him a little doubtfully. “Our president--we elected
+Johnny McGuire president last night--went to the Governor this morning
+with our demands.”
+
+The Governor's fellow official smiled--he knew the Governor pretty well.
+“And he turned you down?”
+
+The striker nodded. “But there's an election next fall; maybe the
+turning down will be turned around.”
+
+“Maybe so--you never can tell. I don't know just what power
+Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's pretty
+solid, you know, with Labour as a whole.”
+
+That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot uncertainly
+across the floor, and took courage from its splinters. “Well, there's
+one thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load of big guns show
+up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare floors, and pretty
+bum bare floors, on deck at this place.”
+
+The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered,
+miserable boards. “They are pretty bum,” he reflected. “I wonder,” he
+added, as the man was half-way out of the door, “what Prince Ludwig will
+think of the American working-man when he arrives this afternoon?”
+
+“Just about as much,” retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker, “as
+he does about American generosity. And he may think a few things,” he
+added weightily, “about American independence.”
+
+“Oh, he's sure to do that,” agreed the attorney-general.
+
+He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all
+the offices, all talking of the one thing. “It was a straight case of
+hold-up,” declared the Governor's secretary. “They supposed they had us
+on the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you see they
+just figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have these wretched
+floors for the reception this afternoon. They thought the Governor would
+argue the question, and then give in, or, at any rate, compromise. They
+never intended for one minute that the Prince should find bare floors
+here. And I rather think,” he concluded, “that they feel a little done
+up about it themselves.”
+
+“What's the situation?” asked a stranger within the gates.
+
+“It's like this,” a newspaper reporter told him; “about a month ago
+there was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well knocked
+out with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things anyway,
+so they voted new ones. And I want to tell you”--he swelled with
+pride--“that the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great when we
+get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd cross the State
+on their way to the coast, and of course they were invited to stop. Last
+week Billy Patton--he's running the whole show--declined the invitation
+on account of lack of time, and then yesterday comes a telegram saying
+the Prince himself insisted on stopping. You know he's keen about Indian
+dope--and we've got Indian traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to
+make over his schedule to please the Prince, and of course we were all
+pretty tickled about it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't
+come until five o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer
+the Governor is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building
+should be put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole
+lot of fellows to work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but
+get together last night--well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old
+shack just now, isn't it?” and the reporter looked around ruefully.
+
+It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the
+members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd--and the
+indignation--in the rotunda.
+
+The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but
+Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The biggest
+furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. “Pipes burst
+last night,” he said, “and they may not do a thing for us if we get
+mixed up in this. Sorry--but I can't let my customers get pneumonia.”
+
+Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or
+another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and when
+the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda he was
+about as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. “It's the idea of
+lying down,” he said. “I'd do anything--anything!--if I could only think
+what to do.”
+
+A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. “By George,
+Governor,” he burst forth, after a minute's deep study--“say--by Jove, I
+say, let's do it ourselves!”
+
+They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he
+looked hard at the young man.
+
+“Why not?” the young legislator went on. “It's a big job, but there are
+a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we afraid to
+tackle it here for?”
+
+Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. “Say, Weston,” he
+said, “I'd give a lot--I tell you I'd give a lot--if we just could!”
+
+“Leave it to me!”--and he was lost in the crowd.
+
+The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston. He
+was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor smiled
+knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his different
+manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a few steps of the
+stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd.
+
+“Now look here,” he began, after silence had been obtained, “this isn't
+a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a clear
+case of Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want to know
+is--Is the State going to lie down?”
+
+There were loud cries of “No!”--“Well, I should say not!”
+
+“Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't get
+them. Now the next thing I want to know is--What's the matter with us?”
+
+They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed.
+
+“It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use of
+pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes--I know, bigger
+building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle of
+carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my scheme
+is this--Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's office
+puts down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts down the
+Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate carpet--and we'll
+look after our little patch in the House!”
+
+“But you've got more fellows than anybody else,” cried a member of the
+Senate.
+
+“Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors
+and stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her part,”--that
+brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them.
+
+“Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here; the
+building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at four--by
+his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we going to
+receive him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what Senator Arnold
+thinks about it.”
+
+That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke.
+Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and
+tested his muscle. “Not very much,” he said, “but enough to drive a tack
+or two.” That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the
+atmosphere warmed perceptibly. “I've fought for the State in more ways
+than one,”--Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil
+War--“and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's
+tacking down carpets I'm ready to go at. Just count on me for what
+little I'm worth.”
+
+Someone started the cry for the Governor. “Prince Ludwig is being
+entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner,” he began,
+with his characteristic directness in stating a situation. “By his own
+request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I must say that I,
+for one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like to tell him that we
+had a labour complication and couldn't get the carpets down. Speaking
+for myself, it is a great pleasure to inform you that the carpet in
+the Governor's office will be in proper shape by four o'clock this
+afternoon.”
+
+That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard sufficiently
+to suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine o'clock motions to
+adjourn be entertained. “And as to the rest of you fellows,” he cried,
+“I don't see what's to hinder your getting busy right now!”
+
+There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends
+and there were enemies; there were good, bad and--no, there were no
+indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like
+unity of action was born out of that sturdy cry--Every man his own
+carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove the
+first tack, but during the remainder of his life the Superintendent of
+Public Instruction also contended hotly for that honour. The rivalry
+as to who would do the best job, and get it done most quickly, became
+intense. Early in the day Harry Weston made the rounds of the building
+and announced a fine of one-hundred dollars for every wrinkle. There
+were pounded fingers and there were broken backs, but slowly, steadily
+and good-naturedly the State-house carpet was going down. It was a good
+deal bigger job than they had anticipated, but that only added zest
+to the undertaking. The news of how the State officials were employing
+themselves had spread throughout the city, and guards were stationed at
+every door to keep out people whose presence would work more harm than
+good. All assistance from women was courteously refused. “This is solemn
+business,” said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some of
+the fair sex, “and the introduction of the feminine element might throw
+about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of time. And
+then some of the boys might feel called upon to put on their collars and
+coats.”
+
+Stretch--stretch--stretch, and tack--tack--tack, all morning long it
+went on, for the State-house was large--oh, very large. There should
+have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for the novelty of the
+situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had never glowed before.
+Choice bits which at other times would fairly have gone on official
+record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the surfeit.
+Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them. Bridget
+Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the boarding-house
+across the street was a sort of unofficial official of the State, came
+over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the while calling down
+blessings on the head of every mother's son of them, and announcing in
+loud, firm tones that while all five of her boys belonged to the union
+she'd be after tellin' them what she thought of this day's work!
+
+It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be fair,
+the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He came over
+there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, and in a few
+hurried words--it was no day for conversation--was told what was going
+on. It was while standing out in the corridor watching the perspiring
+dignitaries that the idea of his duty came to him, and one reason he was
+sure he was right was the way in which it came to him in the light of
+a duty. Here was America in undress uniform! Here was--not a thing
+arranged for show, but absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig had
+come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was
+not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags
+and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches.
+But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country?
+Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was
+just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court
+was contending hotly for a better hammer. “It's an insult to expect any
+decent man to drive tacks with a hammer like this,” he was saying.
+Here were men--real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When
+the Prince had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see
+anything but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits and other externals
+and non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow;
+he was hospitable--patriotic. He decided now in favour of the Prince.
+
+He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of
+the vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into
+confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the special
+train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next station.
+The stop was made that Senator Patton might receive a long telegram
+from Senator Bruner. “I figure it like this,” the Senator told the
+vice-president. “They get to Boden at a quarter of one and were going
+to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a little while at
+Creyville. I've told Patton the situation, and that if he wants to do
+the right thing by the prince he'll cut out those stops and rush right
+through here. That will bring him in--well, they could make it at a
+quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it with Boden and Creyville.
+Oh, he'll do it all right.”
+
+And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: “Too good to miss.
+Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water Street.”
+
+“That's great!” cried the Senator. “Trust Billy Patton for falling
+in with a good thing. And he's right about missing the station crowd.
+Patton can always go you one better,” he admitted, grinningly.
+
+They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like
+sophomores in college than like a United States Senator and a big
+railroad man. “You don't think there's any danger of their getting
+through too soon?” McVeigh kept asking, anxiously.
+
+“Not a bit,” the Senator assured him. “They can't possibly make it
+before three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish. It's
+going to be a jolly rush at the last.”
+
+They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State
+library building was across from the Capitol, and they were connected
+by tunnel. “I never saw before,” said the Senator, “what that tunnel
+was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll get him in at
+the west door of the library--we can drive right up to it, you know, and
+then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a stone floor”--the Senator
+was chuckling with every sentence--“so I guess they won't be carpeting
+it. There's a little stairway running up from the tunnel---and say, we
+must telephone over and arrange about those keys. There'll be a good
+deal of climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It
+wouldn't be safe to try the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it
+taking somebody a bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store
+rooms; we'll not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the
+rotunda and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time;
+some one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't
+see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that for
+two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in pretty
+neat shape.”
+
+It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the
+special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing
+a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at
+all formidable or unusual. “You've saved the country,” Senator Patton
+whispered in an aside. “He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly
+up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would
+be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't looking for him.”
+
+Senator Bruner beamed. “That's just the point. He's caught my idea
+exactly.”
+
+It went without a hitch. “I feel,” said the Prince, as they were
+hurrying him through the tunnel, “that I am a little boy who has run
+away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some
+band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a speech.”
+
+They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed
+that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. The final
+skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators--coatless, tieless,
+collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finishing the
+stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House
+was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and
+a member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a
+disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most
+exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member
+who fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another
+were now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large
+wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men
+were standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply
+absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all
+open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of
+pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with
+“finishing touches.” The Prince grew so excited about it all that they
+had to keep urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.
+
+“And I'll tell you,” Senator Bruner was saying, “it isn't only because
+I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; but--well, you see
+America isn't the real America when she has on her best clothes and is
+trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared for
+your coming, and that means you haven't seen them as they are at all.
+Now here we are. This is us! You see that fellow hanging a picture down
+there? He's president of the First National Bank. Came over a little
+while ago, got next to the situation, and stayed to help. And--say, this
+is good! Notice that red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees?
+Well, he's president of the teamsters' union--figured so big in a strike
+here last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all
+so afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it
+themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.--There's the Governor. He's
+a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody--not even to get ready
+for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to make things come
+his way. Yes sir--this is the sure-enough thing. Here you have the
+boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from our dignity every day,
+but--see what I mean?”
+
+“I see,” replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.
+
+“You know--say, dodge there! Move back! No--too late. The Governor's
+caught us. Look at him!”
+
+The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his hands
+on his back--he couldn't look up without doing that--and gave a long,
+steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator Patton waved;
+then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved. Other people were
+beginning to look up. “They're all on,” laughed Patton, “let's go down.”
+
+At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. “We
+worked all day to get in shape,” grumbled Harry Weston, “and then you go
+ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to begin.”
+
+But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good time
+that they were forced to concede the move had been a success. And he
+said to the Governor as he was leaving: “I see that the only way to see
+America is to see it when America is not seeing you.”
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES
+
+
+“Nine--ten--” The old clock paused as if in dramatic appreciation of
+the situation, and then slowly, weightily, it gave the final stroke,
+“Eleven!”
+
+The Governor swung his chair half-way round and looked the timepiece
+full in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last
+hour of his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would be
+Governor of the State. He sat there watching the movement of the minute
+hand.
+
+The sound of voices, some jovial, some argumentative, was borne to
+him through the open transom. People were beginning to gather in
+the corridors, and he could hear the usual disputes about tickets of
+admission to the inaugural.
+
+His secretary came in just then with some letters. “Could you see
+Whitefield now?” he asked. “He's waiting out here for you.”
+
+The old man looked up wearily. “Oh, put him off, Charlie. Tell him you
+can talk to him about whatever it is he wants to know.”
+
+The secretary had his hand on the knob, when the Governor added, “And,
+Charlie, keep everybody out, if you can. I'm--I've got a few private
+matters to go over.”
+
+The younger man nodded and opened the door. He half closed it behind
+him, and then turned to say, “Except Francis. You'll want to see him if
+he comes in, won't you?”
+
+He frowned and moved impatiently as he answered, curtly: “Oh, yes.”
+
+Francis! Of course it never occurred to any of them that he could close
+the door on Francis. He drummed nervously on his desk, then suddenly
+reached down and, opening one of the drawers, tossed back a few things
+and drew out a newspaper. He unfolded this and spread it out on the
+desk. Running across the page was the big black line, “Real Governors
+of Some Western States,” and just below, the first of the series,
+and played up as the most glaring example of nominal and real in
+governorship, was a sketch of Harvey Francis.
+
+He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not
+contribute to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of spirit
+to be told at the end of things that he had, as a matter of fact, never
+been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was that, looking back
+on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one stepping from it, he
+could see just how true was the statement: “Harvey Francis has been
+the real Governor of the State; John Morrison his mouthpiece and
+figurehead.”
+
+He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape. It
+may have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing him
+down, that carried him back across the years to one snowy afternoon when
+he stood up in a little red schoolhouse and delivered an oration on “The
+Responsibilities of Statesmanship.” He smiled as the title came back to
+him, and yet--what had become of the spirit of that seventeen-year-old
+boy? He had meant it all then; he could remember the thrill with which
+he stood there that afternoon long before and poured out his sentiments
+regarding the sacredness of public trusts. What was it had kept him,
+when his chance came, from working out in his life the things he had so
+fervently poured into his schoolboy oration?
+
+Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and
+there was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's “Come in.”
+
+“Indulging in a little meditation?”
+
+The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went on,
+easily: “Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding him up
+for tickets, and he--poor young fool--looks as though he wanted to jump
+in the river. Takes things tremendously to heart--Dorman does.”
+
+He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of
+Dorman's. “Well,” he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking
+about the room, “I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see
+I'll not have the _entree_ to the Governor's office by afternoon.” He
+laughed, the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated to spend
+emotion uselessly.
+
+It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat looking at
+him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him: “Harvey Francis
+is the most dangerous type of boss politician. His is not the crude and
+vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is worth. He deals gently
+and tenderly with consciences. He knows how to get a man without fatally
+injuring that man's self-respect.”
+
+The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to
+office as State Senator he had cherished old-fashioned ideas of serving
+his constituents and doing his duty. But the very first week Francis
+had asked one of those little favours of him, and, wishing to show his
+appreciation of support given him in his election, he had granted it.
+Then various courtesies were shown him; he was let in on a “deal,” and
+almost before he realised it, it seemed definitely understood that he
+was a “Francis man.”
+
+Francis roused himself and murmured: “Fools!--amateurs.”
+
+“Leyman?” ventured the Governor.
+
+“Leyman and all of his crowd!”
+
+“And yet,” the Governor could not resist, “in another hour this same
+fool will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won.”
+
+Francis rose, impatiently. “For the moment. It won't be lasting. In any
+profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They can't keep
+it up. They don't know _how_. Oh, no,” he insisted, cheerfully, “Leyman
+will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting on this contract
+business we've saved up for him getting in good work.” He was moving
+toward the door. “Well,” he concluded, with a curious little laugh, “see
+you upstairs.”
+
+The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five minutes
+past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short time he must
+join the party in the anteroom of the House. But weariness had come over
+him. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
+
+He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his years.
+It was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one. People who
+wanted to say nice things of the Governor called him pleasant or genial
+or kindly. Even the men in the appointive offices did not venture to say
+he had much force.
+
+He felt it to-day as he never had before. He had left no mark; he had
+done nothing, stood for nothing. Never once had his personality made
+itself felt. He had signed the documents; Harvey Francis had always
+“suggested”--the term was that man's own--the course to be pursued. And
+the “suggestions” had ever dictated the policy that would throw the most
+of influence or money to that splendidly organised machine that Francis
+controlled.
+
+With an effort he shook himself free from his cheerless retrospect.
+There was a thing or two he wanted to get from his desk, and his time
+was growing very short. He found what he wanted, and then, just as he
+was about to close the drawer, his eye fell on a large yellow envelope.
+
+He closed the drawer; but only to reopen it, take out the envelope and
+remove the documents it contained; and then one by one he spread them
+out before him on the desk.
+
+He sat there looking down at them, wondering whether a man had ever
+stepped into office with as many pitfalls laid for him. During the last
+month they had been busy about the old State-house setting traps for the
+new Governor. The “machine” was especially jubilant over those contracts
+the Governor now had spread out before him. The convict labour question
+was being fought out in the State just then--organised labour demanding
+its repeal; country taxpayers insisting that it be maintained. Under
+the system the penitentiary had become self-supporting. In November the
+contracts had come up for renewal; but on the request of Harvey Francis
+the matter had been put off from time to time, and still remained open.
+Just the week before, Francis had put it to the Governor something like
+this:
+
+“Don't sign those contracts. We can give some reason for holding them
+off, and save them up for Leyman. Then we can see that the question is
+agitated, and whatever he does about it is going to prove a bad thing
+for him. If he doesn't sign, he's in bad with the country fellows, the
+men who elected him. Don't you see? At the end of his administration the
+penitentiary, under you self-sustaining, will have cost them a pretty
+penny. We've got him right square!”
+
+The clock was close to twenty minutes of twelve, and he concluded that
+he would go out and join some of his friends he could hear in the other
+room. It would never do for him to go upstairs with a long, serious
+face. He had had his day, and now Leyman was to have his, and if the new
+Governor did better than the old one, then so much the better for the
+State. As for the contracts, Leyman surely must understand that there
+was a good deal of rough sailing on political waters.
+
+But it was not easy to leave the room. Walking to the window he again
+stood there looking out across the snow, and once more he went back now
+at the end of things to that day in the little red schoolhouse which
+stood out as the beginning.
+
+He was called back from that dreaming by the sight of three men coming
+up the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things Francis and
+the rest of them would say about the new Governor's arriving on foot.
+Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be done away with--but
+one would suppose he would at least dignify the occasion by arriving in
+a carriage. Francis would see that the opposing papers handled it as a
+grand-stand play to the country constituents.
+
+And then, forgetful of Francis, and of the approaching ceremony, the old
+man stood there by the window watching the young man who was coming
+up to take his place. How firmly the new Governor walked! With what
+confidence he looked ahead at the State-house. The Governor--not
+considering the inconsistency therein--felt a thrill of real pride in
+thought of the State's possessing a man like that.
+
+Standing though he did for the things pitted against him, down in his
+heart John Morrison had all along cherished a strong admiration for
+that young man who, as District Attorney of the State's metropolis,
+had aroused the whole country by his fearlessness and unquestionable
+sincerity. Many a day he had sat in that same office reading what the
+young District Attorney was doing in the city close by--the fight he was
+making almost single-handed against corruption, how he was striking in
+the high places fast and hard as in the low, the opposition, threats,
+and time after time there had been that same secret thrill at thought of
+there being a man like that. And when the people of the State, convinced
+that here was one man who would serve _them_, began urging the District
+Attorney for chief executive, Governor Morrison, linked with the
+opposing forces, doing all he could to bring about Leyman's defeat,
+never lost that secret feeling for the young man, who, unbacked by any
+organisation, struck blow after blow at the machine that had so long
+dominated the State, winning in the end that almost incomprehensible
+victory.
+
+The new Governor had passed from sight, and a moment later his voice
+came to the ear of the lonely man in the executive office. Some friends
+had stopped him just outside the Governor's door with a laughing “Here's
+hoping you'll do as much for us in the new office as you did in the
+old,” and the new Governor replied, buoyantly: “Oh, but I'm going to do
+a great deal more!”
+
+The man within the office smiled a little wistfully and with a sigh
+sat down before his desk. The clock now pointed to thirteen minutes of
+twelve; they would be asking for him upstairs. There were some scraps of
+paper on his desk and he threw them into the waste-basket, murmuring: “I
+can at least give him a clean desk.”
+
+He pushed his chair back sharply. A clean desk! The phrase opened to
+deeper meanings.... Why not clean it up in earnest? Why not give him a
+square deal--a real chance? Why not _sign the contracts_?
+
+Again he looked at the clock--not yet ten minutes of twelve. For
+ten minutes more he was Governor of the State! Ten minutes of real
+governorship! Might it not make up a little, both to his own soul and to
+the world, for the years he had weakly served as another man's puppet?
+The consciousness that he could do it, that it was not within the power
+of any man to stop him, was intoxicating. Why not break the chains now
+at the last, and just before the end taste the joy of freedom?
+
+He took up his pen and reached for the inkwell. With trembling, excited
+fingers he unfolded the contracts. He dipped his pen into the ink; he
+even brought it down on the paper; and then the tension broke. He sank
+back in his chair, a frightened, broken old man.
+
+“Oh, no,” he whispered; “no, not now. It's--” his head went lower and
+lower until at last it rested on the desk--“too late.”
+
+When he raised his head and grew more steady, it was only to see the
+soundness of his conclusion. He had not the right now in the final
+hour to buy for himself a little of glory. It would only be a form of
+self-indulgence. They would call it, and perhaps rightly, hush money
+to his conscience. They would say he went back on them only when he was
+through with them. Oh, no, there would be no more strength in it than
+in the average deathbed repentance. He would at least step out with
+consistency.
+
+He folded the contracts and put them back into the envelope. The minute
+hand now pointed to seven minutes to twelve. Some one was tapping at
+the door, and the secretary appeared to say they were waiting for him
+upstairs. He replied that he would be there in a minute, hoping that his
+voice did not sound as strange to the other man as it had to himself.
+
+Slowly he walked to the door leading into the corridor. This, then, was
+indeed the end; this the final stepping down from office! After years of
+what they called public service, he was leaving it all now with a sense
+of defeat and humiliation. A lump was in the old man's throat; his
+eyes were blurred. “But you, Frank Leyman,” he whispered passionately,
+turning as if for comfort to the other man, “it will be different with
+you! They'll not get you--not you!”
+
+It lifted him then as a great wave--this passionate exultation that here
+was one man whom corruption could not claim as her own. Here was one
+human soul not to be had for a price! There flitted before him again a
+picture of that seventeen-year-old boy in the little red schoolhouse,
+and close upon it came the picture of this other young man against whom
+all powers of corruption had been turned in vain. With the one it
+had been the emotional luxury of a sentiment, a thing from life's
+actualities apart; with the other it was a force that dominated all
+things else, a force over which circumstances and design could not
+prevail. “I know all about it,” he was saying. “I know about it all! I
+know how easy it is to fall! I know how fine it is to stand!”
+
+His sense of disappointment in his own empty, besmirched career was
+almost submerged then as he projected himself on into the career of
+this other man who within the hour would come there in his stead. How
+glorious was his opportunity, how limitless his possibilities, and how
+great to his own soul the satisfaction the years would bring of having
+done his best!
+
+It had all changed now. That passionate longing to vindicate himself,
+add one thing honourable and fine to his own record, had altogether left
+him, and with the new mood came new insight and what had been an impulse
+centred to a purpose.
+
+It pointed to three minutes to twelve as he walked over to his desk,
+unfolded the contracts, and one by one affixed his signature. In a dim
+way he was conscious of how the interpretation of his first motive would
+be put upon it, how they would call him traitor and coward; but that
+mattered little. The very fact that the man for whom he was doing
+it would never see it as it was brought him no pang. And when he had
+carefully blotted the papers, affixed the seal and put them away, there
+was in his heart the clean, sweet joy of a child because he had been
+able to do this for a man in whom he believed.
+
+The band was playing the opening strains as he closed the door behind
+him and started upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+“OUT THERE”
+
+
+The old man held the picture up before him and surveyed it with admiring
+but disapproving eye. “No one that comes along this way'll have the
+price for it,” he grumbled. “It'll just set here 'till doomsday.”
+
+It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the shop.
+A persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his stock let
+the old man have it for what he called a song. It was only a little
+out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing of pictures.
+The old man looked around at his views of the city, his pictures of cats
+and dogs and gorgeous young women, his flaming bits of landscape. “Don't
+belong in here,” he fumed, “any more 'an I belong in Congress.”
+
+And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. He seemed all
+at once to be lifted from his realm of petty tradesman to that of patron
+of art. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he shuffled about
+pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture.
+
+It is not fair to the picture to try repainting it in words, for words
+reduce it to a lithograph. It was a bit of a pine forest, through which
+there exuberantly rushed an unspoiled little mountain stream. Chromos
+and works of art may deal with kindred subjects. There is just that one
+difference of dealing with them differently. “It ain't what you _see_,
+so much as what you can guess is there,” was the thought it brought to
+the old man who was dusting it. “Now this frame ain't three feet long,
+but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if that timber kept right on for a
+hundred miles. I kind of suspect it's on a mountain--looks cool enough
+in there to be on a mountain. Wish I was there. Bet they never see no
+such days as we do in Chicago. Looks as though a man might call his soul
+his own--out there.”
+
+He began removing some views of Lincoln Park and some corpulent Cupids
+in order to make room in the window for the new picture. When he went
+outside to look at it he shook his head severely and hastened in to take
+away some ardent young men and women, some fruit and flowers and fish
+which he had left thinking they might “set it off.” It was evident that
+the new picture did not need to be “set off.” “And anyway,” he told
+himself, in vindication of entrusting all his goods to one bottom, “I
+might as well take them out, for the new one makes them look so kind of
+sick that no one would have them, anyhow.” Then he went back to mounting
+views with the serenity of one who stands for the finer things.
+
+His clamorous little clock pointed to a quarter of six when he finally
+came back to the front of the store. It was time to begin closing up
+for the night, but for the minute he stood there watching the crowd
+of workers coming from the business district not far away over to the
+boarding-house region, a little to the west. He watched them as they
+came by in twos and threes and fours: noisy people and worn-out people,
+people hilarious and people sullen, the gaiety and the weariness, the
+acceptance and the rebellion of humanity--he saw it pass. “As if any of
+_them_ could buy it,” he pronounced severely, adding, contemptuously,
+“or wanted to.”
+
+The girl was coming along by herself. He watched her as she crossed to
+his side of the street, thinking it was too bad for a poor girl to be
+as tired as that. She was dressed like many of the rest of them, and
+yet she looked different--like the picture and the chromo. She turned an
+indifferent glance toward the window, and then suddenly she stood there
+very still, and everything about her seemed to change. “For all the
+world,” he told himself afterward, “as if she'd found a long-lost
+friend, and was 'fraid to speak for fear it was too good to be true.”
+
+She did seem afraid to speak--afraid to believe. For a minute she stood
+there right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the picture. And
+when she came toward the window it was less as if coming than as if
+drawn. What she really seemed to want to do was to edge away; yet she
+came closer, as close as she could, her eyes never leaving the picture,
+and then fear, or awe, or whatever it was made her look so queer
+gave way to wonder--that wondering which is ready to open the door to
+delight. She looked up and down the street as one rubbing one's eyes to
+make sure of a thing, and then it all gave way to a joy which lighted
+her pale little face like--“Well, like nothing I ever saw before,” was
+all the old man could say of it. “Why, she'd never know if the whole
+fire department was to run right up here on the sidewalk,” he gloated.
+Just then she drew herself up for a long breath. “See?” he chuckled,
+delightedly. “She knows it has a smell!” She looked toward the door,
+but shook her head. “Knows she can't pay the price,” he interpreted her.
+Then, she stepped back and looked at the number above the door. “Coming
+again,” he made of that; “ain't going to run no chances of losing the
+place.” And then for a long time she stood there before the picture, so
+deeply and so strangely quiet that he could not translate her. “I can't
+just get the run of it,” was his bewildered conclusion. “I don't see why
+it should make anybody act like that.” And yet he must have understood
+more than he knew, for suddenly he was seeing her through a blur of
+tears.
+
+As he began shutting up for the night he was so excited about the way
+she looked when she finally turned away that it never occurred to him to
+be depressed about her inability to pay the price.
+
+He kept thinking of her, wondering about her, during the next day. At
+a little before six he took up his station near the front window.
+Once more the current of workers flowed by. “I'm an old fool,” he told
+himself, irritated at the wait; “as if it makes any difference whether
+she comes or not--when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just as big a
+fool as I am--liking it when she can't have it, only I'm the biggest
+fool of all--caring whether she likes it or not.” But just then the
+girl passed quickly by a crowd of girls who were ahead of her and came
+hurrying across the street. She was walking fast, and looked excited and
+anxious. “Afraid it might be gone,” he said--adding, grimly: “Needn't
+worry much about that.”
+
+She came up to the picture as some people would enter a church. And yet
+the joy which flooded her face is not well known to churches. “I'll tell
+you what it's like”--the old man's thoughts stumbling right into the
+heart of it--“it's like someone that's been wandering round in a desert
+country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's _thirsty_--she's
+drinking it in--she can't get enough of it. It's--it's the water of life
+to her!” And then, ashamed of saying a thing that sounded as if it were
+out of a poem, he shook his shoulders roughly as if to shake off a piece
+of sentiment unbecoming his age and sex.
+
+He went to the door and watched her as she passed away. “I'll bet she'd
+never tip the scale to one hundred pounds,” he decided. “Looks like a
+good wind could blow her away.” She stooped a little and just as she
+passed from sight he saw that she was coughing.
+
+Then the old man made what he prided himself was a great deduction.
+“She's been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her back
+for a minute, and when she gets the breath of it she ain't so homesick.”
+
+All through those July days he watched each night for the frail-looking
+little girl who liked the picture of the pines. She would always come
+hurrying across the street in the same eager way, an eagerness close
+to the feverish. But the tenseness would always relax as she saw the
+picture. “She never looks quite so wilted down when she goes away as
+she does when she comes,” the old man saw. “Upon my soul, I believe she
+really _goes_ there. It's--oh, Lord”--irritated at getting beyond his
+depth--“_I_ don't know!”
+
+He never called it anything now but “Her Picture.” One day at just ten
+minutes of six he took it out of the window. “Seems kind of mean,” he
+admitted, “but I just want to find out how much she does think of it.”
+
+And when he found out he told himself that of all the mean men God had
+ever let live, he was the meanest. The girl came along in the usual
+hurried, anxious fashion. And when she saw the empty window he thought
+for a minute she was going to sink right down there on the sidewalk.
+Everything about her seemed to give way--as if something from which she
+had been drawing had been taken from her. The luminousness gone from
+her face, there were cruel revelations. “Blast my _soul!_” the old man
+muttered angrily, not far from tearfully. She looked up and down the
+noisy, dirty, parched street, then back to the empty window. For a
+minute she just stood there--that was the worst minute of all. And
+then--accepting--she turned and walked slowly away, walked as the
+too-weary and the too-often disappointed walk.
+
+It was with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to replace
+the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought of himself:
+more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse, meaner than the
+man who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be loved than the man who
+would kick over the child's play-house, only to be compared with the
+brute who would snatch the cup of water from the dying--such were the
+verdicts he pronounced. He thought perhaps she would come back, and
+stayed there until almost seven, waiting for her, though pretending
+it was necessary that he take down and then put up again the front
+curtains. All the next day he was restless and irritable. As if to make
+up to the girl for the contemptible trick he had played he spent a whole
+hour that afternoon arranging a tapestry background for the picture.
+“She'll think,” he told himself, “that this was why it was out, and
+won't be worried about its being gone again. This will just be a little
+sign to her that it's here to stay.”
+
+He began his watch that night at half-past five. After fifteen minutes
+the thought came to him that she might be so disheartened she would go
+home by another street. He became so gloomily certain she would do this
+that he was jubilant when he finally saw her coming along on the other
+side--coming purposelessly, shorn of that eagerness which had always
+been able, for the moment, to vanquish the tiredness. But when she came
+to the place where she always crossed the street she only stood there an
+instant and then, a little more slowly, a little more droopingly, walked
+on. She had given up! She was not coming over!
+
+But she did come. After she had gone a few steps she hesitated again and
+this time started across the street. “That's right,” approved the old
+man, “never give up the ship!”
+
+She passed the store as if she were not going to look in; she seemed
+trying not to look, but her head turned--and she saw the picture. First
+her body seemed to stiffen, and then something--he couldn't make out
+whether or not it was a sob--shook her, and as she came toward the
+picture on her white, tired face were the tears.
+
+“Don't you worry,” he murmured affectionately to her retreating form,
+“it won't never be gone again.”
+
+The very next week he was put to the test. The kind of lady who did
+not often pass along that street entered the shop and asked to see the
+picture in the window. He looked at her suspiciously. Then he frowned at
+her, as he stood there, fumbling. _Her_ picture! What would she think?
+What would she do? Then a crafty smile stole over his face and he walked
+to the window and got the picture. “The price of this picture, madame,”
+ he said, haughtily, “is forty dollars,”--adding to himself, “That'll fix
+her.”
+
+But the lady made no comment, and stood there holding the picture up
+before her. “I will take it,” she said, quietly.
+
+He stared at her stupidly. Forty dollars! Then it must be that the
+picture was better than the young man had known. “Will you wrap it,
+please?” she asked. “I will take it with me.”
+
+He turned to the back of the store. Forty dollars!--he kept repeating
+it in dazed fashion. And they had raised the rent on him, and the
+papers said coal would be high that winter--those facts seemed to have
+something to do with forty dollars. _Forty dollars!_--it was hammering
+at him, overwhelmed him, too big a sum to contend with. With long, grim
+stroke he tore off the wrapping paper; stoically he began folding it.
+But something was the matter. The paper would not go on right. Three
+times he took it off, and each time he could not help looking down at
+the picture of the pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a
+little farther; each time it seemed bigger--bigger even than forty
+dollars; it seemed as if it _knew things_--things more important than
+even coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the
+forest faded away into its own shadowy distances, and in its place was
+a noisy, crowded, sun-baked street, and across the street was eagerly
+hurrying an anxious little girl, a frail little wisp of a girl who
+probably should not be crossing hot, noisy streets at all--then a
+light in tired eyes, a smile upon a worn face, relief as from a
+cooling breeze--and _anyway_, suddenly furious at the lady, furious at
+himself--“he'd be gol-_darned_ if it wasn't _her_ picture!”
+
+He walked firmly back to the front of the store.
+
+“I forgot at first,” he said, brusquely, “that this picture belongs to
+someone else.”
+
+The lady looked at him in astonishment. “I do not understand,” she said.
+
+“There's nothing to understand,” he fairly shouted, “except that it
+belongs to someone else!”
+
+She turned away, but came back to him. “I will give you fifty dollars
+for it,” she said, in her quiet way.
+
+“Madame,” he thundered at her, “you can stand there and offer me five
+hundred dollars, and I'm here to tell you that this picture is not for
+sale. Do you _hear_?”
+
+“I certainly do,” replied the lady, and walked from the store.
+
+He was a long time in cooling off. “I tell you,” he stormed to a
+very blue Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, “it's hers--it's
+_hern_--and anybody that comes along here with any nonsense is just
+going to hear from _me_!”
+
+In the days which followed he often thought to go out and speak to her,
+but perhaps the old man had a restraining sense of values. He planned
+some day to go out and tell her the picture was hers, but that seemed
+a silly thing to tell her, for surely she knew it anyway. He worried a
+good deal about her cough, which seemed to be getting worse, and he had
+it all figured out that when cold weather came he would have her come in
+where it was warm, and take her look in there. He felt that he knew
+all about her, and though he did not know her name, though he had never
+heard her speak one word, in some ways he felt closer to her than to any
+one else in the world.
+
+Yet if the old man had known just how it was with the girl it is
+altogether unlikely that he would have understood. It would have
+mystified and disappointed him had he known that she had never seen a
+pine forest or a mountain in her life. Indeed there was a great deal
+about the little girl which the old man, together with almost all the
+rest of the world, would not have understood.
+
+Not that the surface facts about her were either incomprehensible or
+interesting. The tale of her existence would sound much like that of
+a hundred other girls in the same city. Inquiry about her would have
+developed the facts that she did typewriting for a land company, that
+she did not seem to have any people, and lived at a big boarding-house.
+At the boarding-house they would have told you that she was a nice
+little thing, quiet as a mouse, and that it was too bad she had to work,
+for she seemed more than half sick. There the story would have rested,
+and the real things about her would not have been touched.
+
+She worked for the Chicago branch of a big Northwestern land company.
+They dealt in the lands of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The
+things she sat at her typewriter and wrote were of the wonders of that
+great country: the great timber lands, the valleys and hills, towering
+mountain peaks and rushing rivers. She typewrote “literature” telling
+how there was a chance for every man out there, how the big, exhaustless
+land was eager to yield of its store to all who would come and seek. Day
+after day she wrote those things telling how the sick were made well
+and the poor were made rich, how it was a land of indescribable wonders
+which the feeble pen could not hope to portray.
+
+And the girl with whom almost everything in life had gone wrong came to
+think of Out There as the place where everything was right. It was the
+far country where there was no weariness nor loneliness, the land where
+one did not grow tired, where one never woke up in the morning too tired
+to get up, where no one went to bed at night too tired to go to sleep.
+The street-cars did not ring their gongs so loud Out There, the newsboys
+had pleasant voices, and there were no elevated trains. It was a pure,
+high land which knew no smoke nor dirt, a land where great silences drew
+one to the heart of peace, where the people in the next room did not
+come in and bang things around late at night. Out There was a wide land
+where buildings were far apart and streets were not crowded. Even the
+horses did not grow tired Out There. Oh, it was a land where dreams
+came true--a beautiful land where no one ate prunes, where the gravy was
+never greasy and the potatoes never burned. It was a land of flowers and
+birds and lovely people--a land of wealth and health and many smiles.
+
+Her imagination made use of it all. She knew how men were reclaiming the
+desert of Idaho, of the tremendous undeveloped wealth of what had been
+an almost undiscovered State. She thrilled to the poetry of irrigation.
+Often when hot and tired and dusty her fancy would follow the little
+mountain stream from its birth way up in the clouds, her imagination
+rushing with it through sweetening forest and tumbling with it down
+cooling rocks until finally strong, bold, wise men guided it to the
+desert which had yearned for it through all the years, and the grateful
+desert smiled rich smiles of grain and flowers. She could make it more
+like a story than any story in any book. And she could always breathe
+better in thinking of the pine forests of Oregon. There was something
+liberating--expanding--in just the thought of them. She dreamed cooling
+dreams about them, dreams of their reaching farther than one's fancy
+could reach, big widening dreams of their standing there serene in the
+consciousness of their own immensity. They stood to her for a beautiful
+idea: the idea of space, of room--room for everybody, and then much more
+room! Even one's understanding grew big as one turned to them.
+
+And she loved to listen for the Pacific Ocean, coming from
+incomprehensible distances and unknowable countries, now rushing with
+passion to the wild coast of Oregon, again stealing into the Washington
+harbours. She loved to address the letters to Portland, Seattle,
+Spokane, Tacoma--all those pulsing, vivid cities of a country of big
+chances and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle, a city builded
+upon many hills--how wonderful that a city should be builded upon
+hills!--in Chicago there was nothing that could possibly be thought of
+as a hill. And she loved to shut her eyes and let the great mountain
+peak grow in the distance, as one could see it from Portland--how noble
+a thing to see a mountain peak from a city! Sometimes she trembled
+before that consciousness of a mountain. Often when so tired she
+scarcely knew what she was doing she found she was saying her prayers
+to a mountain. Indeed, Out There seemed the place to send one's
+prayers--for was it not a place where prayers were answered?
+
+During that summer when the West was overrun with tourists who grumbled
+about everything from the crowded trains to the way in which sea-foods
+were served, this little girl sat in one of the hot office buildings of
+Chicago and across the stretch of miles drew to herself the spirit of
+that country of coming days. Thousands rode in Pullman cars along the
+banks of the Columbia--saw, and felt not; she sat before her typewriter
+in a close, noisy room and heard the cooling rush of waters and got the
+freeing message of the pines. In some rare moments when she rose from
+the things about her to the things of which she dreamed she possessed
+the whole great land, and as the sultry days sapped of her meagre
+strength, and the bending over the typewriter cramped an already too
+cramped chest she clung with a more and more passionate tenacity to the
+bigness and the beauty and rightness of things Out There. And it was so
+kind to her--that land of deep breaths and restoring breezes. It never
+shut her out. It always kept itself bigger and more wonderful than one
+could ever hope to fancy it.
+
+And the night she found the picture she knew that it was all really
+so. That was why it was so momentous a night. The picture was a dream
+visualised--a dreamer vindicated. They had pictures in the office, of
+course--some pictures trying to tell of that very kind of a place. But
+those were just pictures; this _proved_ it, told what it meant. It
+told that she had been right, and there was joy in knowing that she had
+known. She clung to the picture as one would to that which proves as
+real all one has long held dear, loved it as the dreamer loves that
+which secures him in his dreaming.
+
+She came to think of it as her own abiding place. Often when too tired
+for long wings of fancy she would just sink down in the deep, cool
+shadows of the pines, beside the little river which one knew so well was
+the gift of distant snows. It rested her most of all; it quieted her.
+
+She smiled sometimes to think how no one in the office knew about
+it, wondered what they would think if they knew. Often she would find
+someone in the office looking at her strangely. She used to wonder about
+it a little.
+
+And then one day Mr. Osborne sent for her to come into his office. He
+acted so queerly. As she came in and sat down near his desk he swung his
+chair around and sat there with his back to her. After that he got up
+and walked to the window.
+
+The head stenographer had complained of her cough. She said she did not
+think it right either to the girl or to the rest of them for her to be
+there. She said she hated to speak of it, but could not stand it any
+longer. That had been the week before, and ever since he had been
+putting it off. But now he could put it off no longer; the head
+stenographer was valuable, and besides he knew that she was right.
+
+And so he told her--this was all he could think of just then--that they
+were contemplating some changes in the office, and for a time would have
+less desk room. If he sent her machine to her home, would she be willing
+to do her work there for a while? Hers was the kind of work that could
+be done at home.
+
+She was sorry, for she wondered if she could find a place in her room
+for the typewriter, and it did not seem there would be air enough there
+to last her all day long. And she had grown fond of the office, with its
+“literature” and pictures and maps and the men who had just come from
+Out There coming in every once in a while. It was a bond--a place to
+touch realities. But of course there was nothing for her to do but
+comply, and she made no comment on the arrangement.
+
+She pushed her chair back and rose to go. “Are you alone in the world?”
+ he asked abruptly then,
+
+“Yes; I--oh yes.”
+
+It was too much for him. “How would you like,” he asked recklessly, “to
+have me get you transportation out West?”
+
+She sank back in her chair. Every particle of colour had left her
+face. Her deep eyes had grown almost wild. “Oh,” she gasped--“you can't
+mean--you don't think--”
+
+“You wouldn't want to go?”
+
+“I mean”--it was but a whisper--“it would be--too wonderful.”
+
+“You would like it then?”
+
+She only nodded; but her lips were parted, her eyes glowing. He wondered
+why he had never seen before how different looking and--yes, beautiful,
+in a strange kind of way--she was.
+
+“I see you have a cold,” he said, “and I think you would get along
+better out there. I'll see if I can fix up the transportation, and get
+something with our people in one of the towns that would be good for
+you.”
+
+She leaned back in her chair and sat there smiling at him. Something in
+the smile made him say, abruptly: “That's all; you may go now, and I'll
+send a boy with your machine.”
+
+She walked through the streets as one who had already found another
+country. More than one turned to look at her. She reached her room at
+last and pulling her one little chair up to the window sat staring out
+across the alley at the brick wall across from her. But she was not
+seeing a narrow alley and a high brick wall. She was seeing rushing
+rivers and mighty forests and towering peaks. She leaned back in her
+chair--an indulgence less luxurious than it sounds, as the chair only
+reached the middle of her back--and looked out at the high brick wall
+and saw a snow-clad range of hills. But she was tired; this tremendous
+idea was too much for her; the very wonder of it was exhausting. She lay
+down on her bed--radiant, but languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters.
+At first it was only someone filling the bath-tub, but after a while it
+was the little stream which flowed through her forest. And then she was
+not lying on a lumpy bed; she was sinking down under pine trees--all so
+sweet and still and cool. But an awful thing was happening!--the forest
+was on fire--it was choking and burning her! She awoke to find smoke
+from the building opposite pouring into her room; flies were buzzing
+about, and her face and hands were hot.
+
+She did little work in the next few days. It was hard to go on with the
+same work when waiting for a thing which was to make over one's whole
+life. The stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great languor to
+come over her. And her chair was not right for her typewriter, and the
+smoke came in all the time. Strangely enough Out There seemed farther
+away. Sometimes she could not go there at all; she supposed it was
+because she was really going.
+
+At the close of the week she went to the office with her work. She was
+weak with excitement as she stepped into the elevator. Would Mr. Osborne
+have the transportation for her? Would he tell her when she was to go?
+
+But she did not see Mr. Osborne at all. When she asked for him the clerk
+just replied carelessly that he was not there. She was going to ask if
+he had left any message for her, but the telephone rang then and the
+man to whom she was talking turned away. Someone was sitting at her
+old desk, and they did not seem to be making the changes they had
+contemplated; everyone in the office seemed very busy and uncaring, and
+because she knew her chin was trembling she turned away.
+
+She had a strange feeling as she left the office: as if standing on
+ground which quivered, an impulse to reach out her hand and tell someone
+that something must be done right away, a dreadful fear that she was
+going to cry out that she could not wait much longer.
+
+All at once she found that she was crossing the street, and saw ahead
+the little art store with the wonderful picture which proved it was all
+really so. In the same old way, her step quickened. It would show her
+again that it was all just as she had thought it was, and if that were
+true, then it must be true also that Mr. Osborne was going to get her
+the transportation. It would prove that everything was all right.
+
+But a cruel thing happened. It failed her. It was just as beautiful--but
+something a long way off, impossible to reach. Try as she would, she
+could not get _into_ it, as she used to. It was only a picture; a
+beautiful picture of some pine trees. And they were very far away, and
+they had nothing at all to do with her.
+
+Through the window, at the back of the store, she saw the old man
+standing with his back to her. She thought of going in and asking to sit
+down--she wanted to sit down--but perhaps he would say something cross
+to her--he was such a queer looking old man--and she knew she would
+cry if anything cross was said to her. That he had watched for her each
+night, that he had tried and tried to think of a way of finding her,
+that he would have been more glad to see her than to see anyone in the
+world, would have been kinder to her than anyone on earth would have
+been--those were the things she did not know. And so--more lonely than
+she had ever been before--she turned away.
+
+On Monday she felt she could wait no longer. It did not seem that it
+would be _safe_. She got ready to go to see Mr. Osborne, but the getting
+ready tired her so that she sat a long time resting, looking out at the
+high brick wall beyond which there was nothing at all. She was counting
+the blocks, thinking of how many times she would have to cross the
+street. But just then it occurred to her that she could telephone.
+
+When she came back upstairs she crept up on the bed and lay there very
+still. The boy had said that Mr. Osborne was away and would be gone
+two weeks. No one in the office had heard him say anything about her
+transportation.
+
+All through the day she lay there, and what she saw before her was a
+narrow alley and a high brick wall. She had lost her mountains and her
+forests and her rivers and her lakes. She tried to go out to them in the
+same old way--but she could not get beyond the high brick wall. She was
+shut in. She tried to draw them to her, but they could not come across
+the wall. It shut them out. She tried to pray to the great mountain
+which one could see from Portland. But even prayers could get no farther
+than the wall.
+
+Late that afternoon, because she was so shut in that she was choking,
+because she was consumed with the idea that she must claim her country
+now or lose it forever, she got up and started for the picture. It was
+a long, long way to go, and dreadful things were in between--people who
+would bump against her, hot, uneven streets, horses that might run over
+her--but she must make the journey. She must make it because the things
+that she lived on were slipping from her--and she was choking--sinking
+down--and all alone.
+
+Step by step, never knowing just how her foot was going to make the next
+step, sick with the fear that people were going to run into her--the
+streets going up and down, the buildings round and round, she did
+go; holding to the window casings for the last few steps--each step
+a terrible chasm which she was never sure she was going to be able to
+cross--she was there at last. And in the window as she stood there,
+swayingly, was a dark, blurred thing which might have been anything at
+all. She tried to remember why she had come. What _was_ it--? And then
+she was sinking down into an abyss.
+
+That the hemorrhage came then, that the old man came out and found her
+and tenderly took her in, that he had her taken where she should have
+been taken long before, that the doctors said it was too late, and that
+soon their verdict was confirmed--those are the facts which would seem
+to tell the rest of the story. But deep down beneath facts rests truth,
+and the truth is that this is a story with the happiest kind of a happy
+ending. What facts would call the breeze from an electric fan was in
+truth the gracious breath of the pines. And when the nurse said “She's
+going,” she was indeed going, but to a land of great spaces and benign
+breezes, a land of deep shadows and rushing waters. For a most wondrous
+thing had happened. She had called to the mountain, and the mountain had
+heard her voice; and because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew
+her to itself, across high brick walls and past millions of hurrying,
+noisy people--oh, a most triumphant flight! And the mountain said--“I
+give you this whole great land. It is yours because you have loved it so
+well. Hills and valleys and rivers and forests and lakes--it is all for
+you.” Yes, the nurse was quite right; she was going: going for a long
+sweet sleep beneath trees of many shadows, beside clear waters which had
+come from distant snows--really going “Out There.”
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE
+
+
+The Governor was sitting alone in his private office with an open letter
+in his hand. He was devoutly and gloomily wishing that some other man
+was just then in his shoes. The Governor had not devoted a large portion
+of his life to nursing a desire of that nature, for he was a man in
+whose soul the flame of self-satisfaction glowed cheeringly; but just
+now there were reasons, and he deemed them ample, for deploring that he
+had been made chief executive of his native State.
+
+Had he chosen to take you into his confidence--a thing the Governor
+would assuredly choose not to do--he would have told you there were
+greater things in the world than the governorship of that State. He
+might have suggested a seat in the Senate of the United States as one
+of those things. It was of the United States Senate his Excellency
+was thinking as he sat there alone moodily deploring the gubernatorial
+shoes.
+
+The senior Senator was going to die. He differed therein from his
+fellows in that he was going to die soon, almost immediately. He had
+reached the tottering years even at the time of his reelection, and it
+had never been supposed that his life would outstretch his term. He had
+been sent back, not for another six years of service, but to hold out
+the leader of the Boxers, as they called themselves--the younger and
+unorthodox element of the party in the State, an element growing to
+dangerous proportions. It was only by returning the aged Senator, whom
+they held it would be brutal to turn down after a life of service to
+the party, that the “machine” won the memorable fight of the previous
+winter.
+
+From the viewpoint of the machine, the Governor was the senior Senator's
+logical successor. Had it not been for the heavy inroads of the Boxers,
+his Excellency would even then have been sitting in the Senate Chamber
+at Washington. It had not been considered safe to nominate the Governor.
+Had his supporters conceded that the time was at hand for a change,
+there would have been a general clamour for the leader of the
+Boxers--Huntington, undeniably the popular man of the State. And so
+they concocted a beautiful sentiment about “rounding out the veteran's
+career,” and letting him “die with his boots on”; and through the
+omnipotence of sentiment, they won.
+
+Down in his heart the venerable Senator was not seeking to die with his
+boots on. He would have preferred sitting in a large chair before the
+fire and reading quietly of what other men were doing in the Senate of
+the United States. But they told him he must sacrifice that wish, for
+if he retired he would be succeeded by a dangerous man. And the old man,
+believing them, had gone dutifully back into the arena.
+
+Now it seemed that a power outside man's control was declaring against
+the well-laid plans of the machine. As the machine saw things, the time
+was not ripe for the senior Senator to die. He had just entered upon his
+new term, and the Governor himself had but lately stepped into a second
+term. They had assumed that the Senator would live on for at least two
+years, but now they heard that he was likely to die almost at once.
+His Excellency could not very well name himself for the vacancy, and it
+seemed dangerous just then to risk a call of the Assembly. They dared
+not let the Governor appoint a weaker man, even if he would consent
+to do so, for they would need the best they had to put up against the
+leader of the Boxers. With the Governor, they believed they could win,
+but the question of appointing him had suddenly become a knotty one.
+
+The Governor himself was bowed with chagrin. He saw now that he had
+erred in taking a second term, and he was not the man to enjoy reviewing
+his mistakes. As he sat there reading and rereading the letter which
+told him that the work of the senior Senator was almost done, he said to
+himself that it was easy enough to wrestle with men, but a harder thing
+to try one's mettle with fate. He spent a gloomy and unprofitable day.
+
+Late in the afternoon a telegram reached the executive office. Styles
+was coming to town that night, and wanted to see the Governor at the
+hotel. Things always cleared when Styles came to town; and so, though
+still unable to foresee the outcome, he brightened at once.
+
+Styles was a railroad man, and rich. People to whom certain things were
+a sealed book said that it was nice of Mr. Styles to take an interest in
+politics when he had so many other things on his mind, and that he must
+be a very public-spirited man. That he took an interest in politics,
+no one familiar with the affairs of the State would deny. The orthodox
+papers painted him as a public benefactor, but the Boxers arrayed him
+with hoofs and horns.
+
+The Governor and Mr. Styles were warm friends. It was said that their
+friendship dated from mere boyhood, and that the way the two men had
+held together through all the vicissitudes of life was touching and
+beautiful--at least, so some people observed. There were others whose
+eyebrows went up when the Governor and Mr. Styles were mentioned in
+their Damon and Pythias capacity.
+
+That night, in the public benefactor's room at the hotel, the Governor
+and his old friend had a long talk. When twelve o'clock came they were
+still talking; more than that, the Governor was excitedly pacing the
+floor.
+
+“I tell you, Styles,” he expostulated, “I don't like it! It doesn't put
+me in a good light. It's too apparent, and I'll suffer for it, sure as
+fate. Mark my words, we'll all suffer for it!”
+
+Mr. Styles was sitting in an easy attitude before the table. The public
+benefactor never paced the floor; it did not seem necessary. He smoked
+in silence for a minute; then raised himself a little in his chair.
+
+“Well, have you anything better to offer?”
+
+“No, I haven't,” replied the Governor, tartly; “but it seems to me you
+ought to have.”
+
+Styles sank back in his chair and for several minutes more devoted
+himself to the art of smoking. There were times when this philanthropic
+dabbler in politics was irritating.
+
+“I think,” he began presently, “that you exaggerate the unpleasant
+features of the situation. It will cause talk, of course; but isn't it
+worth it? You say it's unheard of; maybe, but so is the situation, and
+wasn't there something in the copy-books about meeting new situations
+with new methods? If you have anything better to offer, produce it; if
+not, we've got to go ahead with this. And really, I don't see that it's
+so bad. You have to go South to look after your cotton plantation; you
+find now that it's going to take more time than you feel you should
+take from the State; you can't afford to give it up; consequently, you
+withdraw in favor of the Lieutenant-Governor. We all protest, but you
+say Berriman is a good man, and the State won't suffer, and you simply
+can't afford to go on. Well, we can keep the Senator's condition pretty
+quiet here; and after all, he's sturdy, and may live on to the close
+of the year. After due deliberation Berriman appoints you. A little
+talk?--Yes. But it's worth a little talk. It seems to me the thing works
+out very smoothly.”
+
+When Tom Styles leaned back in his chair and declared a thing worked
+out very smoothly, that thing was quite likely to go. In three days the
+Governor went South. When he returned, the newspaper men were startled
+by the announcement that business considerations which he could not
+afford to overlook demanded his withdrawal from office. Previous to this
+time the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Styles had met and the result of
+their meeting was not made a matter of public record.
+
+As the Governor had anticipated, many things were said. Inquiries were
+made into the venerable Senator's condition--which, the orthodox
+papers declared, was but another example of the indecency of the
+Boxer journals. The Governor went to his cotton plantation. The
+Lieutenant-Governor went into office, and was pronounced a worthy
+successor to a good executive. The venerable Senator continued to live.
+As Mr. Styles had predicted, the gossip soon quieted into a friendly
+hope that the Governor would realise large sums with his cotton.
+
+It was late in the fall when the senior Senator finally succumbed. The
+day the papers printed the story of his death, they printed speculative
+editorials on his probable successor. When the bereaved family commented
+with bitterness on this ill-concealed haste, they were told that it was
+politics--enterprise--life.
+
+The old man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State Capitol,
+and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and looked upon the
+quiet face; but far more numerous than those who gathered at his bier
+to weep were those who assembled in secluded corners to speculate on the
+wearing of his toga. It was politics--enterprise--life.
+
+Mr. Styles told the Lieutenant-Governor to be deliberate. There was no
+need of an immediate appointment, he said. And so for a time things went
+on about the State-house much as usual, save that the absorbing topic
+was the senatorial situation, and that every one was watching the new
+chief executive. The retired Governor now spent part of his time in the
+South, and part at home. The cotton plantation was not demanding all his
+attention, after all.
+
+It could not be claimed that John Berriman had ever done any great
+thing. He was not on record as having ever risen grandly to an occasion;
+but there may have been something in the fact that an occasion
+admitting of a grand rising had never presented itself. Before he became
+Lieutenant-Governor, he had served inoffensively in the State Senate for
+two terms. No one had ever worked very hard for Senator Berriman's vote.
+He had been put in by the machine, and it had always been assumed that
+he was machine property.
+
+Berriman himself had never given the matter of his place in the human
+drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him to vote
+with his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a tool, he
+would have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the infallibility of
+the party.
+
+The Boxers did not approach him now concerning the appointment of
+Huntington. That, of course, was a fixed matter, and they were not young
+and foolish enough to attempt to change it.
+
+One day the Governor received a telegram from Styles suggesting that
+he “adjust that matter” immediately. He thought of announcing the
+appointment that very night, but the newspaper men had all left the
+building, and as he had promised that they should know of it as soon as
+it was made, he concluded to wait until the next morning.
+
+Governor Berriman had a brother in town that week, attending a meeting
+of the State Agricultural Society. Hiram Berriman had a large farm in
+the southern part of the State. He knew but little of political methods,
+and had primitive ideas about honesty. There had always been a strong
+tie between the brothers, despite the fact that Hiram was fifteen years
+the Governor's senior. They talked of many things that night, and the
+hour was growing late. They were about to retire when the Governor
+remarked, a little sleepily:
+
+“Well, to-morrow morning I announce the senatorial appointment.”
+
+“You do, eh?” returned the farmer.
+
+“Yes, there's no need of waiting any longer, and it's getting on to the
+time the State wants two senators in Washington.”
+
+“Well, I suppose, John,” Hiram said, turning a serious face to his
+brother, “that you've thought the matter all over, and are sure you are
+right?”
+
+The Governor threw back his head with a scoffing laugh.
+
+“I guess it didn't require much thought on my part,” he answered
+carelessly.
+
+“I don't see how you figure that out,” contended Hiram warmly. “You're
+Governor of the State, and your own boss, ain't you?”
+
+It was the first time in all his life that anyone had squarely
+confronted John Berriman with the question whether or not he was his own
+boss, and for some reason it went deep into his soul, and rankled there.
+
+“Now see here, Hiram,” he said at length, “there's no use of your
+putting on airs and pretending you don't understand this thing. You know
+well enough it was all fixed before I went in.” The other man looked at
+him in bewilderment, and the Governor continued brusquely: “The party
+knew the Senator was going to die, and so the Governor pulled out and I
+went in just so the thing could be done decently when the time came.”
+
+The old farmer was scratching his head.
+
+“That's it, eh? They got wind the Senator was goin' to die, and so the
+Governor told that lie about having to go South just so he could step
+into the dead man's shoes, eh?”
+
+“That's the situation--if you want to put it that way.”
+
+“And now you're going to appoint the Governor?”
+
+“Of course I am; I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Why, look here, Hiram, haven't you any idea of political obligation?
+It's expected of me.”
+
+“Oh, it is, eh? Did you promise to appoint the Governor?”
+
+“Why, I don't know that I exactly made any promises, but that doesn't
+make a particle of difference. The understanding was that the Governor
+was to pull out and I was to go in and appoint him. It's a matter of
+honour;” and Governor Berriman drew himself up with pride.
+
+The farmer turned a troubled face to the fire.
+
+“I suppose, then,” he said finally, “that you all think the Governor
+is the best man we have for the United States Senate. I take it that in
+appointing him, John, you feel sure he will guard the interests of the
+people before everything else, and that the people--I mean the working
+people of this State--will always be safe in his hands; do you?”
+
+“Oh, Lord, no, Hiram!” exclaimed the Governor irritably. “I don't think
+that at all!”
+
+Hiram Berriman's brown face warmed to a dull red.
+
+“You don't?” he cried. “You mean to sit there, John Berriman, and tell
+me that you don't think the man you're going to put in the United States
+Senate will be an honest man? What do you mean by saying you're going to
+put a dishonest man in there to make laws for the people, to watch over
+them and protect them? If you don't think he's a good man, if you don't
+think he's the best man the State has”--the old farmer was pounding the
+table heavily with his huge fist--“if you don't think that, in God's
+name, _why do you appoint him_?”
+
+“I wish I could make you understand, Hiram,” said the Governor in an
+injured voice, “that it's not for me to say.”
+
+“Why ain't it for you to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's
+running you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying to
+steal from the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see the day
+a brother of mine put a thief in the United States Senate to bamboozle
+the honest, hard-working people of this State!”
+
+“Hold on, please--that's a little too strong!” flamed the Governor.
+
+“It ain't too strong. If a Senator ain't an honest man, he's a
+thief; and if he ain't lookin' after the welfare of the people, he's
+bamboozlin' them, and that's all there is about it. I don't know much
+about politics, but I ain't lived my life without learning a little
+about right and wrong, and it's a sorry day we've come to, John
+Berriman, if right and wrong don't enter into the makin' of a Senator!”
+
+The Governor could think of no fitting response, so he held his peace.
+This seemed to quiet the irate farmer, and he surveyed his brother
+intently, and not unkindly.
+
+“You're in a position now, John,” he said, and there was a kind of
+homely eloquence in his serious voice, “to be a friend to the people.
+It ain't many of us ever get the chance of doin' a great thing. We work
+along, and we do the best we can with what comes our way, but most of
+us don't get the chance to do a thing that's goin' to help thousands
+of people, and that the whole country's goin' to say was a move for the
+right. You want to think of that, and when you're thinkin' so much about
+honour, you don't want to clean forget about honesty. Don't you stick
+to any foolish notions about bein' faithful to the party; it ain't the
+party that needs helpin'. No matter how you got where you are, you're
+Governor of the State right now, John, and your first duty is to the
+people of this State, not to Tom Styles or anybody else. Just you
+remember that when you're namin' your Senator in the morning.”
+
+It was long before the Governor retired. He sat there by the fireplace
+until after the fire had died down, and he was too absorbed to grow
+cold. He thought of many things. Like the man who had preceded him in
+office, he wished that some one else was just then encumbered with the
+gubernatorial shoes.
+
+The next morning there was a heavy feeling in his head which he thought
+a walk in the bracing air might dispel, so he started on foot for the
+Statehouse. A light snow was on the ground, and there was something
+reassuring in the crispness of the morning. It would make a slave feel
+like a free man to drink in such air, he was thinking. Snatches of
+his brother's outburst of the night before kept breaking into his
+consciousness but curiously enough they did not greatly disturb him. He
+concluded that it was wonderful what a walk in the bracing air could do.
+From the foot of the hill he looked up at the State-house, for the first
+time in his experience seeing and thinking about it--not simply taking
+it for granted. There seemed a nobility about it--in the building
+itself, and back of that in what it stood for.
+
+As he walked through the corridor to his office he was greeted with
+cheerful, respectful salutations. His mood let him give the greetings a
+value they did not have and from that rose a sense of having the trust
+and goodwill of his fellows.
+
+But upon reaching his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It
+was imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and satisfaction
+went from his bearing. He walked to the window and stood there
+looking down at the city, and, as it had been in looking ahead at
+the State-house, he now looked out over the city really seeing and
+understanding it, not merely taking it for granted. He found himself
+wondering if many of the people in that city--in that State--looked to
+their Governor with the old-fashioned trust his brother had shown. His
+eyes dimmed; he was thinking of the satisfaction it would afford his
+children, if--long after he had gone--they could tell how a great chance
+had once come into their father's life, and how he had proved himself a
+man.
+
+“Will you sign these now, Governor?” asked a voice behind him.
+
+It was his secretary, a man who knew the affairs of the State well, and
+whom every one seemed to respect.
+
+“Mr. Haines,” he said abruptly, “who do you think is the best man we
+have for the United States Senate?”
+
+The secretary stepped back, dumfounded; amazed that the question should
+be put to him, startled at that strange way of putting it. Then he told
+himself he must be discreet. Like many of the people at the State-house,
+in his heart Haines was a Boxer.
+
+“Why, I presume,” he ventured, “that the Governor is looked upon as the
+logical candidate, isn't he?”
+
+“I'm not talking about logical candidates. I want to know who you think
+is the man who would most conscientiously and creditably represent this
+State in the Senate of the United States.”
+
+It was so simply spoken that the secretary found himself answering it as
+simply. “If you put it that way, Governor, Mr. Huntington is the man, of
+course.”
+
+“You think most of the people feel that way?”
+
+“I know they do.”
+
+“You believe if it were a matter of popular vote, Huntington would be
+the new Senator?”
+
+“There can be no doubt of that, Governor. I think they all have to admit
+that. Huntington is the man the people want.”
+
+“That's all, Mr. Haines. I merely wondered what you thought about it.”
+
+Soon after that Governor Berriman rang for a messenger boy and sent a
+telegram. Then he settled quietly down to routine work. It was about
+eleven when one of the newspaper men came in.
+
+“Good-morning, Governor,” he said briskly “how's everything to-day?”
+
+“All right, Mr. Markham. I have nothing to tell you to-day, except that
+I've made the senatorial appointment.”
+
+“Oh,” laughed the reporter excitedly, “that's all, is it?”
+
+“Yes,” replied the Governor, smiling too; “that's all!”
+
+The reporter looked at the clock. “I'll just catch the noon edition,” he
+said, “if I telephone right away.”
+
+He was moving to the other room when the Governor called to him.
+
+“See here, it seems to me you're a strange newspaper man!”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Why, I tell you I've made a senatorial appointment--a matter of some
+slight importance--and you rush off never asking whom I've appointed.”
+
+The reporter gave a forced laugh. He wished the Governor would not
+detain him with a joke now when every second counted.
+
+“That's right,” he said, with strained pleasantness. “Well, who's the
+man?”
+
+The Governor raised his head. “Huntington,” he said quietly, and resumed
+his work.
+
+“What?” gasped the reporter. “What?”
+
+Then he stopped in embarrassment, as if ashamed of being so easily taken
+in. “Guess you're trying to jolly me a little, aren't you, Governor?”
+
+“Jolly you, Mr. Markham? I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper
+reporters. Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you
+are still sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so impossible.
+Don't you consider Mr. Huntington a fit man for the place?”
+
+But for the minute the reporter seemed unable to speak. “May I ask,” he
+fumbled at last, “why you did it?”
+
+“I had but one motive, Mr. Markham. I thought the matter over and it
+seemed to me the people should have the man they wanted. I am with them
+in believing Huntington the best man for the place.” He said it simply,
+and went quietly back to his work.
+
+For many a long day politicians and papers continued the search for “the
+motive.” Styles and his crowd saw it as a simple matter of selling out;
+they knew, of course, that it could be nothing else. After their first
+rage had subsided, and they saw there was nothing they could do, they
+wondered, sneeringly, why he did not “fix up a better story.” That was a
+little _too_ simple-minded. Did he think people were fools? And even the
+men who profited by the situation puzzled their brains for weeks trying
+to understand it. There was something behind it, of course.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+HIS AMERICA
+
+
+He hated to see the reporter go. With the closing of that door it seemed
+certain that there was no putting it off any longer.
+
+But even when the man's footsteps were at last sounding on the stairway,
+he still clung to him.
+
+“Father,” he asked, fretfully, “why do you always talk to those
+fellows?”
+
+Herman Beckman turned in his chair and stared at his son. Then he
+laughed. “Now, that's a fine question to come from the honour man of a
+law school! I hope, Fritz, that your oration to-night is going to have a
+little more sense in it than that.”
+
+The calling up of his oration made him reach out another clutching
+hand to the vanished reporter. “But it's farcical, father, to be always
+interviewed by a paper nobody reads.”
+
+“Nobody--_reads_?”
+
+“Why, nobody cares anything about the _Leader_. It's dead.”
+
+Herman Beckman looked at his son sharply; something about him seemed
+strange. He decided that he was nervous about the commencement
+programme. Fritz had the one oration.
+
+The boy had opened the drawer of his study table and was fingering some
+papers he had taken out.
+
+“Sure you know it?” the man asked with affectionate parental anxiety.
+
+“Oh, I know it all right,” Fred answered grimly, and again the father
+decided that he was nervous about the thing. He wasn't just like
+himself.
+
+The man walked to the window and stood looking across at the university
+buildings. Colleges had always meant much to Herman Beckman. The very
+day Fritz was born he determined that the boy was to go to college. It
+was good to witness the fulfilment of his dreams. He turned his glance
+to the comfortable room.
+
+“Pretty decent comfortable sort of place, isn't it, father?” Fred asked,
+following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair to the
+student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays seem an
+inevitable part of the acquirement of learning.
+
+It made his father laugh. “Yes, my boy, I should call it decent--and
+comfortable.” He grew thoughtful after that.
+
+“Pretty different from the place you had, father?”
+
+“Oh--me? My place to study was any place I could find. Sometimes on top
+of a load of hay, lots of times by the light of the logs. I've studied
+in some funny places, Fritz.”
+
+“Well, you _got_ there, father!” the boy burst out with feeling. “By
+Jove, there aren't many of them _know_ the things you know!”
+
+“I know enough to know what I don't know,” said the old man, a little
+sadly. “I know enough to know what I missed. I wanted to go to college.
+No one will ever know how I wanted to! I began to think I'd never feel
+right about it. But I have a notion that when I sit there to-night
+listening to you, Fritz, knowing that you're speaking for two hundred
+boys, half of whose fathers did go to college, I think I'm going to feel
+better about it then.”
+
+The boy turned away. Something in the kindly words seemed as the cut of
+a whip across his face.
+
+“Well, Fritz,” his father continued, getting into his coat, “I'll
+be going downtown. Leave you to put on an extra flourish or two.” He
+laughed in proud parental fashion. “Anyway, I have some things to see
+about.”
+
+The boy stood up. “Father, I have something to tell you.” He said it
+shortly and sharply.
+
+The father stood there, puzzled.
+
+“You won't like my oration to-night, father.”
+
+And still the man did not speak. The words would not have bothered him
+much--it was the boy's manner.
+
+“In fact, father, you're going to be desperately disappointed in it.”
+
+The dull red was creeping into the man's cheeks. He was one to have
+little patience with that thing of not doing one's work. “Why am I going
+to be disappointed? This is no time to shirk! You should--”
+
+“Oh, you'll not complain of the time and thought I've put on it,”
+ the boy broke in with a short, hard laugh. “But, you see, father--you
+see”--his armour had slipped from him--“it doesn't express--your views.”
+
+“Did I ever say I wanted you to express 'my views'? Did I bring you up
+to be a mouthpiece of mine? Haven't I told you to _think_?” But with a
+long, sharp glance at his boy anger gave way. “Come, boy”--going
+over and patting him on the back--“brace up now. You're acting like a
+seven-year-old girl afraid to speak her first piece,” and his big laugh
+rang out, eager to reassure.
+
+“You won't see it! You won't believe it! I don't suppose you'll
+believe it when you hear it!” He turned away, overwhelmed by a sudden
+realisation of just how difficult was the thing that lay before him.
+
+The man started toward his son, but instead he walked over and sat down
+at the opposite side of the table, waiting. He was beginning to see that
+there was something in this which he did not understand.
+
+At last the boy turned to him, fighting back some things, taking on
+other things. He gazed at the care-worn, rugged face--face of a worker
+and a dreamer, reading in those lines the story of that life, seeing
+more clearly than he had ever seen before the beauty and futility of it.
+Here was the idealist, the man who would give his whole lifetime to a
+dream he had dreamed. He loved his father very tenderly as he looked at
+him, read him, then.
+
+“Father,” he asked quietly, “are you satisfied with your life?”
+
+The man simply stared--waiting, seeking his bearings.
+
+“You came to this country when you were nineteen years old--didn't you,
+father?” The man nodded. “And now you're--it's sixty-one, isn't it?”
+
+Again he nodded.
+
+“You've been in America, then, forty-two years. Father, do you think as
+much of it now as you did forty-two years ago?”
+
+“I don't know what you mean,” the man said, searching his son's quiet,
+passionate face. “I can't make you out, Fritz.”
+
+“My favourite story as a kid,” the boy went on, “was to hear you tell of
+how you felt when your boat came sailing into New York Harbour, and you
+saw the first outlines of a country you had dreamed about all through
+your boyhood, which you had saved pennies for, worked nights for, ever
+since you were old enough to know the meaning of America. I mean,” he
+corrected, significantly, “the meaning of what you thought was America.
+
+“It's a bully story, father,” he continued, with a smile at once tender
+and hard; “the simple German boy, born a dreamer, standing there looking
+out at the dim shores of that land he had idealised. If ever a man came
+to America bringing it rich gifts, that man was you!”
+
+“Fritz,” his father's voice was rendered harsh by mystification and
+foreboding, “tell me what you're talking about. Come to the point. Clear
+this up.”
+
+“I'm talking about American politics--your party--having ruined your
+life! I'm talking about working like a slave all your days and having
+nothing but a mortgaged farm at sixty-one! I'm talking about playing a
+losing game! I'm saying, _What's the use?_ Father, I'm telling you that
+_I'm_ going to join the other party and make some money!”
+
+The man just sat there, staring.
+
+“Well,” the boy took it up defiantly, “why not?”
+
+And then he moved, laid a not quite steady hand out upon the table. “My
+boy, you're not well. You've studied too hard. Now brace yourself up
+for to-night, and then we'll go down home and fix you up. What you need,
+Fritz,” he said, trying to laugh, “is the hayfield.”
+
+“You're not _seeing_ it!” The boy pushed back his chair and began moving
+about the room. “The only way I can brace myself up for to-night is
+to get so mad--father, usually you see things so easily! Don't you
+understand? It was my chance, my one moment, my time to strike. It will
+be years before I get such a hearing again. You see, father, the thing
+will be printed, and the men I want to have hear it, the men who _own
+this State_, will be there. One of them is to preside. And the story of
+it, the worth of it, to them, is that I'm your son. You see, after all,”
+ he seized at this wildly, “I'm getting my start on the fact that I'm
+your son.”
+
+“Go on,” said the man; the brown of his wind-beaten face had yielded to
+a tinge of grey. “Just what is it you are going to say?”
+
+“I call it 'The New America,' a lot of this talk about doing things, the
+glory of industrial America, the true Americans the men of constructive
+genius, the patriotism of railroad and factory building, a eulogy of
+railroad officials and corporation presidents,” he rushed on with a
+laugh. “Singing the song of Capital. Father, can't you see _why?_”
+
+The old man had risen. “Tell me this,” he said. “None of it matters
+much, if you just tell me this: You _believe_ these things? You've
+thought it all out for yourself--and you _feel_ that way? You're honest,
+aren't you, Fritz?” He put that last in a whisper.
+
+The boy made no reply; after a minute the man sank back to his chair.
+The years seemed coming to him with the minutes.
+
+Fred was leaning against the wall. “Father,” he said at last, “I hope
+you'll let me be a little roundabout. It's only fair to me to let me
+ramble on a little. I've got to put it all right before you or--or--You
+know, dad,”--he came back to his place by the table, “the first thing I
+remember very clearly is those men, your party managers, coming down to
+the farm one time and asking you to run for Governor. How many times is
+it you've run for Governor, father?” He put the question slowly.
+
+“Five,” said the man heavily.
+
+“I don't know which time this was; but you didn't want to. You were
+sorry when you saw them coming. I heard some of the talk. You talked
+about your farm, what you wanted to do that summer, how you couldn't
+afford the time or the money. They argued that you owed it to the
+party--they always got you there; how no other man could hold down
+majorities as you could--a man like you giving the best years of his
+life to holding down majorities! They said you were the one man against
+whom no personal attack could be made. And when there was so much to
+fight, anyway--oh, I know that speech by heart! They've made great
+capital of your honesty and your clean life. In fact, they've held that
+up as a curtain behind which a great many things could go on. Oh, _you_
+didn't know about them; you were out in front of the curtain, but I
+haven't lived in this town without finding out that they needed your
+integrity and your clean record pretty bad!
+
+“That was out on the side porch. Mother had brought out some buttermilk,
+and they drank it while they talked. You put up a good fight. Your
+time was money to you at that time of year; a man shouldn't neglect his
+farm--but you never yet could hold out against that 'needing-you' kind
+of talk. They knew there was no chance for your election. You knew it.
+But it takes a man of just your grit to put any snap into a hopeless
+campaign.
+
+“Mother cried when you went to drive them back to town. You see, I
+remember all those things. She told about how hard you would work, and
+how it would do no good--that the State belonged to the other party.
+She talked about the farm, too, and the addition she had wanted for the
+house, and how now she wouldn't have it. Mother felt pretty bad that
+night. She's gone through a lot of those times.”
+
+There was a silence.
+
+“You were away a lot that summer, and all fall. You looked pretty
+well used up when you came home, but you said that you had held down
+majorities splendidly.”
+
+Again there was silence. It was the silences that seemed to be saying
+the most.
+
+“You had one term in Congress--that's the only thing you ever had. Then
+you did so much that they concentrated in your district and saw to
+it that you never got back. Julius Caesar couldn't have been elected
+again,” he laughed harshly.
+
+“Father,” the boy went on, after a pause, “you asked me if I were
+honest. There are two kinds of honesty. The primitive kind--like
+yours--and then the kind you develop for yourself. Do I believe the
+things I'm going to say to-night? No--not now. But I'll believe them
+more after I've heard the applause I'm sure to get. I'll believe them
+still more after I've had my first case thrown to me by our railroad
+friends who own this State. More and more after I've said them over in
+campaigning next fall, and pretty soon I'll be so sure I believe them
+that I really will believe them--and that,” he concluded, flippantly,
+“is the new brand of American honesty. Why, any smart man can persuade
+himself he's not a hypocrite!”
+
+“My _God!_” it wrenched from the man. “_This?_ If you'd stolen
+money--killed a man--but hypocrisy, cant--the very thing I've fought
+hardest, hated most! You lived all your life with me to learn _this?_”
+
+“I lived all my life with you to learn what pays, and what doesn't. I
+lived all my life with you to learn from failure the value of success.”
+
+“I never was sure I was a failure until this hour.”
+
+“Father! Can't you see--”
+
+“Oh, don't _talk_ to me!” cried the old man, rising, reaching out his
+fist as though he would strike him. “Son of mine sitting there telling
+me he is fixing up a brand of honesty for himself!”
+
+The boy grew quieter as self-restraint left his father. “I mean
+that--just that,” he said at last. “Let a man either give or get. If he
+gives, let it be to the real thing. There are two Americas. The America
+of you dreamers--and then the real America. Yours is an idea--an
+idea quite as much as an ideal. I don't think you have the slightest
+comprehension of how far apart it is from the real America. The people
+who dream of it over in Europe are a great deal nearer it than you
+people who work for it here. Father, the spirit of this country flows in
+a strong, swift, resistless current. You never got into it at all.
+Your kind of idealists influence it about as much--about as much as
+red lights burned on the banks of the great river would influence the
+current of that river. You're not _of_ it. You came here, throbbing
+with the love for America; and with your ideal America you've fought
+the real, and you've worked and you've believed and you've sacrificed.
+Father, _what's the use?_ In this State, anyway, it's hopeless. It has
+been so through your lifetime; it will be through mine.”
+
+The man sat looking at him. He felt that he should say something,
+but the words did not come--held back, perhaps, by a sense of their
+uselessness. It was not so much what Fred said as it was the look in his
+eyes as he said it. There was nothing impetuous or youthful about that
+look, nothing to be laughed at or argued away. He had always felt that
+Fred had a mind which saw things straight, saw them in their right
+relations, and at that moment he had no words to plead for what Fred
+called the America of the dreamers.
+
+“I'm of the second generation, dad,” the boy went on, at length,
+“and the second generation has an ideal of its own, and that ideal is
+Success. It took us these forty years to come to understand the spirit
+of America. You were a dreamer who loved America. I'm an American. We've
+translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and
+opportunity and success--and that's getting Americanised. Now, father,”
+ he sought refuge in the tone of every-day things, “you'll get used to
+it--won't you? I don't expect you to feel very good about it, but you
+aren't going to be broken up about it--are you? After all, father,”
+ laughing and moving about as if to break the seriousness of things,
+“there's nothing criminal about being one of the other fellows--is
+there? Just remember that there _are_ folks who even think it's
+respectable!” The father had risen and picked up his hat. “No, Fred,” he
+said, with a sadness in which there was great dignity, “there is nothing
+criminal in it if a man's conviction sends him that way. But to me there
+is something--something too sad for words in a man's selling his own
+soul.”
+
+“Father! How extravagant! _Why_ is it selling one's soul to sit down
+and figure out what's the best thing to do?” He hesitated, hating to
+add hurt to hurt, not wanting to say that his father's fight should have
+been with the revolutionists, that his life was ineffective because,
+seeing his dream from within a dream, his thinking had been muddled. He
+only said: “As I say, father, it's a question of giving or getting. I
+couldn't even give in your way. And I've seen enough of giving to want
+a taste of getting. I want to make things go--and I see my chance. Why
+father,” he laughed, trying to turn it, “there's nothing so American as
+wanting to make things _go_.”
+
+He looked at him for a long minute. “My boy,” he said, “I fear you are
+becoming so American that I am losing you.”
+
+“Father,” the boy pleaded, affectionately, “now don't--”
+
+The old man held up his hand. “You've tried to make me understand it,”
+ he said, “and succeeded. You can't complain of the way you've succeeded.
+I don't know why I don't argue with you--plead; there are things I could
+say--should say, perhaps--but something assures me it would be useless.
+I feel a good many years older than I did when I came into this room,
+but the reason for it is not that you're joining the other party. You
+know what I think of the men who control this State, the men with whom
+you desire to cast your lot, but I trust the years I've spent fighting
+them haven't made a bigot of me. It's not joining their party--it's
+_using_ it--makes this the hardest thing I've been called upon to meet.”
+
+“Father, don't look like that! How do you think I am going to get up and
+speak tonight with _that_ face before me?”
+
+“You didn't think, did you,” the man laughed bitterly, “that I would
+inspire you to your effort?”
+
+The boy stood looking at his father, a strange new fire in his eyes.
+
+“Yes,” he said, quietly, tenderly, “you will inspire me. When I get
+up before those men tonight I'm going to see the picture of that boy
+straining for his first glimpse of New York Harbour. I'm going to think
+for just a minute of the things that boy brought with him--things he
+has never lost. And then I'll see you as you stand here now---it will be
+enough. What I need to do is to get mad. If I falter I'll just think
+of some of those times when you came home from your campaigns--how you
+looked--what you said. It will bring the inspiration. Father, I figure
+it out like this. We're going to get it back. We're going to get what's
+coming to us. There's another America than the America of you dreamers.
+To yours you have given; from mine I will get. And the irony of
+it--don't think I don't see the irony of it--is that I will be called
+the real American. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make
+the railroads of this State--oh, it sounds like schoolboy talk, but just
+give me a little time--I'm going to make the railroads of this State
+pay off every cent of that mortgage on your farm! Father,” he finished,
+impetuously, in a last appeal, “you're broken up now, disappointed, but
+would you honestly want me to travel the road you've traveled?”
+
+“My boy,” answered the old man, and the tears came with it, “I wanted
+you to travel the road of an honest man.”
+
+Herman Beckman did not go to the commencement exercises that night.
+There was no train home until morning, so he had the night to spend in
+town. He was alone, for his friends assumed that he would be out at the
+university. But he preferred being alone.
+
+He sat in his room at the hotel, reading. And he could read. Years of
+discipline stood him in good stead now. His life had taught him to read
+anywhere, at any time. He had never permitted himself the luxury of not
+being “in the mood.” It was only the men who had gone to college who
+could do that. He _had_ to read. He always carried some little book with
+him, for how did a man know that he might not have to wait an hour for
+a train somewhere? The man had a simple-minded veneration for knowledge.
+He wanted to know about things. And he had never learned to pretend that
+he didn't want to know. He quite lacked the modern art of flippancy. He
+believed in great books.
+
+And so on the night that his son was being graduated from college he sat
+in his room at the hotel--cheap room in a mediocre hotel; he had never
+learned to feel at home in the rich ones--reading Marcus Aurelius. But
+his hand as he turned the pages trembled as the hand of a very old man.
+At midnight some reporters came in to ask him what he thought of his
+son's oration. They wanted a statement from him.
+
+He told them that he had never believed the sins of a parent should be
+visited on a child, and that it was even so with the thought. He had
+always contended that a man should do his own thinking. The contention
+applied to his son.
+
+“Gamey old brute!” was what one of the reporters said in the elevator.
+
+He could not read Marcus Aurelius after that. He went to bed, but he did
+not sleep. Many things passed before him. His anticipations, his dreams
+for Fritz, had brought the warmest pleasure of his stern, unrelaxing
+life. There was a great emptiness tonight. What was a man to turn to,
+think about, when he seemed stripped, not only of the future, but of the
+past? He seemed called upon to readjust the whole of his life, giving
+up that which he had held dearest. What was left? Daylight found him
+turning it over and over.
+
+In the morning he went home. He got away without seeing any of his
+friends.
+
+He did not try to read this morning; somehow it seemed there was no use
+in trying to read any more. He watched the country through which they
+were passing, thinking of the hundreds of times he had ridden over it in
+campaigning. He wondered, vaguely, just how much money he had spent on
+railroad fare--he had never accepted mileage. Fred's “What's the use?”
+ kept ringing in his ears. There was something about that phrase which
+made one feel very tired and old. It even seemed there was no use
+looking out to see how the crops were getting on. _What's the use?
+What's the use?_ Was that a phrase one learned in college?
+
+There had been two things to tell “mother” that night. The first was
+that he had stopped in town and told Claus Hansen he could have that
+south hundred and sixty he had been wanting for two years.
+
+It was not easy to tell the woman who had worked shoulder to shoulder
+with him for thirty years, the woman who during those years had risen
+with him in the early morning and worked with him until darkness rescued
+the weary bodies, that in their old age they must surrender the fruit of
+their toil. They would have left just what they had started with. They
+had just held their own.
+
+Coming down on the train he had made up his mind that if Hansen were
+in town he would tell him that he could have the land. He felt so very
+tired and old, so bowed down with Fred's “What's the use?” that he saw
+that he himself would never get the mortgage paid off. And Fred had said
+something about making the railroads pay it. He did not know just how
+the boy figured that out--indeed, he was getting a little dazed about
+the whole thing--but if Fritz had any idea of having the railroads pay
+off the mortgage on _his_ farm--he couldn't forget how the boy looked
+when he said it, face white, eyes burning--he would see to it right now
+that there was no chance of that.
+
+He tried not to look at the land as he drove past it on the way home. He
+wondered just how much campaign literature it had paid for. He wondered
+if he would ever get used to seeing Claus Hansen putting up his hay over
+there in that field.
+
+He had felt so badly about telling mother that he told it very bluntly.
+And because he felt so sorry for her he said not one kind word, but just
+sat quiet, looking the other way.
+
+She was clearing off the table. He heard her scraping out the potato
+dish with great care. Then she was coming over to him. She came
+awkwardly, hesitatingly--her life had not schooled her in meeting
+emotional moments beautifully--but she laid her hand upon him, patted
+him on the shoulder as one would a child. “Never mind, papa--never you
+mind. It will make it easier for us. There's enough left--and it will
+make it easier. We're getting on--we're--” There she broke off abruptly
+into a vigorous scolding of the dog, who was lifting covetous nostrils
+to a piece of meat.
+
+That was all. And there was no woman in the country had worked harder.
+And Martha was ambitious; she liked land, and she did not like Claus
+Hansen's wife.
+
+Yes, he had had a good wife.
+
+Then there was that other thing to tell her--about Fritz. That was
+harder.
+
+Mother had not gone up to the city to hear Fritz “speak” because her
+feet were bothering her, and she could not wear her shoes. He had had a
+vague idea of how disappointed she was, though she had said very little
+about it. Martha never had been one to say much about things. When he
+came back, of course she had wanted to know all about it, and he had put
+her off. Now he had to tell her.
+
+It was much harder; and in the telling of it he broke down.
+
+This time she did not come over and pat his shoulder. Perhaps Martha
+knew--likely she had never heard the word intuition, but, anyway, she
+knew--that it was beyond that.
+
+It seemed difficult for her to comprehend. She was bewildered to find
+that Fritz could change parties all in a minute. She seemed to grasp,
+first of all, that it was disrespectful to his father. Some boys at
+school had been putting notions into his head.
+
+But gradually she began to see it. Fritz wanted to make money. Fritz
+wanted to have it easier. And the other people did “have it easier.”
+
+It divided her feeling: sorry and indignant for the father, secretly
+glad and relieved for the boy. “He will have it easier than we had
+it, papa,” she said at the last. “But it was not right of Fritz,” she
+concluded, vaguely but severely.
+
+As she washed the dishes Martha was thinking that likely Fritz's wife
+would have a hired girl.
+
+Then Martha went up to bed. He said that he would come in a few minutes,
+but many minutes went by while he sat out on the side porch trying to
+think it out.
+
+The moon was shining brightly down on that hundred and sixty which Claus
+Hansen was to have. And the moon, too, seemed to be saying: “What's the
+use?”
+
+Well, what _was_ the use? Perhaps, after all, the boy was right. What
+had it all amounted to? What was there left? What had he done?
+
+Two Americas, Fred had said, and his but the America of the dreamers. He
+had always thought that he was fighting for the real. And now Fred said
+that he had never become an American at all.
+
+From the time he was twelve years old he had wanted to be an American.
+A queer old man back in the German village--an old man, he recalled
+strangely now, who had never been in America--told him about it. He told
+how all men were brothers in America, how the poor and the rich loved
+each other--indeed, how there were no poor and rich at all, but the
+same chance for every man who would work. He told about the marvellous
+resources of that distant America--gold in the earth, which men were
+free to go and get, hundreds upon hundreds of miles of untouched forests
+and great rivers--all for men to use, great cities no older than the men
+who were in them, which men at that present moment were _making_--every
+man his equal chance. He told of rich land which a man could have for
+nothing, which would be _his_, if he would but go and work upon it. In
+the heart of the little German boy there was kindled then a fire which
+the years had never put out. His cheeks grew red, his eyes bright and
+very deep as he listened to the story. He went home that night and
+dreamed of going to America. And through the years of his boyhood, penny
+by penny, he saved his money for America. It was his dream. It was
+the passion of his life. More plainly than the events of yesterday, he
+remembered his first glimpse of those wonderful shores--the lump in his
+throat, the passionate excitement, the uplift. Leaning over the railing
+of his boat, staring, searching, penetrating, worshipping, he lifted up
+his heart and sent out his pledge of allegiance to the new land. How he
+would love America, work for it, be true to it!
+
+He had three dollars and sixty cents in his pocket when he stepped upon
+American soil. He wondered if any man had ever felt richer. For had he
+not reached the land where there was an equal chance for every man who
+would work, where men loved each other as brothers, and where the earth
+itself was so rich and so gracious in its offerings?
+
+The old man crossed one leg over the other--slowly, stiffly. It made him
+tired and stiff now just to think of the work he had done between that
+day and this.
+
+But there was something which he had always had--that something was
+_his_ America. That had never wavered, though he soon learned that
+between it and realities were many things which were wrong and
+unfortunate. With the whole force and passion of his nature, with all
+his single mindedness--would some call it simple mindedness?--he threw
+himself into the fight against those things which were blurring men's
+vision of his America. No work, no sacrifice was too great, for America
+had enemies who called themselves friends, men who were striking heavy
+blows at that equal chance for every man. When he failed, it was because
+he did not know enough; he must work, he must study, he must think, in
+order to make more real to other men the America which was in his heart.
+He must fight for it because it was his.
+
+And now it seemed that the end had come; he was old, he was tired, he
+was not sure. Claus Hansen would have his land and his son would join
+hands with the things which he had spent his life in fighting. And far
+deeper and sadder and more bitter than that, he had not transmitted the
+America of his heart even to his own son. He was not leaving someone to
+fight for it in his stead, to win where he had failed. Fred saw in
+it but a place for gain. “I lived all my life with you to learn from
+failure the value of success.” That was what he had given to his boy.
+Yes, that was what he had bequeathed to America. Could the failure, the
+futility of his life be more clearly revealed?
+
+Twice Martha had called to him, but still he sat, smoking, thinking.
+There was much to think about to-night.
+
+Finally, it was not thought, but visions. Too tired for conscious
+thinking, he gave himself up to what came--Fred's America, his America,
+the America of the dreamers--and the things which stood between. The
+America of the future---what would that America be?
+
+At the last, taking form from many things which came and went, shaping
+itself slowly, form giving place to new form, he seemed to see it grow.
+Out beyond that land Claus Hansen was to have, a long way off, there
+rose the vision of the America of the future--an America of realities,
+and yet an America of dreams; for the dreamers had become the
+realists---or was it that the realists had become dreamers? In the
+manifold forms taken on and cast aside destroying dualism had made way
+for the strength and the dignity and harmony of unity. He watched it as
+breathlessly, as yearningly, as the nineteen-year-old boy had watched
+the other America taking shape in the distance some forty years before.
+“How did you come?” he whispered. “What are you?”
+
+And the voice of that real America seemed to answer: “I came because for
+a long-enough time there were enough men who held me in their hearts. I
+came because there were men who never gave me up. I was won by men who
+believed that they had failed.”
+
+Again there was a lump in his throat--once more an exultation flooded
+all his being. For to the old man--tired, stiff, smitten though he had
+been, there came again that same uplift which long before had come to
+the boy. Was there not here an answer to “What's the use?” For he would
+leave America as he came to it--loving it, believing in it. What were
+the work and the failure of a lifetime when there was something in his
+heart which was his? Should he say that he had fought in vain when
+he had kept it for himself? It was as real, as wonderful--yes as
+inevitable, as it had been forty years before. Realities had taken his
+land, his career, his hopes for the boy. But realities had not stripped
+him of his dream. The futility of the years could not harm the things
+which were in his heart. Even in America he had not lost His America.
+
+“Perhaps it is then that it is like that,” he murmured, his vision
+carrying him back to the days of his broken English. “Perhaps it is that
+every man's America is in the inside of his own heart. Perhaps it is
+that it will come when it has grown big--big and very strong--in the
+hearts.”
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG
+
+
+Stubby had a route, and that was how he happened to get a dog. For the
+benefit of those who have never carried papers it should be thrown in
+that having a route means getting up just when there is really some fun
+in sleeping, lining up at the _Leader_ office--maybe having a scrap with
+the fellow who says you took his place in the line--getting your papers
+all damp from the press and starting for the outskirts of the city.
+Then you double up the paper in the way that will cause all possible
+difficulty in undoubling and hurl it with what force you have against
+the front door. It is good to have a route, for you at least earn your
+salt, so your father can't say _that_ any more. If he does, you know it
+isn't so.
+
+When you have a route, you whistle. All the fellows whistle. They may
+not feel like it, but it is the custom--as could be sworn to by many
+sleepy citizens. And as time goes on you succeed in acquiring the easy
+manner of a brigand.
+
+Stubby was little and everything about him seemed sawed off just a
+second too soon,--his nose, his fingers, and most of all, his hair. His
+head was a faithful replica of a chestnut burr. His hair did not lie
+down and take things easy. It stood up--and out!--gentle ladies couldn't
+possibly have let their hands sink into it--as we are told they do--for
+the hands just wouldn't sink. They'd have to float.
+
+And alas, gentle ladies didn't particularly want their hands to sink
+into it. There was not that about Stubby's short person to cause
+the hands of gentle ladies to move instinctively to his head. Stubby
+bristled. That is, he appeared to bristle. Inwardly, Stubby yearned,
+though he would have swung into his very best brigand manner on the spot
+were you to suggest so offensive a thing. Just to look at Stubby you'd
+never in a thousand years guess what a funny feeling he had sometimes
+when he got to the top of the hill where his route began and could see
+a long way down the river and the town curled in on the other side.
+Sometimes when the morning sun was shining through a mist--making things
+awful queer--some of the mist got into Stubby's squinty little eyes.
+After the mist behaved that way he always whistled so rakishly and threw
+his papers with such abandonment that people turned over in their beds
+and muttered things about having that little heathen of a paper boy
+shot.
+
+All along the route are dogs. Indeed, routes are distinguished by their
+dogs. Mean routes are those that have terraces and mean dogs; good
+routes--where the houses are close together and the dogs run out and wag
+their tails. Though Stubby's greater difficulty came through the wagging
+tails; he carried in a collie neighbourhood, and all collies seemed
+consumed with mighty ambitions to have routes. If you spoke to them--and
+how could you _help_ speaking to a collie when he came bounding out to
+you that way?--you had an awful time chasing him back, and when he got
+lost--and it seemed collies spent most of their time getting lost--the
+woman would put her head out next morning and want to know if you had
+coaxed her dog away.
+
+Some of the fellows had dogs that went with them on their routes. One
+day one of them asked Stubby why he didn't have a dog and he replied in
+surly fashion that he didn't have one 'cause he didn't want one. If he
+wanted one, he guessed he'd have one.
+
+And there was no one within ear-shot old enough or wise enough--or
+tender enough?--to know from the meanness of Stubby's tone, and by his
+evil scowl, that his heart was just breaking to own a dog.
+
+One day a new dog appeared along the route. He was yellow and looked
+like a cheap edition of a bull-dog. He was that kind of dog most
+accurately described by saying it is hard to describe him, the kind you
+say is just dog--and everybody knows.
+
+He tried to follow Stubby; not in the trusting, bounding manner of the
+collies--not happily, but hopingly. Stubby, true to the ethics of his
+profession, chased him back where he had come from. That there might
+be nothing whatever on his conscience, he even threw a stone after him.
+Stubby was an expert in throwing things at dogs. He could seem to just
+miss them and yet never hit them.
+
+The next day it happened again; but just as he had a clod poised for
+throwing, a window went up and a woman called: “For pity _sake_, little
+boy, don't chase him back _here_.”
+
+“Why--why, ain't he yours?” called Stubby.
+
+“Mercy, _no_. We can't chase him away.”
+
+“Who's is he?” demanded Stubby.
+
+“Why, he's nobody's! He just hangs around. I wish you'd coax him away.”
+
+Well, that was a _new_ one! And then all in a heap it rushed over Stubby
+that this dog who was nobody's dog could, if he coaxed him away--and the
+woman _wanted_ him coaxed away--be his dog.
+
+And because that idea had such a strange effect on him he sang out, in
+off-hand fashion: “Oh, all right, I'll take him away and drown him for
+you!
+
+“Oh, little _boy_,” called the woman, “why, don't _drown_ him!”
+
+“Oh, all right, I'll shoot him then!” called obliging Stubby, whistling
+for the dog--while all morning long the woman grieved over having sent a
+helpless little dog away with that perfectly _brutal_ paper boy!
+
+Stubby's mother was washing. She looked up from her tubs on the back
+porch to say, “Wish you'd take that bucket--” then seeing what was
+slinking behind her son, straightway assumed the role of destiny with,
+“Git out o' here!”
+
+Stubby snapped his fingers behind his back as much as to say, “Wait a
+minute.”
+
+“A woman gave him to me,” he said to his mother.
+
+“_Gave_ him to you?” she scoffed. “I sh' think she would!”
+
+Then something happened that had not happened many times in Stubby's
+short lifetime. He acknowledged his feelings.
+
+“I'd like to keep him. I'd like to have a dog.”
+
+His mother shook her hands and the flying suds seemed expressing her
+scorn. “Huh! _That_ ugly good-for-nothing thing?”
+
+The dog had edged in between Stubby's feet and crouched there. “He could
+go with me on my route,” said Stubby. “He'd kind of be company for me.”
+
+And when he had said that he knew all at once just how lonesome he had
+been sometimes on his route, how he had wanted something to “kind of be
+company” for him.
+
+His face twitched as he stooped down to pat the dog. Mrs. Lynch looked
+at her son--youngest of her five. Not the hardness of her heart but the
+hardness of her life had made her unpractised in moments of tenderness.
+Something in the way Stubby was patting the dog suggested to her that
+Stubby was a “queer one.” He _was_ kind of little to be carrying papers
+all by himself.
+
+Stubby looked up. “He could eat what's thrown away.”
+
+That was an error in diplomacy. The woman's face hardened. “Mighty
+little'll be thrown away _this_ winter,” she muttered.
+
+But just then Mrs. Johnson appeared on the other side of the fence and
+began hanging up her clothes and with that Mrs. Lynch saw her way to
+justify herself in indulging her son. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Lynch had
+“had words.” “You just let him stay around, Stubby,” she called, and
+you would have supposed from her tone it was Stubby who was on the other
+side of the fence, “maybe he'll keep the neighbour's chickens out! Them
+that ain't got chickens o' their own don't want to be bothered with the
+neighbours'!”
+
+That was how it happened that he stayed; and no one but Stubby knew--and
+possibly Stubby didn't either--how it happened that he was named Hero.
+It would seem that Hero should be a noble St. Bernard, or a particularly
+mean-looking bulldog, not a stocky, shapeless, squint-eyed yellow dog
+with one ear bitten half off and one leg built on an entirely different
+plan from its fellow legs. Possibly Stubby's own spiritual experiences
+had suggested to him that you weren't necessarily the way you looked.
+
+The chickens were pretty well kept out, though no one ever saw Hero
+doing any of it. Perhaps Hero had been too long associated with chasing
+to desire any part in it--even with roles reversed. If Stubby could help
+it, no one really saw Stubby doing the chasing either; he became skilled
+in chasing when he did not appear to be chasing; then he would get Hero
+to barking and turn to his mother with, “Guess you don't see so many
+chickens round nowadays.”
+
+The fellows in the line jeered at Hero at first, but they soon tired of
+it when Stubby said he didn't want the cur but his mother made him
+stay around to keep the chickens out. He was a fine chicken dog, Stubby
+grudgingly admitted. He couldn't keep him from following, said Stubby,
+so he just let him come. Sometimes when they were waiting in line Stubby
+made ferocious threats at Hero. He was going to break his back and wring
+his head off and do other heartless things which for some reason he
+never started in right then and there to accomplish.
+
+It was different when they were alone--and they were alone a good deal.
+Stubby's route wasn't nearly so long after he had Hero to go with him.
+When winter came and five o'clock was dark and cold for starting out
+it was pretty good to have Hero trotting at his heels. And Hero always
+wanted to go; it was never so rainy nor so cold that that yellow dog
+seemed to think he would rather stay home by the fire. Then Hero was
+always waiting for him when he came home from school. Stubby would sing
+out, “Hello, cur!” and the tone was such that Hero did not grasp that he
+was being insulted. Sometimes when there was nobody about, Stubby
+picked Hero up in his arms and squeezed him--Stubby had not had a large
+experience with squeezing. At those times Hero would lick Stubby's face
+and whimper a little love whimper and such were the workings of Stubby's
+heart and mind that that made him of quite as much account as if he
+really had chased the chickens. Stubby, who had seen the way dogs can
+look at you out of their eyes, was not one to say of a dog, “What good
+is he?”
+
+But it seemed there were such people. There were even people who thought
+you oughtn't to have a dog to love and to love you if you weren't one
+of those rich people who could pay two dollars and a half a year for the
+luxury.
+
+Stubby first heard of those people one night in June. The father of the
+Lynch family was sitting in the back yard reading the paper when Hero
+and Stubby came running in from the alley. It was one of those moments
+when Hero, forgetting the bleakness of his youth, abandoned himself to
+the joy of living. He was tearing round and round Stubby, barking, when
+Stubby's father called out: “Here!--shut up there, you cur. You better
+lie low. You're going to be shot the first of August.”
+
+Stubby, and as regards the joy of living Hero had done as much for
+Stubby as Stubby for Hero, came to a halt. The fun and frolic just
+died right out of him and he stood there staring at his father, who had
+turned the page and was settling himself to a new horror. At last Stubby
+spoke. “Why's he going to be shot on the first of August?” he asked in a
+tight little voice.
+
+His father looked up. “Why's he going to be shot? You got any two
+dollars and a half to pay for him?”
+
+He laughed as though that were a joke. Well, it was something of a joke.
+Stubby got ten cents a week out of his paper money. The rest he “turned
+in.”
+
+Then he went back to his paper. There was another long pause before
+Stubby asked, in that tight queer little voice: “What'd I have to pay
+two dollars and a half for? Nobody owns him.”
+
+His parent stirred scornfully. “Suppose you never heard of a dog tax,
+did you? S'pose they don't learn you nothing like that at school?”
+
+Yes, Stubby did know that dogs had to have checks, but he hadn't
+thought anything about that in connection with Hero. He ventured another
+question. “You have to have 'em for all dogs, even if you just picked
+'em up on the street and took care of 'em when nobody else would?”
+
+“You bet you do,” his parent assured him genially. “You pay your dog tax
+or the policeman comes on the first of August and shoots your dog.”
+
+With that he dismissed it for good, burying himself in his paper. For a
+minute the boy stood there in silence. Then he walked slowly round the
+house and sat down where his father couldn't see him. Hero followed--it
+was a way Hero had. The dog sat down beside the boy and after a couple
+of minutes the boy's arm stole furtively around him and they sat there
+very still for a long time.
+
+As nobody but Hero paid much attention to him, nobody save Hero noticed
+how quiet and queer Stubby was for the next three days. Hero must have
+noticed it, for he was quiet and queer too. He followed wherever Stubby
+would let him, and every time he got a chance he would nestle up to him
+and look into his face--that way even cur dogs have of doing when they
+fear something is wrong.
+
+At the end of three days Stubby, his little freckled face set and grim,
+took his stand in front of his father and came right out with: “I want
+to keep one week's paper money to pay Hero's tax.”
+
+His father's chair had been tilted back against a tree. Now it came down
+with a thud. “Oh, you _do_, do you?”
+
+“I can earn the other fifty cents at little jobs.”
+
+“You _can_, can you? Now ain't you smart!”
+
+The tone brought the blood to Stubby's face. “I think I got a right to,”
+ he said, his voice low.
+
+The man's face, which had been taunting, grew ugly. “Look a-here, young
+man, none o' your lip!”
+
+The tears rushed to Stubby's eyes but he stumbled on: “I guess Hero's
+got a right to some of my paper money when he goes with me every day on
+my route.”
+
+At that his father stared for a minute and then burst into a loud laugh.
+Blinded with tears, the boy turned to the house.
+
+After she had gone to bed that night Stubby's mother heard a sound from
+the alcove at the head of the stairs where her youngest child slept. As
+the sound kept on she got out of her bed and went to Stubby's cot.
+
+“Look here,” she said, awkwardly but not unkindly, “this won't do. We're
+poor folks, Freddie” (it was only once in a while she called him that),
+“all we can do to live these times--we can't pay no dog tax.”
+
+As Stubby did not speak she added: “I know you've taken to the dog, but
+just the same you ain't to feel hard to your pa. He can't help it--and
+neither can I. Things is as they is--and nobody can help it.”
+
+As, despite this bit of philosophy Stubby was still gulping back sobs,
+she added what she thought a master stroke in consolation. “Now you just
+go right to sleep, and if they come to take this dog away maybe you can
+pick up another one in the fall.”
+
+The sobs suddenly stopped and Stubby stared at her. And what he said
+after a long stare was: “I guess there ain't no use in you and me
+talking about it.”
+
+“That's right,” said she, relieved; “now you go right off to sleep.”
+ And she left him, never dreaming why Stubby had seen there was no use
+talking about it.
+
+Nor did he talk about it; but a change came over Stubby's funny little
+person in the next few days. The change was particularly concerned with
+his jaw, though there was something different, too, in the light in his
+eyes as he looked straight ahead, and something different in his voice
+when he said: “Come on, Hero.”
+
+He got so he could walk into a store and demand, in a hard little voice:
+“Want a boy to do anything for you?” and when they said, “Got more boys
+than we know what to do with, sonny,” Stubby would say, “All right,” and
+stalk sturdily out again. Sometimes they laughed and said: “What could
+_you_ do?” and then Stubby would stalk out, but possibly a little less
+sturdily.
+
+Vacation came the next week, and still he had found nothing. His father,
+however, had been more successful. He found a place where they wanted a
+boy to work in a yard a couple of hours in the morning. For that Stubby
+was to get a dollar and a half a week. But that was to be turned in for
+his “keep.” There were lots of mouths to feed--as Stubby's mother was
+always calling to her neighbour across the alley.
+
+But the yard gave Stubby an idea, and he earned some dimes and one
+quarter in the next week. Most folks thought he was too little--one kind
+lady told him he ought to be playing, not working--but there were people
+who would let him take a big shears and cut grass around flower beds,
+and things like that. This he had to do afternoons, when he was supposed
+to be off playing, and when he came home his mother sometimes said some
+folks had it easy--playing around all day.
+
+It was now the first week in July and Stubby had a dollar and twenty
+cents. It was getting to the point where he would wake in the night and
+find himself sitting up in bed, hands clenched. He dreamed dreams about
+how folks would let him live if he had ninety-nine cents but how he only
+had ninety-seven and a half, so they were going to shoot him.
+
+Then one day he found Mr. Stuart. He was passing the house after having
+asked three people if they wanted a boy, and they didn't, and seemed so
+surprised at the idea of their wanting him that Stubby's throat was all
+tight, when Mr. Stuart sang out: “Say, boy, want a little job?”
+
+It seemed at first it must be a joke--or a dream--anybody asking him if
+he _wanted_ one, but the man was beckoning to him, so he pulled himself
+together and ran up the steps.
+
+“Now here's a little package”--he took something out of the mail box.
+“It doesn't belong here. It's to go to three-hundred-two Pleasant
+street. You take it for a dime?”
+
+Stubby nodded.
+
+As he was going down the steps the man called: “Say, boy, how'd you like
+a steady job?”
+
+For the first minute it seemed pretty mean--making fun of a fellow that
+way!
+
+“This will be here every day. Suppose you come each day, about this
+time, and take it over there--not mentioning it to anybody.”
+
+Stubby felt weak. “Why, all right,” he managed to say.
+
+“I'll give you fifty cents a week. That fair?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Stubby, doing some quick calculation.
+
+“Then here goes for the first week”--and he handed him the other forty
+cents.
+
+It was funny how fast the world could change! Stubby wanted to run--he
+hadn't been doing much running of late. He wanted to go home and get
+Hero to go with him to Pleasant street, but didn't. No, _sir_, when you
+had a job you had to 'tend to things!
+
+Well, a person could do things, if he had to, thought Stubby. No use
+saying you couldn't, you _could_, if you had to. He was back in tune
+with life. He whistled; he turned up his collar in the old rakish way;
+he threw a stick at a cat. Back home he jumped over the fence instead
+of going in the gate--lately he had actually been using the gate. And
+he cried, “Get out of my sight, you cur!” in tones which, as Hero
+understood things, meant anything but getting out of his sight.
+
+He was a little boy again. He slept at night as little boys sleep. He
+played with Hero along the route--taught him some new tricks. His jaw
+relaxed from its grown-upishness.
+
+It was funny about those Stuarts. Sometimes he saw Mr. Stuart, but never
+anybody else; the place seemed shut up. But each day the little package
+was there, and every day he took it to Pleasant street and left it at
+the door there--that place seemed shut up, too.
+
+When it was well into the second week Stubby ventured to say something
+about the next fifty cents.
+
+The man fumbled in his pockets. Something in his face was familiar to
+experienced Stubby. It suggested a having to have two dollars and a half
+by August first and only having a dollar and a quarter state of mind.
+
+“I haven't got the change. Pay you at the end of next week for the whole
+business. That all right?”
+
+Stubby considered. “I've got to have it before the first of August,” he
+said.
+
+At that the man laughed--funny kind of laugh, it was, and muttered
+something. But he told Stubby he would have it before the first.
+
+It bothered Stubby. He wished the man had given it to him _then_. He
+would rather get it each week and keep it himself. A little of the
+grown-up look stole back.
+
+After that he didn't see Mr. Stuart, and one day, a week or so later,
+the package was not in the box and a man who wore the kind of clothes
+Stubby's father wore came around the house and asked him what he was
+doing.
+
+Stubby was wary. “Oh, I've got a little job I do for Mr. Stuart.”
+
+The man laughed. “I had a little job I did for Mr. Stuart, too. You paid
+in advance?”
+
+Stubby pricked up his ears.
+
+“'Cause if you ain't, I'd advise you to look out for a little job
+some'eres else.”
+
+Then it came out. Mr. Stuart was broke; more than that, he was “off his
+nut.” Lots of people were doing little jobs for him--there was no sense
+in any of them, and now he had suddenly been called out of town!
+
+There was a trembly feeling through Stubby's insides, but outwardly he
+was bristling just like his hair bristled as he demanded: “Where am I to
+get what's coming to me?”
+
+“'Fraid you won't get it, sonny. We're all in the same boat.” He looked
+Stubby up and down and then added: “Kind of little for that boat.”
+
+“I _got_ to have it!” cried Stubby. “I tell you, I _got_ to!”
+
+The man shook his head. “_That_ cuts no ice. Hard luck, sonny, but we've
+got to take our medicine in this world. 'Taint no medicine for kids,
+though,” he muttered.
+
+Stubby's face just then was too much for him. He put his hand in his
+pocket and drew out a dime, saying: “There now. You run along and get
+you a soda and forget your troubles. It ain't always like this. You'll
+have better luck next time.”
+
+But Stubby did not get the soda. He put the dime in his pocket and
+turned toward home. Something was the matter with his legs--they acted
+funny about carrying him. He tried to whistle, but something was the
+matter with his lips, too.
+
+Counting this dime, he now had a dollar and eighty cents, and it was the
+twenty-eighth day of July. “Thirty days has September--April, June and
+November--” he was saying to himself. Then July was one of the long
+ones. Well, _that_ was a good thing! Been a great deal worse if July was
+a short one. Again he tried to whistle, and that time did manage to pipe
+out a few shrill little notes.
+
+When Hero came running up the hill to meet him he slapped him on the
+back and cried, “Hello, Hero!” in tones fairly swaggering with bravado.
+
+That night he engaged his father in conversation--the phrase is well
+adapted to the way Stubby went about it. “How is it about--'bout things
+like taxes”--Stubby crossed his knees and swung one foot to show his
+indifference--“if you have _almost_ enough--do they sometimes let you
+off?”--the detachment was a shade less perfect on that last.
+
+His father laughed scoffingly. “Well, I guess _not!_”
+
+“I thought maybe,” said Stubby, “if a person had _tried_ awful hard--and
+had _most_ enough--”
+
+Something inside him was all shaky, so he didn't go on. His father said
+that _trying_ didn't have anything to do with it.
+
+It was hard for Stubby not to sob out that he thought trying _ought_ to
+have something to do with it, but he only made a hissing noise between
+his teeth that took the place of the whistle that wouldn't come.
+
+“Kind of seems,” he resumed, “if a person would have had enough if they
+hadn't been beat out of it, maybe--if he done the best he could--”
+
+His father snorted derisively and informed him that doing the best you
+could made no difference to the government; hard luck stories didn't go
+when it came to the laws of the land.
+
+Thereupon Stubby took a little walk out to the alley and spent a
+considerable time in contemplation of the neighbour's chicken-yard. When
+he came back he walked right up to his father and standing there, feet
+planted, shoulders squared, wanted to know, in a desperate little voice:
+“If some one else was to give--say a dollar and eighty cents for Hero,
+could I take the other seventy out of my paper money?”
+
+The man turned upon him roughly. “Uh-_huh_! _That's_ it, is it? _That's_
+why you're getting so smart all of a sudden about government! Look
+a-here. Just l'me tell you something. You're lucky if you git enough
+to _eat_ this winter. Do you know there's talk of the factory shuttin'
+down? _Dog_ tax! Why you're lucky if you git _shoes_.”
+
+Stubby had turned away and was standing with his back to his father,
+hands in his pockets.
+
+“And l'me tell you some'en else, young man. If you got any dollar and
+eighty cents, you give it to your mother!”
+
+As Stubby was turning the corner of the house he called after him:
+“How'd you like to have me get you an automobile?”
+
+He went doggedly from house to house the next afternoon, but nobody had
+any jobs. When Hero came running out to him that night he patted him,
+but didn't speak.
+
+That evening as they were sitting in the back yard--Stubby and Hero
+a little apart from the others--his father was discoursing with his
+brother about anarchists. They were getting commoner, his father
+thought. There were a good many of them at the shop. They didn't call
+themselves that, but that was what they were.
+
+“Well, what is an anarchist, anyhow?” Stubby's mother wanted to know.
+
+“Why, an anarchist,” her lord informed her, “is one that's against
+the government. He don't believe in the law and order. The real bad
+anarchists shoot them that tries to enforce the laws of the land. Guess
+if you'd read the papers these days you'd know.”
+
+Stubby's brain had been going round and round and these words caught in
+it as it whirled. The government--the laws of the land--why, it was the
+government and the laws of the land that were going to shoot Hero! It
+was the government--the laws of the land--that didn't care how hard you
+had _tried_--didn't care whether you had been cheated--didn't care how
+you _felt_--didn't care about anything except getting the money! His
+brain got hotter. Well, _he_ didn't believe in the government, either.
+He was one of those people--those anarchists--that were against the laws
+of the land.
+
+He'd done the very best he could and now the government was going
+to take Hero away from him just because he couldn't get--_couldn't_
+get--that other seventy cents.
+
+Stubby's mother didn't hear her son crying that night. That was because
+Stubby was successful in holding the pillow over his head.
+
+The next morning he looked in one of the papers he was carrying to
+see what it said about anarchists. Sure enough, some place way off
+somewhere, the anarchists had shot somebody that was trying to enforce
+the laws of the land. The laws of the land--that didn't _care_.
+
+That afternoon as Stubby tramped around looking for jobs he saw a good
+many boys playing with dogs. None of them seemed to be worrying about
+whether their dogs had checks. To Stubby's hot little brain and sore
+little heart came the thought that they didn't love their dogs any more
+than he loved Hero, either. But the government didn't care whether he
+loved Hero or not! Pooh!--what was that to the government? All it cared
+about was getting the money. He stood for a long time watching a boy
+giving his dog a bath. The dog was trying to get away and the boy and
+another boy were having lots of fun about it. All of a sudden Stubby
+turned and ran away--ran down an alley, ran through a number of alleys,
+just kept on running, blinded by the tears.
+
+And that night, in the middle of the night, that something in his head
+going round and round, getting hotter and hotter, he decided that the
+only thing for him to do was to shoot the policeman who came to take
+Hero away on the morning of August first--that would be day after
+to-morrow.
+
+All night long policemen with revolvers stood around his bed. When his
+mother called him at half-past four he was shaking so he could scarcely
+get into his clothes.
+
+On his way home from his route Stubby had to pass a police-station. He
+went on the other side of the street and stood there looking across. One
+of the policemen was playing with a dog!
+
+Suddenly he wanted to rush over and throw himself down at that
+policeman's feet--sob out the story--ask him to please, _please_ wait
+till he could get that other seventy cents.
+
+But just then the policeman got up and went in the station, and Stubby
+was afraid to go in the police-station.
+
+That policeman complicated things for Stubby. Before that it had been
+quite simple. The policeman would come to enforce the law of the land;
+but he did not believe in the law of the land, so he would just kill the
+policeman. But it seemed a policeman wasn't just a person who enforced
+the laws of the land. He was also a person who played with a dog.
+
+After a whole day of walking around thinking about it--his eyes burning,
+his heart pounding--he decided that the thing to do was to warn the
+policeman by writing a letter. He did not know whether real anarchists
+warned them or not, but Stubby couldn't get reconciled to the idea of
+killing a person without telling him you were going to do it. It seemed
+that even a policeman should be told--especially a policeman who played
+with a dog.
+
+The following letter was pencilled by a shaking hand, late that
+afternoon. It was written upon a barrel in the Lynch wood-shed, on a
+piece of wrapping paper, a bristly little head bending over it:
+
+To the Policeman who comes to take my dog 'cause I ain't got the two
+fifty--'cause I tried but could only get one eighty--'cause a man was
+off his nut and didn't pay me what I earned--
+
+This is to tell you I am an anarchist and do not believe in the
+government or the law and the order and will shoot you when you come. I
+wouldn't a been an anarchist if I could a got the money and I tried to
+get it but I couldn't get it--not enough. I don't think the government
+had ought to take things you like like I like Hero so I am against the
+government.
+
+Thought I would tell you first.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+F. LYNCH.
+
+I don't see how I can shoot you 'cause where would I get the revolver.
+So I will have to do it with the butcher knife. Folks are sometimes
+killed that way 'cause my father read it in the paper.
+
+If you wanted to take the one eighty and leave Hero till I can get the
+seventy I will not do anything to you and would be very much obliged.
+
+1113 Willow street.
+
+The letter was properly addressed and sealed--not for nothing had
+Stubby's teacher given those instructions in the art of letter writing.
+The stamp he paid for out of the dime the man gave him to get a soda
+with--and forget his troubles.
+
+Now Bill O'Brien was on the desk at the police-station and Miss Murphy
+of the Herald stood in with Bill. That was how it came about that the
+next morning a fat policeman, an eager-looking girl and a young fellow
+with a kodak descended into the hollow to 1113 Willow street.
+
+A little boy peeped around the corner of the house--such a wild-looking
+little boy--hair all standing up and eyes glittering. A yellow dog ran
+out and barked. The boy darted out and grabbed the dog in his arms and
+in that moment the girl called to the man with the black box: “Right
+now! Quick! Get him!”
+
+They were getting ready to shoot Hero! That box was the way the police
+did it! He must--oh, he _must--must_ ... Boy and dog sank to the
+ground--but just the same the boy was shielding the dog!
+
+When Stubby had pulled himself together the policeman was holding Hero.
+He said that Hero was certainly a fine dog--he had a dog a good
+deal like him at home. And Miss Murphy--she was choking back sobs
+herself--knew how he could earn the seventy cents that afternoon.
+
+In such wise do a good anarchist and a good story go down under the same
+blow. Some of those sobs Miss Murphy choked back got into what she wrote
+about Stubby and his yellow dog and the next day citizens with no sense
+of the dramatic sent money enough to check Hero through life.
+
+At first Stubby's father said he had a good mind to lick him. But
+something in the quality of Miss Murphy's journalism left a hazy feeling
+of there being something remarkable about his son. He confided to his
+good wife that it wouldn't surprise him much if Stubby was some day
+President. Somebody had to be President, said he, and he had noticed
+it was generally those who in their youthful days did things that made
+lively reading in the newspapers.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+AT TWILIGHT
+
+
+A breeze from the May world without blew through the class-room, and as
+it lifted his papers he had a curious sense of freshness and mustiness
+meeting. He looked at the group of students before him, half smiling at
+the way the breath of spring was teasing the hair of the girls sitting
+by the window. Anna Lawrence was trying to pin hers back again, but May
+would have none of such decorum, and only waited long enough for her
+to finish her work before joyously undoing it. She caught the laughing,
+admiring eyes of a boy sitting across from her and sought to conceal her
+pleasure in her unmanageable wealth of hair by a wry little face, and
+then the eyes of both strayed out to the trees that had scented
+that breeze for them, looking with frank longing at the campus which
+stretched before them in all its May glory that sunny afternoon. He
+remembered having met this boy and girl strolling in the twilight the
+evening before, and as a buoyant breeze that instant swept his own face
+he had a sudden, irrelevant consciousness of being seventy-three years
+old.
+
+Other eyes were straying to the trees and birds and lilacs of that world
+from which the class-room was for the hour shutting them out. He was
+used to it--that straying of young eyes in the spring. For more than
+forty years he had sat at that desk and talked to young men and women
+about philosophy, and in those forty years there had always been
+straying eyes in May. The children of some of those boys and girls had
+in time come to him, and now there were other children who, before
+many years went by, might be sitting upon those benches, listening to
+lectures upon what men had thought about life, while their eyes strayed
+out where life called. So it went on--May, perhaps, the philosopher
+triumphant.
+
+As, with a considerable effort--for the languor of spring, or some other
+languor, was upon him too--he brought himself back to the papers they
+had handed in, he found himself thinking of those first boys and girls,
+now men and women, and parents of other boys and girls. He hoped that
+philosophy had, after all, done something more than shut them out from
+May. He had always tried, not so much to instruct them in what men had
+thought, as to teach them to think, and perhaps now, when May had become
+a time for them to watch the straying of other eyes, they were the less
+desolate because of the habits he had helped them to form. He wanted to
+think that he had done something more than hold them prisoners.
+
+There was a sadness to-day in his sympathy. He was tired. It was hard
+to go back to what he had been saying about the different things the
+world's philosophers had believed about the immortality of the soul. So,
+as often when his feeling for his thought dragged, he turned to Gretta
+Loring. She seldom failed to bring a revival of interest--a freshening.
+She was his favourite student. He did not believe that in all the years
+there had been any student who had not only pleased, but helped him as
+she did.
+
+He had taught her father and mother. And now there was Gretta,
+clear-eyed and steady of gaze, asking more of life than either of them
+had asked; asking, not only May, but what May meant. For Gretta there
+need be no duality. She was one of those rare ones for whom the meaning
+of life opened new springs to the joy of life, for whom life intensified
+with the understanding of it. He never said a thing that gratified him
+as reaching toward the things not easy to say but that he would find
+Gretta's face illumined--and always that eager little leaning ahead for
+more.
+
+She had that look of waiting now, but to-day it seemed less an expectant
+than a troubled look. She wanted him to go on with what he had been
+saying about the immortality of the soul. But it was not so much a
+demand upon him--he had come to rely upon those demands, as it was--he
+had an odd, altogether absurd sense of its being a fear for him. She
+looked uncomfortable, fretted; and suddenly he was startled to see her
+searching eyes blurred by something that must be tears.
+
+She turned away, and for just a minute it seemed to leave him alone and
+helpless. He rubbed his forehead with his hand. It felt hot. It got that
+way sometimes lately when he was tired. And the close of that hour often
+found him tired.
+
+He believed he knew what she wanted. She would have him declare his own
+belief. In the youthful flush of her modernism she was impatient with
+that fumbling around with what other men had thought. Despising the
+muddled thinking of some of her classmates, she would have him put it
+right to them with “As for yourself--”
+
+He tried to formulate what he would care to say. But, perhaps just
+because he was too tired to say it right, the life the robin in the
+nearest tree was that moment celebrating in song seemed more important
+than anything he had to say about his own feeling toward the things men
+had thought about the human soul.
+
+It was ten minutes before closing time, but suddenly he turned to his
+class with: “Go out-of-doors and think about it. This is no day to sit
+within and talk of philosophy. What men have thought about life in the
+past is less important than what you feel about it to-day.” He paused,
+then added, he could not have said why, “And don't let the shadow of
+either belief or unbelief fall across the days that are here for you
+now.” Again he stopped, then surprised himself by ending, “Philosophy
+should quicken life, not deaden it.”
+
+They were not slow in going, their astonishment in his wanting them to
+go quickly engulfed in their pleasure in doing so. It was only Gretta
+who lingered a moment, seeming too held by his manner in sending her out
+into the sunshine to care about going there. He thought she was going to
+come to the desk and speak to him. He was sure she wanted to. But at the
+last she went hastily, and he thought, just before she turned her face
+away, that it was a tear he saw on her lashes.
+
+Strange! Was she unhappy, she through whom life surged so richly? And
+yet was it not true, that where it gave much it exacted much? Feeling
+much, and understanding what she felt, and feeling for what she
+understood--must she also suffer much? Must one always pay?
+
+He sighed, and began gathering together his papers. Thoughts about life
+tired him to-day.
+
+On the steps he paused, unreasonably enough a little saddened as he
+watched some of them beginning a tennis game. Certainly they were losing
+no time--eager to let go thoughts about life for its pleasures, very few
+of them awake to that rich life he had tried to make them ready for.
+He drooped still more wearily at the thought that perhaps the most real
+gift he had for them was that unexpected ten minutes.
+
+Remembering a book he must have from the library, he turned back. He
+went to the alcove where the works on philosophy were to be found, and
+was reaching up for the volume he wanted, when a sentence from a lowly
+murmured conversation in the next aisle came to him across the stack of
+books.
+
+“That's all very well; we know, of course, that he doesn't believe, but
+what will he do when it comes to _himself?_”
+
+It arrested him, coming as it did from one of the girls who had just
+left his class-room. He stood there motionless, his hand still reaching
+up for the book.
+
+“Do? Why, face it, of course. Face it as squarely as he's faced every
+other fact of life.”
+
+That was Gretta, and though, mindful of the library mandate for silence,
+her tone was low, it was vibrant with a fine scorn.
+
+“Well,” said the first speaker, “I guess he'll have to face it before
+very long.”
+
+That was not answered; there was a movement on the other side of the
+barricade of books--it might have been that Gretta had turned away. His
+hand dropped down from the high shelf. He was leaning against the books.
+
+“Haven't you noticed, Gretta, how he's losing his grip?”
+
+At that his head went up sharply; he stood altogether tense as he waited
+for Gretta to set the other girl right--Gretta, so sure-seeing, so much
+wiser and truer than the rest of them. Gretta would _laugh!_
+
+But she did not laugh. And what his strained ear caught at last was--not
+her scornful denial, but a little gasp of breath suggesting a sob.
+
+“_Noticed_ it? Why it breaks my heart!”
+
+He stared at the books through which her low, passionate voice had
+carried. Then he sank to the chair that fortunately was beside him.
+Power for standing had gone from him.
+
+“Father says--father's on the board, you know” (it was the first girl
+who spoke)--“that they don't know what to do about it. It's not justice
+to the school to let him begin another year. These things are arranged
+with less embarrassment in the big schools, where a man begins emeritus
+at a certain time. Though of course they'll pension him--he's done a lot
+for the school.”
+
+He thanked Gretta for her little laugh of disdain. The memory of it was
+more comforting--more satisfying--than any attempt to put it into words
+could have been.
+
+He heard them move away, their skirts brushing the book-stacks in
+passing. A little later he saw them out in the sunshine on the campus.
+Gretta joined one of the boys for a game of tennis. Motionless, he sat
+looking out at her. She looked so very young as she played.
+
+For an hour he remained at the table in the alcove where he had
+overheard what his students had to say of him. And when the hour had
+gone by he took up the pen which was there upon the study table and
+wrote his resignation to the secretary of the board of trustees. It was
+very brief--simply that he felt the time had come when a younger man
+could do more for the school than he, and that he should like his
+resignation to take effect at the close of the present school year. He
+had an envelope, and sealed and stamped the letter--ready to drop in the
+box in front of the building as he left. He had always served the school
+as best he could; he lost no time now, once convinced, in rendering
+to it the last service he could offer it--that of making way for the
+younger man.
+
+Looking things squarely in the face, and it was the habit of a lifetime
+to look things squarely in the face, he had not been long in seeing that
+they were right. Things tired him now as they had not once tired him. He
+had less zest at the beginning of the hour, more relief at the close
+of it. He seemed stupid in not having seen it for himself, but possibly
+many people were a little stupid in seeing that their own time was over.
+Of course he had thought, in a vague way, that his working time couldn't
+be much longer, but it seemed part of the way human beings managed with
+themselves that things in even the very near future kept the remoteness
+of future things.
+
+Now he understood Gretta's troubled look and her tears. He knew how
+those fine nerves of hers must have suffered, how her own mind had
+wanted to leap to the aid of his, how her own strength must have
+tormented her in not being able to reach his flagging powers. It seemed
+part of the whole hardness of life that she who would care the most
+would be the one to see it most understandingly.
+
+What he was trying to do was to see it all very simply, in
+matter-of-fact fashion, that there might be no bitterness and the least
+of tragedy. It was nothing unique in human history he was facing. One
+did one's work; then, when through, one stopped. He tried to feel that
+it was as simple as it sounded, but he wondered if back of many of those
+brief letters of resignation that came at quitting-time there was the
+hurt, the desolation, that there was no use denying to himself was back
+of his.
+
+He hoped that most men had more to turn to. Most men of seventy-three
+had grandchildren. That would help, surrounding one with a feeling of
+the naturalness of it all. But that school had been his only child. And
+he had loved it with the tenderness one gives a child. That in him which
+would have gone to the child had gone to the school.
+
+The woman whom he loved had not loved him; he had never married. His
+life had been called lonely; but lonely though it undeniably had been,
+the life he won from books and work and thinking had kept the chill from
+his heart. He had the gift of drawing life from all contact with life.
+Working with youth, he kept that feeling for youth that does for the
+life within what sunshine and fresh air do for the room in which one
+dwells.
+
+It was now that the loneliness that blights seemed waiting for him....
+Life _used_ one--and that in the ugly, not the noble sense of being
+used. Stripped of the fine fancies men wove around it, what was it
+beyond just a matter of being sucked dry and then thrown aside? Why not
+admit that, and then face it? And the abundance with which one might
+have given--the joy in the giving--had no bearing upon the fact that it
+came at last to that question of getting one out of the way. It was
+no one's unkindness; it was just that life was like that. Indeed, the
+bitterness festered around the thought that it _was_ life itself--the
+way of life--not the brutality of any particular people. “They'll
+pension him--he's done a lot for the school.” Even the grateful memory
+of Gretta's tremulous, scoffing little laugh for the way it fell short
+could not follow to the deep place that had been hurt.
+
+Getting himself in hand again, and trying to face this as simply and
+honestly as he had sought to face the other, he knew that it was true he
+had done a great deal for the school. He did not believe it too much to
+say he had done more for it than any other man. Certainly more than any
+other man he had given it what place it had with men who thought. He had
+come to it in his early manhood, and at a time when the school was in
+its infancy--just a crude, struggling little Western college. Gretta
+Loring's grandfather had been one of its founders--founding it in revolt
+against the cramping sectarianism of another college. He had gloried
+in the spirit which gave it birth, and it was he who, through the
+encroachings of problems of administration and the ensnarements and
+entanglements of practicality, had fought to keep unattached and
+unfettered that spirit of freedom in the service of truth.
+
+His own voice had been heard and recognised, and a number of times
+during the years calls had come from more important institutions, but he
+had not cared to go. For year by year there deepened that personal love
+for the little college to which he had given the youthful ardour of his
+own intellectual passion. All his life's habits were one with it. His
+days seemed beaten into the path that cut across the campus. The vines
+that season after season went a little higher on the wall out there
+indicated his strivings by their own, and the generation that had worn
+down even the stones of those front steps had furrowed his forehead and
+stooped his shoulders. He had grown old along with it! His days were
+twined around it. It was the place of his efforts and satisfactions
+(joys perhaps he should not call them), of his falterings and his hopes.
+He loved it because he had given himself to it; loved it because he had
+helped to bring it up. On the shelves all around him were books which it
+had been his pleasure--because during some of those hard years they were
+to be had in no other way--to order himself and pay for from his own
+almost ludicrously meagre salary. He remembered the excitement there
+always was in getting them fresh from the publisher and bringing them
+over there in his arms; the satisfaction in coming in next day and
+finding them on the shelves. Such had been his dissipations, his
+indulgences of self. Many things came back to him as he sat there going
+back over busy years, the works on philosophy looking down upon him, the
+shadows of that spring afternoon gathering around him. He looked like
+a very old man indeed as he at last reached out for the letter he had
+written to the trustees, relieving them of their embarrassment.
+
+Twilight had come on. On the front steps he paused and looked around
+the campus. It was growing dark in that lingering way it has in the
+spring--daylight creeping away under protest, night coming gently, as
+if it knew that the world having been so pleasant, day would be loath to
+go. The boys and girls were going back and forth upon the campus and the
+streets. They could not bear to go within. For more than forty years
+it had been like that. It would be like that for many times forty
+years--indeed, until the end of the world, for it would be the end of
+the world when it was not like that. He was glad that they were out in
+the twilight, not indoors trying to gain from books something of the
+meaning of life. That course had its satisfactions along the way, but it
+was surely no port of peace to which it bore one at the last.
+
+He shrunk from going home. There were so many readjustments he must
+make, once home. So, lingering, he saw that off among the trees a girl
+was sitting alone. She threw back her head in a certain way just then,
+and he knew by the gesture that it was Gretta Loring. He wondered what
+she was thinking about. What did one who thought think about--over there
+on the other side of life? Youth and age looked at life from opposite
+sides. Then they could not see it alike, for what one saw in life seemed
+to depend so entirely upon how the light was falling from where one
+stood.
+
+He could not have said just what it was made him cross the campus toward
+her. Part of it was the desire for human sympathy--one thing, at least,
+which age did not deaden. But that was not the whole of it, nor the
+deepest thing in it. It was an urge of the spirit to find and keep for
+itself a place where the light was falling backward upon life.
+
+She was quiet in her greeting, and gentle. Her cheeks were still
+flushed, her hair tumbled from her game, but her eyes were thoughtful
+and, he thought, sad. He felt that the sadness was because of him; of
+him and the things of which he made her think. He knew of her affection
+for him, the warmth there was in her admiration of the things for which
+he had fought. He had discovered that it hurt her now that others
+should be seeing and not he, pained her to watch so sorry a thing as his
+falling below himself, wounded both pride and heart that men whom she
+would doubtless say had never appreciated him were whispering among
+themselves about how to get rid of him. Why, the poor child might even
+be tormenting herself with the idea she ought to tell him!
+
+That was why he told her. He pointed to the address on the envelope,
+saying: “That carries my resignation, Gretta.”
+
+Her start and the tears which rushed to her eyes told him he was right
+about her feeling. She did not seem able to say anything. Her chin was
+trembling.
+
+“I see that the time has come,” he said, “when a younger man can do more
+for the school than I can hope to do for it.”
+
+Still she said nothing at all, but her eyes were deepening and she
+had that very steadfast, almost inspired look that had so many times
+quickened him in the class-room.
+
+She was not going to deny it! She was not going to pretend!
+
+After the first feeling of not having got something needed he rose to
+her high ground--ground she had taken it for granted he would take.
+
+“And will you believe it, Gretta,” he said, rising to that ground and
+there asking, not for the sympathy that bends down, but for a hand in
+passing, “there comes a hard hour when first one feels the time has come
+to step aside and be replaced by that younger man?”
+
+She nodded. “It must be,” she said, simply; “it must be very much harder
+than any of us can know till we come to it.”
+
+She brought him a sense of his advantage in experience--his riches. To
+be sure, there was that.
+
+And he was oddly comforted by the honesty in her which could not stoop
+to dishonest comforting. In what superficially might seem her failure
+there was a very real victory for them both. And there was nothing of
+coldness in her reserve! There was the fulness of understanding, and of
+valuing the moments too highly for anything there was to be said about
+it. There was a great spiritual dignity, a nobility, in the way she was
+looking at him. It called upon the whole of his own spiritual dignity.
+It was her old demand upon him, but this time the tears through which
+her eyes shone were tears of pride in fulfilment, not of sorrowing for
+failure.
+
+Suddenly he felt that his life had not been spent in vain, that the
+lives of all those men of his day who had fought the good fight for
+intellectual honesty--spiritual dignity--had not been spent in vain
+if they were leaving upon the earth even a few who were like the girl
+beside them.
+
+It turned him from himself to her. She was what counted--for she was
+what remained. And he remained in just the measure that he remained
+through her; counted in so far as he counted for her. It was as if he
+had been facing in the wrong direction and now a kindly hand had turned
+him around. It was not in looking back there he would find himself. He
+was not back there to be found. Only so much of him lived as had been
+able to wing itself ahead--on in the direction she was moving.
+
+It did not particularly surprise him that when she at last spoke it was
+to voice a shade of that same feeling. “I was thinking,” she began, “of
+that younger man. Of what he must mean to the man who gives way to him.”
+
+She was feeling her way as she went--groping among the many dim things
+that were there. He had always liked to watch her face when she was
+thinking her way step by step.
+
+“I think you used a word wrongly a minute ago,” she said, with a smile.
+“You spoke of being replaced. But that isn't it. A man like you isn't
+replaced; he's”--she got it after a minute and came forth with it
+triumphantly--“fulfilled!”
+
+Her face was shining as she turned to him after that. “Don't you see?
+He's there waiting to take your place because you got him ready. Why,
+you made that younger man! Your whole life has been a getting ready for
+him. He can do his work be cause you first did yours. Of course he can
+go farther than you can! Wouldn't it be a sorry commentary on you if he
+couldn't?”
+
+Her voice throbbed warmly upon that last, and during the pause the light
+it had brought still played upon her face. “We were talking in class
+about immortality,” she went on, more slowly. “There's one form of
+immortality I like to think about. It's that all those who from the very
+first have given anything to the world are living in the world to-day.”
+ There was a rush of tears to her eyes and of affection to her voice
+as she finished, very low: “You'll never die. You've deepened the
+consciousness of life too much for that.”
+
+They sat there as twilight drew near to night, the old man and the young
+girl, silent. The laughter of boys and girls and the good-night calls of
+the birds were all around them. The fragrance of life was around
+them. It was one of those silences to which come impressions, faiths,
+longings, not yet born as thoughts.
+
+Something in the quality of that silence brought the rescuing sense
+of its having been good to have lived and done one's part--that sense
+which, from places of desolation and over ways rough and steep and dark,
+can find its way to the meadows of serenity.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFTED MASKS ***
+
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diff --git a/7368-0.zip b/7368-0.zip
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@@ -0,0 +1,8110 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    .side      { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em;
+               border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left;
+               text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lifted Masks
+       Stories
+
+Author: Susan Glaspell
+
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7368]
+This file was first posted on April 21, 2003
+Last Updated: March 15, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFTED MASKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Text file produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      LIFTED MASKS
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      STORIES
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Susan Glaspell
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1912
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      TO
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+      THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+      JENNIE PRESTON
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>LIFTED MASKS</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I. &mdash; &ldquo;ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS&rdquo;
+       </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II. &mdash; THE PLEA </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III. &mdash; FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV. &mdash; FRECKLES M'GRATH </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V. &mdash; FROM A TO Z </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI. &mdash; THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII. &mdash; HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII. &mdash; THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX. &mdash; &ldquo;OUT THERE&rdquo; </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> X. &mdash; THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI. &mdash; HIS AMERICA </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII. &mdash; THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII. &mdash; AT TWILIGHT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      LIFTED MASKS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I. &mdash; &ldquo;ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;N'avez-vous pas&mdash;&rdquo; she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she
+      saw that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly dangling two
+      flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured young woman assured
+      him were <i>bien chic</i> was edging nearer her. She was never so
+      conscious of the truly American quality of her French as when a countryman
+      was at hand. The French themselves had an air of &ldquo;How marvellously you
+      speak!&rdquo; but fellow Americans listened superciliously in an &ldquo;I can do
+      better than that myself&rdquo; manner which quite untied the Gallic twist in
+      one's tongue. And so, feeling her French was being compared, not with mere
+      French itself, but with an arrogant new American brand thereof, she moved
+      a little around the corner of the counter and began again in lower voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Mais, n'avez</i>&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Young Lady,&rdquo; a voice which adequately represented the figure broke
+      in, &ldquo;<i>you</i>, aren't French, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up with what was designed for a haughty stare. But what is a
+      haughty stare to do in the face of a broad grin? And because it was such a
+      long time since a grin like that had been grinned at her it happened that
+      the stare gave way to a dimple, and the dimple to a laughing: &ldquo;Is it so
+      bad as that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not your French,&rdquo; he assured her. &ldquo;You talk it just like the rest of
+      them. In fact, I should say, if anything&mdash;a little more so. But do
+      you know,&rdquo;&mdash;confidentially&mdash;&ldquo;I can just spot an American girl
+      every time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; she could not resist asking, and the modest black hose she was
+      thinking of purchasing dangled against his gorgeous red ones in
+      friendliest fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Sir&mdash;I don't know. I don't think it can be the clothes,&rdquo;&mdash;judicially
+      surveying her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The clothes,&rdquo; murmured Virginia, &ldquo;were bought in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you've got <i>me</i>. Maybe it's the way you wear 'em. Maybe it's
+      'cause you look as if you used to play tag with your brother. Something&mdash;anyhow&mdash;gives
+      a fellow that 'By jove there's an American girl!' feeling when he sees you
+      coming round the corner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord&mdash;don't begin on <i>why</i>. You can say <i>why</i> to anything.
+      Why don't the French talk English? Why didn't they lay Paris out at right
+      angles? Now look here, Young Lady, for that matter&mdash;<i>why</i> can't
+      you help me buy some presents for my wife? There'd be nothing wrong about
+      it,&rdquo; he hastened to assure her, &ldquo;because my wife's a mighty fine woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The very small American looked at the very large one. Now Virginia was a
+      well brought up young woman. Her conversations with strange men had been
+      confined to such things as, &ldquo;Will you please tell me the nearest way to&mdash;?&rdquo;
+       but preposterously enough&mdash;she could not for the life of her have
+      told why&mdash;frowning upon this huge American&mdash;fat was the literal
+      word&mdash;who stood there with puckered-up face swinging the flaming hose
+      would seem in the same shameful class with snubbing the little boy who
+      confidently asked her what kind of ribbon to buy for his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it for your wife you were thinking of buying these red stockings?&rdquo;
+       she ventured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure. What do you think of 'em? Look as if they came from Paris all
+      right, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, they look as though they came from Paris, all right,&rdquo; Virginia
+      repeated, a bit grimly. &ldquo;But do you know&rdquo;&mdash;this quite as to that
+      little boy who might be buying the ribbon&mdash;&ldquo;American women don't
+      always care for all the things that look as if they came from Paris. Is
+      your wife&mdash;does she care especially for red stockings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't believe she ever had a pair in her life. That's why I thought it
+      might please her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia looked down and away. There were times when dimples made things
+      hard for one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she said, with gentle gravity: &ldquo;There are quite a number of women in
+      America who don't care much for red stockings. It would seem too bad,
+      wouldn't it, if after you got these clear home your wife should turn out
+      to be one of those people? Now, I think these grey stockings are lovely.
+      I'm sure any woman would love them. She could wear them with grey suede
+      slippers and they would be so soft and pretty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um&mdash;not very lively looking, are they? You see I want something to
+      cheer her up. She&mdash;well she's not been very well lately and I thought
+      something&mdash;oh something with a lot of <i>dash</i> in it, you know,
+      would just fill the bill. But look here. We'll take both. Sure&mdash;that's
+      the way out of it. If she don't like the red, she'll like the grey, and if
+      she don't like the&mdash;You like the grey ones, don't you? Then here&rdquo;&mdash;picking
+      up two pairs of the handsomely embroidered grey stockings and handing them
+      to the clerk&mdash;&ldquo;One,&rdquo; holding up his thumb to denote one&mdash;&ldquo;me,&rdquo;&mdash;a
+      vigorous pounding of the chest signifying me. &ldquo;One&rdquo;&mdash;holding up his
+      forefinger and pointing to the girl&mdash;&ldquo;mademoiselle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no&mdash;no&mdash;no!&rdquo; cried Virginia, her face instantly the colour
+      of the condemned stockings. Then, standing straight: &ldquo;Certainly <i>not</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No? Just as you say,&rdquo; he replied good humouredly. &ldquo;Like to have you have
+      'em. Seems as if strangers in a strange land oughtn't to stand on
+      ceremony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk was bending forward holding up the stockings alluringly. &ldquo;<i>Pour
+      mademoiselle, n'est-ce-pas</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Mais&mdash;non!</i>&rdquo; pronounced Virginia, with emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed an untranslatable gesture. &ldquo;How droll!&rdquo; shoulder and
+      outstretched hands were saying. &ldquo;If the kind gentleman <i>wishes</i> to
+      give mademoiselle the <i>joli bas</i>&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face had puckered up again. Then suddenly it unpuckered. &ldquo;Tell you
+      what you might do,&rdquo; he solved it. &ldquo;Just take 'em along and send them to
+      your mother. Now your mother might be real glad to have 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia stared. And then an awful thing happened. What she was thinking
+      about was the letter she could send with the stockings. &ldquo;Mother dear,&rdquo; she
+      would write, &ldquo;as I stood at the counter buying myself some stockings
+      to-day along came a nice man&mdash;a stranger to me, but very kind and
+      jolly&mdash;and gave me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There it was that the awful thing happened. Her dimple was showing&mdash;and
+      at thought of its showing she could not keep it from showing! And how
+      could she explain why it was showing without its going on showing? And how&mdash;?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at that moment her gaze fell upon the clerk, who had taken the dimple
+      as signal to begin putting the stockings in a box. The Frenchwoman's
+      eyebrows soon put that dimple in its proper place. &ldquo;And so the <i>petite
+      Americaine</i> was not too&mdash;oh, not <i>too</i>&mdash;&rdquo; those French
+      eyebrows were saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All in an instant Virginia was something quite different from a little
+      girl with a dimple. &ldquo;You are very kind,&rdquo; she was saying, and her mother
+      herself could have done it no better, &ldquo;but I am sure our little joke had
+      gone quite far enough. I bid you good-morning&rdquo;. And with that she walked
+      regally over to the glove counter, leaving red and grey and black hosiery
+      to their own destinies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I loathe them when their eyebrows go up,&rdquo; she fumed. &ldquo;Now <i>his</i>
+      weren't going up&mdash;not even in his mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not keep from worrying about him. &ldquo;They'll just 'do' him,&rdquo; she
+      was sure. &ldquo;And then laugh at him in the bargain. A man like that has no <i>business</i>
+      to be let loose in a store all by himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And sure enough, a half hour later she came upon him up in the dress
+      department. Three of them had gathered round to &ldquo;do&rdquo; him. They were making
+      rapid headway, their smiling deference scantily concealing their amused
+      contempt. The spectacle infuriated Virginia. &ldquo;They just think they can <i>work</i>
+      us!&rdquo; she stormed. &ldquo;They think we're <i>easy</i>. I suppose they think he's
+      a <i>fool</i>. I just wish they could get him in a business deal! I just
+      wish&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can assure you, sir,&rdquo; the English-speaking manager of the department
+      was saying, &ldquo;that this garment is a wonderful value. We are able to let
+      you have it at so absurdly low a figure because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia did not catch why it was they were able to let him have it at so
+      absurdly low a figure, but she did see him wipe his brow and look
+      helplessly around. &ldquo;Poor <i>thing</i>,&rdquo; she murmured, almost tenderly, &ldquo;he
+      doesn't know what to do. He just <i>does</i> need somebody to look after
+      him.&rdquo; She stood there looking at his back. He had a back a good deal like
+      the back of her chum's father at home. Indeed there were various things
+      about him suggested &ldquo;home.&rdquo; Did one want one's own jeered at? One might
+      see crudities one's self, but was one going to have supercilious outsiders
+      coughing those sham coughs behind their hypocritical hands?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For seven hundred francs,&rdquo; she heard the suave voice saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Seven hundred francs</i>! Virginia's national pride, or, more
+      accurately, her national rage, was lashed into action. It was with very
+      red cheeks that the small American stepped stormily to the rescue of her
+      countryman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven hundred francs for <i>that</i>?&rdquo; she jeered, right in the face of
+      the enraged manager and stiffening clerks. &ldquo;Seven hundred francs&mdash;indeed!
+      Last year's model&mdash;a hideous colour, and &ldquo;&mdash;picking it up,
+      running it through her fingers and tossing it contemptuously aside&mdash;&ldquo;abominable
+      stuff!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee, but I'm grateful to you!&rdquo; he breathed, again wiping his brow. &ldquo;You
+      know, I was a little leery of it myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The manager, quivering with rage and glaring uglily, stepped up to
+      Virginia. &ldquo;May I ask&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the fat man stepped in between&mdash;he was well qualified for that
+      position. &ldquo;Cut it out, partner. The young lady's a friend of <i>mine</i>&mdash;see?
+      She's looking out for me&mdash;not you. I don't want your stuff, anyway.&rdquo;
+       And taking Virginia serenely by the arm he walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This was no place to buy dresses,&rdquo; said she crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I wish I knew where the places <i>were</i> to buy things,&rdquo; he
+      replied, humbly, forlornly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you want to buy?&rdquo; demanded she, still crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I want to buy some nice things for my wife. Something the real thing
+      from Paris, you know. I came over from London on purpose. But Lord,&rdquo;&mdash;again
+      wiping his brow&mdash;&ldquo;a fellow doesn't know where to <i>go</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh well,&rdquo; sighed Virginia, long-sufferingly, &ldquo;I see I'll just have to
+      take you. There doesn't seem any way out of it. It's evident you can't go
+      <i>alone</i>. <i>Seven hundred francs</i>!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it was too much,&rdquo; he conceded meekly. &ldquo;I tell you I <i>will</i>
+      be grateful if you'll just stay by me a little while. I never felt so up
+      against it in all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, a very nice thing to take one's wife from Paris,&rdquo; began Virginia
+      didactically, when they reached the sidewalk, &ldquo;is lace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;L&mdash;ace? Um! Y&mdash;es, I suppose lace is all right. Still it never
+      struck me there was anything so very <i>lively</i> looking about lace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Lively looking' is not the final word in wearing apparel,&rdquo; pronounced
+      Virginia in teacher-to-pupil manner. &ldquo;Lace is always in good taste, never
+      goes out of style, and all women care for it. I will take you to one of
+      the lace shops.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; acquiesced he, truly chastened. &ldquo;Here, let's get in this
+      cab.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia rode across the Seine looking like one pondering the destinies of
+      nations. Her companion turned several times to address her, but it would
+      have been as easy for a soldier to slap a general on the back. Finally she
+      turned to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now when we get there,&rdquo; she instructed, &ldquo;don't seem at all interested in
+      things. Act&mdash;oh, bored, you know, and seeming to want to get me away.
+      And when they tell the price, no matter what they say, just&mdash;well
+      sort of groan and hold your head and act as though you are absolutely
+      overcome at the thought of such an outrage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;U&mdash;m. You have to do that here to get&mdash;lace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have to do that here to get <i>anything</i>&mdash;-at the price you
+      should get it. You, and people who go shopping the way you do, bring
+      discredit upon the entire American nation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That so? Sorry. Never meant to do that. All right, Young Lady, I'll do
+      the best I can. Never did act that way, but suppose I can, if the rest of
+      them do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Groan and hold my head,&rdquo; she heard him murmuring as they entered the
+      shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proved an apt pupil. It may indeed be set down that his aptitude was
+      their undoing. They had no sooner entered the shop than he pulled out his
+      watch and uttered an exclamation of horror at the sight of the time.
+      Virginia could scarcely look at the lace, so insistently did he keep
+      waving the watch before her. His contempt for everything shown was open
+      and emphatic. It was also articulate. Virginia grew nervous, seeing the
+      real red showing through in the Frenchwoman's cheeks. And when the price
+      was at last named&mdash;a price which made Virginia jubilant&mdash;there
+      burst upon her outraged ears something between a jeer and a howl of rage,
+      the whole of it terrifyingly done in the form of a groan; she looked at
+      her companion to see him holding up his hands and wobbling his head as
+      though it had been suddenly loosened from his spine, cast one look at the
+      Frenchwoman&mdash;then fled, followed by her groaning compatriot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't mean you to act like <i>that</i>!&rdquo; she stormed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I did just what you told me to! Seemed to me I was following
+      directions to the letter. Don't think for a minute <i>I'm</i> going to
+      bring discredit on the American nation! Not a bad scheme&mdash;taking out
+      my watch that way, was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, beautiful <i>scheme</i>. I presume you notice, however, that we have
+      no lace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked half a block in silence. &ldquo;Now I'll take you to another shop,&rdquo;
+       she then volunteered, in a turning the other cheek fashion, &ldquo;and here
+      please do nothing at all. Please just&mdash;sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sort of as if I was feeble-minded, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't <i>try</i> to look feeble-minded,&rdquo; she begged, alarmed at
+      seeming to suggest any more parts; &ldquo;just sit there&mdash;as if you were
+      thinking of something very far away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Young Lady, look here; this is very nice, being put on to the tricks
+      of the trade, but the money end of it isn't cutting much ice, and isn't
+      there any way you can just <i>buy</i> things&mdash;the way you do in
+      Cincinnati? Can't you get their stuff without making a comic opera out of
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you can't,&rdquo; spoke relentless Virginia; &ldquo;not unless you want them to
+      laugh and say 'Aren't Americans fools?' the minute the door is shut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fools&mdash;eh? I'll show them a thing or two!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, please show them nothing here! Please just&mdash;sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While employing her wiles to get for three hundred and fifty francs a yoke
+      and scarf aggregating four hundred, she chanced to look at her American
+      friend. Then she walked rapidly to the rear of the shop, buried her face
+      in her handkerchief, and seemed making heroic efforts to sneeze. Once more
+      he was following directions to the letter. Chin resting on hands, hands
+      resting on stick, the huge American had taken on the beatific expression
+      of a seventeen-year-old girl thinking of something &ldquo;very far away.&rdquo;
+       Virginia was long in mastering the sneeze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the sidewalk she presented him with the package of lace and also with
+      what she regarded the proper thing in the way of farewell speech. She
+      supposed it <i>was</i> hard for a man to go shopping alone; she could see
+      how hard it would be for her own father; indeed it was seeing how
+      difficult it would be for her father had impelled her to go with him, a
+      stranger. She trusted his wife would like the lace; she thought it very
+      nice, and a bargain. She was glad to have been of service to a fellow
+      countryman who seemed in so difficult a position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did not look as impressed as one to whom a farewell speech was
+      being made should look. In fact, he did not seem to be hearing it. Once
+      more, and in earnest this time, he appeared to be thinking of something
+      very far away. Then all at once he came back, and it was in anything but a
+      far-away voice he began, briskly: &ldquo;Now look here, Young Lady, I don't
+      doubt but this lace is great stuff. You say so, and I haven't seen man,
+      woman or child on this side of the Atlantic knows as much as you do. I'm
+      mighty grateful for the lace&mdash;don't you forget that, but just the
+      same&mdash;well, now I'll tell you. I have a very special reason for
+      wanting something a little livelier than lace. Something that seems to
+      have Paris written on it in red letters&mdash;see? Now, where do you get
+      the kind of hats you see some folks wearing, and where do you get the
+      dresses&mdash;well, it's hard to describe 'em, but the kind they have in
+      pictures marked 'Breezes from Paris'? You see&mdash;<i>S-ay!</i>&mdash;<i>what</i>
+      do you think of <i>that?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rdquo; was in a window across the street. It was an opera cloak. He walked
+      toward it, Virginia following. &ldquo;Now <i>there</i>,&rdquo; he turned to her, his
+      large round face all aglow, &ldquo;is what I want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was yellow; it was long; it was billowy; it was insistently and
+      recklessly regal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the ticket!&rdquo; he gloated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; began Virginia, &ldquo;I don't know anything about it. I am in a
+      very strange position, not knowing what your wife likes or&mdash;or has.
+      This is the kind of thing everything has to go <i>with</i> or one wouldn't&mdash;one
+      couldn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure! Good idea. We'll just get everything to go with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the sort of thing one doesn't see worn much outside of Paris&mdash;or
+      New York. If one is&mdash;now my mother wouldn't care for that coat at
+      all.&rdquo; Virginia took no little pride in that tactful finish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't sidetrack me!&rdquo; he beamed. &ldquo;I <i>want</i> it. Very thing I'm after,
+      Young Lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of course you will have no difficulty in buying the coat without
+      me,&rdquo; said she, as a dignified version of &ldquo;I wash my hands of you.&rdquo; &ldquo;You
+      can do here as you said you wished to do, simply go in and pay what they
+      ask. There would be no use trying to get it cheap. They would know that
+      anyone who wanted it would&rdquo;&mdash;she wanted to say &ldquo;have more money than
+      they knew what to do with,&rdquo; but contented herself with, &ldquo;be able to pay
+      for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when she had finished she looked at him; at first she thought she
+      wanted to laugh, and then it seemed that wasn't what she wanted to do
+      after all. It was like saying to a small boy who was one beam over finding
+      a tin horn: &ldquo;Oh well, take the horn if you want to, but you can't haul
+      your little red waggon while you're blowing the horn.&rdquo; There seemed
+      something peculiarly inhuman about taking the waggon just when he had
+      found the horn. Now if the waggon were broken, then to take away the horn
+      would leave the luxury of grief. But let not shadows fall upon joyful
+      moments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the full ardour of her femininity she entered into the purchasing of
+      the yellow opera cloak. They paid for that decorative garment the sum of
+      two thousand five hundred francs. It seemed it was embroidered, and the
+      lining was&mdash;anyway, they paid it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And they took it with them. He was going to &ldquo;take no chances on losing
+      it.&rdquo; He was leaving Paris that night and held that during his stay he had
+      been none too impressed with either Parisian speed or Parisian veracity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they bought some &ldquo;Breezes from Paris,&rdquo; a dress that would &ldquo;go with&rdquo;
+       the coat. It was violet velvet, and contributed to the sense of doing
+      one's uttermost; and hats&mdash;&ldquo;the kind you see some folks wearing.&rdquo; One
+      was the rainbow done into flowers, and the other the kind of black hat to
+      outdo any rainbow. &ldquo;If you could just give me some idea what type your
+      wife is,&rdquo; Virginia was saying, from beneath the willow plumes. &ldquo;Now you
+      see this hat quite overpowers me. Do you think it will overpower her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess not. Anyway, if it don't look right on her head she may enjoy
+      having it around to look at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia stared out at him. The <i>oddest</i> man! As if a hat were any
+      good at all if it didn't look right on one's head!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon investigation&mdash;though yielding to his taste she was still
+      vigilant as to his interests&mdash;Virginia discovered a flaw in one of
+      the plumes. The sylph in the trailing gown held volubly that it did not <i>fait
+      rien</i>; the man with the open purse said he couldn't see that it figured
+      much, but the small American held firm. That must be replaced by a perfect
+      plume or they would not take the hat. And when she saw who was in command
+      the sylph as volubly acquiesced that <i>naturellement</i> it must be <i>tout
+      a fait</i> perfect. She would send out and get one that would be oh! so,
+      so, <i>so</i> perfect. It would take half an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell you what we'll do,&rdquo; Virginia's friend proposed, opera cloak tight
+      under one arm, velvet gown as tight under the other, &ldquo;I'm tired&mdash;hungry&mdash;thirsty;
+      feel like a ham sandwich&mdash;and something. I'm playing you out, too.
+      Let's go out and get a bite and come back for the so, so, <i>so</i>
+      perfect hat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. But he had the door open, and if he stood holding it that
+      way much longer he was bound to drop the violet velvet gown. She did not
+      want him to drop the velvet gown and furthermore, she <i>would</i> like a
+      cup of tea. There came into her mind a fortifying thought about the
+      relative deaths of sheep and lambs. If to be killed for the sheep were
+      indeed no worse than being killed for the lamb, and if a cup of tea went
+      with the sheep and nothing at all with the lamb&mdash;?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So she agreed. &ldquo;There's a nice little tea-shop right round the corner. We
+      girls often go there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tea? Like tea? All right, then&rdquo;&mdash;and he started manfully on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as she entered the tea-shop she was filled with keen sense of the
+      desirableness of being slain for the lesser animal. For, cosily installed
+      in their favourite corner, were &ldquo;the girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia had explained to these friends some three hours before that she
+      could not go with them that afternoon as she must attend a musicale some
+      friends of her mother's were giving. Being friends of her mother's, she
+      expatiated, she would have to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Recollecting this, also for the first time remembering the musicale, she
+      bowed with the <i>hauteur</i> of self-consciousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Right there her friend contributed to the tragedy of a sheep's death by
+      dropping the yellow opera cloak. While he was stooping to pick it up the
+      violet velvet gown slid backward and Virginia had to steady it until he
+      could regain position. The staring in the corner gave way to tittering&mdash;and
+      no dying sheep had ever held its head more haughtily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The death of this particular sheep proved long and painful. The legs of
+      Virginia's friend and the legs of the tea-table did not seem well adapted
+      to each other. He towered like a human mountain over the dainty thing,
+      twisting now this way and now that. It seemed Providence&mdash;or at least
+      so much of it as was represented by the management of that shop&mdash;had
+      never meant fat people to drink tea. The table was rendered further out of
+      proportion by having a large box piled on either side of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Expansively, and not softly, he discoursed of these things. What did they
+      think a fellow was to do with his <i>knees</i>? Didn't they sell tea
+      enough to afford any decent chairs? Did all these women pretend to really
+      <i>like</i> tea?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia's sense of humour rallied somewhat as she viewed him eating the
+      sandwiches. Once she had called them doll-baby sandwiches; now that seemed
+      literal: tea-cups, <i>petit gateau</i>, the whole service gave the fancy
+      of his sitting down to a tea-party given by a little girl for her dollies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after a time he fell silent, looking around the room. And when he
+      broke that pause his voice was different.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These women here, all dressed so fine, nothing to do but sit around and
+      eat this folderol, <i>they</i> have it easy&mdash;don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bitterness in it, and a faint note of wistfulness, puzzled her.
+      Certainly <i>he</i> had money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the husbands of these women,&rdquo; he went on; &ldquo;lots of 'em, I suppose,
+      didn't always have so much. Maybe some of these women helped out in the
+      early days when things weren't so easy. Wonder if the men ever think how
+      lucky they are to be able to get it back at 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She grew more bewildered. Wasn't he &ldquo;getting it back?&rdquo; The money he had
+      been spending that day!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Young Lady,&rdquo; he said abruptly, &ldquo;you must think I'm a queer one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She murmured feeble protest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you must. Must wonder what I want with all this stuff, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it's for your wife, isn't it?&rdquo; she asked, startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, but you must wonder. You're a shrewd one, Young Lady; judging the
+      thing by me, you must wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Virginia was glad she was not compelled to state her theory. Loud and
+      common and impossible were terms which had presented themselves, terms
+      which she had fought with kind and good-natured and generous. Their
+      purchases she had decided were to be used, not for a knock, but as a
+      crashing pound at the door of the society of his town. For her part,
+      Virginia hoped the door would come down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if you knew that probably this stuff would never be worn at all, that
+      ten to one it would never do anything more than lie round on chairs&mdash;then
+      you <i>would</i> think I was queer, wouldn't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was forced to admit that that would seem rather strange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Young Lady, I believe I'll tell you about it. Never do talk about it to
+      hardly anybody, but I feel as if you and I were pretty well acquainted&mdash;we've
+      been through so much together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled at him warmly; there was something so real about him when he
+      talked that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But his look then frightened her. It seemed for an instant as though he
+      would brush the tiny table aside and seize some invisible thing by the
+      throat. Then he said, cutting off each word short: &ldquo;Young Lady, what do
+      you think of this? I'm worth more 'an a million dollars&mdash;and my wife
+      gets up at five o'clock every morning to do washing and scrubbing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's not that she <i>has</i> to,&rdquo; he answered her look, &ldquo;but she <i>thinks</i>
+      she has to. See? Once we were poor. For twenty years we were poor as dirt.
+      Then she did have to do things like that. Then I struck it. Or rather, it
+      struck me. Oil. Oil on a bit of land I had. I had just sense enough to
+      make the most of it; one thing led to another&mdash;well, you're not
+      interested in that end of it. But the fact is that now we're rich. Now she
+      could have all the things that these women have&mdash;Lord A'mighty she
+      could lay abed every day till noon if she wanted to! But&mdash;you see?&mdash;it
+      <i>got</i> her&mdash;those hard, lonely, grinding years <i>took</i> her.
+      She's&rdquo;&mdash;he shrunk from the terrible word and faltered out&mdash;&ldquo;her
+      mind's not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sobbing little flutter in Virginia's throat. In a dim way she
+      was glad to see that the girls were going. She <i>could</i> not have them
+      laughing at him&mdash;now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you can about figure out how it makes me feel,&rdquo; he continued, and
+      looking into his face now it was as though the spirit redeemed the flesh.
+      &ldquo;You're smart. You can see it without my callin' your attention to it.
+      Last time I went to see her I had just made fifty thousand on a deal. And
+      I found her down on her knees thinking she was scrubbing the floor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unconsciously Virginia's hand went out, following the rush of sympathy and
+      understanding. &ldquo;But can't they&mdash;restrain her?&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Makes her worse. Says she's got it to do&mdash;frets her to think she's
+      not getting it done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But isn't there some <i>way</i>?&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Some way to make her <i>know</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pointed to the large boxes. &ldquo;That,&rdquo; he said simply, &ldquo;is the meaning of
+      those. It's been seven years&mdash;but I keep on trying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent, the tears too close for words. And she had thought it
+      cheap ambition!&mdash;vulgar aspiration&mdash;silly show&mdash;vanity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose you thought I was a queer one, talking about lively looking
+      things. But you see now? Thought it might attract her attention, thought
+      something real gorgeous like this might impress money on her. Though I
+      don't know,&rdquo;&mdash;he seemed to grow weary as he told it; &ldquo;I got her a lot
+      of diamonds, thinking they might interest her, and she thought she'd
+      stolen 'em, and they had to take them away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still the girl did not speak. Her hand was shading her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there's nothing like trying. Nothing like keeping right on trying.
+      And anyhow&mdash;a fellow likes to think he's taking his wife something
+      from Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They passed before her in their heartbreaking folly, their tragic
+      uselessness, their lovable absurdity and stinging irony&mdash;those things
+      they had bought that afternoon: an <i>opera cloak</i>&mdash;a <i>velvet
+      dress</i>&mdash;<i>those hats</i>&mdash;<i>red silk stockings</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mockery of them wrung her heart. Right there in the tea-shop Virginia
+      was softly crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, now that's too bad,&rdquo; he expostulated clumsily. &ldquo;Why, look here, Young
+      Lady, I didn't mean you to take it so hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had recovered herself he told her much of the story. And the
+      thing which revealed him&mdash;glorified him&mdash;was less the grief he
+      gave to it than the way he saw it. &ldquo;It's the cursed unfairness of it,&rdquo; he
+      concluded. &ldquo;When you consider it's all because she did those things&mdash;when
+      you think of her bein' bound to 'em for life just because she was <i>too
+      faithful doin' 'em</i>&mdash;when you think that now&mdash;when I could
+      give her everything these women have got!&mdash;she's got to go right on
+      worrying about baking the bread and washing the dishes&mdash;did it for me
+      when I was poor&mdash;and now with me rich she can't get <i>out</i> of it&mdash;and
+      I <i>can't reach</i> her&mdash;oh, it's <i>rotten!</i> I tell you it's <i>rotten!</i>
+      Sometimes I can just hear my money <i>laugh</i> at me! Sometimes I get to
+      going round and round in a circle about it till it seems I'm going crazy
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you are a&mdash;a noble man,&rdquo; choked Virginia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That disconcerted him. &ldquo;Oh Lord&mdash;don't think that. No, Young Lady,
+      don't try to make any plaster saint out of <i>me</i>. My life goes on.
+      I've got to eat, drink and be merry. I'm built that way. But just the same
+      my heart on the inside's pretty sore, Young Lady. I want to tell you that
+      the whole inside of my heart is <i>sore as a boil</i>!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were returning for the hats. Suddenly Virginia stopped, and it was a
+      soft-eyed and gentle Virginia who turned to him after the pause. &ldquo;There
+      are lovely things to be bought in Paris for women who aren't well. Such
+      soft, lovely things to wear in your room. Not but what I think these other
+      things are all right. As you say, they may&mdash;interest her. But they
+      aren't things she can use just now, and wouldn't you like her to have some
+      of those soft lovely things she could actually wear? They might help most
+      of all. To wake in the morning and find herself in something so beautiful&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do you get 'em?&rdquo; he demanded promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so they went to one of those shops which have, more than all the
+      others, enshrined Paris in feminine hearts. And never was lingerie
+      selected with more loving care than that which Virginia picked out that
+      afternoon. A tear fell on one particularly lovely <i>robe de nuit</i>&mdash;so
+      soothingly soft, so caressingly luxurious, it seemed that surely it might
+      help bring release from the bondage of those crushing years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they were leaving they were given two packages. &ldquo;Just the kimona thing
+      you liked,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and a trinket or two. Now that we're such good
+      friends, you won't feel like you did this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I don't want them myself, I might send them to my mother,&rdquo;
+       Virginia replied, a quiver in her laugh at her own little joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had put her in her cab; he had tried to tell her how much he thanked
+      her; they had said good-bye and the <i>cocher</i> had cracked his whip
+      when he came running after her. &ldquo;Why, Young Lady,&rdquo; he called out, &ldquo;we
+      don't know each other's <i>names</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed and gave hers. &ldquo;Mine's William P. Johnson,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Part
+      French and part Italian. But now look here, Young Lady&mdash;or I mean,
+      Miss Clayton. A fellow at the hotel was telling me something last night
+      that made me <i>sick</i>. He said American girls sometimes got awfully up
+      against it here. He said one actually starved last year. Now, I don't like
+      that kind of business. Look here, Young Lady, I want you to promise that
+      if you&mdash;you or any of your gang&mdash;get up against it you'll cable
+      William P. Johnson, of Cincinnati, Ohio.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The twilight grey had stolen upon Paris. And there was a mist which the
+      street lights only penetrated a little way&mdash;as sometimes one's
+      knowledge of life may only penetrate life a very little way. Her cab
+      stopped by a blockade, she watched the burly back of William P. Johnson
+      disappearing into the mist. The red box which held the yellow opera cloak
+      she could see longer than all else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never can tell,&rdquo; murmured Virginia. &ldquo;It just goes to show that you
+      never can tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And whatever it was you never could tell had brought to Virginia's girlish
+      face the tender knowingness of the face of a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. &mdash; THE PLEA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Senator Harrison concluded his argument and sat down. There was no
+      applause, but he had expected none. Senator Dorman was already saying &ldquo;Mr.
+      President?&rdquo; and there was a stir in the crowded galleries, and an
+      anticipatory moving of chairs among the Senators. In the press gallery the
+      reporters bunched together their scattered papers and inspected their
+      pencil-points with earnestness. Dorman was the best speaker of the Senate,
+      and he was on the popular side of it. It would be the great speech of the
+      session, and the prospect was cheering after a deluge of railroad and
+      insurance bills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to tell you,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;why I have worked for this resolution
+      recommending the pardon of Alfred Williams. It is one of the great laws of
+      the universe that every living thing be given a chance. In the case before
+      us that law has been violated. This does not resolve itself into a
+      question of second chances. The boy of whom we are speaking has never had
+      his first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Senator Harrison swung his chair half-way around and looked out at the
+      green things which were again coming into their own on the State-house
+      grounds. He knew&mdash;in substance&mdash;what Senator Dorman would say
+      without hearing it, and he was a little tired of the whole affair. He
+      hoped that one way or other they would finish it up that night, and go
+      ahead with something else. He had done what he could, and now the
+      responsibility was with the rest of them. He thought they were shouldering
+      a great deal to advocate the pardon in the face of the united opposition
+      of Johnson County, where the crime had been committed. It seemed a
+      community should be the best judge of its own crimes, and that was what
+      he, as the Senator from Johnson, had tried to impress upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew that his argument against the boy had been a strong one. He rather
+      liked the attitude in which he stood. It seemed as if he were the
+      incarnation of outraged justice attempting to hold its own at the
+      floodgates of emotion. He liked to think he was looking far beyond the
+      present and the specific and acting as guardian of the future&mdash;and
+      the whole. In summing it up that night the reporters would tell in highly
+      wrought fashion of the moving appeal made by Senator Dorman, and then they
+      would speak dispassionately of the logical argument of the leader of the
+      opposition. There was more satisfaction to self in logic than in mere
+      eloquence. He was even a little proud of his unpopularity. It seemed
+      sacrificial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wondered why it was Senator Dorman had thrown himself into it so
+      whole-heartedly. All during the session the Senator from Maxwell had
+      neglected personal interests in behalf of this boy, who was nothing to him
+      in the world. He supposed it was as a sociological and psychological
+      experiment. Senator Dorman had promised the Governor to assume
+      guardianship of the boy if he were let out. The Senator from Johnson
+      inferred that as a student of social science his eloquent colleague wanted
+      to see what he could make of him. To suppose the interest merely personal
+      and sympathetic would seem discreditable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need not dwell upon the story,&rdquo; the Senator from Maxwell was saying,
+      &ldquo;for you all are familiar with it already. It is said to have been the
+      most awful crime ever committed in the State. I grant you that it was, and
+      then I ask you to look for a minute into the conditions leading up to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When the boy was born, his mother was instituting divorce proceedings
+      against his father. She obtained the divorce, and remarried when Alfred
+      was three months old. From the time he was a mere baby she taught him to
+      hate his father. Everything that went wrong with him she told him was his
+      father's fault. His first vivid impression was that his father was
+      responsible for all the wrong of the universe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For seven years that went on, and then his mother died. His stepfather
+      did not want him. He was going to Missouri, and the boy would be a useless
+      expense and a bother. He made no attempt to find a home for him; he did
+      not even explain&mdash;he merely went away and left him. At the age of
+      seven the boy was turned out on the world, after having been taught one
+      thing&mdash;to hate his father. He stayed a few days in the barren house,
+      and then new tenants came and closed the doors against him. It may have
+      occurred to him as a little strange that he had been sent into a world
+      where there was no place for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he asked the neighbours for shelter, they told him to go to his own
+      father and not bother strangers. He said he did not know where his father
+      was. They told him, and he started to walk&mdash;a distance of fifty
+      miles. I ask you to bear in mind, gentlemen, that he was only seven years
+      of age. It is the age when the average boy is beginning the third reader,
+      and when he is shooting marbles and spinning tops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he reached his father's house he was told at once that he was not
+      wanted there. The man had remarried, there were other children, and he had
+      no place for Alfred. He turned him away; but the neighbours protested, and
+      he was compelled to take him back. For four years he lived in this home,
+      to which he had come unbidden, and where he was never made welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The whole family rebelled against him. The father satisfied his
+      resentment against the boy's dead mother by beating her son, by
+      encouraging his wife to abuse him, and inspiring the other children to
+      despise him. It seems impossible such conditions should exist. The only
+      proof of their possibility lies in the fact of their existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need not go into the details of the crime. He had been beaten by his
+      father that evening after a quarrel with his stepmother about spilling the
+      milk. He went, as usual, to his bed in the barn; but the hay was
+      suffocating, his head ached, and he could not sleep. He arose in the
+      middle of the night, went to the house, and killed both his father and
+      stepmother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not pretend to say what thoughts surged through the boy's brain
+      as he lay there in the stifling hay with the hot blood pounding against
+      his temples. I shall not pretend to say whether he was sane or insane as
+      he walked to the house for the perpetration of the awful crime. I do not
+      even affirm it would not have happened had there been some human being
+      there to lay a cooling hand on his hot forehead, and say a few soothing,
+      loving words to take the sting from the loneliness, and ease the
+      suffering. I ask you to consider only one thing: he was eleven years old
+      at the time, and he had no friend in all the world. He knew nothing of
+      sympathy; he knew only injustice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Senator Harrison was still looking out at the budding things on the
+      State-house grounds, but in a vague way he was following the story. He
+      knew when the Senator from Maxwell completed the recital of facts and
+      entered upon his plea. He was conscious that it was stronger than he had
+      anticipated&mdash;more logic and less empty exhortation. He was telling of
+      the boy's life in reformatory and penitentiary since the commission of the
+      crime,&mdash;of how he had expanded under kindness, of his mental
+      attainments, the letters he could write, the books he had read, the hopes
+      he cherished. In the twelve years he had spent there he had been known to
+      do no unkind nor mean thing; he responded to affection&mdash;craved it. It
+      was not the record of a degenerate, the Senator from Maxwell was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great many things were passing through the mind of the Senator from
+      Johnson. He was trying to think who it was that wrote that book, &ldquo;Put
+      Yourself in His Place.&rdquo; He had read it once, and it bothered him to forget
+      names. Then he was wondering why it was the philosophers had not more to
+      say about the incongruity of people who had never had any trouble of their
+      own sitting in judgment upon people who had known nothing but trouble. He
+      was thinking also that abstract rules did not always fit smoothly over
+      concrete cases, and that it was hard to make life a matter of rules,
+      anyway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next he was wondering how it would have been with the boy Alfred Williams
+      if he had been born in Charles Harrison's place; and then he was working
+      it out the other way and wondering how it would have been with Charles
+      Harrison had he been born in Alfred Williams's place. He wondered whether
+      the idea of murder would have grown in Alfred Williams's heart had he been
+      born to the things to which Charles Harrison was born, and whether it
+      would have come within the range of possibility for Charles Harrison to
+      murder his father if he had been born to Alfred Williams's lot. Putting it
+      that way, it was hard to estimate how much of it was the boy himself, and
+      how much the place the world had prepared for him. And if it was the place
+      prepared for him more than the boy, why was the fault not more with the
+      preparers of the place than with the occupant of it? The whole thing was
+      very confusing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This page,&rdquo; the Senator from Maxwell was saying, lifting the little
+      fellow to the desk, &ldquo;is just eleven years of age, and he is within three
+      pounds of Alfred Williams's weight when he committed the murder. I ask
+      you, gentlemen, if this little fellow should be guilty of a like crime
+      to-night, to what extent would you, in reading of it in the morning,
+      charge him with the moral discernment which is the first condition of
+      moral responsibility? If Alfred Williams's story were this boy's story,
+      would you deplore that there had been no one to check the childish
+      passion, or would you say it was the inborn instinct of the murderer? And
+      suppose again this were Alfred Williams at the age of eleven, would you
+      not be willing to look into the future and say if he spent twelve years in
+      penitentiary and reformatory, in which time he developed the qualities of
+      useful and honourable citizenship, that the ends of justice would then
+      have been met, and the time at hand for the world to begin the payment of
+      her debt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Senator Harrison's eyes were fixed upon the page standing on the opposite
+      desk. Eleven was a younger age than he had supposed. As he looked back
+      upon it and recalled himself when eleven years of age&mdash;his
+      irresponsibility, his dependence&mdash;he was unwilling to say what would
+      have happened if the world had turned upon him as it had upon Alfred
+      Williams. At eleven his greatest grievance was that the boys at school
+      called him &ldquo;yellow-top.&rdquo; He remembered throwing a rock at one of them for
+      doing it. He wondered if it was criminal instinct prompted the throwing of
+      the rock. He wondered how high the percentage of children's crimes would
+      go were it not for countermanding influences. It seemed the great
+      difference between Alfred Williams and a number of other children of
+      eleven had been the absence of the countermanding influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came to him of a sudden a new and moving thought. Alfred Williams
+      had been cheated of his boyhood. The chances were he had never gone
+      swimming, nor to a ball game, or maybe never to a circus. It might even be
+      that he had never owned a dog. The Senator from Maxwell was right when he
+      said the boy had never been given his chance, had been defrauded of that
+      which has been a boy's heritage since the world itself was young.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the later years&mdash;how were they making it up to him? He recalled
+      what to him was the most awful thing he had ever heard about the State
+      penitentiary: they never saw the sun rise down there, and they never saw
+      it set. They saw it at its meridian, when it climbed above the stockade,
+      but as it rose into the day, and as it sank into the night, it was denied
+      them. And there, at the penitentiary, they could not even look up at the
+      stars. It had been years since Alfred Williams raised his face to God's
+      heaven and knew he was part of it all. The voices of the night could not
+      penetrate the little cell in the heart of the mammoth stone building where
+      he spent his evenings over those masterpieces with which, they said, he
+      was more familiar than the average member of the Senate. When he read
+      those things Victor Hugo said of the vastness of the night, he could only
+      look around at the walls that enclosed him and try to reach back over the
+      twelve years for some satisfying conception of what night really was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Senator from Johnson shuddered: they had taken from a living creature
+      the things of life, and all because in the crucial hour there had been no
+      one to say a staying word. Man had cheated him of the things that were
+      man's, and then shut him away from the world that was God's. They had made
+      for him a life barren of compensations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There swept over the Senator a great feeling of self-pity. As
+      representative of Johnson County, it was he who must deny this boy the
+      whole great world without, the people who wanted to help him, and what the
+      Senator from Maxwell called &ldquo;his chance.&rdquo; If Johnson County carried the
+      day, there would be something unpleasant for him to consider all the
+      remainder of his life. As he grew to be an older man he would think of it
+      more and more&mdash;what the boy would have done for himself in the world
+      if the Senator from Johnson had not been more logical and more powerful
+      than the Senator from Maxwell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Senator Dorman was nearing the end of his argument. &ldquo;In spite of the
+      undying prejudice of the people of Johnson County,&rdquo; he was saying, &ldquo;I can
+      stand before you today and say that after an unsparing investigation of
+      this case I do not believe I am asking you to do anything in violation of
+      justice when I beg of you to give this boy his chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was going to a vote at once, and the Senator from Johnson County looked
+      out at the budding things and wondered whether the boy down at the
+      penitentiary knew the Senate was considering his case that afternoon. It
+      was without vanity he wondered whether what he had been trained to think
+      of as an all-wise providence would not have preferred that Johnson County
+      be represented that session by a less able man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great hush fell over the Chamber, for ayes and noes followed almost in
+      alternation. After a long minute of waiting the secretary called, in a
+      tense voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ayes, 30; Noes, 32.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Senator from Johnson had proven too faithful a servant of his
+      constituents. The boy in the penitentiary was denied his chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The usual things happened: some women in the galleries, who had boys at
+      home, cried aloud; the reporters were fighting for occupancy of the
+      telephone booths, and most of the Senators began the perusal of the
+      previous day's Journal with elaborate interest. Senator Dorman indulged in
+      none of these feints. A full look at his face just then told how much of
+      his soul had gone into the fight for the boy's chance, and the look about
+      his eyes was a little hard on the theory of psychological experiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Senator Harrison was looking out at the budding trees, but his face too
+      had grown strange, and he seemed to be looking miles beyond and years
+      ahead. It seemed that he himself was surrendering the voices of the night,
+      and the comings and goings of the sun. He would never look at them&mdash;feel
+      them&mdash;again without remembering he was keeping one of his fellow
+      creatures away from them. He wondered at his own presumption in denying
+      any living thing participation in the universe. And all the while there
+      were before him visions of the boy who sat in the cramped cell with the
+      volume of a favourite poet before him, trying to think how it would seem
+      to be out under the stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stillness in the Senate-Chamber was breaking; they were going ahead
+      with something else. It seemed to the Senator from Johnson that sun, moon,
+      and stars were wailing out protest for the boy who wanted to know them
+      better. And yet it was not sun, moon, and stars so much as the unused
+      swimming hole and the uncaught fish, the unattended ball game, the
+      never-seen circus, and, above all, the unowned dog, that brought Senator
+      Harrison to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They looked at him in astonishment, their faces seeming to say it would
+      have been in better taste for him to have remained seated just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. President,&rdquo; he said, pulling at his collar and looking straight
+      ahead, &ldquo;I rise to move a reconsideration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a gasp, a moment of supreme quiet, and then a mighty burst of
+      applause. To men of all parties and factions there came a single thought.
+      Johnson was the leading county of its Congressional district. There was an
+      election that fall, and Harrison was in the race. Those eight words meant
+      to a surety he would not go to Washington, for the Senator from Maxwell
+      had chosen the right word when he referred to the prejudice of Johnson
+      County on the Williams case as &ldquo;undying.&rdquo; The world throbs with such
+      things at the moment of their doing&mdash;even though condemning them
+      later, and the part of the world then packed within the Senate-Chamber
+      shared the universal disposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise astonished Senator Harrison, and he looked around with something
+      like resentment. When the tumult at last subsided, and he saw that he was
+      expected to make a speech, he grew very red, and grasped his chair
+      desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reporters were back in their places, leaning nervously forward. This
+      was Senator Harrison's chance to say something worth putting into a panel
+      by itself with black lines around it&mdash;and they were sure he would do
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did not. He stood there like a schoolboy who had forgotten his
+      piece&mdash;growing more and more red. &ldquo;I&mdash;I think,&rdquo; he finally
+      jerked out, &ldquo;that some of us have been mistaken. I'm in favour now of&mdash;of
+      giving him his chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They waited for him to proceed, but after a helpless look around the
+      Chamber he sat down. The president of the Senate waited several minutes
+      for him to rise again, but he at last turned his chair around and looked
+      out at the green things on the State-house grounds, and there was nothing
+      to do but go ahead with the second calling of the roll. This time it stood
+      50 to 12 in favour of the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A motion to adjourn immediately followed&mdash;no one wanted to do
+      anything more that afternoon. They all wanted to say things to the Senator
+      from Johnson; but his face had grown cold, and as they were usually afraid
+      of him, anyhow, they kept away. All but Senator Dorman&mdash;it meant too
+      much with him. &ldquo;Do you mind my telling you,&rdquo; he said, tensely, &ldquo;that it
+      was as fine a thing as I have ever known a man to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Senator from Johnson moved impatiently. &ldquo;You think it 'fine,'&rdquo; he
+      asked, almost resentfully, &ldquo;to be a coward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coward?&rdquo; cried the other man. &ldquo;Well, that's scarcely the word. It was&mdash;heroic!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no,&rdquo; said Senator Harrison, and he spoke wearily, &ldquo;it was a clear case
+      of cowardice. You see,&rdquo; he laughed, &ldquo;I was afraid it might haunt me when I
+      am seventy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Senator Dorman started eagerly to speak, but the other man stopped him and
+      passed on. He was seeing it as his constituency would see it, and it
+      humiliated him. They would say he had not the courage of his convictions,
+      that he was afraid of the unpopularity, that his judgment had fallen
+      victim to the eloquence of the Senator from Maxwell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when he left the building and came out into the softness of the April
+      afternoon it began to seem different. After all, it was not he alone who
+      leaned to the softer side. There were the trees&mdash;they were permitted
+      another chance to bud; there were the birds&mdash;they were allowed
+      another chance to sing; there was the earth&mdash;to it was given another
+      chance to yield. There stole over him a tranquil sense of unison with
+      Life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. &mdash; FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure you're done with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; replied the girl, the suggestion of a smile on her face, and in
+      her voice the suggestion of a tear. &ldquo;Yes; I was just going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not go. She turned instead to the end of the alcove and sat
+      down before a table placed by the window. Leaning her elbows upon it she
+      looked about her through a blur of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seen through her own eyes of longing, it seemed that almost all of the
+      people whom she could see standing before the files of the daily papers
+      were homesick. The reading-room had been a strange study to her during
+      those weeks spent in fruitless search for the work she wanted to do, and
+      it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When tired and disconsolate and
+      utterly sick at heart there was always one thing she could do&mdash;she
+      could go down to the library and look at the paper from home. It was not
+      that she wanted the actual news of Denver. She did not care in any vital
+      way what the city officials were doing, what buildings were going up, or
+      who was leaving town. She was only indifferently interested in the fires
+      and the murders. She wanted the comforting companionship of that paper
+      from home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed there were many to whom the papers offered that same sympathy,
+      companionship, whatever it might be. More than anything else it perhaps
+      gave to them&mdash;the searchers, drifters&mdash;a sense of anchorage. She
+      would not soon forget the day she herself had stumbled in there and found
+      the home paper. Chicago had given her nothing but rebuffs that day, and in
+      desperation, just because she must go somewhere, and did not want to go
+      back to her boarding-place, she had hunted out the city library. It was
+      when walking listlessly about in the big reading-room it had occurred to
+      her that perhaps she could find the paper from home; and after that when
+      things were their worst, when her throat grew tight and her eyes dim, she
+      could always comfort herself by saying: &ldquo;After a while I'll run down and
+      look at the paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But to-night it had failed her. It was not the paper from home to-night;
+      it was just a newspaper. It did not inspire the belief that things would
+      be better to-morrow, that it must all come right soon. It left her as she
+      had come&mdash;-heavy with the consciousness that in her purse was eleven
+      dollars, and that that was every cent she had in the whole world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hard to hold back the tears as she dwelt upon the fact that it was
+      very little she had asked of Chicago. She had asked only a chance to do
+      the work for which she was trained, in order that she might go to the art
+      classes at night. She had read in the papers of that mighty young city of
+      the Middle West&mdash;the heart of the continent&mdash;of its brawn and
+      its brain and its grit. She had supposed that Chicago, of all places,
+      would appreciate what she wanted to do. The day she drew her hard-earned
+      one hundred dollars from the bank in Denver&mdash;how the sun had shone
+      that day in Denver, how clear the sky had been, and how bracing the air!&mdash;she
+      had quite taken it for granted that her future was assured. And now, after
+      tasting for three weeks the cruelty of indifference, she looked back to
+      those visions with a hard little smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to go, and in so doing her eyes fell upon the queer little woman
+      to whom she had yielded her place before the Denver paper. Submerged as
+      she had been in her own desolation she had given no heed to the small
+      figure which came slipping along beside her beyond the bare thought that
+      she was queer-looking. But as her eyes rested upon her now there was
+      something about the woman which held her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a strange little figure. An old-fashioned shawl was pinned tightly
+      about her shoulders, and she was wearing a queer, rusty little bonnet. Her
+      hair was rolled up in a small knot at the back of her head. She did not
+      look as though she belonged in Chicago. And then, as the girl stood there
+      looking at her, she saw the thin shoulders quiver, and after a minute the
+      head that was wearing the rusty bonnet went down into the folds of the
+      Denver paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl's own eyes filled, and she turned to go. It seemed she could
+      scarcely bear her own unhappiness that day, without coming close to the
+      heartache of another. But when she reached the end of the alcove she
+      glanced back, and the sight of that shabby, bent figure, all alone before
+      the Denver paper, was not to be withstood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am from Colorado, too,&rdquo; she said softly, laying a hand upon the bent
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman looked up at that and took the girl's hand in both of her thin,
+      trembling ones. It was a wan and a troubled face she lifted, and there was
+      something about the eyes which would not seem to have been left there by
+      tears alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you have a pining for the mountains?&rdquo; she whispered, with a timid
+      eagerness. &ldquo;Do you have a feeling that you want to see the sun go down
+      behind them tonight and that you want to see the darkness come stealing up
+      to the tops?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl half turned away, but she pressed the woman's hand tightly in
+      hers. &ldquo;I know what you mean,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wanted to see it so bad,&rdquo; continued the woman, tremulously, &ldquo;that
+      something just drove me here to this paper. I knowed it was here because
+      my nephew's wife brought me here one day and we come across it. We took
+      this paper at home for more 'an twenty years. That's why I come. 'Twas the
+      closest I could get.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you mean,&rdquo; said the girl again, unsteadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it's the closest I will ever get!&rdquo; sobbed the woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't say that,&rdquo; protested the girl, brushing away her own tears, and
+      trying to smile; &ldquo;you'll go back home some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman shook her head. &ldquo;And if I should,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;even if I should,
+      'twill be too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it couldn't be too late,&rdquo; insisted the girl. &ldquo;The mountains, you
+      know, will be there forever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mountains will be there forever,&rdquo; repeated the woman, musingly; &ldquo;yes,
+      but not for me to see.&rdquo; There was a pause. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo;&mdash;she said it
+      quietly&mdash;&ldquo;I'm going blind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl took a quick step backward, then stretched out two impulsive
+      hands. &ldquo;Oh, no, no you're not! Why&mdash;the doctors, you know, they do
+      everything now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman shook her head. &ldquo;That's what I thought when I come here. That's
+      why I come. But I saw the biggest doctor of them all today&mdash;they all
+      say he's the best there is&mdash;and he said right out 'twas no use to do
+      anything. He said 'twas&mdash;hopeless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice broke on that word. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she hurried on, &ldquo;I wouldn't care
+      so much, seems like I wouldn't care 't all, if I could get there first! If
+      I could see the sun go down behind them just one night! If I could see the
+      black shadows come slippin' over 'em just once! And then, if just one
+      morning&mdash;just once!&mdash;I could get up and see the sunlight come a
+      streamin'&mdash;oh, you know how it looks! You know what 'tis I want to
+      see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but why can't you? Why not? You won't go&mdash;your eyesight will
+      last until you get back home, won't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't go back home; not now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; demanded the girl. &ldquo;Why can't you go home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, there ain't no money, my dear,&rdquo; she explained, patiently. &ldquo;It's a
+      long way off&mdash;Colorado is, and there ain't no money. Now, George&mdash;George
+      is my brother-in-law&mdash;he got me the money to come; but you see it
+      took it all to come here, and to pay them doctors with. And George&mdash;he
+      ain't rich, and it pinched him hard for me to come&mdash;he says I'll have
+      to wait until he gets money laid up again, and&mdash;well he can't tell
+      just when 't will be. He'll send it soon as he gets it,&rdquo; she hastened to
+      add.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what are you going to do in the meantime? It would cost less to get
+      you home than to keep you here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I stay with my nephew here. He's willin' I should stay with him till
+      I get my money to go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but this nephew, can't he get you the money? Doesn't he know,&rdquo; she
+      insisted, heatedly, &ldquo;what it means to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's got five children, and not much laid up. And then, he never seen the
+      mountains. He doesn't know what I mean when I try to tell him about
+      gettin' there in time. Why, he says there's many a one living back in the
+      mountains would like to be livin' here. He don't understand&mdash;my
+      nephew don't,&rdquo; she added, apologetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, <i>someone</i> ought to understand!&rdquo; broke from the girl. &ldquo;I
+      understand! But&mdash;&rdquo; she did her best to make it a laugh&mdash;&ldquo;eleven
+      dollars is every cent I've got in the world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't!&rdquo; implored the woman, as the girl gave up trying to control the
+      tears. &ldquo;Now, don't you be botherin'. I didn't mean to make you feel so
+      bad. My nephew says I ain't reasonable, and maybe I ain't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl raised her head. &ldquo;But you <i>are</i> reasonable. I tell you, you
+      <i>are</i> reasonable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be going back,&rdquo; said the woman, uncertainly. &ldquo;I'm just making you
+      feel bad, and it won't do no good. And then they may be stirred up about
+      me. Emma&mdash;Emma's my nephew's wife&mdash;left me at the doctor's
+      office 'cause she had some trading to do, and she was to come back there
+      for me. And then, as I was sittin' there, the pinin' came over me so
+      strong it seemed I just must get up and start! And&rdquo;&mdash;-she smiled
+      wanly&mdash;-&ldquo;this was far as I got.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come over and sit down by this table,&rdquo; said the girl, impulsively, &ldquo;and
+      tell me a little about your home back in the mountains. Wouldn't you like
+      to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman nodded gratefully. &ldquo;Seems most like getting back to them to find
+      someone that knows about them,&rdquo; she said, after they had drawn their
+      chairs up to the table and were sitting there side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl put her rounded hand over on the thin, withered one. &ldquo;Tell me
+      about it,&rdquo; she said again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe it wouldn't be much interesting to you, my dear. It's just a common
+      life&mdash;mine is. You see, William and I&mdash;William was my husband&mdash;we
+      went to Georgetown before it really was any town at all. Years and years
+      before the railroad went through, we was there. Was you ever there?&rdquo; she
+      asked wistfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very often,&rdquo; replied the girl. &ldquo;I love every inch of that country!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A tear stole down the woman's face. &ldquo;It's most like being home to find
+      someone that knows about it,&rdquo; she whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, William and I went there when 'twas all new country,&rdquo; she went on,
+      after a pause. &ldquo;We worked hard, and we laid up a little money. Then, three
+      years ago, William took sick. He was sick for a year, and we had to live
+      up most of what we'd saved. That's why I ain't got none now. It ain't that
+      William didn't provide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We seen some hard days. But we was always harmonious&mdash;William and I
+      was. And William had a great fondness for the mountains. The night before
+      he died he made them take him over by the window and he looked out and
+      watched the darkness come stealin' over the daylight&mdash;you know how it
+      does in them mountains. 'Mother,' he said to me&mdash;his voice was that
+      low I could no more 'an hear what he said&mdash;'I'll never see another
+      sun go down, but I'm thankful I seen this one.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was crying outright now, and the girl did not try to stop her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that's the reason I love the mountains,&rdquo; she whispered at last. &ldquo;It
+      ain't just that they're grand and wonderful to look at. It ain't just the
+      things them tourists sees to talk about. But the mountains has always been
+      like a comfortin' friend to me. John and Sarah is buried there&mdash;John
+      and Sarah is my two children that died of fever. And then William is there&mdash;like
+      I just told you. And the mountains was a comfort to me in all those times
+      of trouble. They're like an old friend. Seems like they're the best friend
+      I've got on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you mean,&rdquo; said the girl, brokenly. &ldquo;I know all about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you don't think I'm just notional,&rdquo; she asked wistfully, &ldquo;in pinin'
+      to get back while&mdash;whilst I can look at them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl held the old hand tightly in hers with a clasp more responsive
+      than words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't but I'd know they was there. I could feel they was there all
+      right, but&rdquo;&mdash;her voice sank with the horror of it&mdash;&ldquo;I'm 'fraid I
+      might forget just how they look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but you won't,&rdquo; the girl assured her. &ldquo;You'll remember just how they
+      look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm scared of it. I'm scared there might be something I'd forget. And so
+      I just torment myself thinkin'&mdash;'Now do I remember this? Can I see
+      just how that looks?' That's the way I got to thinkin' up in the doctor's
+      office, when he told me there was nothing to do, and I was so worked up it
+      seemed I must get up and start!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must try not to worry about it,&rdquo; murmured the girl. &ldquo;You'll
+      remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, maybe so. Maybe I will. But that's why I want just one more look.
+      If I could look once more I'd remember it forever. You see I'd look to
+      remember it, and I would. And do you know&mdash;seems like I wouldn't mind
+      going blind so much then? When I'd sit facin' them I'd just say to myself:
+      'Now I know just how they look. I'm seeing them just as if I had my eyes!'
+      The doctor says my sight'll just kind of slip away, and when I look my
+      last look, when it gets dimmer and dimmer to me, I want the last thing I
+      see to be them mountains where William and me worked and was so happy!
+      Seems like I can't bear it to have my sight slip away here in Chicago,
+      where there's nothing I want to look at! And then to have a little left&mdash;to
+      have just a little left!&mdash;and to know I could see if I was there to
+      look&mdash;and to know that when I get there 'twill be&mdash;Oh, I'll be
+      rebellious-like here&mdash;and I'd be contented there! I don't want to be
+      complainin'&mdash;I don't want to!&mdash;but when I've only got a little
+      left I want it&mdash;oh, I want it for them things I want to see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see them,&rdquo; insisted the girl passionately. &ldquo;I'm not going to
+      believe the world can be so hideous as that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, maybe so,&rdquo; said the woman, rising. &ldquo;But I don't know where 'twill
+      come from,&rdquo; she added doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her back to the doctor's office and left her in the care of the
+      stolid Emma. &ldquo;Seems most like I'd been back home,&rdquo; she said in parting;
+      and the girl promised to come and see her and talk with her about the
+      mountains. The woman thought that talking about them would help her to
+      remember just how they looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the girl returned to the library. She did not know why she did
+      so. In truth she scarcely knew she was going there until she found herself
+      sitting before that same secluded table at which she and the woman had sat
+      a little while before. For a long time she sat there with her head in her
+      hands, tears falling upon a pad of yellow paper on the table before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally she dried her eyes, opened her purse, and counted her money. It
+      seemed that out of her great desire, out of her great new need, there must
+      be more than she had thought. But there was not, and she folded her hands
+      upon the two five-dollar bills and the one silver dollar and looked
+      hopelessly about the big room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had forgotten her own disappointments, her own loneliness. She was
+      oblivious to everything in the world now save what seemed the absolute
+      necessity of getting the woman back to the mountains while she had eyes to
+      see them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what could she do? Again she counted the money. She could make
+      herself, some way or other, get along without one of the five-dollar
+      bills, but five dollars would not take one very close to the mountains. It
+      was at that moment that she saw a man standing before the Denver paper,
+      and noticed that another man was waiting to take his place. The one who
+      was reading had a dinner pail in his hand. The clothes of the other told
+      that he, too, was of the world's workers. It was clear to the girl that
+      the man at the file was reading the paper from home; and the man who was
+      ready to take his place looked as if waiting for something less impersonal
+      than the news of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea came upon her with such suddenness, so full born, that it made
+      her gasp. They&mdash;the people who came to read the Denver paper, the
+      people who loved the mountains and were far from them, the people who were
+      themselves homesick and full of longing&mdash;were the people to
+      understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It took her but a minute to act. She put the silver dollar and one
+      five-dollar bill back in her purse. She clutched the other bill in her
+      left hand, picked up a pencil, and began to write. She headed the
+      petition: &ldquo;To all who know and love the mountains,&rdquo; and she told the story
+      with the simpleness of one speaking from the heart, and the directness of
+      one who speaks to those sure to understand. &ldquo;And so I found her here by
+      the Denver paper,&rdquo; she said, after she had stated the tragic facts,
+      &ldquo;because it was the closest she could come to the mountains. Her heart is
+      not breaking because she is going blind. It is breaking because she may
+      never again look with seeing eyes upon those great hills which rise up
+      about her home. We must do it for her simply because we would wish that,
+      under like circumstances, someone would do it for us. She belongs to us
+      because we understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can only give fifty cents, please do not hold it back because it
+      seems but little. Fifty cents will take her twenty miles nearer home&mdash;twenty
+      miles closer to the things upon which she longs that her last seeing
+      glance may fall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After she had written it she rose, and, the five-dollar bill in one hand,
+      the sheets of yellow paper in the other, walked down the long room to the
+      desk at which one of the librarians sat. The girl's cheeks were very red,
+      her eyes shining as she poured out the story. They mingled their tears,
+      for the girl at the desk was herself young and far from home, and then
+      they walked back to the Denver paper and pinned the sheets of yellow paper
+      just above the file. At the bottom of the petition the librarian wrote:
+      &ldquo;Leave your money at the desk in this room. It will be properly attended
+      to.&rdquo; The girl from Colorado then turned over her five-dollar bill and
+      passed out into the gathering night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her heart was brimming with joy. &ldquo;I can get a cheaper boarding place,&rdquo; she
+      told herself, as she joined the home-going crowds, &ldquo;and until something
+      else turns up I'll just look around and see if I can't get a place in a
+      store.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One by one they had gathered around while the woman was telling the story.
+      &ldquo;And so, if you don't mind,&rdquo; she said, in conclusion, &ldquo;I'd like to have
+      you put in a little piece that I got to Denver safe, so's they can see it.
+      They was all so worked up about when I'd get here. Would that cost much?&rdquo;
+       she asked timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a cent,&rdquo; said the city editor, his voice gruff with the attempt to
+      keep it steady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might say, if it wouldn't take too much room, that I was much pleased
+      with the prospect of getting home before sundown to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't worry but what we'll say it all,&rdquo; he assured her. &ldquo;We'll say
+      a great deal more than you have any idea of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm very thankful to you,&rdquo; she said, as she rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat there for a moment in silence. &ldquo;When one considers,&rdquo; someone
+      began, &ldquo;that they were people who were pushed too close even to subscribe
+      to a daily paper&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When one considers,&rdquo; said the city editor, &ldquo;that the girl who started it
+      had just eleven dollars to her name&mdash;&rdquo; And then he, too, stopped
+      abruptly and there was another long moment of silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that he looked around at the reporters. &ldquo;Well, it's too bad you
+      can't all have it, when it's so big a chance, but I guess it falls
+      logically to Raymond. And in writing it, just remember, Raymond, that the
+      biggest stories are not written about wars, or about politics, or even
+      murders. The biggest stories are written about the things which draw human
+      beings closer together. And the chance to write them doesn't come every
+      day, or every year, or every lifetime. And I'll tell you, boys, all of
+      you, when it seems sometimes that the milk of human kindness has all
+      turned sour, just think back to the little story you heard this
+      afternoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly the sun slipped down behind the mountains; slowly the long purple
+      shadows deepened to black; and with the coming of the night there settled
+      over the everlasting hills, and over the soul of one who had returned to
+      them, that satisfying calm that men call peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV. &mdash; FRECKLES M'GRATH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Many visitors to the State-house made the mistake of looking upon the
+      Governor as the most important personage in the building. They would walk
+      up and down the corridors, hoping for a glimpse of some of the leading
+      officials, when all the while Freckles McGrath, the real character of the
+      Capitol, and by all odds the most illustrious person in it, was at once
+      accessible and affable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles McGrath was the elevator boy. In the official register his name
+      had gone down as William, but that was a mere concession to the
+      constituents to whom the official register was sent out. In the newspapers&mdash;and
+      he appeared with frequency in the newspapers&mdash;he was always
+      &ldquo;Freckles,&rdquo; and every one from the Governor down gave him that title, the
+      appropriateness of which was stamped a hundred fold upon his shrewd, jolly
+      Irish face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like every one else on the State pay-roll, Freckles was keyed high during
+      this first week of the new session. It was a reform Legislature, and so
+      imbued was it with the idea of reforming that there was grave danger of
+      its forcing reformation upon everything in sight. It happened that the
+      Governor was of the same faction of the party as that dominant in the
+      Legislature; reform breathed through every nook and crevice of the great
+      building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But high above all else in importance towered the Kelley Bill. From the
+      very opening of the session there was scarcely a day when some of
+      Freckles' passengers did not in hushed whispers mention the Kelley Bill.
+      From what he could pick up about the building, and what he read in the
+      newspapers, Freckles put together a few ideas as to what the Kelley Bill
+      really was. It was a great reform measure, and it was going to show the
+      railroads that they did not own the State. The railroads were going to
+      have to pay more taxes, and they were making an awful fuss about it; but
+      if the Kelley Bill could be put through it would be a great victory for
+      reform, and would make the Governor &ldquo;solid&rdquo; in the State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles McGrath was strong for reform. That was partly because the
+      snatches of speeches he heard in the Legislature were more thrilling when
+      for reform than when against it; it was partly because he adored the
+      Governor, and in no small part because he despised Mr. Ludlow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Ludlow was a lobbyist. Some of the members of the Legislature were Mr.
+      Ludlow's property&mdash;or at least so Freckles inferred from conversation
+      overheard at his post. There had been a great deal of talk that session
+      about Mr. Ludlow's methods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles himself was no snob. Although he had heard Mr. Ludlow called
+      disgraceful, and although he firmly believed he was disgraceful, he did
+      not consider that any reason for not speaking to him. And so when Mr.
+      Ludlow got in all alone one morning, and the occasion seemed to demand
+      recognition of some sort, Freckles had chirped: &ldquo;Good-morning!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the man, possibly deep in something else, simply knit together his
+      brows and gave no sign of having heard. After that, Henry Ludlow,
+      lobbyist, and Freckles McGrath, elevator boy, were enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little before noon, one day near the end of the session, a member of the
+      Senate and a member of the House rode down together in the elevator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's no use waiting any longer,&rdquo; the Senator was saying as they got
+      in. &ldquo;We're as strong now as we're going to be. It's a matter of Stacy's
+      vote, and that's a matter of who sees him last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles widened out his ears and gauged the elevator for very slow
+      running. Stacy had been written up in the papers as a wabbler on the
+      Kelley Bill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's all right now,&rdquo; pursued the Senator, &ldquo;but there's every chance that
+      Ludlow will see him before he casts his vote this afternoon, and then&mdash;oh,
+      I don't know!&rdquo; and with a weary little flourish of his hands the Senator
+      stepped off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles McGrath sat wrapped in deep thought. The Kelley Bill was coming
+      up in the Senate that afternoon. If Senator Stacy voted for it, it would
+      pass. If he voted against it, it would fail. He would vote for it if he
+      didn't see Mr. Ludlow; he wouldn't vote for it if he did. That was the
+      situation, and the Governor's whole future, Freckles felt, was at stake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bell rang sharply, and he was vaguely conscious then that it had been
+      ringing before. In the next half-hour he was very busy taking down the
+      members of the Legislature. Strangely enough, Senator Stacy and the
+      Governor went down the same trip, and Freckles beamed with approbation
+      when, he saw them walk out of the building together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stacy was one of the first of the senators to return. Freckles sized him
+      up keenly as he stepped into the elevator, and decided that he was still
+      firm. But there was a look about Senator Stacy's mouth which suggested
+      that there was no use in being too sure of him. Freckles considered the
+      advisability of bursting forth and telling him how much better it would be
+      to stick with the reform fellows; but just as the boy got his courage
+      screwed up to speaking point, Senator Stacy got off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About ten minutes later Freckles had the elevator on the ground floor, and
+      was sitting there reading a paper, when he heard a step that made him
+      prick up his ears. The next minute Mr. Ludlow turned the corner. He was
+      immaculately dressed, as usual, and his iron-grey moustache seemed to
+      stand out just a little more pompously than ever. There was a sneering
+      look in his eyes as he stepped into the car. It seemed to be saying: &ldquo;They
+      thought they could beat me, did they? Oh, they're easy, they are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles McGrath slammed the door of the cage and started the car up. He
+      did not know what he was going to do, but he had an idea that he did not
+      want any other passenger. When half way between the basement and the first
+      floor, he stopped the elevator. He must have time to think. If he took
+      that man up to the Senate Chamber, he would simply strike the death-blow
+      to reform! And so he knelt and pretended to be fixing something, and he
+      thought fast and hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something broke?&rdquo; asked an anxious voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles looked around into Mr. Ludlow's face, and he saw that the eminent
+      lobbyist was nervous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said calmly. &ldquo;It's acting queer. Something's all out of whack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, drop it to the basement and let me out,&rdquo; said Mr. Ludlow sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't drop it,&rdquo; responded Freckles. &ldquo;She's stuck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Ludlow came and looked things over, but his knowledge did not extend
+      to the mechanism of elevators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better call someone to come and take us out,&rdquo; he said nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles straightened himself up. A glitter had come into his small grey
+      eyes, and red spots were burning in his freckled cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think she'll run now,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she did run. Never in all its history had that State-house elevator
+      run as it ran then. It rushed past the first and second floors like a
+      thing let loose, with an utter abandonment that caused the blood to
+      forsake the eminent lobbyist's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop it, boy!&rdquo; he cried in alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't!&rdquo; responded Freckles, his voice thick with terror. &ldquo;Running away!&rdquo;
+       he gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will it&mdash;fall?&rdquo; whispered the lobbyist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I think so!&rdquo; blubbered Freckles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The central portion of the State-house was very high. Above that part of
+      the building which was in use there was a long stretch leading to the
+      tower. The shaft had been built clear up, though practically unused. Past
+      floors used for store-rooms, past floors used for nothing at all, they
+      went&mdash;the man's face white, the boy wailing out incoherent
+      supplications. And then, within ten feet of the top of the shaft, and
+      within a foot of the top floor of the building, the elevator came to a
+      rickety stop. It wabbled back and forth; it did strange and terrible
+      things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's falling!&rdquo; panted Freckles. &ldquo;Climb!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Henry Ludlow climbed. He got the door open, and he clambered up. No
+      sooner had the man's feet touched the solid floor than Freckles reached up
+      and slammed the door of the cage. Why he did that he was not sure at the
+      time. Later he felt that something had warned him not to give his
+      prisoner's voice a full sweep down the shaft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry Ludlow was far from dull. As he saw the quick but even descent of
+      the car, he knew that he had been tricked. He would have been more than
+      human had there not burst from him furious and threatening words. But what
+      was the use? The car was going down&mdash;down&mdash;down, and there he
+      was, perhaps hundreds of feet above any one else in the building&mdash;alone,
+      tricked, beaten!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course he tried the door at the head of the winding stairway, knowing
+      full well that it would be locked. They always kept it locked; he had
+      heard one of the janitors asking for the keys to take a party up just a
+      few days before. Perhaps he could get out on top of the building and make
+      signals of distress. But the door leading outside was locked also. There
+      he was&mdash;helpless. And below&mdash;well, below they were passing the
+      Kelley Bill!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rattled the grating of the elevator shaft. He made strange, loud
+      noises, knowing all the while he could not make himself heard. And then at
+      last, alone in the State-house attic, Henry Ludlow, eminent lobbyist, sat
+      down on a box and nursed his fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Below, Freckles McGrath, the youngest champion of reform in the building,
+      was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and he whistled. He
+      took people up and down with as much nonchalance as if he did not know
+      that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were straining themselves for
+      a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses were descending, literally, upon
+      his stubby red head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a great afternoon at the State-house. Every one thronged to the
+      doors of the Senate Chamber, where they were putting through the Kelley
+      Bill. The speeches made in behalf of the measure were brief. The great
+      thing now was not to make speeches; it was to reach &ldquo;S&rdquo; on roll-call
+      before a man with iron-grey hair and an iron-grey moustache could come in
+      and say something to the fair-haired member with the weak mouth who sat
+      near the rear of the chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles was called away just as it went to a vote. When he came back
+      Senator Kelley was standing out in the corridor, and a great crowd of men
+      were standing around slapping him on the back. The Governor himself was
+      standing on the steps of the Senate Chamber; his eyes were bright, and he
+      was smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles turned his car back to the basement. He wanted to be all alone
+      for a minute, to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was he, Freckles
+      McGrath, who had won this great victory for reform. It was he, Freckles
+      McGrath, who had assured the Governor's future. Why, perhaps he had that
+      afternoon made for himself a name which would be handed down in the
+      histories!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles was a kind little boy, and he knew that an elegant gentleman
+      could not find the attic any too pleasant a place in which to spend the
+      afternoon, go he decided to go up and get Mr. Ludlow. It took courage; but
+      he had won his victory and this was no time for faltering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something gruesome about the long ascent. He thought of stories
+      he had read of lonely turrets in which men were beheaded, and otherwise
+      made away with. It seemed he would never come to the top, and when at last
+      he did it was to find two of the most awful-looking eyes he had ever seen&mdash;eyes
+      that looked as though furies were going to escape from them&mdash;peering
+      down upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of that car, moving smoothly and securely up to the top, and the
+      sight of that audacious little boy with the freckled face and the bat-like
+      eyes, that little boy who had played his game so well, who had wrought
+      such havoc, was too much for Henry Ludlow's self-control. Words such as he
+      had never used before, such as he would not have supposed himself capable
+      of using, burst from him. But Freckles stood calmly gazing up at the
+      infuriated lobbyist, and just as Mr. Ludlow was saying, &ldquo;I'll beat your
+      head open, you little brat!&rdquo; he calmly reversed the handle and sent the
+      car skimming smoothly to realms below. He was followed by an angry yell,
+      and then by a loud request to return, but he heeded them not, and for some
+      time longer the car made its usual rounds between the basement and the
+      legislative chambers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In just an hour Freckles tried it again. He sent the car to within three
+      feet of the attic floor, and then peered through the grating, his face
+      tied in a knot of interrogation. The eminent lobbyist stood there gulping
+      down wrath and pride, knowing well enough what was expected of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;all right,&rdquo; he muttered at last, and with that much of an
+      understanding Freckles sent the car up, opened the door, and Henry Ludlow
+      stepped in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No word was spoken between them until the light from the floor upon which
+      the Senate Chamber was situated came in view. Then Freckles turned with a
+      polite inquiry as to where the gentleman wished to get off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may take me down to the office of the Governor,&rdquo; said Mr. Ludlow
+      stonily, meaningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; said Freckles cheerfully. &ldquo;Guess you'll find the Governor in his
+      office now. He's been in the Senate most of the afternoon, watching 'em
+      pass that Kelley Bill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Ludlow's lips drew in tightly. He squared his shoulders, and his
+      silence was tremendous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In just fifteen minutes Freckles was sent for from the executive office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I demand his discharge!&rdquo; Mr. Ludlow was saying as the elevator boy
+      entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It happens you're not running this building,&rdquo; the Governor returned with
+      a good deal of acidity. &ldquo;Though of course,&rdquo; he added with dignity, &ldquo;the
+      matter will be carefully investigated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor was one great chuckle inside, and his heart was full of
+      admiration and gratitude; but would Freckles be equal to bluffing it
+      through? Would the boy have the finesse, the nice subtlety, the real
+      master hand, the situation demanded? If not, then&mdash;imp of salvation
+      though he was&mdash;in the interest of reform, Freckles would have to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a very innocent looking boy who stood before him and looked
+      inquiringly into his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;William,&rdquo; began the Governor&mdash;Freckles was pained at first, and then
+      remembered that officially he was William&mdash;&ldquo;this gentleman has made a
+      very serious charge against you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles looked at Mr. Ludlow in a hurt way, and waited for the Governor
+      to proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He says,&rdquo; went on the chief executive, &ldquo;that you deliberately took him to
+      the top of the building and wilfully left him there a prisoner all
+      afternoon. Did you do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir,&rdquo; burst forth Freckles, &ldquo;I did the very best I could to save his
+      life! I was willing to sacrifice mine for him. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You little liar!&rdquo; broke in Ludlow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor held up his hand. &ldquo;You had your chance. Let him have his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, Governor,&rdquo; began Freckles, as if anxious to set right a great
+      wrong which had been done him, &ldquo;the car is acting bad. The engineer said
+      only this morning it needed a going over. When it took that awful shoot, I
+      lost control of it. Maybe I'm to be discharged for losing control of it,
+      but not&rdquo;&mdash;Freckles sniffled pathetically&mdash;-&ldquo;but not for anything
+      like what he says I done. Why Governor,&rdquo; he went on, ramming his knuckles
+      into his eyes, &ldquo;I ain't got nothing against him! What'd I take him to the
+      attic for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not for money,&rdquo; sneered Mr. Ludlow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor turned on him sharply. &ldquo;When you can bring any proof of that,
+      I'll be ready to hear it. Until you can, you'd better leave it out of the
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strange it should have happened this very afternoon,&rdquo; put in the eminent
+      lobbyist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor looked at him with open countenance. &ldquo;You were especially
+      interested in something this afternoon? I thought you told me you had no
+      vital interest here this session.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing to be said. Mr. Ludlow said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, William,&rdquo; pursued the Governor, fearful in his heart that this would
+      be Freckles' undoing, &ldquo;why did you close the door of the shaft before you
+      started down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see, sir,&rdquo; began Freckles, still tremulously, &ldquo;I'm so used to
+      closin' doors. Closin' doors has become a kind of second nature with me.
+      I've been told about it so many times. And up there, though I thought I
+      was losin' my life, still I didn't neglect my duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor put his hand to his mouth and coughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why,&rdquo; he went on, more secure now, for a boy who could get out of
+      that could get out of anything, &ldquo;why was it you didn't make some immediate
+      effort to get Mr. Ludlow down? Why didn't you notify someone, or do
+      something about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I supposed, of course, he walked down by the stairs,&rdquo; cried
+      Freckles. &ldquo;I never dreamed he'd want to trust the elevator after the way
+      she had acted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The door was locked,&rdquo; snarled the eminent lobbyist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, you see, I didn't know that,&rdquo; explained Freckles expansively.
+      &ldquo;Late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test the car&mdash;and
+      there you were! I never was so surprised in my life. I supposed, of
+      course, sir, that you'd spent the afternoon in the Senate, along with
+      everybody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more the Governor put his hand to his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your case will come before the executive council at its next meeting,
+      William. And if anything like this should happen again, you will be
+      discharged on the spot.&rdquo; Freckles bowed. &ldquo;You may go now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was almost at the door the Governor called to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think, William,&rdquo; he said&mdash;the Governor felt that he and
+      Freckles could afford to be generous&mdash;&ldquo;that you should apologise to
+      the gentleman for the really grave inconvenience to which you have been
+      the means of subjecting him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Freckles' little grey eyes grew steely. He looked at Henry Ludlow, and
+      there was an ominous silence. Then light broke over his face. &ldquo;On behalf
+      of the elevator,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I apologise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And a third time the Governor's hand was raised to his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next week Freckles was wearing a signet ring; long and audibly had he
+      sighed for a ring of such kind and proportions. He was at some pains in
+      explaining to everyone to whom he showed it that it had been sent him by
+      &ldquo;a friend up home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V. &mdash; FROM A TO Z
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Thus had another ideal tumbled to the rubbish heap! She seemed to be
+      breathing the dust which the newly fallen had stirred up among its longer
+      dead fellows. Certainly she was breathing the dust from somewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During her senior year at the university, when people would ask: &ldquo;And what
+      are you going to do when you leave school, Miss Willard?&rdquo; she would
+      respond with anything that came to hand, secretly hugging to her mind that
+      idea of getting a position in a publishing house. Her conception of her
+      publishing house was finished about the same time as her class-day gown.
+      She was to have a roll-top desk&mdash;probably of mahogany&mdash;and a big
+      chair which whirled round like that in the office of the under-graduate
+      dean. She was to have a little office all by herself, opening on a bigger
+      office&mdash;the little one marked &ldquo;Private.&rdquo; There were to be beautiful
+      rugs&mdash;the general effect not unlike the library at the University
+      Club&mdash;books and pictures and cultivated gentlemen who spoke often of
+      Greek tragedies and the Renaissance. She was a little uncertain as to her
+      duties, but had a general idea about getting down between nine and ten,
+      reading the morning paper, cutting the latest magazine, and then &ldquo;writing
+      something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Commencement was now four months past, and one of her professors had
+      indeed secured for her a position in a Chicago &ldquo;publishing house.&rdquo; This
+      was her first morning and she was standing at the window looking down into
+      Dearborn Street while the man who was to have her in charge was fixing a
+      place for her to sit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the publishing house should be on Dearborn Street had been her first
+      blow, for she had long located her publishing house on that beautiful
+      stretch of Michigan Avenue which overlooked the lake. But the real insult
+      was that this publishing house, instead of having a building, or at least
+      a floor, all to itself, simply had a place penned off in a bleak, dirty
+      building such as one who had done work in sociological research
+      instinctively associated with a box factory. And the thing which fairly
+      trailed her visions in the dust was that the partition penning them off
+      did not extend to the ceiling, and the adjoining room being occupied by a
+      patent medicine company, she was face to face with glaring endorsements of
+      Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. Taken all in all there
+      seemed little chance for Greek tragedies or the Renaissance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man who was &ldquo;running things&rdquo;&mdash;she buried her phraseology with her
+      dreams&mdash;wore a skull cap, and his moustache dragged down below his
+      chin. Just at present he was engaged in noisily pulling a most unliterary
+      pine table from a dark corner to a place near the window. That
+      accomplished, an ostentatious hunt ensued, resulting in the triumphant
+      flourish of a feather duster. Several knocks at the table, and the dust of
+      many months&mdash;perhaps likewise of many dreams&mdash;ascended to a
+      resting place on the endorsement of Dr. Bunting's Kidney and Bladder Cure.
+      He next produced a short, straight-backed chair which she recognised as
+      brother to the one which used to stand behind their kitchen stove. He gave
+      it a shake, thus delicately indicating that she was receiving special
+      favours in this matter of an able-bodied chair, and then announced with
+      brisk satisfaction: &ldquo;So! Now we are ready to begin.&rdquo; She murmured a &ldquo;Thank
+      you,&rdquo; seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did not
+      whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did not even dream in
+      mahogany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the <i>other</i> publishing house, one pushed buttons and uniformed
+      menials appeared&mdash;noiselessly, quickly and deferentially. At this
+      moment a boy with sandy hair brushed straight back in a manner either
+      statesmanlike or clownlike&mdash;things were too involved to know which&mdash;shuffled
+      in with an armful of yellow paper which he flopped down on the pine table.
+      After a minute he returned with a warbled &ldquo;Take Me Back to New York Town&rdquo;
+       and a paste-pot. And upon his third appearance he was practising
+      gymnastics with a huge pair of shears, which he finally presented,
+      grinningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long pause, broken only by the sonorous voice of Dr. Bunting
+      upbraiding someone for not having billed out that stuff to Apple Grove,
+      and then the sandy-haired boy appeared bearing a large dictionary,
+      followed by the man in the skull cap behind a dictionary of equal
+      unwieldiness. These were set down on either side of the yellow paper, and
+      he who was filling the position of cultivated gentleman pulled up a chair,
+      briskly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has Professor Lee explained to you the nature of our work?&rdquo; he wanted to
+      know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she replied, half grimly, a little humourously, and not far from
+      tearfully, &ldquo;he didn't&mdash;explain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it is my pleasure to inform you,&rdquo; he began, blinking at her
+      importantly, &ldquo;that we are engaged here in the making of a dictionary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A <i>dic&mdash;?</i>&rdquo; but she swallowed the gasp in the laugh coming up
+      to meet it, and of their union was born a saving cough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite an overpowering thought, is it not?&rdquo; he agreed pleasantly. &ldquo;Now you
+      see you have before you the two dictionaries you will use most, and over
+      in that case you will find other references. The main thing&rdquo;&mdash;his
+      voice sank to an impressive whisper&mdash;&ldquo;is <i>not</i> to infringe the
+      copyright. The publisher was in yesterday and made a little talk to the
+      force, and he said that any one who handed in a piece of copy infringing
+      the copyright simply employed that means of writing his own resignation.
+      Neat way of putting it, was it not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, <i>wasn't</i> it&mdash;neat?&rdquo; she agreed, wildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was conscious of a man's having stepped in behind her and taken a seat
+      at the table next hers. She heard him opening his dictionaries and getting
+      out his paper. Then the man in the skull cap had risen and was saying
+      genially: &ldquo;Well, here is a piece of old Webster, your first 'take'&mdash;no
+      copyright on this, you see, but you must modernise and expand. Don't miss
+      any of the good words in either of these dictionaries. Here you have
+      dictionaries, copy-paper, paste, and Professor Lee assures me you have
+      brains&mdash;all the necessary ingredients for successful lexicography. We
+      are to have some rules printed to-morrow, and in the meantime I trust I've
+      made myself clear. The main thing&rdquo;&mdash;he bent down and spoke it
+      solemnly&mdash;&ldquo;is <i>not</i> to infringe the copyright.&rdquo; With a cheerful
+      nod he was gone, and she heard him saying to the man at the next table:
+      &ldquo;Mr. Clifford, I shall have to ask you to be more careful about getting in
+      promptly at eight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She removed the cover from her paste-pot and dabbled a little on a piece
+      of paper. Then she tried the unwieldy shears on another piece of paper.
+      She then opened one of her dictionaries and read studiously for fifteen
+      minutes. That accomplished, she opened the other dictionary and pursued it
+      for twelve minutes. Then she took the column of &ldquo;old Webster,&rdquo; which had
+      been handed her pasted on a piece of yellow paper, and set about
+      attempting to commit it to memory. She looked up to be met with the
+      statement that Mrs. Marjory Van Luce De Vane, after spending years under
+      the so-called best surgeons of the country, had been cured in six weeks by
+      Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. She pushed the dictionaries
+      petulantly from her, and leaning her very red cheek upon her hand, her
+      hazel eyes blurred with tears of perplexity and resentment, her mouth
+      drawn in pathetic little lines of uncertainty, looked over at the
+      sprawling warehouse on the opposite side of Dearborn Street. She was just
+      considering the direct manner of writing one's resignation&mdash;not
+      knowing how to infringe the copyright&mdash;when a voice said: &ldquo;I beg
+      pardon, but I wonder if I can help you any?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had never heard a voice like that before. Or, <i>had</i> she heard it?&mdash;and
+      where? She looked at him, a long, startled gaze. Something made her think
+      of the voice the prince used to have in long-ago dreams. She looked into a
+      face that was dark and thin and&mdash;different. Two very dark eyes were
+      looking at her kindly, and a mouth which was a baffling combination of
+      things to be loved and things to be deplored was twitching a little, as
+      though it would like to join the eyes in a smile, if it dared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because he saw both how funny and how hard it was, she liked him. It would
+      have been quite different had he seen either one without the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can tell me how <i>not</i> to infringe the copyright,&rdquo; she laughed.
+      &ldquo;I'm not sure that I know what a copyright is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed&mdash;a laugh which belonged with his voice. &ldquo;Mr. Littletree
+      isn't as lucid as he thinks he is. I've been here a week or so, and picked
+      up a few things you might like to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pulled his chair closer to her table then and gave her a lesson in the
+      making of copy. Edna Willard was never one-half so attractive as when
+      absorbed in a thing which someone was showing her how to do. Her hazel
+      eyes would widen and glisten with the joy of comprehending; her cheeks
+      would flush a deeper pink with the coming of new light, her mouth would
+      part in a child-like way it had forgotten to outgrow, her head would nod
+      gleefully in token that she understood, and she had a way of pulling at
+      her wavy hair and making it more wavy than it had been before. The man at
+      the next table was a long time in explaining the making of a dictionary.
+      He spoke in low tones, often looking at the figure of the man in the skull
+      cap, who was sitting with his back to them, looking over copy. Once she
+      cried, excitedly: &ldquo;Oh&mdash;I <i>see</i>!&rdquo; and he warned, &ldquo;S&mdash;h!&rdquo;
+       explaining, &ldquo;Let him think you got it all from him. It will give you a
+      better stand-in.&rdquo; She nodded, appreciatively, and felt very well
+      acquainted with this kind man whose voice made her think of something&mdash;called
+      to something&mdash;she did not just know what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that she became so absorbed in lexicography that when the men began
+      putting away their things it was hard to realise that the morning had
+      gone. It was a new and difficult game, the evasion of the copyright
+      furnishing the stimulus of a hazard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man at the next table had been watching her with an amused admiration.
+      Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from perplexity to
+      satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head and the pucker of
+      her face, took him back over years emotionally barren to the time when he
+      too had those easily stirred enthusiasms of youth. For the man at the next
+      table was far from young now. His mouth had never quite parted with
+      boyishness, but there was more white than black in his hair, and the lines
+      about his mouth told that time, as well as forces more aging than time,
+      had laid heavy hand upon him. But when he looked at the girl and told her
+      with a smile that it was time to stop work, it was a smile and a voice to
+      defy the most tell-tale face in all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During her luncheon, as she watched the strange people coming and going,
+      she did much wondering. She wondered why it was that so many of the men at
+      the dictionary place were very old men; she wondered if it would be a good
+      dictionary&mdash;one that would be used in the schools; she wondered if
+      Dr. Bunting had made a great deal of money, and most of all she wondered
+      about the man at the next table whose voice was like&mdash;like a dream
+      which she did not know that she had dreamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had returned to the straggling old building, had stumbled down
+      the narrow, dark hall and opened the door of the big bleak room, she saw
+      that the man at the next table was the only one who had returned from
+      luncheon. Something in his profile made her stand there very still. He had
+      not heard her come in, and he was looking straight ahead, eyes half
+      closed, mouth set&mdash;no unsurrendered boyishness there now. Wholly
+      unconsciously she took an impulsive step forward. But she stopped, for she
+      saw, and felt without really understanding, that it was not just the
+      moment's pain, but the revealed pain of years. Just then he began to
+      cough, and it seemed the cough, too, was more than of the moment. And then
+      he turned and saw her, and smiled, and the smile changed all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the afternoon wore on the man stopped working and turning a little in
+      his chair sat there covertly watching the girl. She was just typically
+      girl. It was written that she had spent her days in the happy ways of
+      healthful girlhood. He supposed that a great many young fellows had fallen
+      in love with her&mdash;nice, clean young fellows, the kind she would
+      naturally meet. And then his eyes closed for a minute and he put up his
+      hand and brushed back his hair; there was weariness, weariness weary of
+      itself, in the gesture. He looked about the room and scanned the faces of
+      the men, most of them older than he, many of them men whose histories were
+      well known to him. They were the usual hangers on about newspaper offices;
+      men who, for one reason or other&mdash;age, dissipation, antiquated
+      methods&mdash;had been pitched over, men for whom such work as this came
+      as a godsend. They were the men of yesterday&mdash;men whom the world had
+      rushed past. She was the only one there, this girl who would probably sit
+      here beside him for many months, with whom the future had anything to do.
+      Youth!&mdash;Goodness!&mdash;Joy!&mdash;Hope!&mdash;strange things to
+      bring to a place like this. And as if their alienism disturbed him, he
+      moved restlessly, almost resentfully, bit his lips nervously, moistened
+      them, and began putting away his things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the girl was starting home along Dearborn Street a few minutes later,
+      she chanced to look in a window. She saw that it was a saloon, but before
+      she could turn away she saw a man with a white face&mdash;white with the
+      peculiar whiteness of a dark face, standing before the bar drinking from a
+      small glass. She stood still, arrested by a look such as she had never
+      seen before: a panting human soul sobbingly fluttering down into something
+      from which it had spent all its force in trying to rise. When she recalled
+      herself and passed on, a mist which she could neither account for nor
+      banish was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day was a hard one at the dictionary place. She told herself it
+      was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because her fingers ached,
+      because it tired her back to sit in that horrid chair. She did not admit
+      of any connection between her flagging interest and the fact that the
+      place at the next table was vacant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day he was still absent. She assumed that it was nervousness
+      occasioned by her queer surroundings made her look around whenever she
+      heard a step behind her. Where was he? Where had that look carried him? If
+      he were in trouble, was there no one to help him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third day she did an unpremeditated thing. The man in the skull cap
+      had been showing her something about the copy. As he was leaving, she
+      asked: &ldquo;Is the man who sits at the next table coming back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; he replied grimly, &ldquo;he'll be back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;if he wasn't, I thought I would take his shears.
+      These hurt my fingers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made the exchange for her&mdash;and after that things went better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did return late the next morning. After he had taken his place he
+      looked over at her and smiled. He looked sick and shaken&mdash;as if
+      something that knew no mercy had taken hold of him and wrung body and
+      soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been ill?&rdquo; she asked, with timid solicitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no,&rdquo; he replied, rather shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quiet all that day, but the next day they talked about the work,
+      laughed together over funny definitions they found. She felt that he could
+      tell many interesting things about himself, if he cared to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the days went on he did tell some of those things&mdash;out of the way
+      places where he had worked, queer people whom he had known. It seemed that
+      words came to him as gifts, came freely, happily, pleased, perhaps, to be
+      borne by so sympathetic a voice. And there was another thing about him. He
+      seemed always to know just what she was trying to say; he never missed the
+      unexpressed. That made it easy to say things to him; there seemed a
+      certain at-homeness between his thought and hers. She accounted for her
+      interest in him by telling herself she had never known any one like that
+      before. Now Harold, the boy whom she knew best out at the university, why
+      one had to <i>say</i> things to Harold to make him understand! And Harold
+      never left one wondering&mdash;wondering what he had meant by that smile,
+      what he had been going to say when he started to say something and
+      stopped, wondering what it was about his face that one could not
+      understand. Harold never could claim as his the hour after he had left
+      her, and was one ever close to anyone with whom one did not spend some of
+      the hours of absence? She began to see that hours spent together when
+      apart were the most intimate hours of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as Harold did not make one wonder, so he did not make one worry. Never
+      in all her life had there been a lump in her throat when she thought of
+      Harold. There was often a lump in her throat when the man at the next
+      table was coughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, she had been there about two months, she said something to him
+      about it. It was hard; it seemed forcing one's way into a room that had
+      never been opened to one&mdash;there were several doors he kept closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Clifford,&rdquo; she turned to him impetuously as they were putting away
+      their things that night, &ldquo;will you mind if I say something to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was covering his paste-pot. He looked up at her strangely. The closed
+      door seemed to open a little way. &ldquo;I can't conceive of 'minding' anything
+      you might say to me, Miss Noah,&rdquo;&mdash;he had called her Miss Noah ever
+      since she, by mistake, had one day called him Mr. Webster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she hurried on, very timid, now that the door had opened a
+      little, &ldquo;you have been so good to me. Because you have been so good to me
+      it seems that I have some right to&mdash;to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His head was resting upon his hand, and he leaned a little closer as
+      though listening for something he wanted to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a cousin who had a cough like yours,&rdquo;&mdash;brave now that she
+      could not go back&mdash;&ldquo;and he went down to New Mexico and stayed for a
+      year, and when he came back&mdash;when he came back he was as well as any
+      of us. It seems so foolish not to&rdquo;&mdash;her voice broke, now that it had
+      so valiantly carried it&mdash;&ldquo;not to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her, and that was all. But she was never wholly the same
+      again after that look. It enveloped her being in a something which left
+      her richer&mdash;different. It was a look to light the dark place between
+      two human souls. It seemed for the moment that words would follow it, but
+      as if feeling their helplessness&mdash;perhaps needlessness&mdash;they
+      sank back unuttered, and at the last he got up, abruptly, and walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night, while waiting for the elevator, she heard two of the men
+      talking about him. When she went out on the street it was with head high,
+      cheeks hot. For nothing is so hard to hear as that which one has half
+      known, and evaded. One never denies so hotly as in denying to one's self
+      what one fears is true, and one never resents so bitterly as in resenting
+      that which one cannot say one has the right to resent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night she lay in her bed with wide open eyes, going over and over the
+      things they had said. &ldquo;<i>Cure?</i>&rdquo;&mdash;one of them had scoffed, after
+      telling how brilliant he had been before he &ldquo;went to pieces&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;why
+      all the cures on earth couldn't help him! He can go just so far, and then
+      he can no more stop himself&mdash;oh, about as much as an ant could stop a
+      prairie fire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She finally turned over on her pillow and sobbed; and she wondered why&mdash;wondered,
+      yet knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it resulted in the flowering of her tenderness for him. Interest
+      mounted to defiance. It ended in blind, passionate desire to &ldquo;make it up&rdquo;
+       to him. And again he was so different from Harold; Harold did not impress
+      himself upon one by upsetting all one's preconceived ideas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt now that she understood better&mdash;understood the closed doors.
+      He was&mdash;she could think of no better word than sensitive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that is why, several mornings later, she very courageously&mdash;for
+      it did take courage&mdash;threw this little note over on his desk&mdash;they
+      had formed a habit of writing notes to each other, sometimes about the
+      words, sometimes about other things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;IN-VI-TA-TION, <i>n.</i> That which Miss Noah extends to Mr. Webster for
+      Friday evening, December second, at the house where she lives&mdash;hasn't
+      she already told him where that is? It is the wish of Miss Noah to present
+      Mr. Webster to various other Miss Noahs, all of whom are desirous of
+      making his acquaintance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was absurdly nervous at luncheon that day, and kept telling herself
+      with severity not to act like a high-school girl. He was late in returning
+      that noon, and though there seemed a new something in his voice when he
+      asked if he hadn't better sharpen her pencils, he said nothing about her
+      new definition of invitation. It was almost five o'clock when he threw
+      this over on her desk:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;AP-PRE-CI-A-TION, <i>n.</i> That sentiment inspired in Mr. Webster by the
+      kind invitation of Miss Noah for Friday evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;RE-GRET, <i>n.</i> That which Mr. Webster experiences because, for
+      reasons into which he cannot go in detail, it is impossible for him to
+      accept Miss Noah's invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;RE-SENT-MENT, <i>n.</i> That which is inspired in Mr. Webster by the
+      insinuation that there are other Miss Noahs in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then below he had written: &ldquo;Three hours later. Miss Noah, the world is
+      queer. Some day you may find out&mdash;though I hope you never will&mdash;that
+      it is frequently the things we most want to do that we must leave undone.
+      Miss Noah, won't you go on bringing me as much of yourself as you can to
+      Dearborn Street, and try not to think much about my not being able to know
+      the Miss Noah of Hyde Park? And little Miss Noah&mdash;I thank you. There
+      aren't words enough in this old book of ours to tell you how much&mdash;or
+      why.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That night he hurried away with never a joke about how many words she had
+      written that day. She did not look up as he stood there putting on his
+      coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was spring now, and the dictionary staff had begun on W.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had written of Joy, of Hope and Life and Love, and many other things.
+      Life seemed pressing just behind some of those definitions, pressing the
+      harder, perhaps, because it could not break through the surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For it did not break through; it flooded just beneath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How did she know that he cared for her? She could not possibly have told.
+      Perhaps the nearest to actual proof she could bring was that he always saw
+      that her overshoes were put in a warm place. And when one came down to
+      facts, the putting of a girl's rubbers near the radiator did not
+      necessarily mean love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps then it was because there was no proof of it that she was most
+      sure. For some of the most sure things in the world are things which
+      cannot be proved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only that they worked together and were friends; that they laughed
+      together over funny definitions they found, that he was kind to her, and
+      that they seemed remarkably close together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is as far as facts can take it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And just there&mdash;it begins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the force which rushes beneath the facts of life, caring nothing for
+      conditions, not asking what one desires or what one thinks best, caring as
+      little about a past as about a future&mdash;save its own future&mdash;the
+      force which can laugh at man's institutions and batter over in one sweep
+      what he likes to call his wisdom, was sweeping them on. And because it
+      could get no other recognition it forced its way into the moments when he
+      asked her for an eraser, when she wanted to know how to spell a word. He
+      could not so much as ask her if she needed more copy-paper without seeming
+      to be lavishing upon her all the love of all the ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so the winter had worn on, and there was really nothing whatever to
+      tell about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was quiet this morning, and kept her head bent low over her work. For
+      she had estimated the number of pages there were between W and Z. Soon
+      they would be at Z;&mdash;and then? Then? Shyly she turned and looked at
+      him; he too was bent over his work. When she came in she had said
+      something about its being spring, and that there must be wild flowers in
+      the woods. Since then he had not looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly it came to her&mdash;tenderly, hotly, fearfully yet bravely, that
+      it was she who must meet Z. She looked at him again, covertly. And she
+      felt that she understood. It was the lines in his face made it clearest.
+      Years, and things blacker, less easily surmounted than years&mdash;oh yes,
+      that too she faced fearlessly&mdash;were piled in between. She knew now
+      that it was she&mdash;not he&mdash;who could push them aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love and
+      life and desire may crowd from the page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps she would not have thrown it after all&mdash;the little note she
+      had written&mdash;had it not been that when she went over for more
+      copy-paper she stood for a minute looking out the window. Even on Dearborn
+      Street the seductiveness of spring was in the air. Spring, and all that
+      spring meant, filled her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of
+      far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press she
+      could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was strong,
+      the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to his desk:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;CHAFING-DISH, n. That out of which Miss Noah asks Mr. Webster to eat his
+      Sunday night lunch tomorrow. All the other Miss Noahs are going to be
+      away, and if Mr. Webster does not come, Miss Noah will be all alone. Miss
+      Noah does not like to be lonely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She ate no lunch that day; she only drank a cup of coffee and walked
+      around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not come back that afternoon. It passed from one to two, from two
+      to three, and then very slowly from three to four, and still he had not
+      come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He too was walking about. He had walked down to the lake and was standing
+      there looking out across it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why not?&mdash;he was saying to himself&mdash;fiercely, doggedly. Over and
+      over again&mdash;Well, <i>why</i> not?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hundred nights, alone in his room, he had gone over it. Had not life
+      used him hard enough to give him a little now?&mdash;longing had pleaded.
+      And now there was a new voice&mdash;more prevailing voice&mdash;the voice
+      of her happiness. His face softened to an almost maternal tenderness as he
+      listened to that voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too worn to fight any longer, he gave himself up to it, and sat there
+      dreaming. They were dreams of joy rushing in after lonely years, dreams of
+      stepping into the sunlight after long days in fog and cold, dreams of a
+      woman before a fireplace&mdash;her arms about him, her cheer and her
+      tenderness, her comradeship and her passion&mdash;all his to take! Ah,
+      dreams which even thoughts must not touch&mdash;so wonderful and sacred
+      they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long time he sat there, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The force
+      that rules the race was telling him that the one crime was the denial of
+      happiness&mdash;his happiness, her happiness; and when at last his fight
+      seemed but a puerile fight against forces worlds mightier than he, he
+      rose, and as one who sees a great light, started back toward Dearborn
+      Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way he began to cough. The coughing was violent, and he stepped
+      into a doorway to gain breath. And after he had gone in there he realised
+      that it was the building of Chicago's greatest newspaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been city editor of that paper once. Facts, the things he knew
+      about himself, talked to him then. There was no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It left him weak and dizzy and crazy for a drink. He walked on slowly,
+      unsteadily, his white face set. For he had vowed that if it took the last
+      nerve in his body there should be no more of that until after they had
+      finished with Z. He knew himself too well to vow more. He was not even
+      sure of that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not turn in where he wanted to go, but resistance took the last bit
+      of force that was in him. He was trembling like a sick man when he stepped
+      into the elevator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was just leaving. She was in the little cloak room putting on her
+      things. She was all alone in there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped in. He pushed the door shut, and stood there leaning against
+      it, looking at her, saying nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;you are ill?&rdquo; she gasped, and laid a frightened hand upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The touch crazed him. All resistance gone, he swept her into his arms; he
+      held her fiercely, and between sobs kissed her again and again. He could
+      not let her go. He frightened her. He hurt her. And he did not care&mdash;he
+      did not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he held her off and looked at her. And as he looked into her eyes,
+      passion melted to tenderness. It was she now&mdash;not he; love&mdash;not
+      hunger. Holding her face in his two hands, looking at her as if getting
+      something to take away, his white lips murmured words too inarticulate for
+      her to hear. And then again he put his arms around her&mdash;all
+      differently. Reverently, sobbingly, he kissed her hair. And then he was
+      gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not come out that Sunday afternoon, but Harold dropped in instead,
+      and talked of some athletic affairs over at the university. She wondered
+      why she did not go crazy in listening to him, and yet she could answer
+      intelligently. It was queer&mdash;what one <i>could</i> do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had come at last to Z. There would be no more work upon the
+      dictionary after that day. And it was raining&mdash;raining as in Chicago
+      alone it knows how to rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They wrote no notes to each other now. It had been different since that
+      day. They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of
+      commonplace words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both of them had tried to stay away that last day. But both were in their
+      usual places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day wore on eventlessly. Those men with whom she had worked, the men
+      of yesterday, who had been kind to her, came up at various times for
+      little farewell chats. The man in the skull cap told her that she had done
+      excellent work. She was surprised at the ease with which she could make
+      decent reply, thinking again that it was queer&mdash;what one could do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was moving. She saw him lay some sheets of yellow paper on the desk in
+      front. He had finished with his &ldquo;take.&rdquo; There would not be another to give
+      him. He would go now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came back to his desk. She could hear him putting away his things. And
+      then for a long time there was no sound. She knew that he was just sitting
+      there in his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she heard him get up. She heard him push his chair up to the table,
+      and then for a minute he stood there. She wanted to turn toward him; she
+      wanted to say something&mdash;do something. But she had no power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw him lay an envelope upon her desk. She heard him walking away. She
+      knew, numbly, that his footsteps were not steady. She knew that he had
+      stopped; she was sure that he was looking back. But still she had no
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she heard him go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even then she went on with her work; she finished her &ldquo;take&rdquo; and laid down
+      her pencil. It was finished now&mdash;and he had gone. Finished?&mdash;<i>Gone?</i>
+      She was tearing open the envelope of the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was what she read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vender, and girl to be loved, if I
+      were a free man I would say to you&mdash;Come, little one, and let us
+      learn of love. Let us learn of it, not as one learns from dictionaries,
+      but let us learn from the morning glow and the evening shades. But Miss
+      Noah, maker of dictionaries and creeper into hearts, the bound must not
+      call to the free. They might fittingly have used my name as one of the
+      synonyms under that word Failure, but I trust not under Coward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, you funny little Miss Noah from the University of Chicago, don't
+      I know that your heart is blazing forth the assurance that you don't <i>care</i>
+      for any of those things&mdash;the world, people, common sense&mdash;that
+      you want just love? They made a grand failure of you out at your
+      university; they taught you philosophy and they taught you Greek, and
+      they've left you just as much the woman as women were five thousand years
+      ago. Oh, I know all about you&mdash;you little girl whose hair tried so
+      hard to be red. Your soul touched mine as we sat there writing words&mdash;words&mdash;words,
+      the very words in which men try to tell things, and can't&mdash;and I know
+      all about what you would do. But you shall not do it. Dear little copy
+      maker, would a man standing out on the end of a slippery plank have any
+      right to cry to someone on the shore&mdash;'Come out here on this plank
+      with me?' If he loved the someone on the shore, would he not say instead&mdash;'Don't
+      get on this plank?' Me get off the plank&mdash;come with you to the shore&mdash;you
+      are saying? But you see, dear, you only know slippery planks as viewed
+      from the shore&mdash;God grant you may never know them any other way!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was you, was it not, who wrote our definition of happiness? Yes, I
+      remember the day you did it. You were so interested; your cheeks grew so
+      very red, and you pulled and pulled at your wavy hair. You said it was
+      such an important definition. And so it is, Miss Noah, quite the most
+      important of all. And on the page of life, Miss Noah, may happiness be
+      written large and unblurred for you. It is because I cannot help you write
+      it that I turn away. I want at least to leave the page unspoiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I carry a picture of you. I shall carry it always. You are sitting before
+      a fireplace, and I think of that fireplace as symbolising the warmth and
+      care and tenderness and the safety that will surround you. And sometimes
+      as you sit there let a thought of me come for just a minute, Miss Noah&mdash;not
+      long enough nor deep enough to bring you any pain. But only think&mdash;I
+      brought him happiness after he believed all happiness had gone. He was so
+      grateful for that light which came after he thought the darkness had
+      settled down. It will light his way to the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've come to Z, and it's good-bye. There is one thing I can give you
+      without hurting you,&mdash;the hope, the prayer, that life may be very,
+      very good to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sheets of paper fell from her hands. She sat staring out into Dearborn
+      Street. She began to see. After all, he had not understood her. Perhaps
+      men never understood women; certainly he had not understood her. What he
+      did not know was that she was willing to <i>pay</i> for her happiness&mdash;<i>pay</i>&mdash;pay
+      any price that might be exacted. And anyway&mdash;she had no choice.
+      Strange that he could not see that! Strange that he could not see the
+      irony and cruelty of bidding her good-bye and then telling her to be
+      happy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It simplified itself to such an extent that she <i>grew</i> very calm. It
+      would be easy to find him, easy to make him see&mdash;for it was so very
+      simple&mdash;and then....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned in her copy. She said good-bye quietly, naturally, rode down in
+      the lumbering old elevator and started out into the now drenching rain
+      toward the elevated trains which would take her to the West Side; it was
+      so fortunate that she had heard him telling one day where he lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she reached the station she saw that more people were coming down the
+      stairs than were going up. They were saying things about the trains, but
+      she did not heed them. But at the top of the stairs a man in uniform said:
+      &ldquo;Blockade, Miss. You'll have to take the surface cars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sorry, for it would delay her, and there was not a minute to lose.
+      She was dismayed, upon reaching the surface cars, to find she could not
+      get near them; the rain, the blockade on the &ldquo;L&rdquo; had caused a great crowd
+      to congregate there. She waited a long time, getting more and more wet,
+      but it was impossible to get near the cars. She thought of a cab, but
+      could see none, they too having all been pressed into service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She determined, desperately, to start and walk. Soon she would surely get
+      either a cab or a car. And so she started, staunchly, though she was wet
+      through now, and trembling with cold and nervousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she hurried through the driving rain she faced things fearlessly. Oh
+      yes, she understood&mdash;everything. But if he were not well&mdash;should
+      he not have her with him? If he had that thing to fight, did he not need
+      her help? What did men think women were like? Did he think she was one to
+      sit down and reason out what would be advantageous? Better a little while
+      with him on a slippery plank than forever safe and desolate upon the
+      shore!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She never questioned her going; were not life and love too great to be
+      lost through that which could be so easily put right?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The buildings were reeling, the streets moving up and down&mdash;that
+      awful rain, she thought, was making her dizzy. Labouriously she walked on&mdash;more
+      slowly, less steadily, a pain in her side, that awful reeling in her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carriages returning to the city were passing her, but she had not strength
+      to call to them, and it seemed if she walked to the curbing she would
+      fall. She was not thinking so clearly now. The thing which took all of her
+      force was the lifting of her feet and the putting them down in the right
+      place. Her throat seemed to be closing up&mdash;and her side&mdash;and her
+      head....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Someone had her by the arm. Then someone was speaking her name; speaking
+      it in surprise&mdash;consternation&mdash;alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Harold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all vague then. She knew that she was in a carriage, and that
+      Harold was talking to her kindly. &ldquo;You're taking me there?&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes, Edna, everything's all right,&rdquo; he replied soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything's all right,&rdquo; she repeated, in a whisper, and leaned her head
+      back against the cushions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stopped after a while, and Harold was standing at the open door of
+      the cab with something steaming hot which he told her to drink. &ldquo;You need
+      it,&rdquo; he said decisively, and thinking it would help her to tell it, she
+      drank it down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The world was a little more defined after that, and she saw things which
+      puzzled her. &ldquo;Why, it looks like the city,&rdquo; she whispered, her throat too
+      sore now to speak aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why sure,&rdquo; he replied banteringly; &ldquo;don't you know we have to go through
+      the city to get out to the South Side?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but you see,&rdquo; she cried, holding her throat, &ldquo;but you see, it's the
+      <i>other</i> way!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-night,&rdquo; he insisted; &ldquo;the place for you to-night is home. I'm
+      taking you where you belong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She reached over wildly, trying to open the door, but he held her back;
+      she began to cry, and he talked to her, gently but unbendingly. &ldquo;But you
+      don't <i>understand!</i>&rdquo; she whispered, passionately. &ldquo;I've <i>got</i> to
+      go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-night,&rdquo; he said again, and something in the way he said it made
+      her finally huddle back in the corner of the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Block after block, mile after mile, they rode on in silence. She felt
+      overpowered. And with submission she knew that it was Z. For the whole
+      city was piled in between. Great buildings were in between, and thousands
+      of men running to and fro on the streets; man, and all man had builded up,
+      were in between. And then Harold&mdash;Harold who had always seemed to
+      count for so little, had come and taken her away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dully, wretchedly&mdash;knowing that her heart would ache far worse
+      to-morrow than it did to-night&mdash;she wondered about things. Did things
+      like rain and street-cars and wet feet and a sore throat determine life?
+      Was it that way with other people, too? Did other people have barriers&mdash;whole
+      cities full of them&mdash;piled in between? And then did the Harolds come
+      and take them where they said they belonged? Were there not <i>some</i>
+      people strong enough to go where they wanted to go?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI. &mdash; THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The elements without were not in harmony with the spirit which it was
+      desired should be engendered within. By music, by gay decorations, by
+      speeches from prominent men, the board in charge of the boys' reformatory
+      was striving to throw about this dedication of the new building an
+      atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will&mdash;an atmosphere vibrant with
+      the kindness and generosity which emanated from the State, and the
+      thankfulness and loyalty which it was felt should emanate from the boys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the world was sobbing. Some young trees which had been planted
+      along the driveway of the reformatory grounds, and which were expected to
+      grow up in the way they should go, were rocking back and forth in
+      passionate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being spit viciously through
+      the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape which Philip Grayson, he who
+      was to be the last speaker of the afternoon, saw stretching itself down
+      the hill, across the little valley, and up another little hill of that
+      rolling prairie state. In his ears was the death wail of the summer. It
+      seemed the spirit of out-of-doors was sending itself up in mournful,
+      hopeless cries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The speaker who had been delivering himself of pedantic encouragement
+      about the open arms with which the world stood ready to receive the most
+      degraded one, would that degraded one but come to the world in proper
+      spirit, sat down amid perfunctory applause led by the officers and
+      attendants of the institution, and the boys rose to sing. The brightening
+      of their faces told that their work as performers was more to their liking
+      than their position as auditors. They threw back their heads and waited
+      with well-disciplined eagerness for the signal to begin. Then, with the
+      strength and native music there are in some three hundred boys' throats,
+      there rolled out the words of the song of the State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were lips which opened only because they must, but as a whole they
+      sang with the same heartiness, the same joy in singing, that he had heard
+      a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the week before. When
+      the last word had died away it seemed to Philip Grayson that the sigh of
+      the world without was giving voice to the sigh of the world within as the
+      well-behaved crowd of boys sat down to resume their duties as auditors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then one of the most important of the professors from the State
+      University was telling them about the kindness of the State: the State had
+      provided for them this beautiful home; it gave them comfortable clothing
+      and nutritious food; it furnished that fine gymnasium in which to train
+      their bodies, books and teachers to train their minds; it provided those
+      fitted to train their souls, to work against the unfortunate tendencies&mdash;the
+      professor stumbled a little there&mdash;which had led to their coming. The
+      State gave liberally, gladly, and in return it asked but one thing: that
+      they come out into the world and make useful, upright citizens, citizens
+      of which any State might be proud. Was that asking too much? the professor
+      from the State University was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sobbing of the world without was growing more intense. Many pairs of
+      eyes from among the auditors were straying out to where the summer lay
+      dying. Did they know&mdash;those boys whom the State classed as
+      unfortunates&mdash;that out of this death there would come again life? Or
+      did they see but the darkness&mdash;the decay&mdash;of to-day?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The professor from the State University was putting the case very fairly.
+      There were no flaws&mdash;seemingly&mdash;to be picked in his logic. The
+      State had been kind; the boys were obligated to good citizenship. But the
+      coldness!&mdash;comfortlessness!&mdash;of it all. The open arms of the
+      world!&mdash;how mocking in its abstractness. What did it mean? Did it
+      mean that they&mdash;the men who uttered the phrase so easily&mdash;would
+      be willing to give these boys aid, friendship when they came out into the
+      world? What would they say, those boys whose ears were filled with
+      high-sounding, non-committal phrases, if some man were to stand before
+      them and say, &ldquo;And so, fellows, when you get away from this place, and are
+      ready to get your start in the world, just come around to my office and
+      I'll help you get a job?&rdquo; At thought of it there came from Philip Grayson
+      a queer, partly audible laugh, which caused those nearest him to look his
+      way in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was all unconscious of their looks of inquiry, absorbed in the
+      thoughts that crowded upon him. How far away the world&mdash;his kind of
+      people&mdash;must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The
+      speeches they had heard, the training that had been given them, had taught
+      them&mdash;unconsciously perhaps, but surely&mdash;to divide the world
+      into two great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who made speeches
+      and those who must listen, the so-called good and the so-called bad;
+      perhaps&mdash;he smiled a little at his own cynicism&mdash;those who were
+      caught and those who were not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came to him these words of a poet of whom he used to be fond:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    In men whom men pronounce as ill,
+    I find so much of goodness still;
+    In men whom men pronounce divine,
+      I find so much of sin and blot;
+    I hesitate to draw the line
+      Between the two, when God has not.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When God has not! He turned and looked out at the sullen sky, returning&mdash;as
+      most men do at times&mdash;to that conception of his childhood that
+      somewhere beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God care for the boys of the
+      State Reformatory? Was that poet of the western mountains right when he
+      said that God was not a drawer of lines, but a seer of the good that was
+      in the so-called bad, and of the bad in the so-called good, and a lover of
+      them both?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If that was God, it was not the God the boys of the reformatory had been
+      taught to know. They had been told that God would forgive the wicked, but
+      it had been made clear to them&mdash;if not in words, in implications&mdash;that
+      it was they who were the wicked. And the so-called godly men, men of such
+      exemplary character as had been chosen to address them that afternoon, had
+      so much of the spirit of God that they, too, were willing to forgive, be
+      tolerant, and&mdash;he looked out at the bending trees with a smile&mdash;disburse
+      generalities about the open arms of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would they think&mdash;those three hundred speech-tired boys&mdash;if
+      some man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and lay
+      bare his own life&mdash;its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its crimes&mdash;and
+      tell them there was weakness and there was strength in every human being,
+      and that the world-old struggle of life was to overcome one's weakness
+      with one's strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea took strange hold on him. It seemed the method of the world&mdash;at
+      any rate it had been the method of that afternoon&mdash;for the men who
+      stood before their fellows with clean hands to plant themselves on the far
+      side of a chasm of conventions, or narrow self-esteem, or easily won
+      virtue, and cry to those beings who struggled on the other side of that
+      chasm&mdash;to those human beings whose souls had never gone to school:
+      &ldquo;Look at us! Our hands are clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful
+      it is to be good! Come ye, poor sinners, and be good also.&rdquo; And the poor
+      sinners, the untaught, birthmarked human souls, would look over at the
+      self-acclaimed goodness they could see far across the chasm, and even
+      though attracted to it (which, he grimly reflected, would not seem likely)
+      the thing that was left with them was a sense of the width of the chasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had a sense of needless waste, of unnecessary blight. He looked down at
+      those three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human waste; and it
+      was human stupidity, human complacency and cowardice kept those human
+      beings human drift.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With what a smug self-satisfaction&mdash;under the mask of benevolence&mdash;the
+      speakers of that afternoon had flaunted their virtue&mdash;their position!
+      How condescendingly they had spoken of the home which we, the good,
+      prepare for you, the bad, and what namby-pambyness there was, after all,
+      in that sentiment which all of them had voiced&mdash;and now you must pay
+      us back by being good!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh for a man of flesh and blood to stand up and tell how he himself had
+      failed and suffered! For a man who could bridge that chasm with strong,
+      broad, human understanding and human sympathies&mdash;a man who would
+      stand among them pulse-beat to pulse-beat and cry out, &ldquo;I know! I
+      understand! I fought it and I'll help you fight it too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of his own name broke the spell that was upon him. He looked to
+      the centre of the stage and saw that the professor from the State
+      University had seated himself and that the superintendent of the
+      institution was occupying the place of the speaker. And the superintendent
+      was saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may esteem ourselves especially fortunate in having him with us this
+      afternoon. He is one of the great men of the State, one of the men who by
+      high living, by integrity and industry, has raised himself to a position
+      of great honour among his fellow men. A great party&mdash;may I say the
+      greatest of all parties?&mdash;has shown its unbounded confidence in him
+      by giving him the nomination for the governorship of the State. No man in
+      the State is held in higher esteem to-day than he. And so it is with
+      special pleasure that I introduce to you that man of the future&mdash;Philip
+      Grayson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The superintendent sat down then, and he himself&mdash;Philip Grayson&mdash;was
+      standing in the place where the other speakers had stood. It was with a
+      rush which almost swept away his outward show of calm that it came to him
+      that he&mdash;candidate for the governorship&mdash;was well fitted to be
+      that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself was
+      within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into the
+      very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a man of sins
+      and virtues, of weaknesses and strength, a man who had had much to
+      conquer, and for whom the fight would never be finally won, was standing
+      before them stripped of his coat of conventions and platitudes, and in
+      nakedness of soul and sincerity of heart was talking to them as a man who
+      understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost with the inception of the idea was born the consciousness of what
+      it might cost. And as in answer to the silent, blunt question, Is it worth
+      it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of eyes&mdash;eyes behind
+      which there was good as well as bad, eyes which had burned with the fatal
+      rush of passion, and had burned, too, with the hot tears of remorse&mdash;eyes
+      which had opened on a hostile world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the eyes of Philip Grayson could not see the eyes which were
+      before him, and he put up his hand to break the mist&mdash;little caring
+      what the men upon the platform would think of him, little thinking what
+      effect the words which were crowding into his heart would have upon his
+      candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now: to bring upon that ugly
+      chasm the levelling forces of a common humanity, and to make those boys
+      who were of his clay feel that a being who had fallen and risen again, a
+      fellow being for whom life would always mean a falling and a rising again,
+      was standing before them, and&mdash;not as the embodiment of a distant
+      goodness, not as a pattern, but as one among them, verily as man to man&mdash;was
+      telling them a few things which his own life had taught him were true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was his very consecration which made it hard to begin. He was fearful
+      of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between them and him that
+      very thing he was determined there should not be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a strange feeling,&rdquo; he said, with a winning little smile, &ldquo;that if
+      I were to open my heart to-day, just open it clear up the way I'd like to
+      if I could, that you boys would look into it, and then jump back in a
+      scared kind of way and cry, 'Why&mdash;that's me!' You would be a little
+      surprised&mdash;wouldn't you?&mdash;if you could look back and see the
+      kind of boy I was, and find I was much the kind of boy you are?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what I think? I think hypocrisy is the worst thing in the
+      world. I think it's worse than stealing, or lying, or any of the other bad
+      things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of the hypocrisy
+      comes from? I think it comes from the so-called self-made men&mdash;from
+      the real good men, the men who say 'I haven't got one bad thing charged up
+      to my account.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now the men out campaigning for me call me a self-made man. Your
+      superintendent just now spoke of my integrity, of the confidence reposed
+      in me, and all that. But do you know what is the honest truth? If I am any
+      kind of a man worth mentioning, if I am deserving of any honour, any
+      confidence, it is not because I was born with my heart filled with good
+      and beautiful things, for I was not. It is because I was born with much in
+      my heart that we call the bad, and because, after that bad had grown
+      stronger and stronger through the years it was unchecked, and after it had
+      brought me the great shock, the great sorrow of my life, I began then,
+      when older than you boys are now, to see a little of that great truth
+      which you can put briefly in these words: 'There is good and there is bad
+      in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad
+      with the good.' What I am trying to say is, that if I am worthy any one's
+      confidence to-day, it is because, having seen that truth, I have been
+      able, through never ceasing trying, through slow conquering, to crowd out
+      some of the bad and make room for a little of the good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he went on, three hundred pairs of eyes hard upon him now,
+      &ldquo;some of us are born to a harder struggle than others. There are people
+      who would object to my saying that to you, even if I believed it. They
+      would say you would make the fact of being born with much against which to
+      struggle an excuse for being bad. But look here a minute; if you were born
+      with a body not as strong as other boys' bodies, if you couldn't run as
+      far, or jump as high, you wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't be
+      expected to do much; I wasn't born right.' Not a bit of it! You'd make it
+      your business to get as strong as you could, and you wouldn't make any
+      parade of the fact that you weren't as strong as you should be. We don't
+      like people who whine, whether it's about weak bodies or weak souls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been sitting here this afternoon wondering what to say to you boys.
+      I had intended telling some funny stories about things which happened to
+      me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood has come over me,
+      and I don't feel just like those stories now. I haven't been thinking of
+      the funny side of life in the last half-hour. I've been thinking of how
+      much suffering I've endured since the days when I, too, was a boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused then; and when he went on his voice tested to the utmost the
+      silence of the room: &ldquo;There is lots of sorrow in this old world. Maybe I'm
+      on the wrong track, but as I see it to-day human beings are making a much
+      harder thing of their existence than there is any need of. There are
+      millions and millions of them, and year after year, generation after
+      generation, they fight over the same old battles, live through the same
+      old sorrows. Doesn't it seem all wrong that after the battle has been
+      fought a million times it can't be made a little easier for those who
+      still have it before them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If a farmer had gone over a bad road, and the next day saw another farmer
+      about to start over the same road, wouldn't he send him back? Doesn't it
+      seem too bad that in things which concern one's whole life people can't be
+      as decent as they are about things which involve only an inconvenience?
+      Doesn't it seem that when we human beings have so much in common we might
+      stand together a little better? I'll tell you what's the matter. Most of
+      the people of this world are coated round and round with self-esteem, and
+      they're afraid to admit any understanding of the things which aren't good.
+      Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit he had been over
+      that road, and so had said: 'From what I have read in books, and from what
+      I have learned in a general way, I fancy that road isn't good.' Would the
+      other farmer have gone back? I rather think he would have said he'd take
+      his chances. But you see the farmer said he <i>knew</i>; and how did he
+      know? Why, because he'd been over the road himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he paused again, looking at them, he saw it all with a clarifying
+      simplicity. He himself knew life for a fine and beautiful thing. He had
+      won for himself some of the satisfactions of understanding, certain rare
+      delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the spirits of these boys
+      to whom he talked; wanted to show them that spirits could free themselves,
+      indicate to them that self-control and self-development carried one to
+      pleasures which sordid self-indulgences had no power to bestow. It was a
+      question of getting the most from life. It was a matter of happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was thus he began, slowly, the telling of his life's story:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was born with strange, wild passions in my heart. I don't know where
+      they came from; I only know they were there. I resented authority. If
+      someone who had a right to dictate to me said, 'Philip, do this,' then
+      Philip would immediately begin to think how much he would rather do the
+      other thing. And,&rdquo; he smiled a little, and some of the boys smiled with
+      him in anticipation, &ldquo;it was the other thing which Philip usually did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't go to a reform school, for the very good reason that there
+      wasn't any in the State where I lived.&rdquo; Some of he boys smiled again, and
+      he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party managers sitting
+      close to him. &ldquo;I was what you would call a very bad boy. I didn't mind any
+      one. I was defiant&mdash;insolent. I did bad things just because I knew
+      they were bad, and&mdash;and I took a great deal of satisfaction out of
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sighing of the world without was the only sound which vibrated through
+      the room. &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;that I got a form of satisfaction from it.
+      I did not say I got happiness; there is a vast difference between a kind
+      of momentary satisfaction and that thing&mdash;that most precious of all
+      things&mdash;which we call happiness. Indeed, I was very far from happy. I
+      had hours when I was so morose and miserable that I hated the whole world.
+      And do you know what I thought? I thought there was no one in all the
+      world who had the same kind of things surging up in his heart that I did.
+      I thought there was no one else with whom it was as easy to be bad, or as
+      hard to be good. I thought that no one understood. I thought that I was
+      all alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ever feel like that? Did you ever feel that no one else knew
+      anything about such feelings as you had? Did you ever feel that here was
+      you, and there was the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world
+      didn't know anything about you, and was just generally down on you? Now
+      that's the very thing I want to talk away from you to-day. You're not the
+      only one. We're all made of the same kind of stuff, and there's none of us
+      made of stuff that's flawless. We all have a fight; some an easy one, and
+      some a big one, and if you have formed the idea that there is a kind of
+      dividing-line in the world, and that on the one side is the good, and on
+      the other side the bad, why, all I can say is that you have a wrong notion
+      of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I grew up to be a man, and because I hadn't fought against any of
+      the stormy things in my heart they kept growing stronger and stronger. I
+      did lots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am bitterly ashamed. I
+      went to another place, and I fell in with the kind of fellows you can
+      imagine I felt at home with. I had been told when I was a boy that it was
+      wrong to drink and gamble. I think that was the chief reason I took to
+      drink and gambling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party
+      manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat. It was
+      the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the boys'
+      reformatory. The boys were leaning forward&mdash;self-forgetful, intent.
+      &ldquo;One night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, and one of the
+      men, the best friend I had, said something that made me mad. There was a
+      revolver right there which one of the men had been showing us. Some kind
+      of a demon got hold of me, and without so much as a thought I picked up
+      that revolver and fired at my friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the
+      superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say a
+      word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened faces before
+      him: &ldquo;I suppose you wonder why I am not in the penitentiary. I had been
+      drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was with friends, and it was hushed
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen landscape.
+      His voice was not steady as he went on: &ldquo;It's not an easy thing to talk
+      about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before in all my life. I'm
+      not telling it now just to entertain you or to create a sensation. I'm
+      telling it,&rdquo; his voice grew tense in its earnestness, &ldquo;because I believe
+      that this world could be made a better and a sweeter place if those who
+      have lived and suffered would not be afraid to reach out their hands and
+      cry: 'I know that road&mdash;it's bad! I steered off to a better place,
+      and I'll help you steer off, too.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted upon
+      the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and defiance had
+      fallen from them. They were listening now&mdash;not because they must, but
+      because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being poured the very
+      sustenance for which&mdash;unknowingly&mdash;they had yearned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We sometimes hear people say,&rdquo; resumed the candidate for Governor, &ldquo;that
+      they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've lived through
+      the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I can say that I, too,
+      have lived through hell. What I suffered after I went home that night no
+      one in this world will ever know. Words couldn't tell it; it's not the
+      kind of thing words can come anywhere near. My whole life spread itself
+      out before me; it was not a pleasant thing to look at. But at last, boys,
+      out of the depths of my darkness, I began to get a little light. I began
+      to get some understanding of the battle which it falls to the lot of some
+      of us human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't
+      have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that terrible
+      night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere in our hearts
+      must fight out the bad. And so&mdash;all alone, boys&mdash;I began the
+      battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you know&mdash;this
+      is the truth&mdash;it was with the beginning of that battle I got my first
+      taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this world than the sense
+      of coming into mastery of one's self. It is like opening a door that has
+      shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in a minute. This is no miracle I'm
+      talking about. It's a fight. But it's a fight that can be won. It's a
+      fight that's gloriously worth the winning. I'm not saying to you, 'Be good
+      and you'll succeed.' Maybe you won't succeed. Life as we've arranged it
+      for ourselves makes success a pretty tough proposition. But that doesn't
+      alter the fact that it pays to be a decent sort. You and I know about how
+      much happiness there is in the other kind of thing. And there is happiness
+      in feeling you're doing what you can to develop what's in you. Success or
+      failure, it brings a sense of having done your part,&mdash;that bully
+      sense of having put up the best fight you could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. &ldquo;I don't know, I am
+      sure, what the people of my State will think of all this. Perhaps they
+      won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to kill another man.
+      But,&rdquo; he looked around at them with that smile of his which got straight
+      to men's hearts, &ldquo;there's only one of me, and there are three hundred of
+      you, and how do I know but that in telling you of that stretch of bad road
+      ahead I've made a dozen Governors this very afternoon!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word which
+      would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did say was: &ldquo;And
+      so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into the world to get
+      your start, if you find the arms of that world aren't quite as wide open
+      as you were told they would be, if there seems no place where you can get
+      a hold, and you are saying to yourself, 'It's no use&mdash;I'll not try,'
+      before you give up just remember there was one man who said he knew all
+      about it, and give that one man a chance to show he meant what he said. So
+      look me up, if luck goes all against you, and maybe I can give you a
+      little lift.&rdquo; He took a backward step, as though to resume his seat, and
+      then he said, with a dry little smile which took any suggestion of heroics
+      from what had gone before, &ldquo;If I'm not at the State-house, you'll find my
+      name in the directory of the city where your programme tells you I live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled,
+      heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants this
+      time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And when the
+      clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were raised to eyes
+      which had long been dry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party manager
+      standing by his side. &ldquo;It was very grand,&rdquo; he sneered, &ldquo;very high-sounding
+      and heroic, but I suppose you know,&rdquo; jerking his hand angrily toward a
+      table where a reporter for the leading paper of the opposition was
+      writing, &ldquo;that you've given them the winning card.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he replied, in far-off tone, &ldquo;I hope so,&rdquo; the candidate for Governor
+      was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new cry for the
+      opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of new understanding
+      and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them filing out into the
+      corridor, craning their necks to throw him a last look, and as he turned
+      then and looked from the window it was to see that the storm had sobbed
+      itself away, and that along the driveway of the reformatory grounds the
+      young trees&mdash;unbroken and unhurt&mdash;were rearing their heads in
+      the way they should go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VII. &mdash; HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every
+      hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the stairways
+      and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's to the
+      custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet. A long
+      whistle had sounded through the building. There was magic in its note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with you fellows?&rdquo; asked the attorney-general, swinging
+      around in his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strike,&rdquo; declared one of the men, with becoming brevity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strike of what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One,&rdquo; replied the man, kindly gathering up a
+      few tacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never heard of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Organised last night,&rdquo; said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well I'll&mdash;&rdquo; he paused expressively, then inquired: &ldquo;What's your
+      game?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the State-house has
+      refused our demands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are your demands?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Double pay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have double
+      pay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get every
+      carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon. Now you
+      know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you ever get rush
+      work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was anxious as anybody
+      to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this afternoon. But there's
+      reason in all things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; agreed his auditor, &ldquo;there is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man looked at him a little doubtfully. &ldquo;Our president&mdash;we elected
+      Johnny McGuire president last night&mdash;went to the Governor this
+      morning with our demands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor's fellow official smiled&mdash;he knew the Governor pretty
+      well. &ldquo;And he turned you down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The striker nodded. &ldquo;But there's an election next fall; maybe the turning
+      down will be turned around.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe so&mdash;you never can tell. I don't know just what power
+      Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's pretty
+      solid, you know, with Labour as a whole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot uncertainly
+      across the floor, and took courage from its splinters. &ldquo;Well, there's one
+      thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load of big guns show up at
+      four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare floors, and pretty bum bare
+      floors, on deck at this place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered, miserable
+      boards. &ldquo;They are pretty bum,&rdquo; he reflected. &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he added, as the
+      man was half-way out of the door, &ldquo;what Prince Ludwig will think of the
+      American working-man when he arrives this afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just about as much,&rdquo; retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker, &ldquo;as he
+      does about American generosity. And he may think a few things,&rdquo; he added
+      weightily, &ldquo;about American independence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he's sure to do that,&rdquo; agreed the attorney-general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all the
+      offices, all talking of the one thing. &ldquo;It was a straight case of
+      hold-up,&rdquo; declared the Governor's secretary. &ldquo;They supposed they had us on
+      the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you see they just
+      figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have these wretched floors
+      for the reception this afternoon. They thought the Governor would argue
+      the question, and then give in, or, at any rate, compromise. They never
+      intended for one minute that the Prince should find bare floors here. And
+      I rather think,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;that they feel a little done up about it
+      themselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the situation?&rdquo; asked a stranger within the gates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's like this,&rdquo; a newspaper reporter told him; &ldquo;about a month ago there
+      was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well knocked out
+      with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things anyway, so they
+      voted new ones. And I want to tell you&rdquo;&mdash;he swelled with pride&mdash;&ldquo;that
+      the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great when we get 'em down.
+      Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd cross the State on their way to
+      the coast, and of course they were invited to stop. Last week Billy Patton&mdash;he's
+      running the whole show&mdash;declined the invitation on account of lack of
+      time, and then yesterday comes a telegram saying the Prince himself
+      insisted on stopping. You know he's keen about Indian dope&mdash;and we've
+      got Indian traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to make over his
+      schedule to please the Prince, and of course we were all pretty tickled
+      about it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't come until five
+      o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer the Governor is
+      when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building should be put in
+      shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole lot of fellows to
+      work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but get together last
+      night&mdash;well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old shack just
+      now, isn't it?&rdquo; and the reporter looked around ruefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the
+      members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd&mdash;and the
+      indignation&mdash;in the rotunda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but
+      Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The biggest
+      furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. &ldquo;Pipes burst last
+      night,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and they may not do a thing for us if we get mixed up in
+      this. Sorry&mdash;but I can't let my customers get pneumonia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or
+      another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and when the
+      Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda he was about
+      as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. &ldquo;It's the idea of lying
+      down,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'd do anything&mdash;anything!&mdash;if I could only
+      think what to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. &ldquo;By George,
+      Governor,&rdquo; he burst forth, after a minute's deep study&mdash;&ldquo;say&mdash;by
+      Jove, I say, let's do it ourselves!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he looked
+      hard at the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; the young legislator went on. &ldquo;It's a big job, but there are a
+      lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we afraid to
+      tackle it here for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. &ldquo;Say, Weston,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;I'd give a lot&mdash;I tell you I'd give a lot&mdash;if we just
+      could!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it to me!&rdquo;&mdash;and he was lost in the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston. He was
+      the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor smiled
+      knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his different
+      manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a few steps of the
+      stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now look here,&rdquo; he began, after silence had been obtained, &ldquo;this isn't a
+      very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a clear case of
+      Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want to know is&mdash;Is
+      the State going to lie down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were loud cries of &ldquo;No!&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Well, I should say not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't get
+      them. Now the next thing I want to know is&mdash;What's the matter with
+      us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use of
+      pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes&mdash;I know, bigger
+      building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle of
+      carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my scheme is
+      this&mdash;Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's office puts
+      down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts down the
+      Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate carpet&mdash;and we'll
+      look after our little patch in the House!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you've got more fellows than anybody else,&rdquo; cried a member of the
+      Senate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors and
+      stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her part,&rdquo;&mdash;that
+      brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here; the
+      building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at four&mdash;by
+      his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we going to receive
+      him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what Senator Arnold thinks about
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke.
+      Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and
+      tested his muscle. &ldquo;Not very much,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but enough to drive a tack
+      or two.&rdquo; That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the
+      atmosphere warmed perceptibly. &ldquo;I've fought for the State in more ways
+      than one,&rdquo;&mdash;Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil
+      War&mdash;&ldquo;and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's
+      tacking down carpets I'm ready to go at. Just count on me for what little
+      I'm worth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Someone started the cry for the Governor. &ldquo;Prince Ludwig is being
+      entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner,&rdquo; he began,
+      with his characteristic directness in stating a situation. &ldquo;By his own
+      request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I must say that I, for
+      one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like to tell him that we had a
+      labour complication and couldn't get the carpets down. Speaking for
+      myself, it is a great pleasure to inform you that the carpet in the
+      Governor's office will be in proper shape by four o'clock this afternoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard sufficiently to
+      suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine o'clock motions to
+      adjourn be entertained. &ldquo;And as to the rest of you fellows,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I
+      don't see what's to hinder your getting busy right now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends and
+      there were enemies; there were good, bad and&mdash;no, there were no
+      indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like unity
+      of action was born out of that sturdy cry&mdash;Every man his own
+      carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove the
+      first tack, but during the remainder of his life the Superintendent of
+      Public Instruction also contended hotly for that honour. The rivalry as to
+      who would do the best job, and get it done most quickly, became intense.
+      Early in the day Harry Weston made the rounds of the building and
+      announced a fine of one-hundred dollars for every wrinkle. There were
+      pounded fingers and there were broken backs, but slowly, steadily and
+      good-naturedly the State-house carpet was going down. It was a good deal
+      bigger job than they had anticipated, but that only added zest to the
+      undertaking. The news of how the State officials were employing themselves
+      had spread throughout the city, and guards were stationed at every door to
+      keep out people whose presence would work more harm than good. All
+      assistance from women was courteously refused. &ldquo;This is solemn business,&rdquo;
+       said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some of the fair sex,
+      &ldquo;and the introduction of the feminine element might throw about it a
+      social atmosphere which would result in loss of time. And then some of the
+      boys might feel called upon to put on their collars and coats.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stretch&mdash;stretch&mdash;stretch, and tack&mdash;tack&mdash;tack, all
+      morning long it went on, for the State-house was large&mdash;oh, very
+      large. There should have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for
+      the novelty of the situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had
+      never glowed before. Choice bits which at other times would fairly have
+      gone on official record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the
+      surfeit. Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them. Bridget
+      Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the boarding-house
+      across the street was a sort of unofficial official of the State, came
+      over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the while calling down
+      blessings on the head of every mother's son of them, and announcing in
+      loud, firm tones that while all five of her boys belonged to the union
+      she'd be after tellin' them what she thought of this day's work!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be fair,
+      the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He came over
+      there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, and in a few
+      hurried words&mdash;it was no day for conversation&mdash;was told what was
+      going on. It was while standing out in the corridor watching the
+      perspiring dignitaries that the idea of his duty came to him, and one
+      reason he was sure he was right was the way in which it came to him in the
+      light of a duty. Here was America in undress uniform! Here was&mdash;not a
+      thing arranged for show, but absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig
+      had come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was
+      not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags
+      and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches. But
+      would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again
+      Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just
+      beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was
+      contending hotly for a better hammer. &ldquo;It's an insult to expect any decent
+      man to drive tacks with a hammer like this,&rdquo; he was saying. Here were men&mdash;real,
+      live men, men with individuality, spirit. When the Prince had come so far,
+      wasn't it too bad that he should not see anything but uniforms and cut
+      glass and dress suits and other externals and non-essentials? Senator
+      Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow; he was hospitable&mdash;patriotic.
+      He decided now in favour of the Prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of the
+      vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into confidence,
+      and proved an able and eager ally. They located the special train bearing
+      the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next station. The stop was made
+      that Senator Patton might receive a long telegram from Senator Bruner. &ldquo;I
+      figure it like this,&rdquo; the Senator told the vice-president. &ldquo;They get to
+      Boden at a quarter of one and were going to stop there an hour. Then they
+      were going to stop a little while at Creyville. I've told Patton the
+      situation, and that if he wants to do the right thing by the prince he'll
+      cut out those stops and rush right through here. That will bring him in&mdash;well,
+      they could make it at a quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it with
+      Boden and Creyville. Oh, he'll do it all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: &ldquo;Too good to miss. Will
+      rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's great!&rdquo; cried the Senator. &ldquo;Trust Billy Patton for falling in with
+      a good thing. And he's right about missing the station crowd. Patton can
+      always go you one better,&rdquo; he admitted, grinningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like sophomores
+      in college than like a United States Senator and a big railroad man. &ldquo;You
+      don't think there's any danger of their getting through too soon?&rdquo; McVeigh
+      kept asking, anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit,&rdquo; the Senator assured him. &ldquo;They can't possibly make it before
+      three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish. It's going to be
+      a jolly rush at the last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State
+      library building was across from the Capitol, and they were connected by
+      tunnel. &ldquo;I never saw before,&rdquo; said the Senator, &ldquo;what that tunnel was for,
+      but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll get him in at the west door
+      of the library&mdash;we can drive right up to it, you know, and then we
+      walk him through the tunnel. That's a stone floor&rdquo;&mdash;the Senator was
+      chuckling with every sentence&mdash;&ldquo;so I guess they won't be carpeting
+      it. There's a little stairway running up from the tunnel&mdash;-and say,
+      we must telephone over and arrange about those keys. There'll be a good
+      deal of climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It
+      wouldn't be safe to try the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it
+      taking somebody a bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store
+      rooms; we'll not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the
+      rotunda and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time;
+      some one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't see
+      us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that for two old
+      fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in pretty neat shape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the special
+      at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing a long coat
+      and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at all formidable or
+      unusual. &ldquo;You've saved the country,&rdquo; Senator Patton whispered in an aside.
+      &ldquo;He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly up so in my life. Guess he
+      was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would be really worth while to see
+      somebody who wasn't looking for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Senator Bruner beamed. &ldquo;That's just the point. He's caught my idea
+      exactly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It went without a hitch. &ldquo;I feel,&rdquo; said the Prince, as they were hurrying
+      him through the tunnel, &ldquo;that I am a little boy who has run away from
+      school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some band may begin
+      to play, and somebody may think of making a speech.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed
+      that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. The final
+      skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators&mdash;coatless, tieless,
+      collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finishing the
+      stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House
+      was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and a
+      member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a
+      disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most
+      exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member who
+      fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another were
+      now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large wrinkle
+      which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men were
+      standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply absorbed
+      in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all open, and
+      there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of pictures.
+      Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with &ldquo;finishing
+      touches.&rdquo; The Prince grew so excited about it all that they had to keep
+      urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I'll tell you,&rdquo; Senator Bruner was saying, &ldquo;it isn't only because I
+      knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; but&mdash;well, you
+      see America isn't the real America when she has on her best clothes and is
+      trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared for your
+      coming, and that means you haven't seen them as they are at all. Now here
+      we are. This is us! You see that fellow hanging a picture down there? He's
+      president of the First National Bank. Came over a little while ago, got
+      next to the situation, and stayed to help. And&mdash;say, this is good!
+      Notice that red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees? Well, he's
+      president of the teamsters' union&mdash;figured so big in a strike here
+      last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all so afraid
+      of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it themselves, and
+      just sneaked in and helped.&mdash;There's the Governor. He's a fine
+      fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody&mdash;not even to get ready for
+      a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to make things come his
+      way. Yes sir&mdash;this is the sure-enough thing. Here you have the boys
+      off dress parade. Not that we run away from our dignity every day, but&mdash;see
+      what I mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know&mdash;say, dodge there! Move back! No&mdash;too late. The
+      Governor's caught us. Look at him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his hands
+      on his back&mdash;he couldn't look up without doing that&mdash;and gave a
+      long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator Patton
+      waved; then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved. Other people
+      were beginning to look up. &ldquo;They're all on,&rdquo; laughed Patton, &ldquo;let's go
+      down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. &ldquo;We
+      worked all day to get in shape,&rdquo; grumbled Harry Weston, &ldquo;and then you go
+      ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to begin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good time that
+      they were forced to concede the move had been a success. And he said to
+      the Governor as he was leaving: &ldquo;I see that the only way to see America is
+      to see it when America is not seeing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VIII. &mdash; THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nine&mdash;ten&mdash;&rdquo; The old clock paused as if in dramatic
+      appreciation of the situation, and then slowly, weightily, it gave the
+      final stroke, &ldquo;Eleven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor swung his chair half-way round and looked the timepiece full
+      in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last hour of
+      his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would be Governor
+      of the State. He sat there watching the movement of the minute hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of voices, some jovial, some argumentative, was borne to him
+      through the open transom. People were beginning to gather in the
+      corridors, and he could hear the usual disputes about tickets of admission
+      to the inaugural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His secretary came in just then with some letters. &ldquo;Could you see
+      Whitefield now?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;He's waiting out here for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man looked up wearily. &ldquo;Oh, put him off, Charlie. Tell him you can
+      talk to him about whatever it is he wants to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The secretary had his hand on the knob, when the Governor added, &ldquo;And,
+      Charlie, keep everybody out, if you can. I'm&mdash;I've got a few private
+      matters to go over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger man nodded and opened the door. He half closed it behind him,
+      and then turned to say, &ldquo;Except Francis. You'll want to see him if he
+      comes in, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He frowned and moved impatiently as he answered, curtly: &ldquo;Oh, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Francis! Of course it never occurred to any of them that he could close
+      the door on Francis. He drummed nervously on his desk, then suddenly
+      reached down and, opening one of the drawers, tossed back a few things and
+      drew out a newspaper. He unfolded this and spread it out on the desk.
+      Running across the page was the big black line, &ldquo;Real Governors of Some
+      Western States,&rdquo; and just below, the first of the series, and played up as
+      the most glaring example of nominal and real in governorship, was a sketch
+      of Harvey Francis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not contribute
+      to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of spirit to be told
+      at the end of things that he had, as a matter of fact, never been anybody
+      at all. And the bitterest part of it was that, looking back on it now,
+      getting it from the viewpoint of one stepping from it, he could see just
+      how true was the statement: &ldquo;Harvey Francis has been the real Governor of
+      the State; John Morrison his mouthpiece and figurehead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape. It may
+      have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing him down, that
+      carried him back across the years to one snowy afternoon when he stood up
+      in a little red schoolhouse and delivered an oration on &ldquo;The
+      Responsibilities of Statesmanship.&rdquo; He smiled as the title came back to
+      him, and yet&mdash;what had become of the spirit of that
+      seventeen-year-old boy? He had meant it all then; he could remember the
+      thrill with which he stood there that afternoon long before and poured out
+      his sentiments regarding the sacredness of public trusts. What was it had
+      kept him, when his chance came, from working out in his life the things he
+      had so fervently poured into his schoolboy oration?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and there
+      was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's &ldquo;Come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indulging in a little meditation?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went on,
+      easily: &ldquo;Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding him up for
+      tickets, and he&mdash;poor young fool&mdash;looks as though he wanted to
+      jump in the river. Takes things tremendously to heart&mdash;Dorman does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of
+      Dorman's. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking about
+      the room, &ldquo;I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see I'll not
+      have the <i>entree</i> to the Governor's office by afternoon.&rdquo; He laughed,
+      the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated to spend emotion
+      uselessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat looking at
+      him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him: &ldquo;Harvey Francis is
+      the most dangerous type of boss politician. His is not the crude and
+      vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is worth. He deals gently and
+      tenderly with consciences. He knows how to get a man without fatally
+      injuring that man's self-respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to office
+      as State Senator he had cherished old-fashioned ideas of serving his
+      constituents and doing his duty. But the very first week Francis had asked
+      one of those little favours of him, and, wishing to show his appreciation
+      of support given him in his election, he had granted it. Then various
+      courtesies were shown him; he was let in on a &ldquo;deal,&rdquo; and almost before he
+      realised it, it seemed definitely understood that he was a &ldquo;Francis man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Francis roused himself and murmured: &ldquo;Fools!&mdash;amateurs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leyman?&rdquo; ventured the Governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leyman and all of his crowd!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; the Governor could not resist, &ldquo;in another hour this same fool
+      will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Francis rose, impatiently. &ldquo;For the moment. It won't be lasting. In any
+      profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They can't keep
+      it up. They don't know <i>how</i>. Oh, no,&rdquo; he insisted, cheerfully,
+      &ldquo;Leyman will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting on this contract
+      business we've saved up for him getting in good work.&rdquo; He was moving
+      toward the door. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he concluded, with a curious little laugh, &ldquo;see
+      you upstairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five minutes
+      past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short time he must
+      join the party in the anteroom of the House. But weariness had come over
+      him. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his years. It
+      was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one. People who wanted to
+      say nice things of the Governor called him pleasant or genial or kindly.
+      Even the men in the appointive offices did not venture to say he had much
+      force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt it to-day as he never had before. He had left no mark; he had done
+      nothing, stood for nothing. Never once had his personality made itself
+      felt. He had signed the documents; Harvey Francis had always &ldquo;suggested&rdquo;&mdash;the
+      term was that man's own&mdash;the course to be pursued. And the
+      &ldquo;suggestions&rdquo; had ever dictated the policy that would throw the most of
+      influence or money to that splendidly organised machine that Francis
+      controlled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With an effort he shook himself free from his cheerless retrospect. There
+      was a thing or two he wanted to get from his desk, and his time was
+      growing very short. He found what he wanted, and then, just as he was
+      about to close the drawer, his eye fell on a large yellow envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He closed the drawer; but only to reopen it, take out the envelope and
+      remove the documents it contained; and then one by one he spread them out
+      before him on the desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat there looking down at them, wondering whether a man had ever
+      stepped into office with as many pitfalls laid for him. During the last
+      month they had been busy about the old State-house setting traps for the
+      new Governor. The &ldquo;machine&rdquo; was especially jubilant over those contracts
+      the Governor now had spread out before him. The convict labour question
+      was being fought out in the State just then&mdash;organised labour
+      demanding its repeal; country taxpayers insisting that it be maintained.
+      Under the system the penitentiary had become self-supporting. In November
+      the contracts had come up for renewal; but on the request of Harvey
+      Francis the matter had been put off from time to time, and still remained
+      open. Just the week before, Francis had put it to the Governor something
+      like this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't sign those contracts. We can give some reason for holding them off,
+      and save them up for Leyman. Then we can see that the question is
+      agitated, and whatever he does about it is going to prove a bad thing for
+      him. If he doesn't sign, he's in bad with the country fellows, the men who
+      elected him. Don't you see? At the end of his administration the
+      penitentiary, under you self-sustaining, will have cost them a pretty
+      penny. We've got him right square!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clock was close to twenty minutes of twelve, and he concluded that he
+      would go out and join some of his friends he could hear in the other room.
+      It would never do for him to go upstairs with a long, serious face. He had
+      had his day, and now Leyman was to have his, and if the new Governor did
+      better than the old one, then so much the better for the State. As for the
+      contracts, Leyman surely must understand that there was a good deal of
+      rough sailing on political waters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not easy to leave the room. Walking to the window he again
+      stood there looking out across the snow, and once more he went back now at
+      the end of things to that day in the little red schoolhouse which stood
+      out as the beginning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was called back from that dreaming by the sight of three men coming up
+      the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things Francis and the
+      rest of them would say about the new Governor's arriving on foot. Leyman
+      had requested that the inaugural parade be done away with&mdash;but one
+      would suppose he would at least dignify the occasion by arriving in a
+      carriage. Francis would see that the opposing papers handled it as a
+      grand-stand play to the country constituents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, forgetful of Francis, and of the approaching ceremony, the old
+      man stood there by the window watching the young man who was coming up to
+      take his place. How firmly the new Governor walked! With what confidence
+      he looked ahead at the State-house. The Governor&mdash;not considering the
+      inconsistency therein&mdash;felt a thrill of real pride in thought of the
+      State's possessing a man like that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Standing though he did for the things pitted against him, down in his
+      heart John Morrison had all along cherished a strong admiration for that
+      young man who, as District Attorney of the State's metropolis, had aroused
+      the whole country by his fearlessness and unquestionable sincerity. Many a
+      day he had sat in that same office reading what the young District
+      Attorney was doing in the city close by&mdash;the fight he was making
+      almost single-handed against corruption, how he was striking in the high
+      places fast and hard as in the low, the opposition, threats, and time
+      after time there had been that same secret thrill at thought of there
+      being a man like that. And when the people of the State, convinced that
+      here was one man who would serve <i>them</i>, began urging the District
+      Attorney for chief executive, Governor Morrison, linked with the opposing
+      forces, doing all he could to bring about Leyman's defeat, never lost that
+      secret feeling for the young man, who, unbacked by any organisation,
+      struck blow after blow at the machine that had so long dominated the
+      State, winning in the end that almost incomprehensible victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The new Governor had passed from sight, and a moment later his voice came
+      to the ear of the lonely man in the executive office. Some friends had
+      stopped him just outside the Governor's door with a laughing &ldquo;Here's
+      hoping you'll do as much for us in the new office as you did in the old,&rdquo;
+       and the new Governor replied, buoyantly: &ldquo;Oh, but I'm going to do a great
+      deal more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man within the office smiled a little wistfully and with a sigh sat
+      down before his desk. The clock now pointed to thirteen minutes of twelve;
+      they would be asking for him upstairs. There were some scraps of paper on
+      his desk and he threw them into the waste-basket, murmuring: &ldquo;I can at
+      least give him a clean desk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pushed his chair back sharply. A clean desk! The phrase opened to
+      deeper meanings.... Why not clean it up in earnest? Why not give him a
+      square deal&mdash;a real chance? Why not <i>sign the contracts</i>?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he looked at the clock&mdash;not yet ten minutes of twelve. For ten
+      minutes more he was Governor of the State! Ten minutes of real
+      governorship! Might it not make up a little, both to his own soul and to
+      the world, for the years he had weakly served as another man's puppet? The
+      consciousness that he could do it, that it was not within the power of any
+      man to stop him, was intoxicating. Why not break the chains now at the
+      last, and just before the end taste the joy of freedom?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took up his pen and reached for the inkwell. With trembling, excited
+      fingers he unfolded the contracts. He dipped his pen into the ink; he even
+      brought it down on the paper; and then the tension broke. He sank back in
+      his chair, a frightened, broken old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;no, not now. It's&mdash;&rdquo; his head went lower and
+      lower until at last it rested on the desk&mdash;&ldquo;too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he raised his head and grew more steady, it was only to see the
+      soundness of his conclusion. He had not the right now in the final hour to
+      buy for himself a little of glory. It would only be a form of
+      self-indulgence. They would call it, and perhaps rightly, hush money to
+      his conscience. They would say he went back on them only when he was
+      through with them. Oh, no, there would be no more strength in it than in
+      the average deathbed repentance. He would at least step out with
+      consistency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He folded the contracts and put them back into the envelope. The minute
+      hand now pointed to seven minutes to twelve. Some one was tapping at the
+      door, and the secretary appeared to say they were waiting for him
+      upstairs. He replied that he would be there in a minute, hoping that his
+      voice did not sound as strange to the other man as it had to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly he walked to the door leading into the corridor. This, then, was
+      indeed the end; this the final stepping down from office! After years of
+      what they called public service, he was leaving it all now with a sense of
+      defeat and humiliation. A lump was in the old man's throat; his eyes were
+      blurred. &ldquo;But you, Frank Leyman,&rdquo; he whispered passionately, turning as if
+      for comfort to the other man, &ldquo;it will be different with you! They'll not
+      get you&mdash;not you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It lifted him then as a great wave&mdash;this passionate exultation that
+      here was one man whom corruption could not claim as her own. Here was one
+      human soul not to be had for a price! There flitted before him again a
+      picture of that seventeen-year-old boy in the little red schoolhouse, and
+      close upon it came the picture of this other young man against whom all
+      powers of corruption had been turned in vain. With the one it had been the
+      emotional luxury of a sentiment, a thing from life's actualities apart;
+      with the other it was a force that dominated all things else, a force over
+      which circumstances and design could not prevail. &ldquo;I know all about it,&rdquo;
+       he was saying. &ldquo;I know about it all! I know how easy it is to fall! I know
+      how fine it is to stand!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His sense of disappointment in his own empty, besmirched career was almost
+      submerged then as he projected himself on into the career of this other
+      man who within the hour would come there in his stead. How glorious was
+      his opportunity, how limitless his possibilities, and how great to his own
+      soul the satisfaction the years would bring of having done his best!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had all changed now. That passionate longing to vindicate himself, add
+      one thing honourable and fine to his own record, had altogether left him,
+      and with the new mood came new insight and what had been an impulse
+      centred to a purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It pointed to three minutes to twelve as he walked over to his desk,
+      unfolded the contracts, and one by one affixed his signature. In a dim way
+      he was conscious of how the interpretation of his first motive would be
+      put upon it, how they would call him traitor and coward; but that mattered
+      little. The very fact that the man for whom he was doing it would never
+      see it as it was brought him no pang. And when he had carefully blotted
+      the papers, affixed the seal and put them away, there was in his heart the
+      clean, sweet joy of a child because he had been able to do this for a man
+      in whom he believed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The band was playing the opening strains as he closed the door behind him
+      and started upstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IX. &mdash; &ldquo;OUT THERE&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      The old man held the picture up before him and surveyed it with admiring
+      but disapproving eye. &ldquo;No one that comes along this way'll have the price
+      for it,&rdquo; he grumbled. &ldquo;It'll just set here 'till doomsday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the shop. A
+      persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his stock let the
+      old man have it for what he called a song. It was only a little
+      out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing of pictures.
+      The old man looked around at his views of the city, his pictures of cats
+      and dogs and gorgeous young women, his flaming bits of landscape. &ldquo;Don't
+      belong in here,&rdquo; he fumed, &ldquo;any more 'an I belong in Congress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. He seemed all
+      at once to be lifted from his realm of petty tradesman to that of patron
+      of art. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he shuffled about
+      pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not fair to the picture to try repainting it in words, for words
+      reduce it to a lithograph. It was a bit of a pine forest, through which
+      there exuberantly rushed an unspoiled little mountain stream. Chromos and
+      works of art may deal with kindred subjects. There is just that one
+      difference of dealing with them differently. &ldquo;It ain't what you <i>see</i>,
+      so much as what you can guess is there,&rdquo; was the thought it brought to the
+      old man who was dusting it. &ldquo;Now this frame ain't three feet long, but it
+      wouldn't surprise me a bit if that timber kept right on for a hundred
+      miles. I kind of suspect it's on a mountain&mdash;looks cool enough in
+      there to be on a mountain. Wish I was there. Bet they never see no such
+      days as we do in Chicago. Looks as though a man might call his soul his
+      own&mdash;out there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began removing some views of Lincoln Park and some corpulent Cupids in
+      order to make room in the window for the new picture. When he went outside
+      to look at it he shook his head severely and hastened in to take away some
+      ardent young men and women, some fruit and flowers and fish which he had
+      left thinking they might &ldquo;set it off.&rdquo; It was evident that the new picture
+      did not need to be &ldquo;set off.&rdquo; &ldquo;And anyway,&rdquo; he told himself, in
+      vindication of entrusting all his goods to one bottom, &ldquo;I might as well
+      take them out, for the new one makes them look so kind of sick that no one
+      would have them, anyhow.&rdquo; Then he went back to mounting views with the
+      serenity of one who stands for the finer things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His clamorous little clock pointed to a quarter of six when he finally
+      came back to the front of the store. It was time to begin closing up for
+      the night, but for the minute he stood there watching the crowd of workers
+      coming from the business district not far away over to the boarding-house
+      region, a little to the west. He watched them as they came by in twos and
+      threes and fours: noisy people and worn-out people, people hilarious and
+      people sullen, the gaiety and the weariness, the acceptance and the
+      rebellion of humanity&mdash;he saw it pass. &ldquo;As if any of <i>them</i>
+      could buy it,&rdquo; he pronounced severely, adding, contemptuously, &ldquo;or wanted
+      to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl was coming along by herself. He watched her as she crossed to his
+      side of the street, thinking it was too bad for a poor girl to be as tired
+      as that. She was dressed like many of the rest of them, and yet she looked
+      different&mdash;like the picture and the chromo. She turned an indifferent
+      glance toward the window, and then suddenly she stood there very still,
+      and everything about her seemed to change. &ldquo;For all the world,&rdquo; he told
+      himself afterward, &ldquo;as if she'd found a long-lost friend, and was 'fraid
+      to speak for fear it was too good to be true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did seem afraid to speak&mdash;afraid to believe. For a minute she
+      stood there right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the picture.
+      And when she came toward the window it was less as if coming than as if
+      drawn. What she really seemed to want to do was to edge away; yet she came
+      closer, as close as she could, her eyes never leaving the picture, and
+      then fear, or awe, or whatever it was made her look so queer gave way to
+      wonder&mdash;that wondering which is ready to open the door to delight.
+      She looked up and down the street as one rubbing one's eyes to make sure
+      of a thing, and then it all gave way to a joy which lighted her pale
+      little face like&mdash;&ldquo;Well, like nothing I ever saw before,&rdquo; was all the
+      old man could say of it. &ldquo;Why, she'd never know if the whole fire
+      department was to run right up here on the sidewalk,&rdquo; he gloated. Just
+      then she drew herself up for a long breath. &ldquo;See?&rdquo; he chuckled,
+      delightedly. &ldquo;She knows it has a smell!&rdquo; She looked toward the door, but
+      shook her head. &ldquo;Knows she can't pay the price,&rdquo; he interpreted her. Then,
+      she stepped back and looked at the number above the door. &ldquo;Coming again,&rdquo;
+       he made of that; &ldquo;ain't going to run no chances of losing the place.&rdquo; And
+      then for a long time she stood there before the picture, so deeply and so
+      strangely quiet that he could not translate her. &ldquo;I can't just get the run
+      of it,&rdquo; was his bewildered conclusion. &ldquo;I don't see why it should make
+      anybody act like that.&rdquo; And yet he must have understood more than he knew,
+      for suddenly he was seeing her through a blur of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he began shutting up for the night he was so excited about the way she
+      looked when she finally turned away that it never occurred to him to be
+      depressed about her inability to pay the price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He kept thinking of her, wondering about her, during the next day. At a
+      little before six he took up his station near the front window. Once more
+      the current of workers flowed by. &ldquo;I'm an old fool,&rdquo; he told himself,
+      irritated at the wait; &ldquo;as if it makes any difference whether she comes or
+      not&mdash;when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just as big a fool as I am&mdash;liking
+      it when she can't have it, only I'm the biggest fool of all&mdash;caring
+      whether she likes it or not.&rdquo; But just then the girl passed quickly by a
+      crowd of girls who were ahead of her and came hurrying across the street.
+      She was walking fast, and looked excited and anxious. &ldquo;Afraid it might be
+      gone,&rdquo; he said&mdash;adding, grimly: &ldquo;Needn't worry much about that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She came up to the picture as some people would enter a church. And yet
+      the joy which flooded her face is not well known to churches. &ldquo;I'll tell
+      you what it's like&rdquo;&mdash;the old man's thoughts stumbling right into the
+      heart of it&mdash;&ldquo;it's like someone that's been wandering round in a
+      desert country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's <i>thirsty</i>&mdash;she's
+      drinking it in&mdash;she can't get enough of it. It's&mdash;it's the water
+      of life to her!&rdquo; And then, ashamed of saying a thing that sounded as if it
+      were out of a poem, he shook his shoulders roughly as if to shake off a
+      piece of sentiment unbecoming his age and sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to the door and watched her as she passed away. &ldquo;I'll bet she'd
+      never tip the scale to one hundred pounds,&rdquo; he decided. &ldquo;Looks like a good
+      wind could blow her away.&rdquo; She stooped a little and just as she passed
+      from sight he saw that she was coughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the old man made what he prided himself was a great deduction. &ldquo;She's
+      been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her back for a
+      minute, and when she gets the breath of it she ain't so homesick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All through those July days he watched each night for the frail-looking
+      little girl who liked the picture of the pines. She would always come
+      hurrying across the street in the same eager way, an eagerness close to
+      the feverish. But the tenseness would always relax as she saw the picture.
+      &ldquo;She never looks quite so wilted down when she goes away as she does when
+      she comes,&rdquo; the old man saw. &ldquo;Upon my soul, I believe she really <i>goes</i>
+      there. It's&mdash;oh, Lord&rdquo;&mdash;irritated at getting beyond his depth&mdash;&ldquo;<i>I</i>
+      don't know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He never called it anything now but &ldquo;Her Picture.&rdquo; One day at just ten
+      minutes of six he took it out of the window. &ldquo;Seems kind of mean,&rdquo; he
+      admitted, &ldquo;but I just want to find out how much she does think of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And when he found out he told himself that of all the mean men God had
+      ever let live, he was the meanest. The girl came along in the usual
+      hurried, anxious fashion. And when she saw the empty window he thought for
+      a minute she was going to sink right down there on the sidewalk.
+      Everything about her seemed to give way&mdash;as if something from which
+      she had been drawing had been taken from her. The luminousness gone from
+      her face, there were cruel revelations. &ldquo;Blast my <i>soul!</i>&rdquo; the old
+      man muttered angrily, not far from tearfully. She looked up and down the
+      noisy, dirty, parched street, then back to the empty window. For a minute
+      she just stood there&mdash;that was the worst minute of all. And then&mdash;accepting&mdash;she
+      turned and walked slowly away, walked as the too-weary and the too-often
+      disappointed walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to replace
+      the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought of himself:
+      more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse, meaner than the man
+      who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be loved than the man who would
+      kick over the child's play-house, only to be compared with the brute who
+      would snatch the cup of water from the dying&mdash;such were the verdicts
+      he pronounced. He thought perhaps she would come back, and stayed there
+      until almost seven, waiting for her, though pretending it was necessary
+      that he take down and then put up again the front curtains. All the next
+      day he was restless and irritable. As if to make up to the girl for the
+      contemptible trick he had played he spent a whole hour that afternoon
+      arranging a tapestry background for the picture. &ldquo;She'll think,&rdquo; he told
+      himself, &ldquo;that this was why it was out, and won't be worried about its
+      being gone again. This will just be a little sign to her that it's here to
+      stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began his watch that night at half-past five. After fifteen minutes the
+      thought came to him that she might be so disheartened she would go home by
+      another street. He became so gloomily certain she would do this that he
+      was jubilant when he finally saw her coming along on the other side&mdash;coming
+      purposelessly, shorn of that eagerness which had always been able, for the
+      moment, to vanquish the tiredness. But when she came to the place where
+      she always crossed the street she only stood there an instant and then, a
+      little more slowly, a little more droopingly, walked on. She had given up!
+      She was not coming over!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did come. After she had gone a few steps she hesitated again and
+      this time started across the street. &ldquo;That's right,&rdquo; approved the old man,
+      &ldquo;never give up the ship!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She passed the store as if she were not going to look in; she seemed
+      trying not to look, but her head turned&mdash;and she saw the picture.
+      First her body seemed to stiffen, and then something&mdash;he couldn't
+      make out whether or not it was a sob&mdash;shook her, and as she came
+      toward the picture on her white, tired face were the tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you worry,&rdquo; he murmured affectionately to her retreating form, &ldquo;it
+      won't never be gone again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The very next week he was put to the test. The kind of lady who did not
+      often pass along that street entered the shop and asked to see the picture
+      in the window. He looked at her suspiciously. Then he frowned at her, as
+      he stood there, fumbling. <i>Her</i> picture! What would she think? What
+      would she do? Then a crafty smile stole over his face and he walked to the
+      window and got the picture. &ldquo;The price of this picture, madame,&rdquo; he said,
+      haughtily, &ldquo;is forty dollars,&rdquo;&mdash;adding to himself, &ldquo;That'll fix her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the lady made no comment, and stood there holding the picture up
+      before her. &ldquo;I will take it,&rdquo; she said, quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her stupidly. Forty dollars! Then it must be that the picture
+      was better than the young man had known. &ldquo;Will you wrap it, please?&rdquo; she
+      asked. &ldquo;I will take it with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to the back of the store. Forty dollars!&mdash;he kept repeating
+      it in dazed fashion. And they had raised the rent on him, and the papers
+      said coal would be high that winter&mdash;those facts seemed to have
+      something to do with forty dollars. <i>Forty dollars!</i>&mdash;it was
+      hammering at him, overwhelmed him, too big a sum to contend with. With
+      long, grim stroke he tore off the wrapping paper; stoically he began
+      folding it. But something was the matter. The paper would not go on right.
+      Three times he took it off, and each time he could not help looking down
+      at the picture of the pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a
+      little farther; each time it seemed bigger&mdash;bigger even than forty
+      dollars; it seemed as if it <i>knew things</i>&mdash;things more important
+      than even coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the
+      forest faded away into its own shadowy distances, and in its place was a
+      noisy, crowded, sun-baked street, and across the street was eagerly
+      hurrying an anxious little girl, a frail little wisp of a girl who
+      probably should not be crossing hot, noisy streets at all&mdash;then a
+      light in tired eyes, a smile upon a worn face, relief as from a cooling
+      breeze&mdash;and <i>anyway</i>, suddenly furious at the lady, furious at
+      himself&mdash;&ldquo;he'd be gol-<i>darned</i> if it wasn't <i>her</i> picture!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked firmly back to the front of the store.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forgot at first,&rdquo; he said, brusquely, &ldquo;that this picture belongs to
+      someone else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady looked at him in astonishment. &ldquo;I do not understand,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's nothing to understand,&rdquo; he fairly shouted, &ldquo;except that it
+      belongs to someone else!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away, but came back to him. &ldquo;I will give you fifty dollars for
+      it,&rdquo; she said, in her quiet way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; he thundered at her, &ldquo;you can stand there and offer me five
+      hundred dollars, and I'm here to tell you that this picture is not for
+      sale. Do you <i>hear</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly do,&rdquo; replied the lady, and walked from the store.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a long time in cooling off. &ldquo;I tell you,&rdquo; he stormed to a very blue
+      Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, &ldquo;it's hers&mdash;it's <i>hern</i>&mdash;and
+      anybody that comes along here with any nonsense is just going to hear from
+      <i>me</i>!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the days which followed he often thought to go out and speak to her,
+      but perhaps the old man had a restraining sense of values. He planned some
+      day to go out and tell her the picture was hers, but that seemed a silly
+      thing to tell her, for surely she knew it anyway. He worried a good deal
+      about her cough, which seemed to be getting worse, and he had it all
+      figured out that when cold weather came he would have her come in where it
+      was warm, and take her look in there. He felt that he knew all about her,
+      and though he did not know her name, though he had never heard her speak
+      one word, in some ways he felt closer to her than to any one else in the
+      world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet if the old man had known just how it was with the girl it is
+      altogether unlikely that he would have understood. It would have mystified
+      and disappointed him had he known that she had never seen a pine forest or
+      a mountain in her life. Indeed there was a great deal about the little
+      girl which the old man, together with almost all the rest of the world,
+      would not have understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not that the surface facts about her were either incomprehensible or
+      interesting. The tale of her existence would sound much like that of a
+      hundred other girls in the same city. Inquiry about her would have
+      developed the facts that she did typewriting for a land company, that she
+      did not seem to have any people, and lived at a big boarding-house. At the
+      boarding-house they would have told you that she was a nice little thing,
+      quiet as a mouse, and that it was too bad she had to work, for she seemed
+      more than half sick. There the story would have rested, and the real
+      things about her would not have been touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She worked for the Chicago branch of a big Northwestern land company. They
+      dealt in the lands of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The things
+      she sat at her typewriter and wrote were of the wonders of that great
+      country: the great timber lands, the valleys and hills, towering mountain
+      peaks and rushing rivers. She typewrote &ldquo;literature&rdquo; telling how there was
+      a chance for every man out there, how the big, exhaustless land was eager
+      to yield of its store to all who would come and seek. Day after day she
+      wrote those things telling how the sick were made well and the poor were
+      made rich, how it was a land of indescribable wonders which the feeble pen
+      could not hope to portray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the girl with whom almost everything in life had gone wrong came to
+      think of Out There as the place where everything was right. It was the far
+      country where there was no weariness nor loneliness, the land where one
+      did not grow tired, where one never woke up in the morning too tired to
+      get up, where no one went to bed at night too tired to go to sleep. The
+      street-cars did not ring their gongs so loud Out There, the newsboys had
+      pleasant voices, and there were no elevated trains. It was a pure, high
+      land which knew no smoke nor dirt, a land where great silences drew one to
+      the heart of peace, where the people in the next room did not come in and
+      bang things around late at night. Out There was a wide land where
+      buildings were far apart and streets were not crowded. Even the horses did
+      not grow tired Out There. Oh, it was a land where dreams came true&mdash;a
+      beautiful land where no one ate prunes, where the gravy was never greasy
+      and the potatoes never burned. It was a land of flowers and birds and
+      lovely people&mdash;a land of wealth and health and many smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her imagination made use of it all. She knew how men were reclaiming the
+      desert of Idaho, of the tremendous undeveloped wealth of what had been an
+      almost undiscovered State. She thrilled to the poetry of irrigation. Often
+      when hot and tired and dusty her fancy would follow the little mountain
+      stream from its birth way up in the clouds, her imagination rushing with
+      it through sweetening forest and tumbling with it down cooling rocks until
+      finally strong, bold, wise men guided it to the desert which had yearned
+      for it through all the years, and the grateful desert smiled rich smiles
+      of grain and flowers. She could make it more like a story than any story
+      in any book. And she could always breathe better in thinking of the pine
+      forests of Oregon. There was something liberating&mdash;expanding&mdash;in
+      just the thought of them. She dreamed cooling dreams about them, dreams of
+      their reaching farther than one's fancy could reach, big widening dreams
+      of their standing there serene in the consciousness of their own
+      immensity. They stood to her for a beautiful idea: the idea of space, of
+      room&mdash;room for everybody, and then much more room! Even one's
+      understanding grew big as one turned to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she loved to listen for the Pacific Ocean, coming from
+      incomprehensible distances and unknowable countries, now rushing with
+      passion to the wild coast of Oregon, again stealing into the Washington
+      harbours. She loved to address the letters to Portland, Seattle, Spokane,
+      Tacoma&mdash;all those pulsing, vivid cities of a country of big chances
+      and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle, a city builded upon many
+      hills&mdash;how wonderful that a city should be builded upon hills!&mdash;in
+      Chicago there was nothing that could possibly be thought of as a hill. And
+      she loved to shut her eyes and let the great mountain peak grow in the
+      distance, as one could see it from Portland&mdash;how noble a thing to see
+      a mountain peak from a city! Sometimes she trembled before that
+      consciousness of a mountain. Often when so tired she scarcely knew what
+      she was doing she found she was saying her prayers to a mountain. Indeed,
+      Out There seemed the place to send one's prayers&mdash;for was it not a
+      place where prayers were answered?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During that summer when the West was overrun with tourists who grumbled
+      about everything from the crowded trains to the way in which sea-foods
+      were served, this little girl sat in one of the hot office buildings of
+      Chicago and across the stretch of miles drew to herself the spirit of that
+      country of coming days. Thousands rode in Pullman cars along the banks of
+      the Columbia&mdash;saw, and felt not; she sat before her typewriter in a
+      close, noisy room and heard the cooling rush of waters and got the freeing
+      message of the pines. In some rare moments when she rose from the things
+      about her to the things of which she dreamed she possessed the whole great
+      land, and as the sultry days sapped of her meagre strength, and the
+      bending over the typewriter cramped an already too cramped chest she clung
+      with a more and more passionate tenacity to the bigness and the beauty and
+      rightness of things Out There. And it was so kind to her&mdash;that land
+      of deep breaths and restoring breezes. It never shut her out. It always
+      kept itself bigger and more wonderful than one could ever hope to fancy
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the night she found the picture she knew that it was all really so.
+      That was why it was so momentous a night. The picture was a dream
+      visualised&mdash;a dreamer vindicated. They had pictures in the office, of
+      course&mdash;some pictures trying to tell of that very kind of a place.
+      But those were just pictures; this <i>proved</i> it, told what it meant.
+      It told that she had been right, and there was joy in knowing that she had
+      known. She clung to the picture as one would to that which proves as real
+      all one has long held dear, loved it as the dreamer loves that which
+      secures him in his dreaming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came to think of it as her own abiding place. Often when too tired for
+      long wings of fancy she would just sink down in the deep, cool shadows of
+      the pines, beside the little river which one knew so well was the gift of
+      distant snows. It rested her most of all; it quieted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled sometimes to think how no one in the office knew about it,
+      wondered what they would think if they knew. Often she would find someone
+      in the office looking at her strangely. She used to wonder about it a
+      little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then one day Mr. Osborne sent for her to come into his office. He
+      acted so queerly. As she came in and sat down near his desk he swung his
+      chair around and sat there with his back to her. After that he got up and
+      walked to the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The head stenographer had complained of her cough. She said she did not
+      think it right either to the girl or to the rest of them for her to be
+      there. She said she hated to speak of it, but could not stand it any
+      longer. That had been the week before, and ever since he had been putting
+      it off. But now he could put it off no longer; the head stenographer was
+      valuable, and besides he knew that she was right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so he told her&mdash;this was all he could think of just then&mdash;that
+      they were contemplating some changes in the office, and for a time would
+      have less desk room. If he sent her machine to her home, would she be
+      willing to do her work there for a while? Hers was the kind of work that
+      could be done at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sorry, for she wondered if she could find a place in her room for
+      the typewriter, and it did not seem there would be air enough there to
+      last her all day long. And she had grown fond of the office, with its
+      &ldquo;literature&rdquo; and pictures and maps and the men who had just come from Out
+      There coming in every once in a while. It was a bond&mdash;a place to
+      touch realities. But of course there was nothing for her to do but comply,
+      and she made no comment on the arrangement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pushed her chair back and rose to go. &ldquo;Are you alone in the world?&rdquo; he
+      asked abruptly then,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I&mdash;oh yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was too much for him. &ldquo;How would you like,&rdquo; he asked recklessly, &ldquo;to
+      have me get you transportation out West?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sank back in her chair. Every particle of colour had left her face.
+      Her deep eyes had grown almost wild. &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she gasped&mdash;&ldquo;you can't
+      mean&mdash;you don't think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn't want to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean&rdquo;&mdash;it was but a whisper&mdash;&ldquo;it would be&mdash;too
+      wonderful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would like it then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She only nodded; but her lips were parted, her eyes glowing. He wondered
+      why he had never seen before how different looking and&mdash;yes,
+      beautiful, in a strange kind of way&mdash;she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you have a cold,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I think you would get along better
+      out there. I'll see if I can fix up the transportation, and get something
+      with our people in one of the towns that would be good for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned back in her chair and sat there smiling at him. Something in
+      the smile made him say, abruptly: &ldquo;That's all; you may go now, and I'll
+      send a boy with your machine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She walked through the streets as one who had already found another
+      country. More than one turned to look at her. She reached her room at last
+      and pulling her one little chair up to the window sat staring out across
+      the alley at the brick wall across from her. But she was not seeing a
+      narrow alley and a high brick wall. She was seeing rushing rivers and
+      mighty forests and towering peaks. She leaned back in her chair&mdash;an
+      indulgence less luxurious than it sounds, as the chair only reached the
+      middle of her back&mdash;and looked out at the high brick wall and saw a
+      snow-clad range of hills. But she was tired; this tremendous idea was too
+      much for her; the very wonder of it was exhausting. She lay down on her
+      bed&mdash;radiant, but languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters. At first
+      it was only someone filling the bath-tub, but after a while it was the
+      little stream which flowed through her forest. And then she was not lying
+      on a lumpy bed; she was sinking down under pine trees&mdash;all so sweet
+      and still and cool. But an awful thing was happening!&mdash;the forest was
+      on fire&mdash;it was choking and burning her! She awoke to find smoke from
+      the building opposite pouring into her room; flies were buzzing about, and
+      her face and hands were hot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did little work in the next few days. It was hard to go on with the
+      same work when waiting for a thing which was to make over one's whole
+      life. The stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great languor to
+      come over her. And her chair was not right for her typewriter, and the
+      smoke came in all the time. Strangely enough Out There seemed farther
+      away. Sometimes she could not go there at all; she supposed it was because
+      she was really going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the close of the week she went to the office with her work. She was
+      weak with excitement as she stepped into the elevator. Would Mr. Osborne
+      have the transportation for her? Would he tell her when she was to go?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not see Mr. Osborne at all. When she asked for him the clerk
+      just replied carelessly that he was not there. She was going to ask if he
+      had left any message for her, but the telephone rang then and the man to
+      whom she was talking turned away. Someone was sitting at her old desk, and
+      they did not seem to be making the changes they had contemplated; everyone
+      in the office seemed very busy and uncaring, and because she knew her chin
+      was trembling she turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had a strange feeling as she left the office: as if standing on ground
+      which quivered, an impulse to reach out her hand and tell someone that
+      something must be done right away, a dreadful fear that she was going to
+      cry out that she could not wait much longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once she found that she was crossing the street, and saw ahead the
+      little art store with the wonderful picture which proved it was all really
+      so. In the same old way, her step quickened. It would show her again that
+      it was all just as she had thought it was, and if that were true, then it
+      must be true also that Mr. Osborne was going to get her the
+      transportation. It would prove that everything was all right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a cruel thing happened. It failed her. It was just as beautiful&mdash;but
+      something a long way off, impossible to reach. Try as she would, she could
+      not get <i>into</i> it, as she used to. It was only a picture; a beautiful
+      picture of some pine trees. And they were very far away, and they had
+      nothing at all to do with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the window, at the back of the store, she saw the old man standing
+      with his back to her. She thought of going in and asking to sit down&mdash;she
+      wanted to sit down&mdash;but perhaps he would say something cross to her&mdash;he
+      was such a queer looking old man&mdash;and she knew she would cry if
+      anything cross was said to her. That he had watched for her each night,
+      that he had tried and tried to think of a way of finding her, that he
+      would have been more glad to see her than to see anyone in the world,
+      would have been kinder to her than anyone on earth would have been&mdash;those
+      were the things she did not know. And so&mdash;more lonely than she had
+      ever been before&mdash;she turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Monday she felt she could wait no longer. It did not seem that it would
+      be <i>safe</i>. She got ready to go to see Mr. Osborne, but the getting
+      ready tired her so that she sat a long time resting, looking out at the
+      high brick wall beyond which there was nothing at all. She was counting
+      the blocks, thinking of how many times she would have to cross the street.
+      But just then it occurred to her that she could telephone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she came back upstairs she crept up on the bed and lay there very
+      still. The boy had said that Mr. Osborne was away and would be gone two
+      weeks. No one in the office had heard him say anything about her
+      transportation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All through the day she lay there, and what she saw before her was a
+      narrow alley and a high brick wall. She had lost her mountains and her
+      forests and her rivers and her lakes. She tried to go out to them in the
+      same old way&mdash;but she could not get beyond the high brick wall. She
+      was shut in. She tried to draw them to her, but they could not come across
+      the wall. It shut them out. She tried to pray to the great mountain which
+      one could see from Portland. But even prayers could get no farther than
+      the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Late that afternoon, because she was so shut in that she was choking,
+      because she was consumed with the idea that she must claim her country now
+      or lose it forever, she got up and started for the picture. It was a long,
+      long way to go, and dreadful things were in between&mdash;people who would
+      bump against her, hot, uneven streets, horses that might run over her&mdash;but
+      she must make the journey. She must make it because the things that she
+      lived on were slipping from her&mdash;and she was choking&mdash;sinking
+      down&mdash;and all alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Step by step, never knowing just how her foot was going to make the next
+      step, sick with the fear that people were going to run into her&mdash;the
+      streets going up and down, the buildings round and round, she did go;
+      holding to the window casings for the last few steps&mdash;each step a
+      terrible chasm which she was never sure she was going to be able to cross&mdash;she
+      was there at last. And in the window as she stood there, swayingly, was a
+      dark, blurred thing which might have been anything at all. She tried to
+      remember why she had come. What <i>was</i> it&mdash;? And then she was
+      sinking down into an abyss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the hemorrhage came then, that the old man came out and found her and
+      tenderly took her in, that he had her taken where she should have been
+      taken long before, that the doctors said it was too late, and that soon
+      their verdict was confirmed&mdash;those are the facts which would seem to
+      tell the rest of the story. But deep down beneath facts rests truth, and
+      the truth is that this is a story with the happiest kind of a happy
+      ending. What facts would call the breeze from an electric fan was in truth
+      the gracious breath of the pines. And when the nurse said &ldquo;She's going,&rdquo;
+       she was indeed going, but to a land of great spaces and benign breezes, a
+      land of deep shadows and rushing waters. For a most wondrous thing had
+      happened. She had called to the mountain, and the mountain had heard her
+      voice; and because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew her to
+      itself, across high brick walls and past millions of hurrying, noisy
+      people&mdash;oh, a most triumphant flight! And the mountain said&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      give you this whole great land. It is yours because you have loved it so
+      well. Hills and valleys and rivers and forests and lakes&mdash;it is all
+      for you.&rdquo; Yes, the nurse was quite right; she was going: going for a long
+      sweet sleep beneath trees of many shadows, beside clear waters which had
+      come from distant snows&mdash;really going &ldquo;Out There.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      X. &mdash; THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Governor was sitting alone in his private office with an open letter
+      in his hand. He was devoutly and gloomily wishing that some other man was
+      just then in his shoes. The Governor had not devoted a large portion of
+      his life to nursing a desire of that nature, for he was a man in whose
+      soul the flame of self-satisfaction glowed cheeringly; but just now there
+      were reasons, and he deemed them ample, for deploring that he had been
+      made chief executive of his native State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he chosen to take you into his confidence&mdash;a thing the Governor
+      would assuredly choose not to do&mdash;he would have told you there were
+      greater things in the world than the governorship of that State. He might
+      have suggested a seat in the Senate of the United States as one of those
+      things. It was of the United States Senate his Excellency was thinking as
+      he sat there alone moodily deploring the gubernatorial shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The senior Senator was going to die. He differed therein from his fellows
+      in that he was going to die soon, almost immediately. He had reached the
+      tottering years even at the time of his reelection, and it had never been
+      supposed that his life would outstretch his term. He had been sent back,
+      not for another six years of service, but to hold out the leader of the
+      Boxers, as they called themselves&mdash;the younger and unorthodox element
+      of the party in the State, an element growing to dangerous proportions. It
+      was only by returning the aged Senator, whom they held it would be brutal
+      to turn down after a life of service to the party, that the &ldquo;machine&rdquo; won
+      the memorable fight of the previous winter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the viewpoint of the machine, the Governor was the senior Senator's
+      logical successor. Had it not been for the heavy inroads of the Boxers,
+      his Excellency would even then have been sitting in the Senate Chamber at
+      Washington. It had not been considered safe to nominate the Governor. Had
+      his supporters conceded that the time was at hand for a change, there
+      would have been a general clamour for the leader of the Boxers&mdash;Huntington,
+      undeniably the popular man of the State. And so they concocted a beautiful
+      sentiment about &ldquo;rounding out the veteran's career,&rdquo; and letting him &ldquo;die
+      with his boots on&rdquo;; and through the omnipotence of sentiment, they won.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down in his heart the venerable Senator was not seeking to die with his
+      boots on. He would have preferred sitting in a large chair before the fire
+      and reading quietly of what other men were doing in the Senate of the
+      United States. But they told him he must sacrifice that wish, for if he
+      retired he would be succeeded by a dangerous man. And the old man,
+      believing them, had gone dutifully back into the arena.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it seemed that a power outside man's control was declaring against the
+      well-laid plans of the machine. As the machine saw things, the time was
+      not ripe for the senior Senator to die. He had just entered upon his new
+      term, and the Governor himself had but lately stepped into a second term.
+      They had assumed that the Senator would live on for at least two years,
+      but now they heard that he was likely to die almost at once. His
+      Excellency could not very well name himself for the vacancy, and it seemed
+      dangerous just then to risk a call of the Assembly. They dared not let the
+      Governor appoint a weaker man, even if he would consent to do so, for they
+      would need the best they had to put up against the leader of the Boxers.
+      With the Governor, they believed they could win, but the question of
+      appointing him had suddenly become a knotty one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor himself was bowed with chagrin. He saw now that he had erred
+      in taking a second term, and he was not the man to enjoy reviewing his
+      mistakes. As he sat there reading and rereading the letter which told him
+      that the work of the senior Senator was almost done, he said to himself
+      that it was easy enough to wrestle with men, but a harder thing to try
+      one's mettle with fate. He spent a gloomy and unprofitable day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Late in the afternoon a telegram reached the executive office. Styles was
+      coming to town that night, and wanted to see the Governor at the hotel.
+      Things always cleared when Styles came to town; and so, though still
+      unable to foresee the outcome, he brightened at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Styles was a railroad man, and rich. People to whom certain things were a
+      sealed book said that it was nice of Mr. Styles to take an interest in
+      politics when he had so many other things on his mind, and that he must be
+      a very public-spirited man. That he took an interest in politics, no one
+      familiar with the affairs of the State would deny. The orthodox papers
+      painted him as a public benefactor, but the Boxers arrayed him with hoofs
+      and horns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor and Mr. Styles were warm friends. It was said that their
+      friendship dated from mere boyhood, and that the way the two men had held
+      together through all the vicissitudes of life was touching and beautiful&mdash;at
+      least, so some people observed. There were others whose eyebrows went up
+      when the Governor and Mr. Styles were mentioned in their Damon and Pythias
+      capacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night, in the public benefactor's room at the hotel, the Governor and
+      his old friend had a long talk. When twelve o'clock came they were still
+      talking; more than that, the Governor was excitedly pacing the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, Styles,&rdquo; he expostulated, &ldquo;I don't like it! It doesn't put me
+      in a good light. It's too apparent, and I'll suffer for it, sure as fate.
+      Mark my words, we'll all suffer for it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Styles was sitting in an easy attitude before the table. The public
+      benefactor never paced the floor; it did not seem necessary. He smoked in
+      silence for a minute; then raised himself a little in his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, have you anything better to offer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I haven't,&rdquo; replied the Governor, tartly; &ldquo;but it seems to me you
+      ought to have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styles sank back in his chair and for several minutes more devoted himself
+      to the art of smoking. There were times when this philanthropic dabbler in
+      politics was irritating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he began presently, &ldquo;that you exaggerate the unpleasant
+      features of the situation. It will cause talk, of course; but isn't it
+      worth it? You say it's unheard of; maybe, but so is the situation, and
+      wasn't there something in the copy-books about meeting new situations with
+      new methods? If you have anything better to offer, produce it; if not,
+      we've got to go ahead with this. And really, I don't see that it's so bad.
+      You have to go South to look after your cotton plantation; you find now
+      that it's going to take more time than you feel you should take from the
+      State; you can't afford to give it up; consequently, you withdraw in favor
+      of the Lieutenant-Governor. We all protest, but you say Berriman is a good
+      man, and the State won't suffer, and you simply can't afford to go on.
+      Well, we can keep the Senator's condition pretty quiet here; and after
+      all, he's sturdy, and may live on to the close of the year. After due
+      deliberation Berriman appoints you. A little talk?&mdash;Yes. But it's
+      worth a little talk. It seems to me the thing works out very smoothly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Tom Styles leaned back in his chair and declared a thing worked out
+      very smoothly, that thing was quite likely to go. In three days the
+      Governor went South. When he returned, the newspaper men were startled by
+      the announcement that business considerations which he could not afford to
+      overlook demanded his withdrawal from office. Previous to this time the
+      Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Styles had met and the result of their meeting
+      was not made a matter of public record.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the Governor had anticipated, many things were said. Inquiries were
+      made into the venerable Senator's condition&mdash;which, the orthodox
+      papers declared, was but another example of the indecency of the Boxer
+      journals. The Governor went to his cotton plantation. The
+      Lieutenant-Governor went into office, and was pronounced a worthy
+      successor to a good executive. The venerable Senator continued to live. As
+      Mr. Styles had predicted, the gossip soon quieted into a friendly hope
+      that the Governor would realise large sums with his cotton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late in the fall when the senior Senator finally succumbed. The day
+      the papers printed the story of his death, they printed speculative
+      editorials on his probable successor. When the bereaved family commented
+      with bitterness on this ill-concealed haste, they were told that it was
+      politics&mdash;enterprise&mdash;life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State Capitol,
+      and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and looked upon the
+      quiet face; but far more numerous than those who gathered at his bier to
+      weep were those who assembled in secluded corners to speculate on the
+      wearing of his toga. It was politics&mdash;enterprise&mdash;life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Styles told the Lieutenant-Governor to be deliberate. There was no
+      need of an immediate appointment, he said. And so for a time things went
+      on about the State-house much as usual, save that the absorbing topic was
+      the senatorial situation, and that every one was watching the new chief
+      executive. The retired Governor now spent part of his time in the South,
+      and part at home. The cotton plantation was not demanding all his
+      attention, after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It could not be claimed that John Berriman had ever done any great thing.
+      He was not on record as having ever risen grandly to an occasion; but
+      there may have been something in the fact that an occasion admitting of a
+      grand rising had never presented itself. Before he became
+      Lieutenant-Governor, he had served inoffensively in the State Senate for
+      two terms. No one had ever worked very hard for Senator Berriman's vote.
+      He had been put in by the machine, and it had always been assumed that he
+      was machine property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Berriman himself had never given the matter of his place in the human
+      drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him to vote with
+      his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a tool, he would
+      have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the infallibility of the
+      party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Boxers did not approach him now concerning the appointment of
+      Huntington. That, of course, was a fixed matter, and they were not young
+      and foolish enough to attempt to change it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day the Governor received a telegram from Styles suggesting that he
+      &ldquo;adjust that matter&rdquo; immediately. He thought of announcing the appointment
+      that very night, but the newspaper men had all left the building, and as
+      he had promised that they should know of it as soon as it was made, he
+      concluded to wait until the next morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Governor Berriman had a brother in town that week, attending a meeting of
+      the State Agricultural Society. Hiram Berriman had a large farm in the
+      southern part of the State. He knew but little of political methods, and
+      had primitive ideas about honesty. There had always been a strong tie
+      between the brothers, despite the fact that Hiram was fifteen years the
+      Governor's senior. They talked of many things that night, and the hour was
+      growing late. They were about to retire when the Governor remarked, a
+      little sleepily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, to-morrow morning I announce the senatorial appointment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do, eh?&rdquo; returned the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there's no need of waiting any longer, and it's getting on to the
+      time the State wants two senators in Washington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose, John,&rdquo; Hiram said, turning a serious face to his
+      brother, &ldquo;that you've thought the matter all over, and are sure you are
+      right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor threw back his head with a scoffing laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess it didn't require much thought on my part,&rdquo; he answered
+      carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see how you figure that out,&rdquo; contended Hiram warmly. &ldquo;You're
+      Governor of the State, and your own boss, ain't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first time in all his life that anyone had squarely confronted
+      John Berriman with the question whether or not he was his own boss, and
+      for some reason it went deep into his soul, and rankled there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now see here, Hiram,&rdquo; he said at length, &ldquo;there's no use of your putting
+      on airs and pretending you don't understand this thing. You know well
+      enough it was all fixed before I went in.&rdquo; The other man looked at him in
+      bewilderment, and the Governor continued brusquely: &ldquo;The party knew the
+      Senator was going to die, and so the Governor pulled out and I went in
+      just so the thing could be done decently when the time came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old farmer was scratching his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it, eh? They got wind the Senator was goin' to die, and so the
+      Governor told that lie about having to go South just so he could step into
+      the dead man's shoes, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the situation&mdash;if you want to put it that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now you're going to appoint the Governor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I am; I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, look here, Hiram, haven't you any idea of political obligation? It's
+      expected of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it is, eh? Did you promise to appoint the Governor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I don't know that I exactly made any promises, but that doesn't make
+      a particle of difference. The understanding was that the Governor was to
+      pull out and I was to go in and appoint him. It's a matter of honour;&rdquo; and
+      Governor Berriman drew himself up with pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer turned a troubled face to the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose, then,&rdquo; he said finally, &ldquo;that you all think the Governor is
+      the best man we have for the United States Senate. I take it that in
+      appointing him, John, you feel sure he will guard the interests of the
+      people before everything else, and that the people&mdash;I mean the
+      working people of this State&mdash;will always be safe in his hands; do
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord, no, Hiram!&rdquo; exclaimed the Governor irritably. &ldquo;I don't think
+      that at all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hiram Berriman's brown face warmed to a dull red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;You mean to sit there, John Berriman, and tell me
+      that you don't think the man you're going to put in the United States
+      Senate will be an honest man? What do you mean by saying you're going to
+      put a dishonest man in there to make laws for the people, to watch over
+      them and protect them? If you don't think he's a good man, if you don't
+      think he's the best man the State has&rdquo;&mdash;the old farmer was pounding
+      the table heavily with his huge fist&mdash;&ldquo;if you don't think that, in
+      God's name, <i>why do you appoint him</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could make you understand, Hiram,&rdquo; said the Governor in an
+      injured voice, &ldquo;that it's not for me to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why ain't it for you to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's running
+      you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying to steal from
+      the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see the day a brother of
+      mine put a thief in the United States Senate to bamboozle the honest,
+      hard-working people of this State!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold on, please&mdash;that's a little too strong!&rdquo; flamed the Governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't too strong. If a Senator ain't an honest man, he's a thief; and
+      if he ain't lookin' after the welfare of the people, he's bamboozlin'
+      them, and that's all there is about it. I don't know much about politics,
+      but I ain't lived my life without learning a little about right and wrong,
+      and it's a sorry day we've come to, John Berriman, if right and wrong
+      don't enter into the makin' of a Senator!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor could think of no fitting response, so he held his peace.
+      This seemed to quiet the irate farmer, and he surveyed his brother
+      intently, and not unkindly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're in a position now, John,&rdquo; he said, and there was a kind of homely
+      eloquence in his serious voice, &ldquo;to be a friend to the people. It ain't
+      many of us ever get the chance of doin' a great thing. We work along, and
+      we do the best we can with what comes our way, but most of us don't get
+      the chance to do a thing that's goin' to help thousands of people, and
+      that the whole country's goin' to say was a move for the right. You want
+      to think of that, and when you're thinkin' so much about honour, you don't
+      want to clean forget about honesty. Don't you stick to any foolish notions
+      about bein' faithful to the party; it ain't the party that needs helpin'.
+      No matter how you got where you are, you're Governor of the State right
+      now, John, and your first duty is to the people of this State, not to Tom
+      Styles or anybody else. Just you remember that when you're namin' your
+      Senator in the morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long before the Governor retired. He sat there by the fireplace
+      until after the fire had died down, and he was too absorbed to grow cold.
+      He thought of many things. Like the man who had preceded him in office, he
+      wished that some one else was just then encumbered with the gubernatorial
+      shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning there was a heavy feeling in his head which he thought a
+      walk in the bracing air might dispel, so he started on foot for the
+      Statehouse. A light snow was on the ground, and there was something
+      reassuring in the crispness of the morning. It would make a slave feel
+      like a free man to drink in such air, he was thinking. Snatches of his
+      brother's outburst of the night before kept breaking into his
+      consciousness but curiously enough they did not greatly disturb him. He
+      concluded that it was wonderful what a walk in the bracing air could do.
+      From the foot of the hill he looked up at the State-house, for the first
+      time in his experience seeing and thinking about it&mdash;not simply
+      taking it for granted. There seemed a nobility about it&mdash;in the
+      building itself, and back of that in what it stood for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he walked through the corridor to his office he was greeted with
+      cheerful, respectful salutations. His mood let him give the greetings a
+      value they did not have and from that rose a sense of having the trust and
+      goodwill of his fellows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But upon reaching his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It was
+      imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and satisfaction went
+      from his bearing. He walked to the window and stood there looking down at
+      the city, and, as it had been in looking ahead at the State-house, he now
+      looked out over the city really seeing and understanding it, not merely
+      taking it for granted. He found himself wondering if many of the people in
+      that city&mdash;in that State&mdash;looked to their Governor with the
+      old-fashioned trust his brother had shown. His eyes dimmed; he was
+      thinking of the satisfaction it would afford his children, if&mdash;long
+      after he had gone&mdash;they could tell how a great chance had once come
+      into their father's life, and how he had proved himself a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you sign these now, Governor?&rdquo; asked a voice behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was his secretary, a man who knew the affairs of the State well, and
+      whom every one seemed to respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Haines,&rdquo; he said abruptly, &ldquo;who do you think is the best man we have
+      for the United States Senate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The secretary stepped back, dumfounded; amazed that the question should be
+      put to him, startled at that strange way of putting it. Then he told
+      himself he must be discreet. Like many of the people at the State-house,
+      in his heart Haines was a Boxer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I presume,&rdquo; he ventured, &ldquo;that the Governor is looked upon as the
+      logical candidate, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not talking about logical candidates. I want to know who you think is
+      the man who would most conscientiously and creditably represent this State
+      in the Senate of the United States.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so simply spoken that the secretary found himself answering it as
+      simply. &ldquo;If you put it that way, Governor, Mr. Huntington is the man, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think most of the people feel that way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know they do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You believe if it were a matter of popular vote, Huntington would be the
+      new Senator?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There can be no doubt of that, Governor. I think they all have to admit
+      that. Huntington is the man the people want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all, Mr. Haines. I merely wondered what you thought about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after that Governor Berriman rang for a messenger boy and sent a
+      telegram. Then he settled quietly down to routine work. It was about
+      eleven when one of the newspaper men came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-morning, Governor,&rdquo; he said briskly &ldquo;how's everything to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Mr. Markham. I have nothing to tell you to-day, except that
+      I've made the senatorial appointment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; laughed the reporter excitedly, &ldquo;that's all, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied the Governor, smiling too; &ldquo;that's all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The reporter looked at the clock. &ldquo;I'll just catch the noon edition,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;if I telephone right away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was moving to the other room when the Governor called to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here, it seems to me you're a strange newspaper man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I tell you I've made a senatorial appointment&mdash;a matter of some
+      slight importance&mdash;and you rush off never asking whom I've
+      appointed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The reporter gave a forced laugh. He wished the Governor would not detain
+      him with a joke now when every second counted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right,&rdquo; he said, with strained pleasantness. &ldquo;Well, who's the
+      man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Governor raised his head. &ldquo;Huntington,&rdquo; he said quietly, and resumed
+      his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; gasped the reporter. &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he stopped in embarrassment, as if ashamed of being so easily taken
+      in. &ldquo;Guess you're trying to jolly me a little, aren't you, Governor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jolly you, Mr. Markham? I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper reporters.
+      Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you are still
+      sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so impossible. Don't you
+      consider Mr. Huntington a fit man for the place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But for the minute the reporter seemed unable to speak. &ldquo;May I ask,&rdquo; he
+      fumbled at last, &ldquo;why you did it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had but one motive, Mr. Markham. I thought the matter over and it
+      seemed to me the people should have the man they wanted. I am with them in
+      believing Huntington the best man for the place.&rdquo; He said it simply, and
+      went quietly back to his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For many a long day politicians and papers continued the search for &ldquo;the
+      motive.&rdquo; Styles and his crowd saw it as a simple matter of selling out;
+      they knew, of course, that it could be nothing else. After their first
+      rage had subsided, and they saw there was nothing they could do, they
+      wondered, sneeringly, why he did not &ldquo;fix up a better story.&rdquo; That was a
+      little <i>too</i> simple-minded. Did he think people were fools? And even
+      the men who profited by the situation puzzled their brains for weeks
+      trying to understand it. There was something behind it, of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XI. &mdash; HIS AMERICA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      He hated to see the reporter go. With the closing of that door it seemed
+      certain that there was no putting it off any longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even when the man's footsteps were at last sounding on the stairway,
+      he still clung to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; he asked, fretfully, &ldquo;why do you always talk to those fellows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Herman Beckman turned in his chair and stared at his son. Then he laughed.
+      &ldquo;Now, that's a fine question to come from the honour man of a law school!
+      I hope, Fritz, that your oration to-night is going to have a little more
+      sense in it than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The calling up of his oration made him reach out another clutching hand to
+      the vanished reporter. &ldquo;But it's farcical, father, to be always
+      interviewed by a paper nobody reads.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody&mdash;<i>reads</i>?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, nobody cares anything about the <i>Leader</i>. It's dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Herman Beckman looked at his son sharply; something about him seemed
+      strange. He decided that he was nervous about the commencement programme.
+      Fritz had the one oration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy had opened the drawer of his study table and was fingering some
+      papers he had taken out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure you know it?&rdquo; the man asked with affectionate parental anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know it all right,&rdquo; Fred answered grimly, and again the father
+      decided that he was nervous about the thing. He wasn't just like himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man walked to the window and stood looking across at the university
+      buildings. Colleges had always meant much to Herman Beckman. The very day
+      Fritz was born he determined that the boy was to go to college. It was
+      good to witness the fulfilment of his dreams. He turned his glance to the
+      comfortable room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty decent comfortable sort of place, isn't it, father?&rdquo; Fred asked,
+      following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair to the
+      student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays seem an
+      inevitable part of the acquirement of learning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It made his father laugh. &ldquo;Yes, my boy, I should call it decent&mdash;and
+      comfortable.&rdquo; He grew thoughtful after that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty different from the place you had, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;me? My place to study was any place I could find. Sometimes on
+      top of a load of hay, lots of times by the light of the logs. I've studied
+      in some funny places, Fritz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you <i>got</i> there, father!&rdquo; the boy burst out with feeling. &ldquo;By
+      Jove, there aren't many of them <i>know</i> the things you know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know enough to know what I don't know,&rdquo; said the old man, a little
+      sadly. &ldquo;I know enough to know what I missed. I wanted to go to college. No
+      one will ever know how I wanted to! I began to think I'd never feel right
+      about it. But I have a notion that when I sit there to-night listening to
+      you, Fritz, knowing that you're speaking for two hundred boys, half of
+      whose fathers did go to college, I think I'm going to feel better about it
+      then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy turned away. Something in the kindly words seemed as the cut of a
+      whip across his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Fritz,&rdquo; his father continued, getting into his coat, &ldquo;I'll be going
+      downtown. Leave you to put on an extra flourish or two.&rdquo; He laughed in
+      proud parental fashion. &ldquo;Anyway, I have some things to see about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy stood up. &ldquo;Father, I have something to tell you.&rdquo; He said it
+      shortly and sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The father stood there, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't like my oration to-night, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And still the man did not speak. The words would not have bothered him
+      much&mdash;it was the boy's manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In fact, father, you're going to be desperately disappointed in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dull red was creeping into the man's cheeks. He was one to have little
+      patience with that thing of not doing one's work. &ldquo;Why am I going to be
+      disappointed? This is no time to shirk! You should&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you'll not complain of the time and thought I've put on it,&rdquo; the boy
+      broke in with a short, hard laugh. &ldquo;But, you see, father&mdash;you see&rdquo;&mdash;his
+      armour had slipped from him&mdash;&ldquo;it doesn't express&mdash;your views.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I ever say I wanted you to express 'my views'? Did I bring you up to
+      be a mouthpiece of mine? Haven't I told you to <i>think</i>?&rdquo; But with a
+      long, sharp glance at his boy anger gave way. &ldquo;Come, boy&rdquo;&mdash;going over
+      and patting him on the back&mdash;&ldquo;brace up now. You're acting like a
+      seven-year-old girl afraid to speak her first piece,&rdquo; and his big laugh
+      rang out, eager to reassure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't see it! You won't believe it! I don't suppose you'll believe it
+      when you hear it!&rdquo; He turned away, overwhelmed by a sudden realisation of
+      just how difficult was the thing that lay before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man started toward his son, but instead he walked over and sat down at
+      the opposite side of the table, waiting. He was beginning to see that
+      there was something in this which he did not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the boy turned to him, fighting back some things, taking on other
+      things. He gazed at the care-worn, rugged face&mdash;face of a worker and
+      a dreamer, reading in those lines the story of that life, seeing more
+      clearly than he had ever seen before the beauty and futility of it. Here
+      was the idealist, the man who would give his whole lifetime to a dream he
+      had dreamed. He loved his father very tenderly as he looked at him, read
+      him, then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; he asked quietly, &ldquo;are you satisfied with your life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man simply stared&mdash;waiting, seeking his bearings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You came to this country when you were nineteen years old&mdash;didn't
+      you, father?&rdquo; The man nodded. &ldquo;And now you're&mdash;it's sixty-one, isn't
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been in America, then, forty-two years. Father, do you think as
+      much of it now as you did forty-two years ago?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what you mean,&rdquo; the man said, searching his son's quiet,
+      passionate face. &ldquo;I can't make you out, Fritz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My favourite story as a kid,&rdquo; the boy went on, &ldquo;was to hear you tell of
+      how you felt when your boat came sailing into New York Harbour, and you
+      saw the first outlines of a country you had dreamed about all through your
+      boyhood, which you had saved pennies for, worked nights for, ever since
+      you were old enough to know the meaning of America. I mean,&rdquo; he corrected,
+      significantly, &ldquo;the meaning of what you thought was America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a bully story, father,&rdquo; he continued, with a smile at once tender
+      and hard; &ldquo;the simple German boy, born a dreamer, standing there looking
+      out at the dim shores of that land he had idealised. If ever a man came to
+      America bringing it rich gifts, that man was you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fritz,&rdquo; his father's voice was rendered harsh by mystification and
+      foreboding, &ldquo;tell me what you're talking about. Come to the point. Clear
+      this up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm talking about American politics&mdash;your party&mdash;having ruined
+      your life! I'm talking about working like a slave all your days and having
+      nothing but a mortgaged farm at sixty-one! I'm talking about playing a
+      losing game! I'm saying, <i>What's the use?</i> Father, I'm telling you
+      that <i>I'm</i> going to join the other party and make some money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man just sat there, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; the boy took it up defiantly, &ldquo;why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he moved, laid a not quite steady hand out upon the table. &ldquo;My
+      boy, you're not well. You've studied too hard. Now brace yourself up for
+      to-night, and then we'll go down home and fix you up. What you need,
+      Fritz,&rdquo; he said, trying to laugh, &ldquo;is the hayfield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not <i>seeing</i> it!&rdquo; The boy pushed back his chair and began
+      moving about the room. &ldquo;The only way I can brace myself up for to-night is
+      to get so mad&mdash;father, usually you see things so easily! Don't you
+      understand? It was my chance, my one moment, my time to strike. It will be
+      years before I get such a hearing again. You see, father, the thing will
+      be printed, and the men I want to have hear it, the men who <i>own this
+      State</i>, will be there. One of them is to preside. And the story of it,
+      the worth of it, to them, is that I'm your son. You see, after all,&rdquo; he
+      seized at this wildly, &ldquo;I'm getting my start on the fact that I'm your
+      son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; said the man; the brown of his wind-beaten face had yielded to a
+      tinge of grey. &ldquo;Just what is it you are going to say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call it 'The New America,' a lot of this talk about doing things, the
+      glory of industrial America, the true Americans the men of constructive
+      genius, the patriotism of railroad and factory building, a eulogy of
+      railroad officials and corporation presidents,&rdquo; he rushed on with a laugh.
+      &ldquo;Singing the song of Capital. Father, can't you see <i>why?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man had risen. &ldquo;Tell me this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;None of it matters much,
+      if you just tell me this: You <i>believe</i> these things? You've thought
+      it all out for yourself&mdash;and you <i>feel</i> that way? You're honest,
+      aren't you, Fritz?&rdquo; He put that last in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy made no reply; after a minute the man sank back to his chair. The
+      years seemed coming to him with the minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fred was leaning against the wall. &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;I hope
+      you'll let me be a little roundabout. It's only fair to me to let me
+      ramble on a little. I've got to put it all right before you or&mdash;or&mdash;You
+      know, dad,&rdquo;&mdash;he came back to his place by the table, &ldquo;the first thing
+      I remember very clearly is those men, your party managers, coming down to
+      the farm one time and asking you to run for Governor. How many times is it
+      you've run for Governor, father?&rdquo; He put the question slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five,&rdquo; said the man heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know which time this was; but you didn't want to. You were sorry
+      when you saw them coming. I heard some of the talk. You talked about your
+      farm, what you wanted to do that summer, how you couldn't afford the time
+      or the money. They argued that you owed it to the party&mdash;they always
+      got you there; how no other man could hold down majorities as you could&mdash;a
+      man like you giving the best years of his life to holding down majorities!
+      They said you were the one man against whom no personal attack could be
+      made. And when there was so much to fight, anyway&mdash;oh, I know that
+      speech by heart! They've made great capital of your honesty and your clean
+      life. In fact, they've held that up as a curtain behind which a great many
+      things could go on. Oh, <i>you</i> didn't know about them; you were out in
+      front of the curtain, but I haven't lived in this town without finding out
+      that they needed your integrity and your clean record pretty bad!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was out on the side porch. Mother had brought out some buttermilk,
+      and they drank it while they talked. You put up a good fight. Your time
+      was money to you at that time of year; a man shouldn't neglect his farm&mdash;but
+      you never yet could hold out against that 'needing-you' kind of talk. They
+      knew there was no chance for your election. You knew it. But it takes a
+      man of just your grit to put any snap into a hopeless campaign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother cried when you went to drive them back to town. You see, I
+      remember all those things. She told about how hard you would work, and how
+      it would do no good&mdash;that the State belonged to the other party. She
+      talked about the farm, too, and the addition she had wanted for the house,
+      and how now she wouldn't have it. Mother felt pretty bad that night. She's
+      gone through a lot of those times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were away a lot that summer, and all fall. You looked pretty well
+      used up when you came home, but you said that you had held down majorities
+      splendidly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there was silence. It was the silences that seemed to be saying the
+      most.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had one term in Congress&mdash;that's the only thing you ever had.
+      Then you did so much that they concentrated in your district and saw to it
+      that you never got back. Julius Caesar couldn't have been elected again,&rdquo;
+       he laughed harshly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; the boy went on, after a pause, &ldquo;you asked me if I were honest.
+      There are two kinds of honesty. The primitive kind&mdash;like yours&mdash;and
+      then the kind you develop for yourself. Do I believe the things I'm going
+      to say to-night? No&mdash;not now. But I'll believe them more after I've
+      heard the applause I'm sure to get. I'll believe them still more after
+      I've had my first case thrown to me by our railroad friends who own this
+      State. More and more after I've said them over in campaigning next fall,
+      and pretty soon I'll be so sure I believe them that I really will believe
+      them&mdash;and that,&rdquo; he concluded, flippantly, &ldquo;is the new brand of
+      American honesty. Why, any smart man can persuade himself he's not a
+      hypocrite!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My <i>God!</i>&rdquo; it wrenched from the man. &ldquo;<i>This?</i> If you'd stolen
+      money&mdash;killed a man&mdash;but hypocrisy, cant&mdash;the very thing
+      I've fought hardest, hated most! You lived all your life with me to learn
+      <i>this?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I lived all my life with you to learn what pays, and what doesn't. I
+      lived all my life with you to learn from failure the value of success.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never was sure I was a failure until this hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father! Can't you see&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't <i>talk</i> to me!&rdquo; cried the old man, rising, reaching out his
+      fist as though he would strike him. &ldquo;Son of mine sitting there telling me
+      he is fixing up a brand of honesty for himself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy grew quieter as self-restraint left his father. &ldquo;I mean that&mdash;just
+      that,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;Let a man either give or get. If he gives, let it
+      be to the real thing. There are two Americas. The America of you dreamers&mdash;and
+      then the real America. Yours is an idea&mdash;an idea quite as much as an
+      ideal. I don't think you have the slightest comprehension of how far apart
+      it is from the real America. The people who dream of it over in Europe are
+      a great deal nearer it than you people who work for it here. Father, the
+      spirit of this country flows in a strong, swift, resistless current. You
+      never got into it at all. Your kind of idealists influence it about as
+      much&mdash;about as much as red lights burned on the banks of the great
+      river would influence the current of that river. You're not <i>of</i> it.
+      You came here, throbbing with the love for America; and with your ideal
+      America you've fought the real, and you've worked and you've believed and
+      you've sacrificed. Father, <i>what's the use?</i> In this State, anyway,
+      it's hopeless. It has been so through your lifetime; it will be through
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man sat looking at him. He felt that he should say something, but the
+      words did not come&mdash;held back, perhaps, by a sense of their
+      uselessness. It was not so much what Fred said as it was the look in his
+      eyes as he said it. There was nothing impetuous or youthful about that
+      look, nothing to be laughed at or argued away. He had always felt that
+      Fred had a mind which saw things straight, saw them in their right
+      relations, and at that moment he had no words to plead for what Fred
+      called the America of the dreamers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm of the second generation, dad,&rdquo; the boy went on, at length, &ldquo;and the
+      second generation has an ideal of its own, and that ideal is Success. It
+      took us these forty years to come to understand the spirit of America. You
+      were a dreamer who loved America. I'm an American. We've translated
+      democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and opportunity and
+      success&mdash;and that's getting Americanised. Now, father,&rdquo; he sought
+      refuge in the tone of every-day things, &ldquo;you'll get used to it&mdash;won't
+      you? I don't expect you to feel very good about it, but you aren't going
+      to be broken up about it&mdash;are you? After all, father,&rdquo; laughing and
+      moving about as if to break the seriousness of things, &ldquo;there's nothing
+      criminal about being one of the other fellows&mdash;is there? Just
+      remember that there <i>are</i> folks who even think it's respectable!&rdquo; The
+      father had risen and picked up his hat. &ldquo;No, Fred,&rdquo; he said, with a
+      sadness in which there was great dignity, &ldquo;there is nothing criminal in it
+      if a man's conviction sends him that way. But to me there is something&mdash;something
+      too sad for words in a man's selling his own soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father! How extravagant! <i>Why</i> is it selling one's soul to sit down
+      and figure out what's the best thing to do?&rdquo; He hesitated, hating to add
+      hurt to hurt, not wanting to say that his father's fight should have been
+      with the revolutionists, that his life was ineffective because, seeing his
+      dream from within a dream, his thinking had been muddled. He only said:
+      &ldquo;As I say, father, it's a question of giving or getting. I couldn't even
+      give in your way. And I've seen enough of giving to want a taste of
+      getting. I want to make things go&mdash;and I see my chance. Why father,&rdquo;
+       he laughed, trying to turn it, &ldquo;there's nothing so American as wanting to
+      make things <i>go</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at him for a long minute. &ldquo;My boy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I fear you are
+      becoming so American that I am losing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; the boy pleaded, affectionately, &ldquo;now don't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man held up his hand. &ldquo;You've tried to make me understand it,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;and succeeded. You can't complain of the way you've succeeded. I
+      don't know why I don't argue with you&mdash;plead; there are things I
+      could say&mdash;should say, perhaps&mdash;but something assures me it
+      would be useless. I feel a good many years older than I did when I came
+      into this room, but the reason for it is not that you're joining the other
+      party. You know what I think of the men who control this State, the men
+      with whom you desire to cast your lot, but I trust the years I've spent
+      fighting them haven't made a bigot of me. It's not joining their party&mdash;it's
+      <i>using</i> it&mdash;makes this the hardest thing I've been called upon
+      to meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, don't look like that! How do you think I am going to get up and
+      speak tonight with <i>that</i> face before me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't think, did you,&rdquo; the man laughed bitterly, &ldquo;that I would
+      inspire you to your effort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy stood looking at his father, a strange new fire in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, quietly, tenderly, &ldquo;you will inspire me. When I get up
+      before those men tonight I'm going to see the picture of that boy
+      straining for his first glimpse of New York Harbour. I'm going to think
+      for just a minute of the things that boy brought with him&mdash;things he
+      has never lost. And then I'll see you as you stand here now&mdash;-it will
+      be enough. What I need to do is to get mad. If I falter I'll just think of
+      some of those times when you came home from your campaigns&mdash;how you
+      looked&mdash;what you said. It will bring the inspiration. Father, I
+      figure it out like this. We're going to get it back. We're going to get
+      what's coming to us. There's another America than the America of you
+      dreamers. To yours you have given; from mine I will get. And the irony of
+      it&mdash;don't think I don't see the irony of it&mdash;is that I will be
+      called the real American. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to
+      make the railroads of this State&mdash;oh, it sounds like schoolboy talk,
+      but just give me a little time&mdash;I'm going to make the railroads of
+      this State pay off every cent of that mortgage on your farm! Father,&rdquo; he
+      finished, impetuously, in a last appeal, &ldquo;you're broken up now,
+      disappointed, but would you honestly want me to travel the road you've
+      traveled?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy,&rdquo; answered the old man, and the tears came with it, &ldquo;I wanted you
+      to travel the road of an honest man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Herman Beckman did not go to the commencement exercises that night. There
+      was no train home until morning, so he had the night to spend in town. He
+      was alone, for his friends assumed that he would be out at the university.
+      But he preferred being alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat in his room at the hotel, reading. And he could read. Years of
+      discipline stood him in good stead now. His life had taught him to read
+      anywhere, at any time. He had never permitted himself the luxury of not
+      being &ldquo;in the mood.&rdquo; It was only the men who had gone to college who could
+      do that. He <i>had</i> to read. He always carried some little book with
+      him, for how did a man know that he might not have to wait an hour for a
+      train somewhere? The man had a simple-minded veneration for knowledge. He
+      wanted to know about things. And he had never learned to pretend that he
+      didn't want to know. He quite lacked the modern art of flippancy. He
+      believed in great books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so on the night that his son was being graduated from college he sat
+      in his room at the hotel&mdash;cheap room in a mediocre hotel; he had
+      never learned to feel at home in the rich ones&mdash;reading Marcus
+      Aurelius. But his hand as he turned the pages trembled as the hand of a
+      very old man. At midnight some reporters came in to ask him what he
+      thought of his son's oration. They wanted a statement from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told them that he had never believed the sins of a parent should be
+      visited on a child, and that it was even so with the thought. He had
+      always contended that a man should do his own thinking. The contention
+      applied to his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gamey old brute!&rdquo; was what one of the reporters said in the elevator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not read Marcus Aurelius after that. He went to bed, but he did
+      not sleep. Many things passed before him. His anticipations, his dreams
+      for Fritz, had brought the warmest pleasure of his stern, unrelaxing life.
+      There was a great emptiness tonight. What was a man to turn to, think
+      about, when he seemed stripped, not only of the future, but of the past?
+      He seemed called upon to readjust the whole of his life, giving up that
+      which he had held dearest. What was left? Daylight found him turning it
+      over and over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning he went home. He got away without seeing any of his
+      friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not try to read this morning; somehow it seemed there was no use in
+      trying to read any more. He watched the country through which they were
+      passing, thinking of the hundreds of times he had ridden over it in
+      campaigning. He wondered, vaguely, just how much money he had spent on
+      railroad fare&mdash;he had never accepted mileage. Fred's &ldquo;What's the
+      use?&rdquo; kept ringing in his ears. There was something about that phrase
+      which made one feel very tired and old. It even seemed there was no use
+      looking out to see how the crops were getting on. <i>What's the use?
+      What's the use?</i> Was that a phrase one learned in college?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been two things to tell &ldquo;mother&rdquo; that night. The first was that
+      he had stopped in town and told Claus Hansen he could have that south
+      hundred and sixty he had been wanting for two years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not easy to tell the woman who had worked shoulder to shoulder with
+      him for thirty years, the woman who during those years had risen with him
+      in the early morning and worked with him until darkness rescued the weary
+      bodies, that in their old age they must surrender the fruit of their toil.
+      They would have left just what they had started with. They had just held
+      their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming down on the train he had made up his mind that if Hansen were in
+      town he would tell him that he could have the land. He felt so very tired
+      and old, so bowed down with Fred's &ldquo;What's the use?&rdquo; that he saw that he
+      himself would never get the mortgage paid off. And Fred had said something
+      about making the railroads pay it. He did not know just how the boy
+      figured that out&mdash;indeed, he was getting a little dazed about the
+      whole thing&mdash;but if Fritz had any idea of having the railroads pay
+      off the mortgage on <i>his</i> farm&mdash;he couldn't forget how the boy
+      looked when he said it, face white, eyes burning&mdash;he would see to it
+      right now that there was no chance of that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried not to look at the land as he drove past it on the way home. He
+      wondered just how much campaign literature it had paid for. He wondered if
+      he would ever get used to seeing Claus Hansen putting up his hay over
+      there in that field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had felt so badly about telling mother that he told it very bluntly.
+      And because he felt so sorry for her he said not one kind word, but just
+      sat quiet, looking the other way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was clearing off the table. He heard her scraping out the potato dish
+      with great care. Then she was coming over to him. She came awkwardly,
+      hesitatingly&mdash;her life had not schooled her in meeting emotional
+      moments beautifully&mdash;but she laid her hand upon him, patted him on
+      the shoulder as one would a child. &ldquo;Never mind, papa&mdash;never you mind.
+      It will make it easier for us. There's enough left&mdash;and it will make
+      it easier. We're getting on&mdash;we're&mdash;&rdquo; There she broke off
+      abruptly into a vigorous scolding of the dog, who was lifting covetous
+      nostrils to a piece of meat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was all. And there was no woman in the country had worked harder. And
+      Martha was ambitious; she liked land, and she did not like Claus Hansen's
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, he had had a good wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there was that other thing to tell her&mdash;about Fritz. That was
+      harder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mother had not gone up to the city to hear Fritz &ldquo;speak&rdquo; because her feet
+      were bothering her, and she could not wear her shoes. He had had a vague
+      idea of how disappointed she was, though she had said very little about
+      it. Martha never had been one to say much about things. When he came back,
+      of course she had wanted to know all about it, and he had put her off. Now
+      he had to tell her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was much harder; and in the telling of it he broke down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time she did not come over and pat his shoulder. Perhaps Martha knew&mdash;likely
+      she had never heard the word intuition, but, anyway, she knew&mdash;that
+      it was beyond that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed difficult for her to comprehend. She was bewildered to find that
+      Fritz could change parties all in a minute. She seemed to grasp, first of
+      all, that it was disrespectful to his father. Some boys at school had been
+      putting notions into his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But gradually she began to see it. Fritz wanted to make money. Fritz
+      wanted to have it easier. And the other people did &ldquo;have it easier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It divided her feeling: sorry and indignant for the father, secretly glad
+      and relieved for the boy. &ldquo;He will have it easier than we had it, papa,&rdquo;
+       she said at the last. &ldquo;But it was not right of Fritz,&rdquo; she concluded,
+      vaguely but severely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she washed the dishes Martha was thinking that likely Fritz's wife
+      would have a hired girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Martha went up to bed. He said that he would come in a few minutes,
+      but many minutes went by while he sat out on the side porch trying to
+      think it out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moon was shining brightly down on that hundred and sixty which Claus
+      Hansen was to have. And the moon, too, seemed to be saying: &ldquo;What's the
+      use?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, what <i>was</i> the use? Perhaps, after all, the boy was right. What
+      had it all amounted to? What was there left? What had he done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two Americas, Fred had said, and his but the America of the dreamers. He
+      had always thought that he was fighting for the real. And now Fred said
+      that he had never become an American at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the time he was twelve years old he had wanted to be an American. A
+      queer old man back in the German village&mdash;an old man, he recalled
+      strangely now, who had never been in America&mdash;told him about it. He
+      told how all men were brothers in America, how the poor and the rich loved
+      each other&mdash;indeed, how there were no poor and rich at all, but the
+      same chance for every man who would work. He told about the marvellous
+      resources of that distant America&mdash;gold in the earth, which men were
+      free to go and get, hundreds upon hundreds of miles of untouched forests
+      and great rivers&mdash;all for men to use, great cities no older than the
+      men who were in them, which men at that present moment were <i>making</i>&mdash;every
+      man his equal chance. He told of rich land which a man could have for
+      nothing, which would be <i>his</i>, if he would but go and work upon it.
+      In the heart of the little German boy there was kindled then a fire which
+      the years had never put out. His cheeks grew red, his eyes bright and very
+      deep as he listened to the story. He went home that night and dreamed of
+      going to America. And through the years of his boyhood, penny by penny, he
+      saved his money for America. It was his dream. It was the passion of his
+      life. More plainly than the events of yesterday, he remembered his first
+      glimpse of those wonderful shores&mdash;the lump in his throat, the
+      passionate excitement, the uplift. Leaning over the railing of his boat,
+      staring, searching, penetrating, worshipping, he lifted up his heart and
+      sent out his pledge of allegiance to the new land. How he would love
+      America, work for it, be true to it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had three dollars and sixty cents in his pocket when he stepped upon
+      American soil. He wondered if any man had ever felt richer. For had he not
+      reached the land where there was an equal chance for every man who would
+      work, where men loved each other as brothers, and where the earth itself
+      was so rich and so gracious in its offerings?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man crossed one leg over the other&mdash;slowly, stiffly. It made
+      him tired and stiff now just to think of the work he had done between that
+      day and this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was something which he had always had&mdash;that something was
+      <i>his</i> America. That had never wavered, though he soon learned that
+      between it and realities were many things which were wrong and
+      unfortunate. With the whole force and passion of his nature, with all his
+      single mindedness&mdash;would some call it simple mindedness?&mdash;he
+      threw himself into the fight against those things which were blurring
+      men's vision of his America. No work, no sacrifice was too great, for
+      America had enemies who called themselves friends, men who were striking
+      heavy blows at that equal chance for every man. When he failed, it was
+      because he did not know enough; he must work, he must study, he must
+      think, in order to make more real to other men the America which was in
+      his heart. He must fight for it because it was his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now it seemed that the end had come; he was old, he was tired, he was
+      not sure. Claus Hansen would have his land and his son would join hands
+      with the things which he had spent his life in fighting. And far deeper
+      and sadder and more bitter than that, he had not transmitted the America
+      of his heart even to his own son. He was not leaving someone to fight for
+      it in his stead, to win where he had failed. Fred saw in it but a place
+      for gain. &ldquo;I lived all my life with you to learn from failure the value of
+      success.&rdquo; That was what he had given to his boy. Yes, that was what he had
+      bequeathed to America. Could the failure, the futility of his life be more
+      clearly revealed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twice Martha had called to him, but still he sat, smoking, thinking. There
+      was much to think about to-night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, it was not thought, but visions. Too tired for conscious
+      thinking, he gave himself up to what came&mdash;Fred's America, his
+      America, the America of the dreamers&mdash;and the things which stood
+      between. The America of the future&mdash;-what would that America be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the last, taking form from many things which came and went, shaping
+      itself slowly, form giving place to new form, he seemed to see it grow.
+      Out beyond that land Claus Hansen was to have, a long way off, there rose
+      the vision of the America of the future&mdash;an America of realities, and
+      yet an America of dreams; for the dreamers had become the realists&mdash;-or
+      was it that the realists had become dreamers? In the manifold forms taken
+      on and cast aside destroying dualism had made way for the strength and the
+      dignity and harmony of unity. He watched it as breathlessly, as
+      yearningly, as the nineteen-year-old boy had watched the other America
+      taking shape in the distance some forty years before. &ldquo;How did you come?&rdquo;
+       he whispered. &ldquo;What are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the voice of that real America seemed to answer: &ldquo;I came because for a
+      long-enough time there were enough men who held me in their hearts. I came
+      because there were men who never gave me up. I was won by men who believed
+      that they had failed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there was a lump in his throat&mdash;once more an exultation flooded
+      all his being. For to the old man&mdash;tired, stiff, smitten though he
+      had been, there came again that same uplift which long before had come to
+      the boy. Was there not here an answer to &ldquo;What's the use?&rdquo; For he would
+      leave America as he came to it&mdash;loving it, believing in it. What were
+      the work and the failure of a lifetime when there was something in his
+      heart which was his? Should he say that he had fought in vain when he had
+      kept it for himself? It was as real, as wonderful&mdash;yes as inevitable,
+      as it had been forty years before. Realities had taken his land, his
+      career, his hopes for the boy. But realities had not stripped him of his
+      dream. The futility of the years could not harm the things which were in
+      his heart. Even in America he had not lost His America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it is then that it is like that,&rdquo; he murmured, his vision
+      carrying him back to the days of his broken English. &ldquo;Perhaps it is that
+      every man's America is in the inside of his own heart. Perhaps it is that
+      it will come when it has grown big&mdash;big and very strong&mdash;in the
+      hearts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XII. &mdash; THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Stubby had a route, and that was how he happened to get a dog. For the
+      benefit of those who have never carried papers it should be thrown in that
+      having a route means getting up just when there is really some fun in
+      sleeping, lining up at the <i>Leader</i> office&mdash;maybe having a scrap
+      with the fellow who says you took his place in the line&mdash;getting your
+      papers all damp from the press and starting for the outskirts of the city.
+      Then you double up the paper in the way that will cause all possible
+      difficulty in undoubling and hurl it with what force you have against the
+      front door. It is good to have a route, for you at least earn your salt,
+      so your father can't say <i>that</i> any more. If he does, you know it
+      isn't so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you have a route, you whistle. All the fellows whistle. They may not
+      feel like it, but it is the custom&mdash;as could be sworn to by many
+      sleepy citizens. And as time goes on you succeed in acquiring the easy
+      manner of a brigand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby was little and everything about him seemed sawed off just a second
+      too soon,&mdash;his nose, his fingers, and most of all, his hair. His head
+      was a faithful replica of a chestnut burr. His hair did not lie down and
+      take things easy. It stood up&mdash;and out!&mdash;gentle ladies couldn't
+      possibly have let their hands sink into it&mdash;as we are told they do&mdash;for
+      the hands just wouldn't sink. They'd have to float.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And alas, gentle ladies didn't particularly want their hands to sink into
+      it. There was not that about Stubby's short person to cause the hands of
+      gentle ladies to move instinctively to his head. Stubby bristled. That is,
+      he appeared to bristle. Inwardly, Stubby yearned, though he would have
+      swung into his very best brigand manner on the spot were you to suggest so
+      offensive a thing. Just to look at Stubby you'd never in a thousand years
+      guess what a funny feeling he had sometimes when he got to the top of the
+      hill where his route began and could see a long way down the river and the
+      town curled in on the other side. Sometimes when the morning sun was
+      shining through a mist&mdash;making things awful queer&mdash;some of the
+      mist got into Stubby's squinty little eyes. After the mist behaved that
+      way he always whistled so rakishly and threw his papers with such
+      abandonment that people turned over in their beds and muttered things
+      about having that little heathen of a paper boy shot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All along the route are dogs. Indeed, routes are distinguished by their
+      dogs. Mean routes are those that have terraces and mean dogs; good routes&mdash;where
+      the houses are close together and the dogs run out and wag their tails.
+      Though Stubby's greater difficulty came through the wagging tails; he
+      carried in a collie neighbourhood, and all collies seemed consumed with
+      mighty ambitions to have routes. If you spoke to them&mdash;and how could
+      you <i>help</i> speaking to a collie when he came bounding out to you that
+      way?&mdash;you had an awful time chasing him back, and when he got lost&mdash;and
+      it seemed collies spent most of their time getting lost&mdash;the woman
+      would put her head out next morning and want to know if you had coaxed her
+      dog away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the fellows had dogs that went with them on their routes. One day
+      one of them asked Stubby why he didn't have a dog and he replied in surly
+      fashion that he didn't have one 'cause he didn't want one. If he wanted
+      one, he guessed he'd have one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there was no one within ear-shot old enough or wise enough&mdash;or
+      tender enough?&mdash;to know from the meanness of Stubby's tone, and by
+      his evil scowl, that his heart was just breaking to own a dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day a new dog appeared along the route. He was yellow and looked like
+      a cheap edition of a bull-dog. He was that kind of dog most accurately
+      described by saying it is hard to describe him, the kind you say is just
+      dog&mdash;and everybody knows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to follow Stubby; not in the trusting, bounding manner of the
+      collies&mdash;not happily, but hopingly. Stubby, true to the ethics of his
+      profession, chased him back where he had come from. That there might be
+      nothing whatever on his conscience, he even threw a stone after him.
+      Stubby was an expert in throwing things at dogs. He could seem to just
+      miss them and yet never hit them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day it happened again; but just as he had a clod poised for
+      throwing, a window went up and a woman called: &ldquo;For pity <i>sake</i>,
+      little boy, don't chase him back <i>here</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, ain't he yours?&rdquo; called Stubby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy, <i>no</i>. We can't chase him away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's is he?&rdquo; demanded Stubby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, he's nobody's! He just hangs around. I wish you'd coax him away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, that was a <i>new</i> one! And then all in a heap it rushed over
+      Stubby that this dog who was nobody's dog could, if he coaxed him away&mdash;and
+      the woman <i>wanted</i> him coaxed away&mdash;be his dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And because that idea had such a strange effect on him he sang out, in
+      off-hand fashion: &ldquo;Oh, all right, I'll take him away and drown him for
+      you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, little <i>boy</i>,&rdquo; called the woman, &ldquo;why, don't <i>drown</i> him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, all right, I'll shoot him then!&rdquo; called obliging Stubby, whistling
+      for the dog&mdash;while all morning long the woman grieved over having
+      sent a helpless little dog away with that perfectly <i>brutal</i> paper
+      boy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby's mother was washing. She looked up from her tubs on the back porch
+      to say, &ldquo;Wish you'd take that bucket&mdash;&rdquo; then seeing what was slinking
+      behind her son, straightway assumed the role of destiny with, &ldquo;Git out o'
+      here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby snapped his fingers behind his back as much as to say, &ldquo;Wait a
+      minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman gave him to me,&rdquo; he said to his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Gave</i> him to you?&rdquo; she scoffed. &ldquo;I sh' think she would!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then something happened that had not happened many times in Stubby's short
+      lifetime. He acknowledged his feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd like to keep him. I'd like to have a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother shook her hands and the flying suds seemed expressing her
+      scorn. &ldquo;Huh! <i>That</i> ugly good-for-nothing thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dog had edged in between Stubby's feet and crouched there. &ldquo;He could
+      go with me on my route,&rdquo; said Stubby. &ldquo;He'd kind of be company for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And when he had said that he knew all at once just how lonesome he had
+      been sometimes on his route, how he had wanted something to &ldquo;kind of be
+      company&rdquo; for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His face twitched as he stooped down to pat the dog. Mrs. Lynch looked at
+      her son&mdash;youngest of her five. Not the hardness of her heart but the
+      hardness of her life had made her unpractised in moments of tenderness.
+      Something in the way Stubby was patting the dog suggested to her that
+      Stubby was a &ldquo;queer one.&rdquo; He <i>was</i> kind of little to be carrying
+      papers all by himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby looked up. &ldquo;He could eat what's thrown away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was an error in diplomacy. The woman's face hardened. &ldquo;Mighty
+      little'll be thrown away <i>this</i> winter,&rdquo; she muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But just then Mrs. Johnson appeared on the other side of the fence and
+      began hanging up her clothes and with that Mrs. Lynch saw her way to
+      justify herself in indulging her son. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Lynch had &ldquo;had
+      words.&rdquo; &ldquo;You just let him stay around, Stubby,&rdquo; she called, and you would
+      have supposed from her tone it was Stubby who was on the other side of the
+      fence, &ldquo;maybe he'll keep the neighbour's chickens out! Them that ain't got
+      chickens o' their own don't want to be bothered with the neighbours'!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was how it happened that he stayed; and no one but Stubby knew&mdash;and
+      possibly Stubby didn't either&mdash;how it happened that he was named
+      Hero. It would seem that Hero should be a noble St. Bernard, or a
+      particularly mean-looking bulldog, not a stocky, shapeless, squint-eyed
+      yellow dog with one ear bitten half off and one leg built on an entirely
+      different plan from its fellow legs. Possibly Stubby's own spiritual
+      experiences had suggested to him that you weren't necessarily the way you
+      looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chickens were pretty well kept out, though no one ever saw Hero doing
+      any of it. Perhaps Hero had been too long associated with chasing to
+      desire any part in it&mdash;even with roles reversed. If Stubby could help
+      it, no one really saw Stubby doing the chasing either; he became skilled
+      in chasing when he did not appear to be chasing; then he would get Hero to
+      barking and turn to his mother with, &ldquo;Guess you don't see so many chickens
+      round nowadays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellows in the line jeered at Hero at first, but they soon tired of it
+      when Stubby said he didn't want the cur but his mother made him stay
+      around to keep the chickens out. He was a fine chicken dog, Stubby
+      grudgingly admitted. He couldn't keep him from following, said Stubby, so
+      he just let him come. Sometimes when they were waiting in line Stubby made
+      ferocious threats at Hero. He was going to break his back and wring his
+      head off and do other heartless things which for some reason he never
+      started in right then and there to accomplish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was different when they were alone&mdash;and they were alone a good
+      deal. Stubby's route wasn't nearly so long after he had Hero to go with
+      him. When winter came and five o'clock was dark and cold for starting out
+      it was pretty good to have Hero trotting at his heels. And Hero always
+      wanted to go; it was never so rainy nor so cold that that yellow dog
+      seemed to think he would rather stay home by the fire. Then Hero was
+      always waiting for him when he came home from school. Stubby would sing
+      out, &ldquo;Hello, cur!&rdquo; and the tone was such that Hero did not grasp that he
+      was being insulted. Sometimes when there was nobody about, Stubby picked
+      Hero up in his arms and squeezed him&mdash;Stubby had not had a large
+      experience with squeezing. At those times Hero would lick Stubby's face
+      and whimper a little love whimper and such were the workings of Stubby's
+      heart and mind that that made him of quite as much account as if he really
+      had chased the chickens. Stubby, who had seen the way dogs can look at you
+      out of their eyes, was not one to say of a dog, &ldquo;What good is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it seemed there were such people. There were even people who thought
+      you oughtn't to have a dog to love and to love you if you weren't one of
+      those rich people who could pay two dollars and a half a year for the
+      luxury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby first heard of those people one night in June. The father of the
+      Lynch family was sitting in the back yard reading the paper when Hero and
+      Stubby came running in from the alley. It was one of those moments when
+      Hero, forgetting the bleakness of his youth, abandoned himself to the joy
+      of living. He was tearing round and round Stubby, barking, when Stubby's
+      father called out: &ldquo;Here!&mdash;shut up there, you cur. You better lie
+      low. You're going to be shot the first of August.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby, and as regards the joy of living Hero had done as much for Stubby
+      as Stubby for Hero, came to a halt. The fun and frolic just died right out
+      of him and he stood there staring at his father, who had turned the page
+      and was settling himself to a new horror. At last Stubby spoke. &ldquo;Why's he
+      going to be shot on the first of August?&rdquo; he asked in a tight little
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father looked up. &ldquo;Why's he going to be shot? You got any two dollars
+      and a half to pay for him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed as though that were a joke. Well, it was something of a joke.
+      Stubby got ten cents a week out of his paper money. The rest he &ldquo;turned
+      in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he went back to his paper. There was another long pause before Stubby
+      asked, in that tight queer little voice: &ldquo;What'd I have to pay two dollars
+      and a half for? Nobody owns him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His parent stirred scornfully. &ldquo;Suppose you never heard of a dog tax, did
+      you? S'pose they don't learn you nothing like that at school?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Stubby did know that dogs had to have checks, but he hadn't thought
+      anything about that in connection with Hero. He ventured another question.
+      &ldquo;You have to have 'em for all dogs, even if you just picked 'em up on the
+      street and took care of 'em when nobody else would?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet you do,&rdquo; his parent assured him genially. &ldquo;You pay your dog tax
+      or the policeman comes on the first of August and shoots your dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he dismissed it for good, burying himself in his paper. For a
+      minute the boy stood there in silence. Then he walked slowly round the
+      house and sat down where his father couldn't see him. Hero followed&mdash;it
+      was a way Hero had. The dog sat down beside the boy and after a couple of
+      minutes the boy's arm stole furtively around him and they sat there very
+      still for a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As nobody but Hero paid much attention to him, nobody save Hero noticed
+      how quiet and queer Stubby was for the next three days. Hero must have
+      noticed it, for he was quiet and queer too. He followed wherever Stubby
+      would let him, and every time he got a chance he would nestle up to him
+      and look into his face&mdash;that way even cur dogs have of doing when
+      they fear something is wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of three days Stubby, his little freckled face set and grim,
+      took his stand in front of his father and came right out with: &ldquo;I want to
+      keep one week's paper money to pay Hero's tax.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His father's chair had been tilted back against a tree. Now it came down
+      with a thud. &ldquo;Oh, you <i>do</i>, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can earn the other fifty cents at little jobs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You <i>can</i>, can you? Now ain't you smart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tone brought the blood to Stubby's face. &ldquo;I think I got a right to,&rdquo;
+       he said, his voice low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man's face, which had been taunting, grew ugly. &ldquo;Look a-here, young
+      man, none o' your lip!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tears rushed to Stubby's eyes but he stumbled on: &ldquo;I guess Hero's got
+      a right to some of my paper money when he goes with me every day on my
+      route.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that his father stared for a minute and then burst into a loud laugh.
+      Blinded with tears, the boy turned to the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After she had gone to bed that night Stubby's mother heard a sound from
+      the alcove at the head of the stairs where her youngest child slept. As
+      the sound kept on she got out of her bed and went to Stubby's cot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; she said, awkwardly but not unkindly, &ldquo;this won't do. We're
+      poor folks, Freddie&rdquo; (it was only once in a while she called him that),
+      &ldquo;all we can do to live these times&mdash;we can't pay no dog tax.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Stubby did not speak she added: &ldquo;I know you've taken to the dog, but
+      just the same you ain't to feel hard to your pa. He can't help it&mdash;and
+      neither can I. Things is as they is&mdash;and nobody can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As, despite this bit of philosophy Stubby was still gulping back sobs, she
+      added what she thought a master stroke in consolation. &ldquo;Now you just go
+      right to sleep, and if they come to take this dog away maybe you can pick
+      up another one in the fall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sobs suddenly stopped and Stubby stared at her. And what he said after
+      a long stare was: &ldquo;I guess there ain't no use in you and me talking about
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right,&rdquo; said she, relieved; &ldquo;now you go right off to sleep.&rdquo; And
+      she left him, never dreaming why Stubby had seen there was no use talking
+      about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor did he talk about it; but a change came over Stubby's funny little
+      person in the next few days. The change was particularly concerned with
+      his jaw, though there was something different, too, in the light in his
+      eyes as he looked straight ahead, and something different in his voice
+      when he said: &ldquo;Come on, Hero.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got so he could walk into a store and demand, in a hard little voice:
+      &ldquo;Want a boy to do anything for you?&rdquo; and when they said, &ldquo;Got more boys
+      than we know what to do with, sonny,&rdquo; Stubby would say, &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; and
+      stalk sturdily out again. Sometimes they laughed and said: &ldquo;What could <i>you</i>
+      do?&rdquo; and then Stubby would stalk out, but possibly a little less sturdily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vacation came the next week, and still he had found nothing. His father,
+      however, had been more successful. He found a place where they wanted a
+      boy to work in a yard a couple of hours in the morning. For that Stubby
+      was to get a dollar and a half a week. But that was to be turned in for
+      his &ldquo;keep.&rdquo; There were lots of mouths to feed&mdash;as Stubby's mother was
+      always calling to her neighbour across the alley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the yard gave Stubby an idea, and he earned some dimes and one quarter
+      in the next week. Most folks thought he was too little&mdash;one kind lady
+      told him he ought to be playing, not working&mdash;but there were people
+      who would let him take a big shears and cut grass around flower beds, and
+      things like that. This he had to do afternoons, when he was supposed to be
+      off playing, and when he came home his mother sometimes said some folks
+      had it easy&mdash;playing around all day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now the first week in July and Stubby had a dollar and twenty
+      cents. It was getting to the point where he would wake in the night and
+      find himself sitting up in bed, hands clenched. He dreamed dreams about
+      how folks would let him live if he had ninety-nine cents but how he only
+      had ninety-seven and a half, so they were going to shoot him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then one day he found Mr. Stuart. He was passing the house after having
+      asked three people if they wanted a boy, and they didn't, and seemed so
+      surprised at the idea of their wanting him that Stubby's throat was all
+      tight, when Mr. Stuart sang out: &ldquo;Say, boy, want a little job?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed at first it must be a joke&mdash;or a dream&mdash;anybody asking
+      him if he <i>wanted</i> one, but the man was beckoning to him, so he
+      pulled himself together and ran up the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now here's a little package&rdquo;&mdash;he took something out of the mail box.
+      &ldquo;It doesn't belong here. It's to go to three-hundred-two Pleasant street.
+      You take it for a dime?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was going down the steps the man called: &ldquo;Say, boy, how'd you like a
+      steady job?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first minute it seemed pretty mean&mdash;making fun of a fellow
+      that way!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This will be here every day. Suppose you come each day, about this time,
+      and take it over there&mdash;not mentioning it to anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby felt weak. &ldquo;Why, all right,&rdquo; he managed to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll give you fifty cents a week. That fair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Stubby, doing some quick calculation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then here goes for the first week&rdquo;&mdash;and he handed him the other
+      forty cents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was funny how fast the world could change! Stubby wanted to run&mdash;he
+      hadn't been doing much running of late. He wanted to go home and get Hero
+      to go with him to Pleasant street, but didn't. No, <i>sir</i>, when you
+      had a job you had to 'tend to things!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, a person could do things, if he had to, thought Stubby. No use
+      saying you couldn't, you <i>could</i>, if you had to. He was back in tune
+      with life. He whistled; he turned up his collar in the old rakish way; he
+      threw a stick at a cat. Back home he jumped over the fence instead of
+      going in the gate&mdash;lately he had actually been using the gate. And he
+      cried, &ldquo;Get out of my sight, you cur!&rdquo; in tones which, as Hero understood
+      things, meant anything but getting out of his sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a little boy again. He slept at night as little boys sleep. He
+      played with Hero along the route&mdash;taught him some new tricks. His jaw
+      relaxed from its grown-upishness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was funny about those Stuarts. Sometimes he saw Mr. Stuart, but never
+      anybody else; the place seemed shut up. But each day the little package
+      was there, and every day he took it to Pleasant street and left it at the
+      door there&mdash;that place seemed shut up, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was well into the second week Stubby ventured to say something
+      about the next fifty cents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man fumbled in his pockets. Something in his face was familiar to
+      experienced Stubby. It suggested a having to have two dollars and a half
+      by August first and only having a dollar and a quarter state of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't got the change. Pay you at the end of next week for the whole
+      business. That all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby considered. &ldquo;I've got to have it before the first of August,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that the man laughed&mdash;funny kind of laugh, it was, and muttered
+      something. But he told Stubby he would have it before the first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It bothered Stubby. He wished the man had given it to him <i>then</i>. He
+      would rather get it each week and keep it himself. A little of the
+      grown-up look stole back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that he didn't see Mr. Stuart, and one day, a week or so later, the
+      package was not in the box and a man who wore the kind of clothes Stubby's
+      father wore came around the house and asked him what he was doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby was wary. &ldquo;Oh, I've got a little job I do for Mr. Stuart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man laughed. &ldquo;I had a little job I did for Mr. Stuart, too. You paid
+      in advance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby pricked up his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Cause if you ain't, I'd advise you to look out for a little job
+      some'eres else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then it came out. Mr. Stuart was broke; more than that, he was &ldquo;off his
+      nut.&rdquo; Lots of people were doing little jobs for him&mdash;there was no
+      sense in any of them, and now he had suddenly been called out of town!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a trembly feeling through Stubby's insides, but outwardly he was
+      bristling just like his hair bristled as he demanded: &ldquo;Where am I to get
+      what's coming to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Fraid you won't get it, sonny. We're all in the same boat.&rdquo; He looked
+      Stubby up and down and then added: &ldquo;Kind of little for that boat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I <i>got</i> to have it!&rdquo; cried Stubby. &ldquo;I tell you, I <i>got</i> to!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man shook his head. &ldquo;<i>That</i> cuts no ice. Hard luck, sonny, but
+      we've got to take our medicine in this world. 'Taint no medicine for kids,
+      though,&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby's face just then was too much for him. He put his hand in his
+      pocket and drew out a dime, saying: &ldquo;There now. You run along and get you
+      a soda and forget your troubles. It ain't always like this. You'll have
+      better luck next time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Stubby did not get the soda. He put the dime in his pocket and turned
+      toward home. Something was the matter with his legs&mdash;they acted funny
+      about carrying him. He tried to whistle, but something was the matter with
+      his lips, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Counting this dime, he now had a dollar and eighty cents, and it was the
+      twenty-eighth day of July. &ldquo;Thirty days has September&mdash;April, June
+      and November&mdash;&rdquo; he was saying to himself. Then July was one of the
+      long ones. Well, <i>that</i> was a good thing! Been a great deal worse if
+      July was a short one. Again he tried to whistle, and that time did manage
+      to pipe out a few shrill little notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hero came running up the hill to meet him he slapped him on the back
+      and cried, &ldquo;Hello, Hero!&rdquo; in tones fairly swaggering with bravado.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night he engaged his father in conversation&mdash;the phrase is well
+      adapted to the way Stubby went about it. &ldquo;How is it about&mdash;'bout
+      things like taxes&rdquo;&mdash;Stubby crossed his knees and swung one foot to
+      show his indifference&mdash;&ldquo;if you have <i>almost</i> enough&mdash;do
+      they sometimes let you off?&rdquo;&mdash;the detachment was a shade less perfect
+      on that last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father laughed scoffingly. &ldquo;Well, I guess <i>not!</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought maybe,&rdquo; said Stubby, &ldquo;if a person had <i>tried</i> awful hard&mdash;and
+      had <i>most</i> enough&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something inside him was all shaky, so he didn't go on. His father said
+      that <i>trying</i> didn't have anything to do with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hard for Stubby not to sob out that he thought trying <i>ought</i>
+      to have something to do with it, but he only made a hissing noise between
+      his teeth that took the place of the whistle that wouldn't come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kind of seems,&rdquo; he resumed, &ldquo;if a person would have had enough if they
+      hadn't been beat out of it, maybe&mdash;if he done the best he could&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His father snorted derisively and informed him that doing the best you
+      could made no difference to the government; hard luck stories didn't go
+      when it came to the laws of the land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon Stubby took a little walk out to the alley and spent a
+      considerable time in contemplation of the neighbour's chicken-yard. When
+      he came back he walked right up to his father and standing there, feet
+      planted, shoulders squared, wanted to know, in a desperate little voice:
+      &ldquo;If some one else was to give&mdash;say a dollar and eighty cents for
+      Hero, could I take the other seventy out of my paper money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man turned upon him roughly. &ldquo;Uh-<i>huh</i>! <i>That's</i> it, is it?
+      <i>That's</i> why you're getting so smart all of a sudden about
+      government! Look a-here. Just l'me tell you something. You're lucky if you
+      git enough to <i>eat</i> this winter. Do you know there's talk of the
+      factory shuttin' down? <i>Dog</i> tax! Why you're lucky if you git <i>shoes</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby had turned away and was standing with his back to his father, hands
+      in his pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And l'me tell you some'en else, young man. If you got any dollar and
+      eighty cents, you give it to your mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Stubby was turning the corner of the house he called after him: &ldquo;How'd
+      you like to have me get you an automobile?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went doggedly from house to house the next afternoon, but nobody had
+      any jobs. When Hero came running out to him that night he patted him, but
+      didn't speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening as they were sitting in the back yard&mdash;Stubby and Hero a
+      little apart from the others&mdash;his father was discoursing with his
+      brother about anarchists. They were getting commoner, his father thought.
+      There were a good many of them at the shop. They didn't call themselves
+      that, but that was what they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what is an anarchist, anyhow?&rdquo; Stubby's mother wanted to know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, an anarchist,&rdquo; her lord informed her, &ldquo;is one that's against the
+      government. He don't believe in the law and order. The real bad anarchists
+      shoot them that tries to enforce the laws of the land. Guess if you'd read
+      the papers these days you'd know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby's brain had been going round and round and these words caught in it
+      as it whirled. The government&mdash;the laws of the land&mdash;why, it was
+      the government and the laws of the land that were going to shoot Hero! It
+      was the government&mdash;the laws of the land&mdash;that didn't care how
+      hard you had <i>tried</i>&mdash;didn't care whether you had been cheated&mdash;didn't
+      care how you <i>felt</i>&mdash;didn't care about anything except getting
+      the money! His brain got hotter. Well, <i>he</i> didn't believe in the
+      government, either. He was one of those people&mdash;those anarchists&mdash;that
+      were against the laws of the land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He'd done the very best he could and now the government was going to take
+      Hero away from him just because he couldn't get&mdash;<i>couldn't</i> get&mdash;that
+      other seventy cents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stubby's mother didn't hear her son crying that night. That was because
+      Stubby was successful in holding the pillow over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning he looked in one of the papers he was carrying to see
+      what it said about anarchists. Sure enough, some place way off somewhere,
+      the anarchists had shot somebody that was trying to enforce the laws of
+      the land. The laws of the land&mdash;that didn't <i>care</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon as Stubby tramped around looking for jobs he saw a good
+      many boys playing with dogs. None of them seemed to be worrying about
+      whether their dogs had checks. To Stubby's hot little brain and sore
+      little heart came the thought that they didn't love their dogs any more
+      than he loved Hero, either. But the government didn't care whether he
+      loved Hero or not! Pooh!&mdash;what was that to the government? All it
+      cared about was getting the money. He stood for a long time watching a boy
+      giving his dog a bath. The dog was trying to get away and the boy and
+      another boy were having lots of fun about it. All of a sudden Stubby
+      turned and ran away&mdash;ran down an alley, ran through a number of
+      alleys, just kept on running, blinded by the tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that night, in the middle of the night, that something in his head
+      going round and round, getting hotter and hotter, he decided that the only
+      thing for him to do was to shoot the policeman who came to take Hero away
+      on the morning of August first&mdash;that would be day after to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All night long policemen with revolvers stood around his bed. When his
+      mother called him at half-past four he was shaking so he could scarcely
+      get into his clothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his way home from his route Stubby had to pass a police-station. He
+      went on the other side of the street and stood there looking across. One
+      of the policemen was playing with a dog!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he wanted to rush over and throw himself down at that policeman's
+      feet&mdash;sob out the story&mdash;ask him to please, <i>please</i> wait
+      till he could get that other seventy cents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But just then the policeman got up and went in the station, and Stubby was
+      afraid to go in the police-station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That policeman complicated things for Stubby. Before that it had been
+      quite simple. The policeman would come to enforce the law of the land; but
+      he did not believe in the law of the land, so he would just kill the
+      policeman. But it seemed a policeman wasn't just a person who enforced the
+      laws of the land. He was also a person who played with a dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a whole day of walking around thinking about it&mdash;his eyes
+      burning, his heart pounding&mdash;he decided that the thing to do was to
+      warn the policeman by writing a letter. He did not know whether real
+      anarchists warned them or not, but Stubby couldn't get reconciled to the
+      idea of killing a person without telling him you were going to do it. It
+      seemed that even a policeman should be told&mdash;especially a policeman
+      who played with a dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following letter was pencilled by a shaking hand, late that afternoon.
+      It was written upon a barrel in the Lynch wood-shed, on a piece of
+      wrapping paper, a bristly little head bending over it:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the Policeman who comes to take my dog 'cause I ain't got the two fifty&mdash;'cause
+      I tried but could only get one eighty&mdash;'cause a man was off his nut
+      and didn't pay me what I earned&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is to tell you I am an anarchist and do not believe in the government
+      or the law and the order and will shoot you when you come. I wouldn't a
+      been an anarchist if I could a got the money and I tried to get it but I
+      couldn't get it&mdash;not enough. I don't think the government had ought
+      to take things you like like I like Hero so I am against the government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thought I would tell you first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yours truly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. LYNCH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't see how I can shoot you 'cause where would I get the revolver. So
+      I will have to do it with the butcher knife. Folks are sometimes killed
+      that way 'cause my father read it in the paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you wanted to take the one eighty and leave Hero till I can get the
+      seventy I will not do anything to you and would be very much obliged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1113 Willow street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter was properly addressed and sealed&mdash;not for nothing had
+      Stubby's teacher given those instructions in the art of letter writing.
+      The stamp he paid for out of the dime the man gave him to get a soda with&mdash;and
+      forget his troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Bill O'Brien was on the desk at the police-station and Miss Murphy of
+      the Herald stood in with Bill. That was how it came about that the next
+      morning a fat policeman, an eager-looking girl and a young fellow with a
+      kodak descended into the hollow to 1113 Willow street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little boy peeped around the corner of the house&mdash;such a
+      wild-looking little boy&mdash;hair all standing up and eyes glittering. A
+      yellow dog ran out and barked. The boy darted out and grabbed the dog in
+      his arms and in that moment the girl called to the man with the black box:
+      &ldquo;Right now! Quick! Get him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were getting ready to shoot Hero! That box was the way the police did
+      it! He must&mdash;oh, he <i>must&mdash;must</i> ... Boy and dog sank to
+      the ground&mdash;but just the same the boy was shielding the dog!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Stubby had pulled himself together the policeman was holding Hero. He
+      said that Hero was certainly a fine dog&mdash;he had a dog a good deal
+      like him at home. And Miss Murphy&mdash;she was choking back sobs herself&mdash;knew
+      how he could earn the seventy cents that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such wise do a good anarchist and a good story go down under the same
+      blow. Some of those sobs Miss Murphy choked back got into what she wrote
+      about Stubby and his yellow dog and the next day citizens with no sense of
+      the dramatic sent money enough to check Hero through life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Stubby's father said he had a good mind to lick him. But
+      something in the quality of Miss Murphy's journalism left a hazy feeling
+      of there being something remarkable about his son. He confided to his good
+      wife that it wouldn't surprise him much if Stubby was some day President.
+      Somebody had to be President, said he, and he had noticed it was generally
+      those who in their youthful days did things that made lively reading in
+      the newspapers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XIII. &mdash; AT TWILIGHT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A breeze from the May world without blew through the class-room, and as it
+      lifted his papers he had a curious sense of freshness and mustiness
+      meeting. He looked at the group of students before him, half smiling at
+      the way the breath of spring was teasing the hair of the girls sitting by
+      the window. Anna Lawrence was trying to pin hers back again, but May would
+      have none of such decorum, and only waited long enough for her to finish
+      her work before joyously undoing it. She caught the laughing, admiring
+      eyes of a boy sitting across from her and sought to conceal her pleasure
+      in her unmanageable wealth of hair by a wry little face, and then the eyes
+      of both strayed out to the trees that had scented that breeze for them,
+      looking with frank longing at the campus which stretched before them in
+      all its May glory that sunny afternoon. He remembered having met this boy
+      and girl strolling in the twilight the evening before, and as a buoyant
+      breeze that instant swept his own face he had a sudden, irrelevant
+      consciousness of being seventy-three years old.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other eyes were straying to the trees and birds and lilacs of that world
+      from which the class-room was for the hour shutting them out. He was used
+      to it&mdash;that straying of young eyes in the spring. For more than forty
+      years he had sat at that desk and talked to young men and women about
+      philosophy, and in those forty years there had always been straying eyes
+      in May. The children of some of those boys and girls had in time come to
+      him, and now there were other children who, before many years went by,
+      might be sitting upon those benches, listening to lectures upon what men
+      had thought about life, while their eyes strayed out where life called. So
+      it went on&mdash;May, perhaps, the philosopher triumphant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As, with a considerable effort&mdash;for the languor of spring, or some
+      other languor, was upon him too&mdash;he brought himself back to the
+      papers they had handed in, he found himself thinking of those first boys
+      and girls, now men and women, and parents of other boys and girls. He
+      hoped that philosophy had, after all, done something more than shut them
+      out from May. He had always tried, not so much to instruct them in what
+      men had thought, as to teach them to think, and perhaps now, when May had
+      become a time for them to watch the straying of other eyes, they were the
+      less desolate because of the habits he had helped them to form. He wanted
+      to think that he had done something more than hold them prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sadness to-day in his sympathy. He was tired. It was hard to
+      go back to what he had been saying about the different things the world's
+      philosophers had believed about the immortality of the soul. So, as often
+      when his feeling for his thought dragged, he turned to Gretta Loring. She
+      seldom failed to bring a revival of interest&mdash;a freshening. She was
+      his favourite student. He did not believe that in all the years there had
+      been any student who had not only pleased, but helped him as she did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had taught her father and mother. And now there was Gretta, clear-eyed
+      and steady of gaze, asking more of life than either of them had asked;
+      asking, not only May, but what May meant. For Gretta there need be no
+      duality. She was one of those rare ones for whom the meaning of life
+      opened new springs to the joy of life, for whom life intensified with the
+      understanding of it. He never said a thing that gratified him as reaching
+      toward the things not easy to say but that he would find Gretta's face
+      illumined&mdash;and always that eager little leaning ahead for more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had that look of waiting now, but to-day it seemed less an expectant
+      than a troubled look. She wanted him to go on with what he had been saying
+      about the immortality of the soul. But it was not so much a demand upon
+      him&mdash;he had come to rely upon those demands, as it was&mdash;he had
+      an odd, altogether absurd sense of its being a fear for him. She looked
+      uncomfortable, fretted; and suddenly he was startled to see her searching
+      eyes blurred by something that must be tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away, and for just a minute it seemed to leave him alone and
+      helpless. He rubbed his forehead with his hand. It felt hot. It got that
+      way sometimes lately when he was tired. And the close of that hour often
+      found him tired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He believed he knew what she wanted. She would have him declare his own
+      belief. In the youthful flush of her modernism she was impatient with that
+      fumbling around with what other men had thought. Despising the muddled
+      thinking of some of her classmates, she would have him put it right to
+      them with &ldquo;As for yourself&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to formulate what he would care to say. But, perhaps just because
+      he was too tired to say it right, the life the robin in the nearest tree
+      was that moment celebrating in song seemed more important than anything he
+      had to say about his own feeling toward the things men had thought about
+      the human soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was ten minutes before closing time, but suddenly he turned to his
+      class with: &ldquo;Go out-of-doors and think about it. This is no day to sit
+      within and talk of philosophy. What men have thought about life in the
+      past is less important than what you feel about it to-day.&rdquo; He paused,
+      then added, he could not have said why, &ldquo;And don't let the shadow of
+      either belief or unbelief fall across the days that are here for you now.&rdquo;
+       Again he stopped, then surprised himself by ending, &ldquo;Philosophy should
+      quicken life, not deaden it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were not slow in going, their astonishment in his wanting them to go
+      quickly engulfed in their pleasure in doing so. It was only Gretta who
+      lingered a moment, seeming too held by his manner in sending her out into
+      the sunshine to care about going there. He thought she was going to come
+      to the desk and speak to him. He was sure she wanted to. But at the last
+      she went hastily, and he thought, just before she turned her face away,
+      that it was a tear he saw on her lashes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strange! Was she unhappy, she through whom life surged so richly? And yet
+      was it not true, that where it gave much it exacted much? Feeling much,
+      and understanding what she felt, and feeling for what she understood&mdash;must
+      she also suffer much? Must one always pay?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed, and began gathering together his papers. Thoughts about life
+      tired him to-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the steps he paused, unreasonably enough a little saddened as he
+      watched some of them beginning a tennis game. Certainly they were losing
+      no time&mdash;eager to let go thoughts about life for its pleasures, very
+      few of them awake to that rich life he had tried to make them ready for.
+      He drooped still more wearily at the thought that perhaps the most real
+      gift he had for them was that unexpected ten minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering a book he must have from the library, he turned back. He went
+      to the alcove where the works on philosophy were to be found, and was
+      reaching up for the volume he wanted, when a sentence from a lowly
+      murmured conversation in the next aisle came to him across the stack of
+      books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all very well; we know, of course, that he doesn't believe, but
+      what will he do when it comes to <i>himself?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It arrested him, coming as it did from one of the girls who had just left
+      his class-room. He stood there motionless, his hand still reaching up for
+      the book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do? Why, face it, of course. Face it as squarely as he's faced every
+      other fact of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was Gretta, and though, mindful of the library mandate for silence,
+      her tone was low, it was vibrant with a fine scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the first speaker, &ldquo;I guess he'll have to face it before very
+      long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was not answered; there was a movement on the other side of the
+      barricade of books&mdash;it might have been that Gretta had turned away.
+      His hand dropped down from the high shelf. He was leaning against the
+      books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven't you noticed, Gretta, how he's losing his grip?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that his head went up sharply; he stood altogether tense as he waited
+      for Gretta to set the other girl right&mdash;Gretta, so sure-seeing, so
+      much wiser and truer than the rest of them. Gretta would <i>laugh!</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not laugh. And what his strained ear caught at last was&mdash;not
+      her scornful denial, but a little gasp of breath suggesting a sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>Noticed</i> it? Why it breaks my heart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at the books through which her low, passionate voice had
+      carried. Then he sank to the chair that fortunately was beside him. Power
+      for standing had gone from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father says&mdash;father's on the board, you know&rdquo; (it was the first girl
+      who spoke)&mdash;&ldquo;that they don't know what to do about it. It's not
+      justice to the school to let him begin another year. These things are
+      arranged with less embarrassment in the big schools, where a man begins
+      emeritus at a certain time. Though of course they'll pension him&mdash;he's
+      done a lot for the school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked Gretta for her little laugh of disdain. The memory of it was
+      more comforting&mdash;more satisfying&mdash;than any attempt to put it
+      into words could have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard them move away, their skirts brushing the book-stacks in passing.
+      A little later he saw them out in the sunshine on the campus. Gretta
+      joined one of the boys for a game of tennis. Motionless, he sat looking
+      out at her. She looked so very young as she played.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an hour he remained at the table in the alcove where he had overheard
+      what his students had to say of him. And when the hour had gone by he took
+      up the pen which was there upon the study table and wrote his resignation
+      to the secretary of the board of trustees. It was very brief&mdash;simply
+      that he felt the time had come when a younger man could do more for the
+      school than he, and that he should like his resignation to take effect at
+      the close of the present school year. He had an envelope, and sealed and
+      stamped the letter&mdash;ready to drop in the box in front of the building
+      as he left. He had always served the school as best he could; he lost no
+      time now, once convinced, in rendering to it the last service he could
+      offer it&mdash;that of making way for the younger man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking things squarely in the face, and it was the habit of a lifetime to
+      look things squarely in the face, he had not been long in seeing that they
+      were right. Things tired him now as they had not once tired him. He had
+      less zest at the beginning of the hour, more relief at the close of it. He
+      seemed stupid in not having seen it for himself, but possibly many people
+      were a little stupid in seeing that their own time was over. Of course he
+      had thought, in a vague way, that his working time couldn't be much
+      longer, but it seemed part of the way human beings managed with themselves
+      that things in even the very near future kept the remoteness of future
+      things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he understood Gretta's troubled look and her tears. He knew how those
+      fine nerves of hers must have suffered, how her own mind had wanted to
+      leap to the aid of his, how her own strength must have tormented her in
+      not being able to reach his flagging powers. It seemed part of the whole
+      hardness of life that she who would care the most would be the one to see
+      it most understandingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What he was trying to do was to see it all very simply, in matter-of-fact
+      fashion, that there might be no bitterness and the least of tragedy. It
+      was nothing unique in human history he was facing. One did one's work;
+      then, when through, one stopped. He tried to feel that it was as simple as
+      it sounded, but he wondered if back of many of those brief letters of
+      resignation that came at quitting-time there was the hurt, the desolation,
+      that there was no use denying to himself was back of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hoped that most men had more to turn to. Most men of seventy-three had
+      grandchildren. That would help, surrounding one with a feeling of the
+      naturalness of it all. But that school had been his only child. And he had
+      loved it with the tenderness one gives a child. That in him which would
+      have gone to the child had gone to the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman whom he loved had not loved him; he had never married. His life
+      had been called lonely; but lonely though it undeniably had been, the life
+      he won from books and work and thinking had kept the chill from his heart.
+      He had the gift of drawing life from all contact with life. Working with
+      youth, he kept that feeling for youth that does for the life within what
+      sunshine and fresh air do for the room in which one dwells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now that the loneliness that blights seemed waiting for him....
+      Life <i>used</i> one&mdash;and that in the ugly, not the noble sense of
+      being used. Stripped of the fine fancies men wove around it, what was it
+      beyond just a matter of being sucked dry and then thrown aside? Why not
+      admit that, and then face it? And the abundance with which one might have
+      given&mdash;the joy in the giving&mdash;had no bearing upon the fact that
+      it came at last to that question of getting one out of the way. It was no
+      one's unkindness; it was just that life was like that. Indeed, the
+      bitterness festered around the thought that it <i>was</i> life itself&mdash;the
+      way of life&mdash;not the brutality of any particular people. &ldquo;They'll
+      pension him&mdash;he's done a lot for the school.&rdquo; Even the grateful
+      memory of Gretta's tremulous, scoffing little laugh for the way it fell
+      short could not follow to the deep place that had been hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Getting himself in hand again, and trying to face this as simply and
+      honestly as he had sought to face the other, he knew that it was true he
+      had done a great deal for the school. He did not believe it too much to
+      say he had done more for it than any other man. Certainly more than any
+      other man he had given it what place it had with men who thought. He had
+      come to it in his early manhood, and at a time when the school was in its
+      infancy&mdash;just a crude, struggling little Western college. Gretta
+      Loring's grandfather had been one of its founders&mdash;founding it in
+      revolt against the cramping sectarianism of another college. He had
+      gloried in the spirit which gave it birth, and it was he who, through the
+      encroachings of problems of administration and the ensnarements and
+      entanglements of practicality, had fought to keep unattached and
+      unfettered that spirit of freedom in the service of truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His own voice had been heard and recognised, and a number of times during
+      the years calls had come from more important institutions, but he had not
+      cared to go. For year by year there deepened that personal love for the
+      little college to which he had given the youthful ardour of his own
+      intellectual passion. All his life's habits were one with it. His days
+      seemed beaten into the path that cut across the campus. The vines that
+      season after season went a little higher on the wall out there indicated
+      his strivings by their own, and the generation that had worn down even the
+      stones of those front steps had furrowed his forehead and stooped his
+      shoulders. He had grown old along with it! His days were twined around it.
+      It was the place of his efforts and satisfactions (joys perhaps he should
+      not call them), of his falterings and his hopes. He loved it because he
+      had given himself to it; loved it because he had helped to bring it up. On
+      the shelves all around him were books which it had been his pleasure&mdash;because
+      during some of those hard years they were to be had in no other way&mdash;to
+      order himself and pay for from his own almost ludicrously meagre salary.
+      He remembered the excitement there always was in getting them fresh from
+      the publisher and bringing them over there in his arms; the satisfaction
+      in coming in next day and finding them on the shelves. Such had been his
+      dissipations, his indulgences of self. Many things came back to him as he
+      sat there going back over busy years, the works on philosophy looking down
+      upon him, the shadows of that spring afternoon gathering around him. He
+      looked like a very old man indeed as he at last reached out for the letter
+      he had written to the trustees, relieving them of their embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twilight had come on. On the front steps he paused and looked around the
+      campus. It was growing dark in that lingering way it has in the spring&mdash;daylight
+      creeping away under protest, night coming gently, as if it knew that the
+      world having been so pleasant, day would be loath to go. The boys and
+      girls were going back and forth upon the campus and the streets. They
+      could not bear to go within. For more than forty years it had been like
+      that. It would be like that for many times forty years&mdash;indeed, until
+      the end of the world, for it would be the end of the world when it was not
+      like that. He was glad that they were out in the twilight, not indoors
+      trying to gain from books something of the meaning of life. That course
+      had its satisfactions along the way, but it was surely no port of peace to
+      which it bore one at the last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shrunk from going home. There were so many readjustments he must make,
+      once home. So, lingering, he saw that off among the trees a girl was
+      sitting alone. She threw back her head in a certain way just then, and he
+      knew by the gesture that it was Gretta Loring. He wondered what she was
+      thinking about. What did one who thought think about&mdash;over there on
+      the other side of life? Youth and age looked at life from opposite sides.
+      Then they could not see it alike, for what one saw in life seemed to
+      depend so entirely upon how the light was falling from where one stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not have said just what it was made him cross the campus toward
+      her. Part of it was the desire for human sympathy&mdash;one thing, at
+      least, which age did not deaden. But that was not the whole of it, nor the
+      deepest thing in it. It was an urge of the spirit to find and keep for
+      itself a place where the light was falling backward upon life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was quiet in her greeting, and gentle. Her cheeks were still flushed,
+      her hair tumbled from her game, but her eyes were thoughtful and, he
+      thought, sad. He felt that the sadness was because of him; of him and the
+      things of which he made her think. He knew of her affection for him, the
+      warmth there was in her admiration of the things for which he had fought.
+      He had discovered that it hurt her now that others should be seeing and
+      not he, pained her to watch so sorry a thing as his falling below himself,
+      wounded both pride and heart that men whom she would doubtless say had
+      never appreciated him were whispering among themselves about how to get
+      rid of him. Why, the poor child might even be tormenting herself with the
+      idea she ought to tell him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was why he told her. He pointed to the address on the envelope,
+      saying: &ldquo;That carries my resignation, Gretta.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her start and the tears which rushed to her eyes told him he was right
+      about her feeling. She did not seem able to say anything. Her chin was
+      trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see that the time has come,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;when a younger man can do more
+      for the school than I can hope to do for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still she said nothing at all, but her eyes were deepening and she had
+      that very steadfast, almost inspired look that had so many times quickened
+      him in the class-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not going to deny it! She was not going to pretend!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first feeling of not having got something needed he rose to her
+      high ground&mdash;ground she had taken it for granted he would take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And will you believe it, Gretta,&rdquo; he said, rising to that ground and
+      there asking, not for the sympathy that bends down, but for a hand in
+      passing, &ldquo;there comes a hard hour when first one feels the time has come
+      to step aside and be replaced by that younger man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded. &ldquo;It must be,&rdquo; she said, simply; &ldquo;it must be very much harder
+      than any of us can know till we come to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She brought him a sense of his advantage in experience&mdash;his riches.
+      To be sure, there was that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he was oddly comforted by the honesty in her which could not stoop to
+      dishonest comforting. In what superficially might seem her failure there
+      was a very real victory for them both. And there was nothing of coldness
+      in her reserve! There was the fulness of understanding, and of valuing the
+      moments too highly for anything there was to be said about it. There was a
+      great spiritual dignity, a nobility, in the way she was looking at him. It
+      called upon the whole of his own spiritual dignity. It was her old demand
+      upon him, but this time the tears through which her eyes shone were tears
+      of pride in fulfilment, not of sorrowing for failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he felt that his life had not been spent in vain, that the lives
+      of all those men of his day who had fought the good fight for intellectual
+      honesty&mdash;spiritual dignity&mdash;had not been spent in vain if they
+      were leaving upon the earth even a few who were like the girl beside them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It turned him from himself to her. She was what counted&mdash;for she was
+      what remained. And he remained in just the measure that he remained
+      through her; counted in so far as he counted for her. It was as if he had
+      been facing in the wrong direction and now a kindly hand had turned him
+      around. It was not in looking back there he would find himself. He was not
+      back there to be found. Only so much of him lived as had been able to wing
+      itself ahead&mdash;on in the direction she was moving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It did not particularly surprise him that when she at last spoke it was to
+      voice a shade of that same feeling. &ldquo;I was thinking,&rdquo; she began, &ldquo;of that
+      younger man. Of what he must mean to the man who gives way to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was feeling her way as she went&mdash;groping among the many dim
+      things that were there. He had always liked to watch her face when she was
+      thinking her way step by step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you used a word wrongly a minute ago,&rdquo; she said, with a smile.
+      &ldquo;You spoke of being replaced. But that isn't it. A man like you isn't
+      replaced; he's&rdquo;&mdash;she got it after a minute and came forth with it
+      triumphantly&mdash;&ldquo;fulfilled!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her face was shining as she turned to him after that. &ldquo;Don't you see? He's
+      there waiting to take your place because you got him ready. Why, you made
+      that younger man! Your whole life has been a getting ready for him. He can
+      do his work be cause you first did yours. Of course he can go farther than
+      you can! Wouldn't it be a sorry commentary on you if he couldn't?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her voice throbbed warmly upon that last, and during the pause the light
+      it had brought still played upon her face. &ldquo;We were talking in class about
+      immortality,&rdquo; she went on, more slowly. &ldquo;There's one form of immortality I
+      like to think about. It's that all those who from the very first have
+      given anything to the world are living in the world to-day.&rdquo; There was a
+      rush of tears to her eyes and of affection to her voice as she finished,
+      very low: &ldquo;You'll never die. You've deepened the consciousness of life too
+      much for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat there as twilight drew near to night, the old man and the young
+      girl, silent. The laughter of boys and girls and the good-night calls of
+      the birds were all around them. The fragrance of life was around them. It
+      was one of those silences to which come impressions, faiths, longings, not
+      yet born as thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something in the quality of that silence brought the rescuing sense of its
+      having been good to have lived and done one's part&mdash;that sense which,
+      from places of desolation and over ways rough and steep and dark, can find
+      its way to the meadows of serenity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE END
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lifted Masks
+       Stories
+
+Author: Susan Glaspell
+
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7368]
+This file was first posted on April 21, 2003
+Last Updated: July 5, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFTED MASKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIFTED MASKS
+
+STORIES
+
+By Susan Glaspell
+
+1912
+
+
+TO
+
+THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
+
+JENNIE PRESTON
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I "ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS"
+
+II THE PLEA
+
+III FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS
+
+IV FRECKLES M'GRATH
+
+V FROM A TO Z
+
+VI THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
+
+VII HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA
+
+VIII THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES
+
+IX "OUT THERE"
+
+X THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE
+
+XI HIS AMERICA
+
+XII THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG
+
+XIII AT TWILIGHT
+
+
+
+
+LIFTED MASKS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+"ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS"
+
+
+"N'avez-vous pas--" she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she saw
+that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly dangling
+two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured young woman
+assured him were _bien chic_ was edging nearer her. She was never
+so conscious of the truly American quality of her French as when
+a countryman was at hand. The French themselves had an air of "How
+marvellously you speak!" but fellow Americans listened superciliously
+in an "I can do better than that myself" manner which quite untied
+the Gallic twist in one's tongue. And so, feeling her French was being
+compared, not with mere French itself, but with an arrogant new American
+brand thereof, she moved a little around the corner of the counter and
+began again in lower voice:
+
+"_Mais, n'avez_--"
+
+"Say, Young Lady," a voice which adequately represented the figure broke
+in, "_you_, aren't French, are you?"
+
+She looked up with what was designed for a haughty stare. But what is a
+haughty stare to do in the face of a broad grin? And because it was such
+a long time since a grin like that had been grinned at her it happened
+that the stare gave way to a dimple, and the dimple to a laughing: "Is
+it so bad as that?"
+
+"Oh, not your French," he assured her. "You talk it just like the rest
+of them. In fact, I should say, if anything--a little more so. But do
+you know,"--confidentially--"I can just spot an American girl every
+time!"
+
+"How?" she could not resist asking, and the modest black hose she
+was thinking of purchasing dangled against his gorgeous red ones in
+friendliest fashion.
+
+"Well, Sir--I don't know. I don't think it can be the
+clothes,"--judicially surveying her.
+
+"The clothes," murmured Virginia, "were bought in Paris."
+
+"Well, you've got _me_. Maybe it's the way you wear 'em. Maybe
+it's 'cause you look as if you used to play tag with your brother.
+Something--anyhow--gives a fellow that 'By jove there's an American
+girl!' feeling when he sees you coming round the corner."
+
+"But why--?"
+
+"Lord--don't begin on _why_. You can say _why_ to anything. Why don't
+the French talk English? Why didn't they lay Paris out at right angles?
+Now look here, Young Lady, for that matter--_why_ can't you help me
+buy some presents for my wife? There'd be nothing wrong about it," he
+hastened to assure her, "because my wife's a mighty fine woman."
+
+The very small American looked at the very large one. Now Virginia was a
+well brought up young woman. Her conversations with strange men had been
+confined to such things as, "Will you please tell me the nearest way
+to--?" but preposterously enough--she could not for the life of her
+have told why--frowning upon this huge American--fat was the literal
+word--who stood there with puckered-up face swinging the flaming hose
+would seem in the same shameful class with snubbing the little boy who
+confidently asked her what kind of ribbon to buy for his mother.
+
+"Was it for your wife you were thinking of buying these red stockings?"
+she ventured.
+
+"Sure. What do you think of 'em? Look as if they came from Paris all
+right, don't they?"
+
+"Oh, they look as though they came from Paris, all right," Virginia
+repeated, a bit grimly. "But do you know"--this quite as to that little
+boy who might be buying the ribbon--"American women don't always
+care for all the things that look as if they came from Paris. Is your
+wife--does she care especially for red stockings?"
+
+"Don't believe she ever had a pair in her life. That's why I thought it
+might please her."
+
+Virginia looked down and away. There were times when dimples made things
+hard for one.
+
+Then she said, with gentle gravity: "There are quite a number of women
+in America who don't care much for red stockings. It would seem too bad,
+wouldn't it, if after you got these clear home your wife should turn out
+to be one of those people? Now, I think these grey stockings are lovely.
+I'm sure any woman would love them. She could wear them with grey suede
+slippers and they would be so soft and pretty."
+
+"Um--not very lively looking, are they? You see I want something to
+cheer her up. She--well she's not been very well lately and I thought
+something--oh something with a lot of _dash_ in it, you know, would just
+fill the bill. But look here. We'll take both. Sure--that's the way out
+of it. If she don't like the red, she'll like the grey, and if she don't
+like the--You like the grey ones, don't you? Then here"--picking up two
+pairs of the handsomely embroidered grey stockings and handing them to
+the clerk--"One," holding up his thumb to denote one--"me,"--a vigorous
+pounding of the chest signifying me. "One"--holding up his forefinger
+and pointing to the girl--"mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh no--no--no!" cried Virginia, her face instantly the colour of the
+condemned stockings. Then, standing straight: "Certainly _not_."
+
+"No? Just as you say," he replied good humouredly. "Like to have you
+have 'em. Seems as if strangers in a strange land oughtn't to stand on
+ceremony."
+
+The clerk was bending forward holding up the stockings alluringly.
+"_Pour mademoiselle, n'est-ce-pas_?"
+
+"_Mais--non!_" pronounced Virginia, with emphasis.
+
+There followed an untranslatable gesture. "How droll!" shoulder and
+outstretched hands were saying. "If the kind gentleman _wishes_ to give
+mademoiselle the _joli bas_--!"
+
+His face had puckered up again. Then suddenly it unpuckered. "Tell you
+what you might do," he solved it. "Just take 'em along and send them to
+your mother. Now your mother might be real glad to have 'em."
+
+Virginia stared. And then an awful thing happened. What she was thinking
+about was the letter she could send with the stockings. "Mother dear,"
+she would write, "as I stood at the counter buying myself some stockings
+to-day along came a nice man--a stranger to me, but very kind and
+jolly--and gave me--"
+
+There it was that the awful thing happened. Her dimple was showing--and
+at thought of its showing she could not keep it from showing! And how
+could she explain why it was showing without its going on showing? And
+how--?
+
+But at that moment her gaze fell upon the clerk, who had taken
+the dimple as signal to begin putting the stockings in a box. The
+Frenchwoman's eyebrows soon put that dimple in its proper place. "And
+so the _petite Americaine_ was not too--oh, not _too_--" those French
+eyebrows were saying.
+
+All in an instant Virginia was something quite different from a little
+girl with a dimple. "You are very kind," she was saying, and her mother
+herself could have done it no better, "but I am sure our little joke had
+gone quite far enough. I bid you good-morning". And with that she
+walked regally over to the glove counter, leaving red and grey and black
+hosiery to their own destinies.
+
+"I loathe them when their eyebrows go up," she fumed. "Now _his_ weren't
+going up--not even in his mind."
+
+She could not keep from worrying about him. "They'll just 'do' him," she
+was sure. "And then laugh at him in the bargain. A man like that has no
+_business_ to be let loose in a store all by himself."
+
+And sure enough, a half hour later she came upon him up in the dress
+department. Three of them had gathered round to "do" him. They were
+making rapid headway, their smiling deference scantily concealing their
+amused contempt. The spectacle infuriated Virginia. "They just think
+they can _work_ us!" she stormed. "They think we're _easy_. I suppose
+they think he's a _fool_. I just wish they could get him in a business
+deal! I just wish--!"
+
+"I can assure you, sir," the English-speaking manager of the department
+was saying, "that this garment is a wonderful value. We are able to let
+you have it at so absurdly low a figure because--"
+
+Virginia did not catch why it was they were able to let him have it at
+so absurdly low a figure, but she did see him wipe his brow and look
+helplessly around. "Poor _thing_," she murmured, almost tenderly, "he
+doesn't know what to do. He just _does_ need somebody to look after
+him." She stood there looking at his back. He had a back a good deal
+like the back of her chum's father at home. Indeed there were various
+things about him suggested "home." Did one want one's own jeered at? One
+might see crudities one's self, but was one going to have supercilious
+outsiders coughing those sham coughs behind their hypocritical hands?
+
+"For seven hundred francs," she heard the suave voice saying.
+
+_Seven hundred francs_! Virginia's national pride, or, more accurately,
+her national rage, was lashed into action. It was with very red
+cheeks that the small American stepped stormily to the rescue of her
+countryman.
+
+"Seven hundred francs for _that_?" she jeered, right in the face of the
+enraged manager and stiffening clerks. "Seven hundred francs--indeed!
+Last year's model--a hideous colour, and "--picking it up, running it
+through her fingers and tossing it contemptuously aside--"abominable
+stuff!"
+
+"Gee, but I'm grateful to you!" he breathed, again wiping his brow. "You
+know, I was a little leery of it myself."
+
+The manager, quivering with rage and glaring uglily, stepped up to
+Virginia. "May I ask--?"
+
+But the fat man stepped in between--he was well qualified for
+that position. "Cut it out, partner. The young lady's a friend of
+_mine_--see? She's looking out for me--not you. I don't want your stuff,
+anyway." And taking Virginia serenely by the arm he walked away.
+
+"This was no place to buy dresses," said she crossly.
+
+"Well, I wish I knew where the places _were_ to buy things," he replied,
+humbly, forlornly.
+
+"Well, what do you want to buy?" demanded she, still crossly.
+
+"Why, I want to buy some nice things for my wife. Something the real
+thing from Paris, you know. I came over from London on purpose. But
+Lord,"--again wiping his brow--"a fellow doesn't know where to _go_."
+
+"Oh well," sighed Virginia, long-sufferingly, "I see I'll just have to
+take you. There doesn't seem any way out of it. It's evident you can't
+go _alone_. _Seven hundred francs_!"
+
+"I suppose it was too much," he conceded meekly. "I tell you I _will_
+be grateful if you'll just stay by me a little while. I never felt so up
+against it in all my life."
+
+"Now, a very nice thing to take one's wife from Paris," began Virginia
+didactically, when they reached the sidewalk, "is lace."
+
+"L--ace? Um! Y--es, I suppose lace is all right. Still it never struck
+me there was anything so very _lively_ looking about lace."
+
+"'Lively looking' is not the final word in wearing apparel," pronounced
+Virginia in teacher-to-pupil manner. "Lace is always in good taste,
+never goes out of style, and all women care for it. I will take you to
+one of the lace shops."
+
+"Very well," acquiesced he, truly chastened. "Here, let's get in this
+cab."
+
+Virginia rode across the Seine looking like one pondering the destinies
+of nations. Her companion turned several times to address her, but it
+would have been as easy for a soldier to slap a general on the back.
+Finally she turned to him.
+
+"Now when we get there," she instructed, "don't seem at all interested
+in things. Act--oh, bored, you know, and seeming to want to get me away.
+And when they tell the price, no matter what they say, just--well
+sort of groan and hold your head and act as though you are absolutely
+overcome at the thought of such an outrage."
+
+"U--m. You have to do that here to get--lace?"
+
+"You have to do that here to get _anything_---at the price you should
+get it. You, and people who go shopping the way you do, bring discredit
+upon the entire American nation."
+
+"That so? Sorry. Never meant to do that. All right, Young Lady, I'll do
+the best I can. Never did act that way, but suppose I can, if the rest
+of them do."
+
+"Groan and hold my head," she heard him murmuring as they entered the
+shop.
+
+He proved an apt pupil. It may indeed be set down that his aptitude was
+their undoing. They had no sooner entered the shop than he pulled out
+his watch and uttered an exclamation of horror at the sight of the time.
+Virginia could scarcely look at the lace, so insistently did he keep
+waving the watch before her. His contempt for everything shown was open
+and emphatic. It was also articulate. Virginia grew nervous, seeing the
+real red showing through in the Frenchwoman's cheeks. And when the price
+was at last named--a price which made Virginia jubilant--there burst
+upon her outraged ears something between a jeer and a howl of rage, the
+whole of it terrifyingly done in the form of a groan; she looked at
+her companion to see him holding up his hands and wobbling his head as
+though it had been suddenly loosened from his spine, cast one look at
+the Frenchwoman--then fled, followed by her groaning compatriot.
+
+"I didn't mean you to act like _that_!" she stormed.
+
+"Why, I did just what you told me to! Seemed to me I was following
+directions to the letter. Don't think for a minute _I'm_ going to bring
+discredit on the American nation! Not a bad scheme--taking out my watch
+that way, was it?"
+
+"Oh, beautiful _scheme_. I presume you notice, however, that we have no
+lace."
+
+They walked half a block in silence. "Now I'll take you to another
+shop," she then volunteered, in a turning the other cheek fashion, "and
+here please do nothing at all. Please just--sit."
+
+"Sort of as if I was feeble-minded, eh?"
+
+"Oh, don't _try_ to look feeble-minded," she begged, alarmed at seeming
+to suggest any more parts; "just sit there--as if you were thinking of
+something very far away."
+
+"Say, Young Lady, look here; this is very nice, being put on to the
+tricks of the trade, but the money end of it isn't cutting much ice,
+and isn't there any way you can just _buy_ things--the way you do in
+Cincinnati? Can't you get their stuff without making a comic opera out
+of it?"
+
+"No, you can't," spoke relentless Virginia; "not unless you want them to
+laugh and say 'Aren't Americans fools?' the minute the door is shut."
+
+"Fools--eh? I'll show them a thing or two!"
+
+"Oh, please show them nothing here! Please just--sit."
+
+While employing her wiles to get for three hundred and fifty francs
+a yoke and scarf aggregating four hundred, she chanced to look at her
+American friend. Then she walked rapidly to the rear of the shop,
+buried her face in her handkerchief, and seemed making heroic efforts
+to sneeze. Once more he was following directions to the letter. Chin
+resting on hands, hands resting on stick, the huge American had taken
+on the beatific expression of a seventeen-year-old girl thinking of
+something "very far away." Virginia was long in mastering the sneeze.
+
+On the sidewalk she presented him with the package of lace and also with
+what she regarded the proper thing in the way of farewell speech. She
+supposed it _was_ hard for a man to go shopping alone; she could see how
+hard it would be for her own father; indeed it was seeing how difficult
+it would be for her father had impelled her to go with him, a stranger.
+She trusted his wife would like the lace; she thought it very nice, and
+a bargain. She was glad to have been of service to a fellow countryman
+who seemed in so difficult a position.
+
+But he did not look as impressed as one to whom a farewell speech was
+being made should look. In fact, he did not seem to be hearing it. Once
+more, and in earnest this time, he appeared to be thinking of something
+very far away. Then all at once he came back, and it was in anything but
+a far-away voice he began, briskly: "Now look here, Young Lady, I don't
+doubt but this lace is great stuff. You say so, and I haven't seen man,
+woman or child on this side of the Atlantic knows as much as you do.
+I'm mighty grateful for the lace--don't you forget that, but just the
+same--well, now I'll tell you. I have a very special reason for wanting
+something a little livelier than lace. Something that seems to have
+Paris written on it in red letters--see? Now, where do you get the
+kind of hats you see some folks wearing, and where do you get the
+dresses--well, it's hard to describe 'em, but the kind they have in
+pictures marked 'Breezes from Paris'? You see--_S-ay!_--_what_ do you
+think of _that?_"
+
+"That" was in a window across the street. It was an opera cloak. He
+walked toward it, Virginia following. "Now _there_," he turned to her,
+his large round face all aglow, "is what I want."
+
+It was yellow; it was long; it was billowy; it was insistently and
+recklessly regal.
+
+"That's the ticket!" he gloated.
+
+"Of course," began Virginia, "I don't know anything about it. I am in a
+very strange position, not knowing what your wife likes or--or has. This
+is the kind of thing everything has to go _with_ or one wouldn't--one
+couldn't--"
+
+"Sure! Good idea. We'll just get everything to go with it."
+
+"It's the sort of thing one doesn't see worn much outside of Paris--or
+New York. If one is--now my mother wouldn't care for that coat at all."
+Virginia took no little pride in that tactful finish.
+
+"Can't sidetrack me!" he beamed. "I _want_ it. Very thing I'm after,
+Young Lady."
+
+"Well, of course you will have no difficulty in buying the coat without
+me," said she, as a dignified version of "I wash my hands of you." "You
+can do here as you said you wished to do, simply go in and pay what they
+ask. There would be no use trying to get it cheap. They would know that
+anyone who wanted it would"--she wanted to say "have more money than
+they knew what to do with," but contented herself with, "be able to pay
+for it."
+
+But when she had finished she looked at him; at first she thought she
+wanted to laugh, and then it seemed that wasn't what she wanted to
+do after all. It was like saying to a small boy who was one beam over
+finding a tin horn: "Oh well, take the horn if you want to, but you
+can't haul your little red waggon while you're blowing the horn." There
+seemed something peculiarly inhuman about taking the waggon just when he
+had found the horn. Now if the waggon were broken, then to take away
+the horn would leave the luxury of grief. But let not shadows fall upon
+joyful moments.
+
+With the full ardour of her femininity she entered into the purchasing
+of the yellow opera cloak. They paid for that decorative garment the sum
+of two thousand five hundred francs. It seemed it was embroidered, and
+the lining was--anyway, they paid it.
+
+And they took it with them. He was going to "take no chances on losing
+it." He was leaving Paris that night and held that during his stay
+he had been none too impressed with either Parisian speed or Parisian
+veracity.
+
+Then they bought some "Breezes from Paris," a dress that would "go with"
+the coat. It was violet velvet, and contributed to the sense of doing
+one's uttermost; and hats--"the kind you see some folks wearing." One
+was the rainbow done into flowers, and the other the kind of black hat
+to outdo any rainbow. "If you could just give me some idea what type
+your wife is," Virginia was saying, from beneath the willow plumes. "Now
+you see this hat quite overpowers me. Do you think it will overpower
+her?"
+
+"Guess not. Anyway, if it don't look right on her head she may enjoy
+having it around to look at."
+
+Virginia stared out at him. The _oddest_ man! As if a hat were any good
+at all if it didn't look right on one's head!
+
+Upon investigation--though yielding to his taste she was still vigilant
+as to his interests--Virginia discovered a flaw in one of the plumes.
+The sylph in the trailing gown held volubly that it did not _fait rien_;
+the man with the open purse said he couldn't see that it figured much,
+but the small American held firm. That must be replaced by a perfect
+plume or they would not take the hat. And when she saw who was in
+command the sylph as volubly acquiesced that _naturellement_ it must be
+_tout a fait_ perfect. She would send out and get one that would be oh!
+so, so, _so_ perfect. It would take half an hour.
+
+"Tell you what we'll do," Virginia's friend proposed, opera cloak
+tight under one arm, velvet gown as tight under the other, "I'm
+tired--hungry--thirsty; feel like a ham sandwich--and something. I'm
+playing you out, too. Let's go out and get a bite and come back for the
+so, so, _so_ perfect hat."
+
+She hesitated. But he had the door open, and if he stood holding it that
+way much longer he was bound to drop the violet velvet gown. She did not
+want him to drop the velvet gown and furthermore, she _would_ like a cup
+of tea. There came into her mind a fortifying thought about the relative
+deaths of sheep and lambs. If to be killed for the sheep were indeed no
+worse than being killed for the lamb, and if a cup of tea went with the
+sheep and nothing at all with the lamb--?
+
+So she agreed. "There's a nice little tea-shop right round the corner.
+We girls often go there."
+
+"Tea? Like tea? All right, then"--and he started manfully on.
+
+But as she entered the tea-shop she was filled with keen sense of
+the desirableness of being slain for the lesser animal. For, cosily
+installed in their favourite corner, were "the girls."
+
+Virginia had explained to these friends some three hours before that she
+could not go with them that afternoon as she must attend a musicale some
+friends of her mother's were giving. Being friends of her mother's, she
+expatiated, she would have to go.
+
+Recollecting this, also for the first time remembering the musicale, she
+bowed with the _hauteur_ of self-consciousness.
+
+Right there her friend contributed to the tragedy of a sheep's death by
+dropping the yellow opera cloak. While he was stooping to pick it up the
+violet velvet gown slid backward and Virginia had to steady it until
+he could regain position. The staring in the corner gave way to
+tittering--and no dying sheep had ever held its head more haughtily.
+
+The death of this particular sheep proved long and painful. The legs
+of Virginia's friend and the legs of the tea-table did not seem well
+adapted to each other. He towered like a human mountain over the dainty
+thing, twisting now this way and now that. It seemed Providence--or
+at least so much of it as was represented by the management of that
+shop--had never meant fat people to drink tea. The table was rendered
+further out of proportion by having a large box piled on either side of
+it.
+
+Expansively, and not softly, he discoursed of these things. What did
+they think a fellow was to do with his _knees_? Didn't they sell tea
+enough to afford any decent chairs? Did all these women pretend to
+really _like_ tea?
+
+Virginia's sense of humour rallied somewhat as she viewed him eating
+the sandwiches. Once she had called them doll-baby sandwiches; now that
+seemed literal: tea-cups, _petit gateau_, the whole service gave the
+fancy of his sitting down to a tea-party given by a little girl for her
+dollies.
+
+But after a time he fell silent, looking around the room. And when he
+broke that pause his voice was different.
+
+"These women here, all dressed so fine, nothing to do but sit around and
+eat this folderol, _they_ have it easy--don't they?"
+
+The bitterness in it, and a faint note of wistfulness, puzzled her.
+Certainly _he_ had money.
+
+"And the husbands of these women," he went on; "lots of 'em, I suppose,
+didn't always have so much. Maybe some of these women helped out in the
+early days when things weren't so easy. Wonder if the men ever think how
+lucky they are to be able to get it back at 'em?"
+
+She grew more bewildered. Wasn't he "getting it back?" The money he had
+been spending that day!
+
+"Young Lady," he said abruptly, "you must think I'm a queer one."
+
+She murmured feeble protest.
+
+"Yes, you must. Must wonder what I want with all this stuff, don't you?"
+
+"Why, it's for your wife, isn't it?" she asked, startled.
+
+"Oh yes, but you must wonder. You're a shrewd one, Young Lady; judging
+the thing by me, you must wonder."
+
+Virginia was glad she was not compelled to state her theory. Loud and
+common and impossible were terms which had presented themselves, terms
+which she had fought with kind and good-natured and generous. Their
+purchases she had decided were to be used, not for a knock, but as a
+crashing pound at the door of the society of his town. For her part,
+Virginia hoped the door would come down.
+
+"And if you knew that probably this stuff would never be worn at all,
+that ten to one it would never do anything more than lie round on
+chairs--then you _would_ think I was queer, wouldn't you?"
+
+She was forced to admit that that would seem rather strange.
+
+"Young Lady, I believe I'll tell you about it. Never do talk about it
+to hardly anybody, but I feel as if you and I were pretty well
+acquainted--we've been through so much together."
+
+She smiled at him warmly; there was something so real about him when he
+talked that way.
+
+But his look then frightened her. It seemed for an instant as though he
+would brush the tiny table aside and seize some invisible thing by the
+throat. Then he said, cutting off each word short: "Young Lady, what
+do you think of this? I'm worth more 'an a million dollars--and my wife
+gets up at five o'clock every morning to do washing and scrubbing."
+
+"Oh, it's not that she _has_ to," he answered her look, "but she
+_thinks_ she has to. See? Once we were poor. For twenty years we were
+poor as dirt. Then she did have to do things like that. Then I struck
+it. Or rather, it struck me. Oil. Oil on a bit of land I had. I had just
+sense enough to make the most of it; one thing led to another--well,
+you're not interested in that end of it. But the fact is that now we're
+rich. Now she could have all the things that these women have--Lord
+A'mighty she could lay abed every day till noon if she wanted to!
+But--you see?--it _got_ her--those hard, lonely, grinding years _took_
+her. She's"--he shrunk from the terrible word and faltered out--"her
+mind's not--"
+
+There was a sobbing little flutter in Virginia's throat. In a dim way
+she was glad to see that the girls were going. She _could_ not have them
+laughing at him--now.
+
+"Well, you can about figure out how it makes me feel," he continued,
+and looking into his face now it was as though the spirit redeemed the
+flesh. "You're smart. You can see it without my callin' your attention
+to it. Last time I went to see her I had just made fifty thousand on a
+deal. And I found her down on her knees thinking she was scrubbing the
+floor!"
+
+Unconsciously Virginia's hand went out, following the rush of sympathy
+and understanding. "But can't they--restrain her?" she murmured.
+
+"Makes her worse. Says she's got it to do--frets her to think she's not
+getting it done."
+
+"But isn't there some _way_?" she whispered. "Some way to make her
+_know_?"
+
+He pointed to the large boxes. "That," he said simply, "is the meaning
+of those. It's been seven years--but I keep on trying."
+
+She was silent, the tears too close for words. And she had thought it
+cheap ambition!--vulgar aspiration--silly show--vanity!
+
+"Suppose you thought I was a queer one, talking about lively looking
+things. But you see now? Thought it might attract her attention, thought
+something real gorgeous like this might impress money on her. Though I
+don't know,"--he seemed to grow weary as he told it; "I got her a lot of
+diamonds, thinking they might interest her, and she thought she'd stolen
+'em, and they had to take them away."
+
+Still the girl did not speak. Her hand was shading her eyes.
+
+"But there's nothing like trying. Nothing like keeping right on trying.
+And anyhow--a fellow likes to think he's taking his wife something from
+Paris."
+
+They passed before her in their heartbreaking folly, their tragic
+uselessness, their lovable absurdity and stinging irony--those
+things they had bought that afternoon: an _opera cloak_--a _velvet
+dress_--_those hats_--_red silk stockings_.
+
+The mockery of them wrung her heart. Right there in the tea-shop
+Virginia was softly crying.
+
+"Oh, now that's too bad," he expostulated clumsily. "Why, look here,
+Young Lady, I didn't mean you to take it so hard."
+
+When she had recovered herself he told her much of the story. And the
+thing which revealed him--glorified him--was less the grief he gave
+to it than the way he saw it. "It's the cursed unfairness of it,"
+he concluded. "When you consider it's all because she did those
+things--when you think of her bein' bound to 'em for life just because
+she was _too faithful doin' 'em_--when you think that now--when I could
+give her everything these women have got!--she's got to go right on
+worrying about baking the bread and washing the dishes--did it for me
+when I was poor--and now with me rich she can't get _out_ of it--and
+I _can't reach_ her--oh, it's _rotten!_ I tell you it's _rotten!_
+Sometimes I can just hear my money _laugh_ at me! Sometimes I get to
+going round and round in a circle about it till it seems I'm going crazy
+myself."
+
+"I think you are a--a noble man," choked Virginia.
+
+That disconcerted him. "Oh Lord--don't think that. No, Young Lady, don't
+try to make any plaster saint out of _me_. My life goes on. I've got to
+eat, drink and be merry. I'm built that way. But just the same my heart
+on the inside's pretty sore, Young Lady. I want to tell you that the
+whole inside of my heart is _sore as a boil_!"
+
+They were returning for the hats. Suddenly Virginia stopped, and it
+was a soft-eyed and gentle Virginia who turned to him after the pause.
+"There are lovely things to be bought in Paris for women who aren't
+well. Such soft, lovely things to wear in your room. Not but what I
+think these other things are all right. As you say, they may--interest
+her. But they aren't things she can use just now, and wouldn't you like
+her to have some of those soft lovely things she could actually wear?
+They might help most of all. To wake in the morning and find herself in
+something so beautiful--"
+
+"Where do you get 'em?" he demanded promptly.
+
+And so they went to one of those shops which have, more than all the
+others, enshrined Paris in feminine hearts. And never was lingerie
+selected with more loving care than that which Virginia picked out that
+afternoon. A tear fell on one particularly lovely _robe de nuit_--so
+soothingly soft, so caressingly luxurious, it seemed that surely it
+might help bring release from the bondage of those crushing years.
+
+As they were leaving they were given two packages. "Just the kimona
+thing you liked," he said, "and a trinket or two. Now that we're such
+good friends, you won't feel like you did this morning."
+
+"And if I don't want them myself, I might send them to my mother,"
+Virginia replied, a quiver in her laugh at her own little joke.
+
+He had put her in her cab; he had tried to tell her how much he thanked
+her; they had said good-bye and the _cocher_ had cracked his whip when
+he came running after her. "Why, Young Lady," he called out, "we don't
+know each other's _names_."
+
+She laughed and gave hers. "Mine's William P. Johnson," he said. "Part
+French and part Italian. But now look here, Young Lady--or I mean, Miss
+Clayton. A fellow at the hotel was telling me something last night that
+made me _sick_. He said American girls sometimes got awfully up against
+it here. He said one actually starved last year. Now, I don't like that
+kind of business. Look here, Young Lady, I want you to promise that if
+you--you or any of your gang--get up against it you'll cable William P.
+Johnson, of Cincinnati, Ohio."
+
+The twilight grey had stolen upon Paris. And there was a mist which the
+street lights only penetrated a little way--as sometimes one's knowledge
+of life may only penetrate life a very little way. Her cab stopped by a
+blockade, she watched the burly back of William P. Johnson disappearing
+into the mist. The red box which held the yellow opera cloak she could
+see longer than all else.
+
+"You never can tell," murmured Virginia. "It just goes to show that you
+never can tell."
+
+And whatever it was you never could tell had brought to Virginia's
+girlish face the tender knowingness of the face of a woman.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PLEA
+
+
+Senator Harrison concluded his argument and sat down. There was no
+applause, but he had expected none. Senator Dorman was already saying
+"Mr. President?" and there was a stir in the crowded galleries, and an
+anticipatory moving of chairs among the Senators. In the press gallery
+the reporters bunched together their scattered papers and inspected
+their pencil-points with earnestness. Dorman was the best speaker of
+the Senate, and he was on the popular side of it. It would be the great
+speech of the session, and the prospect was cheering after a deluge of
+railroad and insurance bills.
+
+"I want to tell you," he began, "why I have worked for this resolution
+recommending the pardon of Alfred Williams. It is one of the great laws
+of the universe that every living thing be given a chance. In the case
+before us that law has been violated. This does not resolve itself into
+a question of second chances. The boy of whom we are speaking has never
+had his first."
+
+Senator Harrison swung his chair half-way around and looked out at the
+green things which were again coming into their own on the State-house
+grounds. He knew--in substance--what Senator Dorman would say without
+hearing it, and he was a little tired of the whole affair. He hoped that
+one way or other they would finish it up that night, and go ahead with
+something else. He had done what he could, and now the responsibility
+was with the rest of them. He thought they were shouldering a great deal
+to advocate the pardon in the face of the united opposition of Johnson
+County, where the crime had been committed. It seemed a community
+should be the best judge of its own crimes, and that was what he, as the
+Senator from Johnson, had tried to impress upon them.
+
+He knew that his argument against the boy had been a strong one. He
+rather liked the attitude in which he stood. It seemed as if he were
+the incarnation of outraged justice attempting to hold its own at the
+floodgates of emotion. He liked to think he was looking far beyond the
+present and the specific and acting as guardian of the future--and the
+whole. In summing it up that night the reporters would tell in highly
+wrought fashion of the moving appeal made by Senator Dorman, and then
+they would speak dispassionately of the logical argument of the leader
+of the opposition. There was more satisfaction to self in logic than
+in mere eloquence. He was even a little proud of his unpopularity. It
+seemed sacrificial.
+
+He wondered why it was Senator Dorman had thrown himself into it so
+whole-heartedly. All during the session the Senator from Maxwell had
+neglected personal interests in behalf of this boy, who was nothing to
+him in the world. He supposed it was as a sociological and psychological
+experiment. Senator Dorman had promised the Governor to assume
+guardianship of the boy if he were let out. The Senator from Johnson
+inferred that as a student of social science his eloquent colleague
+wanted to see what he could make of him. To suppose the interest merely
+personal and sympathetic would seem discreditable.
+
+"I need not dwell upon the story," the Senator from Maxwell was saying,
+"for you all are familiar with it already. It is said to have been the
+most awful crime ever committed in the State. I grant you that it was,
+and then I ask you to look for a minute into the conditions leading up
+to it.
+
+"When the boy was born, his mother was instituting divorce proceedings
+against his father. She obtained the divorce, and remarried when Alfred
+was three months old. From the time he was a mere baby she taught him
+to hate his father. Everything that went wrong with him she told him was
+his father's fault. His first vivid impression was that his father was
+responsible for all the wrong of the universe.
+
+"For seven years that went on, and then his mother died. His stepfather
+did not want him. He was going to Missouri, and the boy would be a
+useless expense and a bother. He made no attempt to find a home for him;
+he did not even explain--he merely went away and left him. At the age of
+seven the boy was turned out on the world, after having been taught one
+thing--to hate his father. He stayed a few days in the barren house,
+and then new tenants came and closed the doors against him. It may have
+occurred to him as a little strange that he had been sent into a world
+where there was no place for him.
+
+"When he asked the neighbours for shelter, they told him to go to his
+own father and not bother strangers. He said he did not know where his
+father was. They told him, and he started to walk--a distance of fifty
+miles. I ask you to bear in mind, gentlemen, that he was only seven
+years of age. It is the age when the average boy is beginning the third
+reader, and when he is shooting marbles and spinning tops.
+
+"When he reached his father's house he was told at once that he was not
+wanted there. The man had remarried, there were other children, and
+he had no place for Alfred. He turned him away; but the neighbours
+protested, and he was compelled to take him back. For four years he
+lived in this home, to which he had come unbidden, and where he was
+never made welcome.
+
+"The whole family rebelled against him. The father satisfied his
+resentment against the boy's dead mother by beating her son, by
+encouraging his wife to abuse him, and inspiring the other children to
+despise him. It seems impossible such conditions should exist. The only
+proof of their possibility lies in the fact of their existence.
+
+"I need not go into the details of the crime. He had been beaten by his
+father that evening after a quarrel with his stepmother about spilling
+the milk. He went, as usual, to his bed in the barn; but the hay was
+suffocating, his head ached, and he could not sleep. He arose in the
+middle of the night, went to the house, and killed both his father and
+stepmother.
+
+"I shall not pretend to say what thoughts surged through the boy's brain
+as he lay there in the stifling hay with the hot blood pounding against
+his temples. I shall not pretend to say whether he was sane or insane as
+he walked to the house for the perpetration of the awful crime. I do not
+even affirm it would not have happened had there been some human being
+there to lay a cooling hand on his hot forehead, and say a few soothing,
+loving words to take the sting from the loneliness, and ease the
+suffering. I ask you to consider only one thing: he was eleven years old
+at the time, and he had no friend in all the world. He knew nothing of
+sympathy; he knew only injustice."
+
+Senator Harrison was still looking out at the budding things on the
+State-house grounds, but in a vague way he was following the story. He
+knew when the Senator from Maxwell completed the recital of facts and
+entered upon his plea. He was conscious that it was stronger than he had
+anticipated--more logic and less empty exhortation. He was telling of
+the boy's life in reformatory and penitentiary since the commission
+of the crime,--of how he had expanded under kindness, of his mental
+attainments, the letters he could write, the books he had read, the
+hopes he cherished. In the twelve years he had spent there he had been
+known to do no unkind nor mean thing; he responded to affection--craved
+it. It was not the record of a degenerate, the Senator from Maxwell was
+saying.
+
+A great many things were passing through the mind of the Senator from
+Johnson. He was trying to think who it was that wrote that book, "Put
+Yourself in His Place." He had read it once, and it bothered him to
+forget names. Then he was wondering why it was the philosophers had
+not more to say about the incongruity of people who had never had any
+trouble of their own sitting in judgment upon people who had known
+nothing but trouble. He was thinking also that abstract rules did not
+always fit smoothly over concrete cases, and that it was hard to make
+life a matter of rules, anyway.
+
+Next he was wondering how it would have been with the boy Alfred
+Williams if he had been born in Charles Harrison's place; and then he
+was working it out the other way and wondering how it would have been
+with Charles Harrison had he been born in Alfred Williams's place.
+He wondered whether the idea of murder would have grown in Alfred
+Williams's heart had he been born to the things to which Charles
+Harrison was born, and whether it would have come within the range of
+possibility for Charles Harrison to murder his father if he had been
+born to Alfred Williams's lot. Putting it that way, it was hard to
+estimate how much of it was the boy himself, and how much the place the
+world had prepared for him. And if it was the place prepared for him
+more than the boy, why was the fault not more with the preparers of the
+place than with the occupant of it? The whole thing was very confusing.
+
+"This page," the Senator from Maxwell was saying, lifting the little
+fellow to the desk, "is just eleven years of age, and he is within three
+pounds of Alfred Williams's weight when he committed the murder. I ask
+you, gentlemen, if this little fellow should be guilty of a like crime
+to-night, to what extent would you, in reading of it in the morning,
+charge him with the moral discernment which is the first condition of
+moral responsibility? If Alfred Williams's story were this boy's story,
+would you deplore that there had been no one to check the childish
+passion, or would you say it was the inborn instinct of the murderer?
+And suppose again this were Alfred Williams at the age of eleven, would
+you not be willing to look into the future and say if he spent twelve
+years in penitentiary and reformatory, in which time he developed the
+qualities of useful and honourable citizenship, that the ends of justice
+would then have been met, and the time at hand for the world to begin
+the payment of her debt?"
+
+Senator Harrison's eyes were fixed upon the page standing on the
+opposite desk. Eleven was a younger age than he had supposed. As he
+looked back upon it and recalled himself when eleven years of age--his
+irresponsibility, his dependence--he was unwilling to say what would
+have happened if the world had turned upon him as it had upon Alfred
+Williams. At eleven his greatest grievance was that the boys at school
+called him "yellow-top." He remembered throwing a rock at one of them
+for doing it. He wondered if it was criminal instinct prompted the
+throwing of the rock. He wondered how high the percentage of children's
+crimes would go were it not for countermanding influences. It seemed the
+great difference between Alfred Williams and a number of other children
+of eleven had been the absence of the countermanding influence.
+
+There came to him of a sudden a new and moving thought. Alfred Williams
+had been cheated of his boyhood. The chances were he had never gone
+swimming, nor to a ball game, or maybe never to a circus. It might even
+be that he had never owned a dog. The Senator from Maxwell was right
+when he said the boy had never been given his chance, had been defrauded
+of that which has been a boy's heritage since the world itself was
+young.
+
+And the later years--how were they making it up to him? He recalled
+what to him was the most awful thing he had ever heard about the State
+penitentiary: they never saw the sun rise down there, and they never saw
+it set. They saw it at its meridian, when it climbed above the stockade,
+but as it rose into the day, and as it sank into the night, it was
+denied them. And there, at the penitentiary, they could not even look up
+at the stars. It had been years since Alfred Williams raised his face
+to God's heaven and knew he was part of it all. The voices of the night
+could not penetrate the little cell in the heart of the mammoth stone
+building where he spent his evenings over those masterpieces with which,
+they said, he was more familiar than the average member of the Senate.
+When he read those things Victor Hugo said of the vastness of the night,
+he could only look around at the walls that enclosed him and try to
+reach back over the twelve years for some satisfying conception of what
+night really was.
+
+The Senator from Johnson shuddered: they had taken from a living
+creature the things of life, and all because in the crucial hour there
+had been no one to say a staying word. Man had cheated him of the things
+that were man's, and then shut him away from the world that was God's.
+They had made for him a life barren of compensations.
+
+There swept over the Senator a great feeling of self-pity. As
+representative of Johnson County, it was he who must deny this boy the
+whole great world without, the people who wanted to help him, and what
+the Senator from Maxwell called "his chance." If Johnson County carried
+the day, there would be something unpleasant for him to consider all the
+remainder of his life. As he grew to be an older man he would think of
+it more and more--what the boy would have done for himself in the world
+if the Senator from Johnson had not been more logical and more powerful
+than the Senator from Maxwell.
+
+Senator Dorman was nearing the end of his argument. "In spite of the
+undying prejudice of the people of Johnson County," he was saying, "I
+can stand before you today and say that after an unsparing investigation
+of this case I do not believe I am asking you to do anything in
+violation of justice when I beg of you to give this boy his chance."
+
+It was going to a vote at once, and the Senator from Johnson County
+looked out at the budding things and wondered whether the boy down
+at the penitentiary knew the Senate was considering his case that
+afternoon. It was without vanity he wondered whether what he had been
+trained to think of as an all-wise providence would not have preferred
+that Johnson County be represented that session by a less able man.
+
+A great hush fell over the Chamber, for ayes and noes followed almost in
+alternation. After a long minute of waiting the secretary called, in a
+tense voice:
+
+"Ayes, 30; Noes, 32."
+
+The Senator from Johnson had proven too faithful a servant of his
+constituents. The boy in the penitentiary was denied his chance.
+
+The usual things happened: some women in the galleries, who had boys
+at home, cried aloud; the reporters were fighting for occupancy of the
+telephone booths, and most of the Senators began the perusal of the
+previous day's Journal with elaborate interest. Senator Dorman indulged
+in none of these feints. A full look at his face just then told how much
+of his soul had gone into the fight for the boy's chance, and the
+look about his eyes was a little hard on the theory of psychological
+experiment.
+
+Senator Harrison was looking out at the budding trees, but his face too
+had grown strange, and he seemed to be looking miles beyond and years
+ahead. It seemed that he himself was surrendering the voices of the
+night, and the comings and goings of the sun. He would never look at
+them--feel them--again without remembering he was keeping one of his
+fellow creatures away from them. He wondered at his own presumption
+in denying any living thing participation in the universe. And all the
+while there were before him visions of the boy who sat in the cramped
+cell with the volume of a favourite poet before him, trying to think how
+it would seem to be out under the stars.
+
+The stillness in the Senate-Chamber was breaking; they were going ahead
+with something else. It seemed to the Senator from Johnson that sun,
+moon, and stars were wailing out protest for the boy who wanted to know
+them better. And yet it was not sun, moon, and stars so much as the
+unused swimming hole and the uncaught fish, the unattended ball game,
+the never-seen circus, and, above all, the unowned dog, that brought
+Senator Harrison to his feet.
+
+They looked at him in astonishment, their faces seeming to say it would
+have been in better taste for him to have remained seated just then.
+
+"Mr. President," he said, pulling at his collar and looking straight
+ahead, "I rise to move a reconsideration."
+
+There was a gasp, a moment of supreme quiet, and then a mighty burst
+of applause. To men of all parties and factions there came a single
+thought. Johnson was the leading county of its Congressional district.
+There was an election that fall, and Harrison was in the race. Those
+eight words meant to a surety he would not go to Washington, for the
+Senator from Maxwell had chosen the right word when he referred to the
+prejudice of Johnson County on the Williams case as "undying." The
+world throbs with such things at the moment of their doing--even though
+condemning them later, and the part of the world then packed within the
+Senate-Chamber shared the universal disposition.
+
+The noise astonished Senator Harrison, and he looked around with
+something like resentment. When the tumult at last subsided, and he saw
+that he was expected to make a speech, he grew very red, and grasped his
+chair desperately.
+
+The reporters were back in their places, leaning nervously forward.
+This was Senator Harrison's chance to say something worth putting into a
+panel by itself with black lines around it--and they were sure he would
+do it.
+
+But he did not. He stood there like a schoolboy who had forgotten his
+piece--growing more and more red. "I--I think," he finally jerked out,
+"that some of us have been mistaken. I'm in favour now of--of giving him
+his chance."
+
+They waited for him to proceed, but after a helpless look around the
+Chamber he sat down. The president of the Senate waited several minutes
+for him to rise again, but he at last turned his chair around and
+looked out at the green things on the State-house grounds, and there
+was nothing to do but go ahead with the second calling of the roll. This
+time it stood 50 to 12 in favour of the boy.
+
+A motion to adjourn immediately followed--no one wanted to do anything
+more that afternoon. They all wanted to say things to the Senator from
+Johnson; but his face had grown cold, and as they were usually afraid of
+him, anyhow, they kept away. All but Senator Dorman--it meant too much
+with him. "Do you mind my telling you," he said, tensely, "that it was
+as fine a thing as I have ever known a man to do?"
+
+The Senator from Johnson moved impatiently. "You think it 'fine,'" he
+asked, almost resentfully, "to be a coward?"
+
+"Coward?" cried the other man. "Well, that's scarcely the word. It
+was--heroic!"
+
+"Oh no," said Senator Harrison, and he spoke wearily, "it was a clear
+case of cowardice. You see," he laughed, "I was afraid it might haunt me
+when I am seventy."
+
+Senator Dorman started eagerly to speak, but the other man stopped him
+and passed on. He was seeing it as his constituency would see it, and
+it humiliated him. They would say he had not the courage of his
+convictions, that he was afraid of the unpopularity, that his judgment
+had fallen victim to the eloquence of the Senator from Maxwell.
+
+But when he left the building and came out into the softness of the
+April afternoon it began to seem different. After all, it was not he
+alone who leaned to the softer side. There were the trees--they were
+permitted another chance to bud; there were the birds--they were allowed
+another chance to sing; there was the earth--to it was given another
+chance to yield. There stole over him a tranquil sense of unison with
+Life.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS
+
+
+"Sure you're done with it?"
+
+"Oh, yes," replied the girl, the suggestion of a smile on her face, and
+in her voice the suggestion of a tear. "Yes; I was just going."
+
+But she did not go. She turned instead to the end of the alcove and sat
+down before a table placed by the window. Leaning her elbows upon it she
+looked about her through a blur of tears.
+
+Seen through her own eyes of longing, it seemed that almost all of the
+people whom she could see standing before the files of the daily papers
+were homesick. The reading-room had been a strange study to her during
+those weeks spent in fruitless search for the work she wanted to do, and
+it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When tired and disconsolate
+and utterly sick at heart there was always one thing she could do--she
+could go down to the library and look at the paper from home. It was not
+that she wanted the actual news of Denver. She did not care in any vital
+way what the city officials were doing, what buildings were going up, or
+who was leaving town. She was only indifferently interested in the fires
+and the murders. She wanted the comforting companionship of that paper
+from home.
+
+It seemed there were many to whom the papers offered that same sympathy,
+companionship, whatever it might be. More than anything else it perhaps
+gave to them--the searchers, drifters--a sense of anchorage. She would
+not soon forget the day she herself had stumbled in there and found the
+home paper. Chicago had given her nothing but rebuffs that day, and in
+desperation, just because she must go somewhere, and did not want to go
+back to her boarding-place, she had hunted out the city library. It was
+when walking listlessly about in the big reading-room it had occurred to
+her that perhaps she could find the paper from home; and after that when
+things were their worst, when her throat grew tight and her eyes dim,
+she could always comfort herself by saying: "After a while I'll run down
+and look at the paper."
+
+But to-night it had failed her. It was not the paper from home to-night;
+it was just a newspaper. It did not inspire the belief that things would
+be better to-morrow, that it must all come right soon. It left her as
+she had come---heavy with the consciousness that in her purse was eleven
+dollars, and that that was every cent she had in the whole world.
+
+It was hard to hold back the tears as she dwelt upon the fact that it
+was very little she had asked of Chicago. She had asked only a chance to
+do the work for which she was trained, in order that she might go to the
+art classes at night. She had read in the papers of that mighty young
+city of the Middle West--the heart of the continent--of its brawn and
+its brain and its grit. She had supposed that Chicago, of all places,
+would appreciate what she wanted to do. The day she drew her hard-earned
+one hundred dollars from the bank in Denver--how the sun had shone that
+day in Denver, how clear the sky had been, and how bracing the air!--she
+had quite taken it for granted that her future was assured. And now,
+after tasting for three weeks the cruelty of indifference, she looked
+back to those visions with a hard little smile.
+
+She rose to go, and in so doing her eyes fell upon the queer little
+woman to whom she had yielded her place before the Denver paper.
+Submerged as she had been in her own desolation she had given no heed
+to the small figure which came slipping along beside her beyond the bare
+thought that she was queer-looking. But as her eyes rested upon her now
+there was something about the woman which held her.
+
+She was a strange little figure. An old-fashioned shawl was pinned
+tightly about her shoulders, and she was wearing a queer, rusty little
+bonnet. Her hair was rolled up in a small knot at the back of her head.
+She did not look as though she belonged in Chicago. And then, as the
+girl stood there looking at her, she saw the thin shoulders quiver, and
+after a minute the head that was wearing the rusty bonnet went down into
+the folds of the Denver paper.
+
+The girl's own eyes filled, and she turned to go. It seemed she could
+scarcely bear her own unhappiness that day, without coming close to the
+heartache of another. But when she reached the end of the alcove she
+glanced back, and the sight of that shabby, bent figure, all alone
+before the Denver paper, was not to be withstood.
+
+"I am from Colorado, too," she said softly, laying a hand upon the bent
+shoulders.
+
+The woman looked up at that and took the girl's hand in both of her
+thin, trembling ones. It was a wan and a troubled face she lifted, and
+there was something about the eyes which would not seem to have been
+left there by tears alone.
+
+"And do you have a pining for the mountains?" she whispered, with a
+timid eagerness. "Do you have a feeling that you want to see the sun
+go down behind them tonight and that you want to see the darkness come
+stealing up to the tops?"
+
+The girl half turned away, but she pressed the woman's hand tightly in
+hers. "I know what you mean," she murmured.
+
+"I wanted to see it so bad," continued the woman, tremulously, "that
+something just drove me here to this paper. I knowed it was here because
+my nephew's wife brought me here one day and we come across it. We took
+this paper at home for more 'an twenty years. That's why I come. 'Twas
+the closest I could get."
+
+"I know what you mean," said the girl again, unsteadily.
+
+"And it's the closest I will ever get!" sobbed the woman.
+
+"Oh, don't say that," protested the girl, brushing away her own tears,
+and trying to smile; "you'll go back home some day."
+
+The woman shook her head. "And if I should," she said, "even if I
+should, 'twill be too late."
+
+"But it couldn't be too late," insisted the girl. "The mountains, you
+know, will be there forever."
+
+"The mountains will be there forever," repeated the woman, musingly;
+"yes, but not for me to see." There was a pause. "You see,"--she said it
+quietly--"I'm going blind."
+
+The girl took a quick step backward, then stretched out two impulsive
+hands. "Oh, no, no you're not! Why--the doctors, you know, they do
+everything now."
+
+The woman shook her head. "That's what I thought when I come here.
+That's why I come. But I saw the biggest doctor of them all today--they
+all say he's the best there is--and he said right out 'twas no use to do
+anything. He said 'twas--hopeless."
+
+Her voice broke on that word. "You see," she hurried on, "I wouldn't
+care so much, seems like I wouldn't care 't all, if I could get there
+first! If I could see the sun go down behind them just one night! If I
+could see the black shadows come slippin' over 'em just once! And then,
+if just one morning--just once!--I could get up and see the sunlight
+come a streamin'--oh, you know how it looks! You know what 'tis I want
+to see!"
+
+"Yes; but why can't you? Why not? You won't go--your eyesight will last
+until you get back home, won't it?"
+
+"But I can't go back home; not now."
+
+"Why not?" demanded the girl. "Why can't you go home?"
+
+"Why, there ain't no money, my dear," she explained, patiently. "It's a
+long way off--Colorado is, and there ain't no money. Now, George--George
+is my brother-in-law--he got me the money to come; but you see it took
+it all to come here, and to pay them doctors with. And George--he ain't
+rich, and it pinched him hard for me to come--he says I'll have to wait
+until he gets money laid up again, and--well he can't tell just when 't
+will be. He'll send it soon as he gets it," she hastened to add.
+
+"But what are you going to do in the meantime? It would cost less to get
+you home than to keep you here."
+
+"No, I stay with my nephew here. He's willin' I should stay with him
+till I get my money to go home."
+
+"Yes, but this nephew, can't he get you the money? Doesn't he know," she
+insisted, heatedly, "what it means to you?"
+
+"He's got five children, and not much laid up. And then, he never seen
+the mountains. He doesn't know what I mean when I try to tell him about
+gettin' there in time. Why, he says there's many a one living back in
+the mountains would like to be livin' here. He don't understand--my
+nephew don't," she added, apologetically.
+
+"Well, _someone_ ought to understand!" broke from the girl. "I
+understand! But--" she did her best to make it a laugh--"eleven dollars
+is every cent I've got in the world!"
+
+"Don't!" implored the woman, as the girl gave up trying to control the
+tears. "Now, don't you be botherin'. I didn't mean to make you feel so
+bad. My nephew says I ain't reasonable, and maybe I ain't."
+
+The girl raised her head. "But you _are_ reasonable. I tell you, you
+_are_ reasonable!"
+
+"I must be going back," said the woman, uncertainly. "I'm just making
+you feel bad, and it won't do no good. And then they may be stirred up
+about me. Emma--Emma's my nephew's wife--left me at the doctor's office
+'cause she had some trading to do, and she was to come back there for
+me. And then, as I was sittin' there, the pinin' came over me so strong
+it seemed I just must get up and start! And"---she smiled wanly---"this
+was far as I got."
+
+"Come over and sit down by this table," said the girl, impulsively, "and
+tell me a little about your home back in the mountains. Wouldn't you
+like to?"
+
+The woman nodded gratefully. "Seems most like getting back to them to
+find someone that knows about them," she said, after they had drawn
+their chairs up to the table and were sitting there side by side.
+
+The girl put her rounded hand over on the thin, withered one. "Tell me
+about it," she said again.
+
+"Maybe it wouldn't be much interesting to you, my dear. It's just a
+common life--mine is. You see, William and I--William was my husband--we
+went to Georgetown before it really was any town at all. Years and years
+before the railroad went through, we was there. Was you ever there?" she
+asked wistfully.
+
+"Oh, very often," replied the girl. "I love every inch of that country!"
+
+A tear stole down the woman's face. "It's most like being home to find
+someone that knows about it," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, William and I went there when 'twas all new country," she went
+on, after a pause. "We worked hard, and we laid up a little money. Then,
+three years ago, William took sick. He was sick for a year, and we had
+to live up most of what we'd saved. That's why I ain't got none now. It
+ain't that William didn't provide."
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"We seen some hard days. But we was always harmonious--William and
+I was. And William had a great fondness for the mountains. The night
+before he died he made them take him over by the window and he looked
+out and watched the darkness come stealin' over the daylight--you know
+how it does in them mountains. 'Mother,' he said to me--his voice was
+that low I could no more 'an hear what he said--'I'll never see another
+sun go down, but I'm thankful I seen this one.'"
+
+She was crying outright now, and the girl did not try to stop her.
+
+"And that's the reason I love the mountains," she whispered at last. "It
+ain't just that they're grand and wonderful to look at. It ain't just
+the things them tourists sees to talk about. But the mountains has
+always been like a comfortin' friend to me. John and Sarah is buried
+there--John and Sarah is my two children that died of fever. And then
+William is there--like I just told you. And the mountains was a comfort
+to me in all those times of trouble. They're like an old friend. Seems
+like they're the best friend I've got on earth."
+
+"I know what you mean," said the girl, brokenly. "I know all about it."
+
+"And you don't think I'm just notional," she asked wistfully, "in pinin'
+to get back while--whilst I can look at them?"
+
+The girl held the old hand tightly in hers with a clasp more responsive
+than words.
+
+"It ain't but I'd know they was there. I could feel they was there all
+right, but"--her voice sank with the horror of it--"I'm 'fraid I might
+forget just how they look!"
+
+"Oh, but you won't," the girl assured her. "You'll remember just how
+they look."
+
+"I'm scared of it. I'm scared there might be something I'd forget. And
+so I just torment myself thinkin'--'Now do I remember this? Can I
+see just how that looks?' That's the way I got to thinkin' up in the
+doctor's office, when he told me there was nothing to do, and I was so
+worked up it seemed I must get up and start!"
+
+"You must try not to worry about it," murmured the girl. "You'll
+remember."
+
+"Well, maybe so. Maybe I will. But that's why I want just one more look.
+If I could look once more I'd remember it forever. You see I'd look to
+remember it, and I would. And do you know--seems like I wouldn't mind
+going blind so much then? When I'd sit facin' them I'd just say to
+myself: 'Now I know just how they look. I'm seeing them just as if I had
+my eyes!' The doctor says my sight'll just kind of slip away, and when I
+look my last look, when it gets dimmer and dimmer to me, I want the last
+thing I see to be them mountains where William and me worked and was
+so happy! Seems like I can't bear it to have my sight slip away here
+in Chicago, where there's nothing I want to look at! And then to have a
+little left--to have just a little left!--and to know I could see if I
+was there to look--and to know that when I get there 'twill be--Oh, I'll
+be rebellious-like here--and I'd be contented there! I don't want to be
+complainin'--I don't want to!--but when I've only got a little left I
+want it--oh, I want it for them things I want to see!"
+
+"You will see them," insisted the girl passionately. "I'm not going to
+believe the world can be so hideous as that!"
+
+"Well, maybe so," said the woman, rising. "But I don't know where 'twill
+come from," she added doubtfully.
+
+She took her back to the doctor's office and left her in the care of the
+stolid Emma. "Seems most like I'd been back home," she said in parting;
+and the girl promised to come and see her and talk with her about the
+mountains. The woman thought that talking about them would help her to
+remember just how they looked.
+
+And then the girl returned to the library. She did not know why she
+did so. In truth she scarcely knew she was going there until she found
+herself sitting before that same secluded table at which she and the
+woman had sat a little while before. For a long time she sat there with
+her head in her hands, tears falling upon a pad of yellow paper on the
+table before her.
+
+Finally she dried her eyes, opened her purse, and counted her money. It
+seemed that out of her great desire, out of her great new need, there
+must be more than she had thought. But there was not, and she folded
+her hands upon the two five-dollar bills and the one silver dollar and
+looked hopelessly about the big room.
+
+She had forgotten her own disappointments, her own loneliness. She was
+oblivious to everything in the world now save what seemed the absolute
+necessity of getting the woman back to the mountains while she had eyes
+to see them.
+
+But what could she do? Again she counted the money. She could make
+herself, some way or other, get along without one of the five-dollar
+bills, but five dollars would not take one very close to the mountains.
+It was at that moment that she saw a man standing before the Denver
+paper, and noticed that another man was waiting to take his place. The
+one who was reading had a dinner pail in his hand. The clothes of the
+other told that he, too, was of the world's workers. It was clear to the
+girl that the man at the file was reading the paper from home; and the
+man who was ready to take his place looked as if waiting for something
+less impersonal than the news of the day.
+
+The idea came upon her with such suddenness, so full born, that it made
+her gasp. They--the people who came to read the Denver paper, the people
+who loved the mountains and were far from them, the people who were
+themselves homesick and full of longing--were the people to understand.
+
+It took her but a minute to act. She put the silver dollar and one
+five-dollar bill back in her purse. She clutched the other bill in
+her left hand, picked up a pencil, and began to write. She headed the
+petition: "To all who know and love the mountains," and she told the
+story with the simpleness of one speaking from the heart, and the
+directness of one who speaks to those sure to understand. "And so I
+found her here by the Denver paper," she said, after she had stated
+the tragic facts, "because it was the closest she could come to the
+mountains. Her heart is not breaking because she is going blind. It is
+breaking because she may never again look with seeing eyes upon those
+great hills which rise up about her home. We must do it for her simply
+because we would wish that, under like circumstances, someone would do
+it for us. She belongs to us because we understand.
+
+"If you can only give fifty cents, please do not hold it back because
+it seems but little. Fifty cents will take her twenty miles nearer
+home--twenty miles closer to the things upon which she longs that her
+last seeing glance may fall."
+
+After she had written it she rose, and, the five-dollar bill in one
+hand, the sheets of yellow paper in the other, walked down the long room
+to the desk at which one of the librarians sat. The girl's cheeks were
+very red, her eyes shining as she poured out the story. They mingled
+their tears, for the girl at the desk was herself young and far from
+home, and then they walked back to the Denver paper and pinned the
+sheets of yellow paper just above the file. At the bottom of the
+petition the librarian wrote: "Leave your money at the desk in this
+room. It will be properly attended to." The girl from Colorado then
+turned over her five-dollar bill and passed out into the gathering
+night.
+
+Her heart was brimming with joy. "I can get a cheaper boarding place,"
+she told herself, as she joined the home-going crowds, "and until
+something else turns up I'll just look around and see if I can't get a
+place in a store."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One by one they had gathered around while the woman was telling the
+story. "And so, if you don't mind," she said, in conclusion, "I'd like
+to have you put in a little piece that I got to Denver safe, so's they
+can see it. They was all so worked up about when I'd get here. Would
+that cost much?" she asked timidly.
+
+"Not a cent," said the city editor, his voice gruff with the attempt to
+keep it steady.
+
+"You might say, if it wouldn't take too much room, that I was much
+pleased with the prospect of getting home before sundown to-night."
+
+"You needn't worry but what we'll say it all," he assured her. "We'll
+say a great deal more than you have any idea of."
+
+"I'm very thankful to you," she said, as she rose to go.
+
+They sat there for a moment in silence. "When one considers," someone
+began, "that they were people who were pushed too close even to
+subscribe to a daily paper--"
+
+"When one considers," said the city editor, "that the girl who started
+it had just eleven dollars to her name--" And then he, too, stopped
+abruptly and there was another long moment of silence.
+
+After that he looked around at the reporters. "Well, it's too bad you
+can't all have it, when it's so big a chance, but I guess it falls
+logically to Raymond. And in writing it, just remember, Raymond, that
+the biggest stories are not written about wars, or about politics, or
+even murders. The biggest stories are written about the things which
+draw human beings closer together. And the chance to write them doesn't
+come every day, or every year, or every lifetime. And I'll tell you,
+boys, all of you, when it seems sometimes that the milk of human
+kindness has all turned sour, just think back to the little story you
+heard this afternoon."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Slowly the sun slipped down behind the mountains; slowly the long
+purple shadows deepened to black; and with the coming of the night there
+settled over the everlasting hills, and over the soul of one who had
+returned to them, that satisfying calm that men call peace.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FRECKLES M'GRATH
+
+
+Many visitors to the State-house made the mistake of looking upon the
+Governor as the most important personage in the building. They would
+walk up and down the corridors, hoping for a glimpse of some of the
+leading officials, when all the while Freckles McGrath, the real
+character of the Capitol, and by all odds the most illustrious person in
+it, was at once accessible and affable.
+
+Freckles McGrath was the elevator boy. In the official register his
+name had gone down as William, but that was a mere concession to
+the constituents to whom the official register was sent out. In the
+newspapers--and he appeared with frequency in the newspapers--he was
+always "Freckles," and every one from the Governor down gave him that
+title, the appropriateness of which was stamped a hundred fold upon his
+shrewd, jolly Irish face.
+
+Like every one else on the State pay-roll, Freckles was keyed high
+during this first week of the new session. It was a reform Legislature,
+and so imbued was it with the idea of reforming that there was grave
+danger of its forcing reformation upon everything in sight. It happened
+that the Governor was of the same faction of the party as that dominant
+in the Legislature; reform breathed through every nook and crevice of
+the great building.
+
+But high above all else in importance towered the Kelley Bill. From
+the very opening of the session there was scarcely a day when some of
+Freckles' passengers did not in hushed whispers mention the Kelley Bill.
+From what he could pick up about the building, and what he read in the
+newspapers, Freckles put together a few ideas as to what the Kelley Bill
+really was. It was a great reform measure, and it was going to show the
+railroads that they did not own the State. The railroads were going to
+have to pay more taxes, and they were making an awful fuss about it; but
+if the Kelley Bill could be put through it would be a great victory for
+reform, and would make the Governor "solid" in the State.
+
+Freckles McGrath was strong for reform. That was partly because the
+snatches of speeches he heard in the Legislature were more thrilling
+when for reform than when against it; it was partly because he adored
+the Governor, and in no small part because he despised Mr. Ludlow.
+
+Mr. Ludlow was a lobbyist. Some of the members of the Legislature
+were Mr. Ludlow's property--or at least so Freckles inferred from
+conversation overheard at his post. There had been a great deal of talk
+that session about Mr. Ludlow's methods.
+
+Freckles himself was no snob. Although he had heard Mr. Ludlow called
+disgraceful, and although he firmly believed he was disgraceful, he did
+not consider that any reason for not speaking to him. And so when Mr.
+Ludlow got in all alone one morning, and the occasion seemed to demand
+recognition of some sort, Freckles had chirped: "Good-morning!"
+
+But the man, possibly deep in something else, simply knit together
+his brows and gave no sign of having heard. After that, Henry Ludlow,
+lobbyist, and Freckles McGrath, elevator boy, were enemies.
+
+A little before noon, one day near the end of the session, a member of
+the Senate and a member of the House rode down together in the elevator.
+
+"There's no use waiting any longer," the Senator was saying as they got
+in. "We're as strong now as we're going to be. It's a matter of Stacy's
+vote, and that's a matter of who sees him last."
+
+Freckles widened out his ears and gauged the elevator for very slow
+running. Stacy had been written up in the papers as a wabbler on the
+Kelley Bill.
+
+"He's all right now," pursued the Senator, "but there's every chance
+that Ludlow will see him before he casts his vote this afternoon, and
+then--oh, I don't know!" and with a weary little flourish of his hands
+the Senator stepped off.
+
+Freckles McGrath sat wrapped in deep thought. The Kelley Bill was coming
+up in the Senate that afternoon. If Senator Stacy voted for it, it would
+pass. If he voted against it, it would fail. He would vote for it if he
+didn't see Mr. Ludlow; he wouldn't vote for it if he did. That was the
+situation, and the Governor's whole future, Freckles felt, was at stake.
+
+The bell rang sharply, and he was vaguely conscious then that it had
+been ringing before. In the next half-hour he was very busy taking down
+the members of the Legislature. Strangely enough, Senator Stacy and the
+Governor went down the same trip, and Freckles beamed with approbation
+when, he saw them walk out of the building together.
+
+Stacy was one of the first of the senators to return. Freckles sized him
+up keenly as he stepped into the elevator, and decided that he was still
+firm. But there was a look about Senator Stacy's mouth which suggested
+that there was no use in being too sure of him. Freckles considered the
+advisability of bursting forth and telling him how much better it would
+be to stick with the reform fellows; but just as the boy got his courage
+screwed up to speaking point, Senator Stacy got off.
+
+About ten minutes later Freckles had the elevator on the ground floor,
+and was sitting there reading a paper, when he heard a step that made
+him prick up his ears. The next minute Mr. Ludlow turned the corner. He
+was immaculately dressed, as usual, and his iron-grey moustache seemed
+to stand out just a little more pompously than ever. There was a
+sneering look in his eyes as he stepped into the car. It seemed to be
+saying: "They thought they could beat me, did they? Oh, they're easy,
+they are!"
+
+Freckles McGrath slammed the door of the cage and started the car up. He
+did not know what he was going to do, but he had an idea that he did
+not want any other passenger. When half way between the basement and the
+first floor, he stopped the elevator. He must have time to think. If
+he took that man up to the Senate Chamber, he would simply strike
+the death-blow to reform! And so he knelt and pretended to be fixing
+something, and he thought fast and hard.
+
+"Something broke?" asked an anxious voice.
+
+Freckles looked around into Mr. Ludlow's face, and he saw that the
+eminent lobbyist was nervous.
+
+"Yes," he said calmly. "It's acting queer. Something's all out of
+whack."
+
+"Well, drop it to the basement and let me out," said Mr. Ludlow sharply.
+
+"Can't drop it," responded Freckles. "She's stuck."
+
+Mr. Ludlow came and looked things over, but his knowledge did not extend
+to the mechanism of elevators.
+
+"Better call someone to come and take us out," he said nervously.
+
+Freckles straightened himself up. A glitter had come into his small grey
+eyes, and red spots were burning in his freckled cheeks.
+
+"I think she'll run now," he said.
+
+And she did run. Never in all its history had that State-house elevator
+run as it ran then. It rushed past the first and second floors like
+a thing let loose, with an utter abandonment that caused the blood to
+forsake the eminent lobbyist's face.
+
+"Stop it, boy!" he cried in alarm.
+
+"Can't!" responded Freckles, his voice thick with terror. "Running
+away!" he gasped.
+
+"Will it--fall?" whispered the lobbyist.
+
+"I--I think so!" blubbered Freckles.
+
+The central portion of the State-house was very high. Above that part
+of the building which was in use there was a long stretch leading to
+the tower. The shaft had been built clear up, though practically unused.
+Past floors used for store-rooms, past floors used for nothing at
+all, they went--the man's face white, the boy wailing out incoherent
+supplications. And then, within ten feet of the top of the shaft, and
+within a foot of the top floor of the building, the elevator came to
+a rickety stop. It wabbled back and forth; it did strange and terrible
+things.
+
+"She's falling!" panted Freckles. "Climb!"
+
+And Henry Ludlow climbed. He got the door open, and he clambered up. No
+sooner had the man's feet touched the solid floor than Freckles reached
+up and slammed the door of the cage. Why he did that he was not sure at
+the time. Later he felt that something had warned him not to give his
+prisoner's voice a full sweep down the shaft.
+
+Henry Ludlow was far from dull. As he saw the quick but even descent of
+the car, he knew that he had been tricked. He would have been more than
+human had there not burst from him furious and threatening words. But
+what was the use? The car was going down--down--down, and there he was,
+perhaps hundreds of feet above any one else in the building--alone,
+tricked, beaten!
+
+Of course he tried the door at the head of the winding stairway, knowing
+full well that it would be locked. They always kept it locked; he had
+heard one of the janitors asking for the keys to take a party up just
+a few days before. Perhaps he could get out on top of the building and
+make signals of distress. But the door leading outside was locked also.
+There he was--helpless. And below--well, below they were passing the
+Kelley Bill!
+
+He rattled the grating of the elevator shaft. He made strange, loud
+noises, knowing all the while he could not make himself heard. And then
+at last, alone in the State-house attic, Henry Ludlow, eminent lobbyist,
+sat down on a box and nursed his fury.
+
+Below, Freckles McGrath, the youngest champion of reform in the
+building, was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and he
+whistled. He took people up and down with as much nonchalance as if he
+did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were
+straining themselves for a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses were
+descending, literally, upon his stubby red head.
+
+It was a great afternoon at the State-house. Every one thronged to the
+doors of the Senate Chamber, where they were putting through the Kelley
+Bill. The speeches made in behalf of the measure were brief. The great
+thing now was not to make speeches; it was to reach "S" on roll-call
+before a man with iron-grey hair and an iron-grey moustache could come
+in and say something to the fair-haired member with the weak mouth who
+sat near the rear of the chamber.
+
+Freckles was called away just as it went to a vote. When he came back
+Senator Kelley was standing out in the corridor, and a great crowd of
+men were standing around slapping him on the back. The Governor himself
+was standing on the steps of the Senate Chamber; his eyes were bright,
+and he was smiling.
+
+Freckles turned his car back to the basement. He wanted to be all
+alone for a minute, to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was he,
+Freckles McGrath, who had won this great victory for reform. It was he,
+Freckles McGrath, who had assured the Governor's future. Why, perhaps he
+had that afternoon made for himself a name which would be handed down in
+the histories!
+
+Freckles was a kind little boy, and he knew that an elegant gentleman
+could not find the attic any too pleasant a place in which to spend the
+afternoon, go he decided to go up and get Mr. Ludlow. It took courage;
+but he had won his victory and this was no time for faltering.
+
+There was something gruesome about the long ascent. He thought of
+stories he had read of lonely turrets in which men were beheaded, and
+otherwise made away with. It seemed he would never come to the top, and
+when at last he did it was to find two of the most awful-looking eyes
+he had ever seen--eyes that looked as though furies were going to escape
+from them--peering down upon him.
+
+The sight of that car, moving smoothly and securely up to the top, and
+the sight of that audacious little boy with the freckled face and the
+bat-like eyes, that little boy who had played his game so well, who had
+wrought such havoc, was too much for Henry Ludlow's self-control. Words
+such as he had never used before, such as he would not have supposed
+himself capable of using, burst from him. But Freckles stood calmly
+gazing up at the infuriated lobbyist, and just as Mr. Ludlow was saying,
+"I'll beat your head open, you little brat!" he calmly reversed the
+handle and sent the car skimming smoothly to realms below. He was
+followed by an angry yell, and then by a loud request to return, but he
+heeded them not, and for some time longer the car made its usual rounds
+between the basement and the legislative chambers.
+
+In just an hour Freckles tried it again. He sent the car to within three
+feet of the attic floor, and then peered through the grating, his
+face tied in a knot of interrogation. The eminent lobbyist stood there
+gulping down wrath and pride, knowing well enough what was expected of
+him.
+
+"Oh--all right," he muttered at last, and with that much of an
+understanding Freckles sent the car up, opened the door, and Henry
+Ludlow stepped in.
+
+No word was spoken between them until the light from the floor upon
+which the Senate Chamber was situated came in view. Then Freckles turned
+with a polite inquiry as to where the gentleman wished to get off.
+
+"You may take me down to the office of the Governor," said Mr. Ludlow
+stonily, meaningly.
+
+"Sure," said Freckles cheerfully. "Guess you'll find the Governor in his
+office now. He's been in the Senate most of the afternoon, watching 'em
+pass that Kelley Bill."
+
+Mr. Ludlow's lips drew in tightly. He squared his shoulders, and his
+silence was tremendous.
+
+In just fifteen minutes Freckles was sent for from the executive office.
+
+"I demand his discharge!" Mr. Ludlow was saying as the elevator boy
+entered.
+
+"It happens you're not running this building," the Governor returned
+with a good deal of acidity. "Though of course," he added with dignity,
+"the matter will be carefully investigated."
+
+The Governor was one great chuckle inside, and his heart was full of
+admiration and gratitude; but would Freckles be equal to bluffing it
+through? Would the boy have the finesse, the nice subtlety, the real
+master hand, the situation demanded? If not, then--imp of salvation
+though he was--in the interest of reform, Freckles would have to go.
+
+It was a very innocent looking boy who stood before him and looked
+inquiringly into his face.
+
+"William," began the Governor--Freckles was pained at first, and then
+remembered that officially he was William--"this gentleman has made a
+very serious charge against you."
+
+Freckles looked at Mr. Ludlow in a hurt way, and waited for the Governor
+to proceed.
+
+"He says," went on the chief executive, "that you deliberately took him
+to the top of the building and wilfully left him there a prisoner all
+afternoon. Did you do that?"
+
+"Oh, sir," burst forth Freckles, "I did the very best I could to save
+his life! I was willing to sacrifice mine for him. I--"
+
+"You little liar!" broke in Ludlow.
+
+The Governor held up his hand. "You had your chance. Let him have his."
+
+"You see, Governor," began Freckles, as if anxious to set right a great
+wrong which had been done him, "the car is acting bad. The engineer said
+only this morning it needed a going over. When it took that awful shoot,
+I lost control of it. Maybe I'm to be discharged for losing control of
+it, but not"--Freckles sniffled pathetically---"but not for anything
+like what he says I done. Why Governor," he went on, ramming his
+knuckles into his eyes, "I ain't got nothing against him! What'd I take
+him to the attic for?"
+
+"Of course not for money," sneered Mr. Ludlow.
+
+The Governor turned on him sharply. "When you can bring any proof of
+that, I'll be ready to hear it. Until you can, you'd better leave it out
+of the question."
+
+"Strange it should have happened this very afternoon," put in the
+eminent lobbyist.
+
+The Governor looked at him with open countenance. "You were especially
+interested in something this afternoon? I thought you told me you had no
+vital interest here this session."
+
+There was nothing to be said. Mr. Ludlow said nothing.
+
+"Now, William," pursued the Governor, fearful in his heart that this
+would be Freckles' undoing, "why did you close the door of the shaft
+before you started down?"
+
+"Well, you see, sir," began Freckles, still tremulously, "I'm so used to
+closin' doors. Closin' doors has become a kind of second nature with me.
+I've been told about it so many times. And up there, though I thought I
+was losin' my life, still I didn't neglect my duty."
+
+The Governor put his hand to his mouth and coughed.
+
+"And why," he went on, more secure now, for a boy who could get out
+of that could get out of anything, "why was it you didn't make some
+immediate effort to get Mr. Ludlow down? Why didn't you notify someone,
+or do something about it?"
+
+"Why, I supposed, of course, he walked down by the stairs," cried
+Freckles. "I never dreamed he'd want to trust the elevator after the way
+she had acted."
+
+"The door was locked," snarled the eminent lobbyist.
+
+"Well, now, you see, I didn't know that," explained Freckles
+expansively. "Late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test
+the car--and there you were! I never was so surprised in my life. I
+supposed, of course, sir, that you'd spent the afternoon in the Senate,
+along with everybody else."
+
+Once more the Governor put his hand to his mouth.
+
+"Your case will come before the executive council at its next meeting,
+William. And if anything like this should happen again, you will be
+discharged on the spot." Freckles bowed. "You may go now."
+
+When he was almost at the door the Governor called to him.
+
+"Don't you think, William," he said--the Governor felt that he and
+Freckles could afford to be generous--"that you should apologise to the
+gentleman for the really grave inconvenience to which you have been the
+means of subjecting him?"
+
+Freckles' little grey eyes grew steely. He looked at Henry Ludlow, and
+there was an ominous silence. Then light broke over his face. "On behalf
+of the elevator," he said, "I apologise."
+
+And a third time the Governor's hand was raised to his mouth.
+
+The next week Freckles was wearing a signet ring; long and audibly had
+he sighed for a ring of such kind and proportions. He was at some pains
+in explaining to everyone to whom he showed it that it had been sent him
+by "a friend up home."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+FROM A TO Z
+
+
+Thus had another ideal tumbled to the rubbish heap! She seemed to be
+breathing the dust which the newly fallen had stirred up among
+its longer dead fellows. Certainly she was breathing the dust from
+somewhere.
+
+During her senior year at the university, when people would ask: "And
+what are you going to do when you leave school, Miss Willard?" she would
+respond with anything that came to hand, secretly hugging to her mind
+that idea of getting a position in a publishing house. Her conception of
+her publishing house was finished about the same time as her class-day
+gown. She was to have a roll-top desk--probably of mahogany--and a big
+chair which whirled round like that in the office of the under-graduate
+dean. She was to have a little office all by herself, opening on
+a bigger office--the little one marked "Private." There were to be
+beautiful rugs--the general effect not unlike the library at the
+University Club--books and pictures and cultivated gentlemen who spoke
+often of Greek tragedies and the Renaissance. She was a little uncertain
+as to her duties, but had a general idea about getting down between nine
+and ten, reading the morning paper, cutting the latest magazine, and
+then "writing something."
+
+Commencement was now four months past, and one of her professors had
+indeed secured for her a position in a Chicago "publishing house." This
+was her first morning and she was standing at the window looking down
+into Dearborn Street while the man who was to have her in charge was
+fixing a place for her to sit.
+
+That the publishing house should be on Dearborn Street had been her
+first blow, for she had long located her publishing house on that
+beautiful stretch of Michigan Avenue which overlooked the lake. But
+the real insult was that this publishing house, instead of having a
+building, or at least a floor, all to itself, simply had a place
+penned off in a bleak, dirty building such as one who had done work in
+sociological research instinctively associated with a box factory. And
+the thing which fairly trailed her visions in the dust was that the
+partition penning them off did not extend to the ceiling, and the
+adjoining room being occupied by a patent medicine company, she was face
+to face with glaring endorsements of Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and
+Bladder Cure. Taken all in all there seemed little chance for Greek
+tragedies or the Renaissance.
+
+The man who was "running things"--she buried her phraseology with her
+dreams--wore a skull cap, and his moustache dragged down below his chin.
+Just at present he was engaged in noisily pulling a most unliterary pine
+table from a dark corner to a place near the window. That accomplished,
+an ostentatious hunt ensued, resulting in the triumphant flourish of
+a feather duster. Several knocks at the table, and the dust of many
+months--perhaps likewise of many dreams--ascended to a resting place
+on the endorsement of Dr. Bunting's Kidney and Bladder Cure. He next
+produced a short, straight-backed chair which she recognised as brother
+to the one which used to stand behind their kitchen stove. He gave it a
+shake, thus delicately indicating that she was receiving special favours
+in this matter of an able-bodied chair, and then announced with brisk
+satisfaction: "So! Now we are ready to begin." She murmured a "Thank
+you," seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did not
+whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did not even dream
+in mahogany.
+
+In the _other_ publishing house, one pushed buttons and uniformed
+menials appeared--noiselessly, quickly and deferentially. At this
+moment a boy with sandy hair brushed straight back in a manner
+either statesmanlike or clownlike--things were too involved to know
+which--shuffled in with an armful of yellow paper which he flopped down
+on the pine table. After a minute he returned with a warbled "Take Me
+Back to New York Town" and a paste-pot. And upon his third appearance he
+was practising gymnastics with a huge pair of shears, which he finally
+presented, grinningly.
+
+There was a long pause, broken only by the sonorous voice of Dr. Bunting
+upbraiding someone for not having billed out that stuff to Apple Grove,
+and then the sandy-haired boy appeared bearing a large dictionary,
+followed by the man in the skull cap behind a dictionary of equal
+unwieldiness. These were set down on either side of the yellow paper,
+and he who was filling the position of cultivated gentleman pulled up a
+chair, briskly.
+
+"Has Professor Lee explained to you the nature of our work?" he wanted
+to know.
+
+"No," she replied, half grimly, a little humourously, and not far from
+tearfully, "he didn't--explain."
+
+"Then it is my pleasure to inform you," he began, blinking at her
+importantly, "that we are engaged here in the making of a dictionary."
+
+"A _dic--?_" but she swallowed the gasp in the laugh coming up to meet
+it, and of their union was born a saving cough.
+
+"Quite an overpowering thought, is it not?" he agreed pleasantly. "Now
+you see you have before you the two dictionaries you will use most, and
+over in that case you will find other references. The main thing"--his
+voice sank to an impressive whisper--"is _not_ to infringe the
+copyright. The publisher was in yesterday and made a little talk to the
+force, and he said that any one who handed in a piece of copy infringing
+the copyright simply employed that means of writing his own resignation.
+Neat way of putting it, was it not?"
+
+"Yes, _wasn't_ it--neat?" she agreed, wildly.
+
+She was conscious of a man's having stepped in behind her and taken a
+seat at the table next hers. She heard him opening his dictionaries and
+getting out his paper. Then the man in the skull cap had risen and
+was saying genially: "Well, here is a piece of old Webster, your first
+'take'--no copyright on this, you see, but you must modernise
+and expand. Don't miss any of the good words in either of these
+dictionaries. Here you have dictionaries, copy-paper, paste, and
+Professor Lee assures me you have brains--all the necessary ingredients
+for successful lexicography. We are to have some rules printed
+to-morrow, and in the meantime I trust I've made myself clear. The main
+thing"--he bent down and spoke it solemnly--"is _not_ to infringe the
+copyright." With a cheerful nod he was gone, and she heard him saying to
+the man at the next table: "Mr. Clifford, I shall have to ask you to be
+more careful about getting in promptly at eight."
+
+She removed the cover from her paste-pot and dabbled a little on a piece
+of paper. Then she tried the unwieldy shears on another piece of paper.
+She then opened one of her dictionaries and read studiously for fifteen
+minutes. That accomplished, she opened the other dictionary and pursued
+it for twelve minutes. Then she took the column of "old Webster," which
+had been handed her pasted on a piece of yellow paper, and set about
+attempting to commit it to memory. She looked up to be met with the
+statement that Mrs. Marjory Van Luce De Vane, after spending years under
+the so-called best surgeons of the country, had been cured in six
+weeks by Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. She pushed the
+dictionaries petulantly from her, and leaning her very red cheek
+upon her hand, her hazel eyes blurred with tears of perplexity and
+resentment, her mouth drawn in pathetic little lines of uncertainty,
+looked over at the sprawling warehouse on the opposite side of Dearborn
+Street. She was just considering the direct manner of writing one's
+resignation--not knowing how to infringe the copyright--when a voice
+said: "I beg pardon, but I wonder if I can help you any?"
+
+She had never heard a voice like that before. Or, _had_ she heard
+it?--and where? She looked at him, a long, startled gaze. Something made
+her think of the voice the prince used to have in long-ago dreams. She
+looked into a face that was dark and thin and--different. Two very
+dark eyes were looking at her kindly, and a mouth which was a baffling
+combination of things to be loved and things to be deplored was
+twitching a little, as though it would like to join the eyes in a smile,
+if it dared.
+
+Because he saw both how funny and how hard it was, she liked him. It
+would have been quite different had he seen either one without the
+other.
+
+"You can tell me how _not_ to infringe the copyright," she laughed. "I'm
+not sure that I know what a copyright is."
+
+He laughed--a laugh which belonged with his voice. "Mr. Littletree isn't
+as lucid as he thinks he is. I've been here a week or so, and picked up
+a few things you might like to know."
+
+He pulled his chair closer to her table then and gave her a lesson in
+the making of copy. Edna Willard was never one-half so attractive as
+when absorbed in a thing which someone was showing her how to do. Her
+hazel eyes would widen and glisten with the joy of comprehending; her
+cheeks would flush a deeper pink with the coming of new light, her mouth
+would part in a child-like way it had forgotten to outgrow, her head
+would nod gleefully in token that she understood, and she had a way
+of pulling at her wavy hair and making it more wavy than it had been
+before. The man at the next table was a long time in explaining the
+making of a dictionary. He spoke in low tones, often looking at the
+figure of the man in the skull cap, who was sitting with his back to
+them, looking over copy. Once she cried, excitedly: "Oh--I _see_!" and
+he warned, "S--h!" explaining, "Let him think you got it all from him.
+It will give you a better stand-in." She nodded, appreciatively, and
+felt very well acquainted with this kind man whose voice made her think
+of something--called to something--she did not just know what.
+
+After that she became so absorbed in lexicography that when the men
+began putting away their things it was hard to realise that the morning
+had gone. It was a new and difficult game, the evasion of the copyright
+furnishing the stimulus of a hazard.
+
+The man at the next table had been watching her with an amused
+admiration. Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from
+perplexity to satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head and
+the pucker of her face, took him back over years emotionally barren to
+the time when he too had those easily stirred enthusiasms of youth. For
+the man at the next table was far from young now. His mouth had never
+quite parted with boyishness, but there was more white than black in his
+hair, and the lines about his mouth told that time, as well as forces
+more aging than time, had laid heavy hand upon him. But when he looked
+at the girl and told her with a smile that it was time to stop work,
+it was a smile and a voice to defy the most tell-tale face in all the
+world.
+
+During her luncheon, as she watched the strange people coming and going,
+she did much wondering. She wondered why it was that so many of the men
+at the dictionary place were very old men; she wondered if it would be a
+good dictionary--one that would be used in the schools; she wondered if
+Dr. Bunting had made a great deal of money, and most of all she wondered
+about the man at the next table whose voice was like--like a dream which
+she did not know that she had dreamed.
+
+When she had returned to the straggling old building, had stumbled down
+the narrow, dark hall and opened the door of the big bleak room, she saw
+that the man at the next table was the only one who had returned from
+luncheon. Something in his profile made her stand there very still. He
+had not heard her come in, and he was looking straight ahead, eyes
+half closed, mouth set--no unsurrendered boyishness there now. Wholly
+unconsciously she took an impulsive step forward. But she stopped, for
+she saw, and felt without really understanding, that it was not just
+the moment's pain, but the revealed pain of years. Just then he began
+to cough, and it seemed the cough, too, was more than of the moment. And
+then he turned and saw her, and smiled, and the smile changed all.
+
+As the afternoon wore on the man stopped working and turning a little in
+his chair sat there covertly watching the girl. She was just typically
+girl. It was written that she had spent her days in the happy ways of
+healthful girlhood. He supposed that a great many young fellows had
+fallen in love with her--nice, clean young fellows, the kind she would
+naturally meet. And then his eyes closed for a minute and he put up his
+hand and brushed back his hair; there was weariness, weariness weary of
+itself, in the gesture. He looked about the room and scanned the faces
+of the men, most of them older than he, many of them men whose histories
+were well known to him. They were the usual hangers on about newspaper
+offices; men who, for one reason or other--age, dissipation, antiquated
+methods--had been pitched over, men for whom such work as this came as
+a godsend. They were the men of yesterday--men whom the world had rushed
+past. She was the only one there, this girl who would probably sit here
+beside him for many months, with whom the future had anything to do.
+Youth!--Goodness!--Joy!--Hope!--strange things to bring to a place
+like this. And as if their alienism disturbed him, he moved restlessly,
+almost resentfully, bit his lips nervously, moistened them, and began
+putting away his things.
+
+As the girl was starting home along Dearborn Street a few minutes later,
+she chanced to look in a window. She saw that it was a saloon, but
+before she could turn away she saw a man with a white face--white with
+the peculiar whiteness of a dark face, standing before the bar drinking
+from a small glass. She stood still, arrested by a look such as she had
+never seen before: a panting human soul sobbingly fluttering down into
+something from which it had spent all its force in trying to rise.
+When she recalled herself and passed on, a mist which she could neither
+account for nor banish was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes.
+
+The next day was a hard one at the dictionary place. She told herself
+it was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because her fingers
+ached, because it tired her back to sit in that horrid chair. She did
+not admit of any connection between her flagging interest and the fact
+that the place at the next table was vacant.
+
+The following day he was still absent. She assumed that it was
+nervousness occasioned by her queer surroundings made her look around
+whenever she heard a step behind her. Where was he? Where had that look
+carried him? If he were in trouble, was there no one to help him?
+
+The third day she did an unpremeditated thing. The man in the skull cap
+had been showing her something about the copy. As he was leaving, she
+asked: "Is the man who sits at the next table coming back?"
+
+"Oh yes," he replied grimly, "he'll be back."
+
+"Because," she went on, "if he wasn't, I thought I would take his
+shears. These hurt my fingers."
+
+He made the exchange for her--and after that things went better.
+
+He did return late the next morning. After he had taken his place
+he looked over at her and smiled. He looked sick and shaken--as if
+something that knew no mercy had taken hold of him and wrung body and
+soul.
+
+"You have been ill?" she asked, with timid solicitude.
+
+"Oh no," he replied, rather shortly.
+
+He was quiet all that day, but the next day they talked about the work,
+laughed together over funny definitions they found. She felt that he
+could tell many interesting things about himself, if he cared to.
+
+As the days went on he did tell some of those things--out of the way
+places where he had worked, queer people whom he had known. It seemed
+that words came to him as gifts, came freely, happily, pleased, perhaps,
+to be borne by so sympathetic a voice. And there was another thing about
+him. He seemed always to know just what she was trying to say; he never
+missed the unexpressed. That made it easy to say things to him; there
+seemed a certain at-homeness between his thought and hers. She accounted
+for her interest in him by telling herself she had never known any one
+like that before. Now Harold, the boy whom she knew best out at
+the university, why one had to _say_ things to Harold to make him
+understand! And Harold never left one wondering--wondering what he had
+meant by that smile, what he had been going to say when he started to
+say something and stopped, wondering what it was about his face that one
+could not understand. Harold never could claim as his the hour after
+he had left her, and was one ever close to anyone with whom one did not
+spend some of the hours of absence? She began to see that hours spent
+together when apart were the most intimate hours of all.
+
+And as Harold did not make one wonder, so he did not make one worry.
+Never in all her life had there been a lump in her throat when she
+thought of Harold. There was often a lump in her throat when the man at
+the next table was coughing.
+
+One day, she had been there about two months, she said something to him
+about it. It was hard; it seemed forcing one's way into a room that had
+never been opened to one--there were several doors he kept closed.
+
+"Mr. Clifford," she turned to him impetuously as they were putting away
+their things that night, "will you mind if I say something to you?"
+
+He was covering his paste-pot. He looked up at her strangely. The
+closed door seemed to open a little way. "I can't conceive of 'minding'
+anything you might say to me, Miss Noah,"--he had called her Miss Noah
+ever since she, by mistake, had one day called him Mr. Webster.
+
+"You see," she hurried on, very timid, now that the door had opened a
+little, "you have been so good to me. Because you have been so good to
+me it seems that I have some right to--to--"
+
+His head was resting upon his hand, and he leaned a little closer as
+though listening for something he wanted to hear.
+
+"I had a cousin who had a cough like yours,"--brave now that she could
+not go back--"and he went down to New Mexico and stayed for a year, and
+when he came back--when he came back he was as well as any of us. It
+seems so foolish not to"--her voice broke, now that it had so valiantly
+carried it--"not to--"
+
+He looked at her, and that was all. But she was never wholly the same
+again after that look. It enveloped her being in a something which left
+her richer--different. It was a look to light the dark place between two
+human souls. It seemed for the moment that words would follow it, but
+as if feeling their helplessness--perhaps needlessness--they sank back
+unuttered, and at the last he got up, abruptly, and walked away.
+
+One night, while waiting for the elevator, she heard two of the men
+talking about him. When she went out on the street it was with head
+high, cheeks hot. For nothing is so hard to hear as that which one has
+half known, and evaded. One never denies so hotly as in denying to one's
+self what one fears is true, and one never resents so bitterly as in
+resenting that which one cannot say one has the right to resent.
+
+That night she lay in her bed with wide open eyes, going over and over
+the things they had said. "_Cure?_"--one of them had scoffed, after
+telling how brilliant he had been before he "went to pieces"--"why all
+the cures on earth couldn't help him! He can go just so far, and then
+he can no more stop himself--oh, about as much as an ant could stop a
+prairie fire!"
+
+She finally turned over on her pillow and sobbed; and she wondered
+why--wondered, yet knew.
+
+But it resulted in the flowering of her tenderness for him. Interest
+mounted to defiance. It ended in blind, passionate desire to "make it
+up" to him. And again he was so different from Harold; Harold did not
+impress himself upon one by upsetting all one's preconceived ideas.
+
+She felt now that she understood better--understood the closed doors. He
+was--she could think of no better word than sensitive.
+
+And that is why, several mornings later, she very courageously--for
+it did take courage--threw this little note over on his desk--they
+had formed a habit of writing notes to each other, sometimes about the
+words, sometimes about other things.
+
+"IN-VI-TA-TION, _n._ That which Miss Noah extends to Mr. Webster for
+Friday evening, December second, at the house where she lives--hasn't
+she already told him where that is? It is the wish of Miss Noah to
+present Mr. Webster to various other Miss Noahs, all of whom are
+desirous of making his acquaintance."
+
+She was absurdly nervous at luncheon that day, and kept telling herself
+with severity not to act like a high-school girl. He was late in
+returning that noon, and though there seemed a new something in his
+voice when he asked if he hadn't better sharpen her pencils, he said
+nothing about her new definition of invitation. It was almost five
+o'clock when he threw this over on her desk:
+
+"AP-PRE-CI-A-TION, _n._ That sentiment inspired in Mr. Webster by the
+kind invitation of Miss Noah for Friday evening.
+
+"RE-GRET, _n._ That which Mr. Webster experiences because, for reasons
+into which he cannot go in detail, it is impossible for him to accept
+Miss Noah's invitation.
+
+"RE-SENT-MENT, _n._ That which is inspired in Mr. Webster by the
+insinuation that there are other Miss Noahs in the world."
+
+Then below he had written: "Three hours later. Miss Noah, the world is
+queer. Some day you may find out--though I hope you never will--that it
+is frequently the things we most want to do that we must leave undone.
+Miss Noah, won't you go on bringing me as much of yourself as you can
+to Dearborn Street, and try not to think much about my not being able
+to know the Miss Noah of Hyde Park? And little Miss Noah--I thank you.
+There aren't words enough in this old book of ours to tell you how
+much--or why."
+
+That night he hurried away with never a joke about how many words she
+had written that day. She did not look up as he stood there putting on
+his coat.
+
+It was spring now, and the dictionary staff had begun on W.
+
+They had written of Joy, of Hope and Life and Love, and many other
+things. Life seemed pressing just behind some of those definitions,
+pressing the harder, perhaps, because it could not break through the
+surface.
+
+For it did not break through; it flooded just beneath.
+
+How did she know that he cared for her? She could not possibly have
+told. Perhaps the nearest to actual proof she could bring was that he
+always saw that her overshoes were put in a warm place. And when one
+came down to facts, the putting of a girl's rubbers near the radiator
+did not necessarily mean love.
+
+Perhaps then it was because there was no proof of it that she was most
+sure. For some of the most sure things in the world are things which
+cannot be proved.
+
+It was only that they worked together and were friends; that they
+laughed together over funny definitions they found, that he was kind to
+her, and that they seemed remarkably close together.
+
+That is as far as facts can take it.
+
+And just there--it begins.
+
+For the force which rushes beneath the facts of life, caring nothing for
+conditions, not asking what one desires or what one thinks best, caring
+as little about a past as about a future--save its own future--the force
+which can laugh at man's institutions and batter over in one sweep what
+he likes to call his wisdom, was sweeping them on. And because it could
+get no other recognition it forced its way into the moments when he
+asked her for an eraser, when she wanted to know how to spell a word.
+He could not so much as ask her if she needed more copy-paper without
+seeming to be lavishing upon her all the love of all the ages.
+
+And so the winter had worn on, and there was really nothing whatever to
+tell about it.
+
+She was quiet this morning, and kept her head bent low over her work.
+For she had estimated the number of pages there were between W and Z.
+Soon they would be at Z;--and then? Then? Shyly she turned and looked
+at him; he too was bent over his work. When she came in she had said
+something about its being spring, and that there must be wild flowers in
+the woods. Since then he had not looked up.
+
+Suddenly it came to her--tenderly, hotly, fearfully yet bravely, that it
+was she who must meet Z. She looked at him again, covertly. And she
+felt that she understood. It was the lines in his face made it clearest.
+Years, and things blacker, less easily surmounted than years--oh yes,
+that too she faced fearlessly--were piled in between. She knew now that
+it was she--not he--who could push them aside.
+
+It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love and
+life and desire may crowd from the page.
+
+Perhaps she would not have thrown it after all--the little note she had
+written--had it not been that when she went over for more copy-paper she
+stood for a minute looking out the window. Even on Dearborn Street the
+seductiveness of spring was in the air. Spring, and all that spring
+meant, filled her.
+
+Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of
+far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press she
+could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was strong,
+the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to his desk:
+
+"CHAFING-DISH, n. That out of which Miss Noah asks Mr. Webster to eat
+his Sunday night lunch tomorrow. All the other Miss Noahs are going to
+be away, and if Mr. Webster does not come, Miss Noah will be all alone.
+Miss Noah does not like to be lonely."
+
+She ate no lunch that day; she only drank a cup of coffee and walked
+around.
+
+He did not come back that afternoon. It passed from one to two, from two
+to three, and then very slowly from three to four, and still he had not
+come.
+
+He too was walking about. He had walked down to the lake and was
+standing there looking out across it.
+
+Why not?--he was saying to himself--fiercely, doggedly. Over and over
+again--Well, _why_ not?
+
+A hundred nights, alone in his room, he had gone over it. Had not life
+used him hard enough to give him a little now?--longing had pleaded.
+And now there was a new voice--more prevailing voice--the voice of her
+happiness. His face softened to an almost maternal tenderness as he
+listened to that voice.
+
+Too worn to fight any longer, he gave himself up to it, and sat there
+dreaming. They were dreams of joy rushing in after lonely years, dreams
+of stepping into the sunlight after long days in fog and cold, dreams
+of a woman before a fireplace--her arms about him, her cheer and her
+tenderness, her comradeship and her passion--all his to take! Ah, dreams
+which even thoughts must not touch--so wonderful and sacred they were.
+
+A long time he sat there, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The force
+that rules the race was telling him that the one crime was the denial
+of happiness--his happiness, her happiness; and when at last his fight
+seemed but a puerile fight against forces worlds mightier than he, he
+rose, and as one who sees a great light, started back toward Dearborn
+Street.
+
+On the way he began to cough. The coughing was violent, and he stepped
+into a doorway to gain breath. And after he had gone in there he
+realised that it was the building of Chicago's greatest newspaper.
+
+He had been city editor of that paper once. Facts, the things he knew
+about himself, talked to him then. There was no answer.
+
+It left him weak and dizzy and crazy for a drink. He walked on slowly,
+unsteadily, his white face set. For he had vowed that if it took the
+last nerve in his body there should be no more of that until after they
+had finished with Z. He knew himself too well to vow more. He was not
+even sure of that.
+
+He did not turn in where he wanted to go, but resistance took the last
+bit of force that was in him. He was trembling like a sick man when he
+stepped into the elevator.
+
+She was just leaving. She was in the little cloak room putting on her
+things. She was all alone in there.
+
+He stepped in. He pushed the door shut, and stood there leaning against
+it, looking at her, saying nothing.
+
+"Oh--you are ill?" she gasped, and laid a frightened hand upon him.
+
+The touch crazed him. All resistance gone, he swept her into his arms;
+he held her fiercely, and between sobs kissed her again and again. He
+could not let her go. He frightened her. He hurt her. And he did not
+care--he did not know.
+
+Then he held her off and looked at her. And as he looked into her eyes,
+passion melted to tenderness. It was she now--not he; love--not
+hunger. Holding her face in his two hands, looking at her as if getting
+something to take away, his white lips murmured words too inarticulate
+for her to hear. And then again he put his arms around her--all
+differently. Reverently, sobbingly, he kissed her hair. And then he was
+gone.
+
+He did not come out that Sunday afternoon, but Harold dropped in
+instead, and talked of some athletic affairs over at the university. She
+wondered why she did not go crazy in listening to him, and yet she could
+answer intelligently. It was queer--what one _could_ do.
+
+They had come at last to Z. There would be no more work upon the
+dictionary after that day. And it was raining--raining as in Chicago
+alone it knows how to rain.
+
+They wrote no notes to each other now. It had been different since that
+day. They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of
+commonplace words.
+
+Both of them had tried to stay away that last day. But both were in
+their usual places.
+
+The day wore on eventlessly. Those men with whom she had worked, the
+men of yesterday, who had been kind to her, came up at various times for
+little farewell chats. The man in the skull cap told her that she had
+done excellent work. She was surprised at the ease with which she could
+make decent reply, thinking again that it was queer--what one could do.
+
+He was moving. She saw him lay some sheets of yellow paper on the desk
+in front. He had finished with his "take." There would not be another to
+give him. He would go now.
+
+He came back to his desk. She could hear him putting away his things.
+And then for a long time there was no sound. She knew that he was just
+sitting there in his chair.
+
+Then she heard him get up. She heard him push his chair up to the table,
+and then for a minute he stood there. She wanted to turn toward him; she
+wanted to say something--do something. But she had no power.
+
+She saw him lay an envelope upon her desk. She heard him walking away.
+She knew, numbly, that his footsteps were not steady. She knew that he
+had stopped; she was sure that he was looking back. But still she had no
+power.
+
+And then she heard him go.
+
+Even then she went on with her work; she finished her "take" and
+laid down her pencil. It was finished now--and he had gone.
+Finished?--_Gone?_ She was tearing open the envelope of the letter.
+
+This was what she read:
+
+"Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vender, and girl to be loved, if I
+were a free man I would say to you--Come, little one, and let us learn
+of love. Let us learn of it, not as one learns from dictionaries, but
+let us learn from the morning glow and the evening shades. But Miss
+Noah, maker of dictionaries and creeper into hearts, the bound must not
+call to the free. They might fittingly have used my name as one of the
+synonyms under that word Failure, but I trust not under Coward.
+
+"And now, you funny little Miss Noah from the University of Chicago,
+don't I know that your heart is blazing forth the assurance that
+you don't _care_ for any of those things--the world, people, common
+sense--that you want just love? They made a grand failure of you out at
+your university; they taught you philosophy and they taught you Greek,
+and they've left you just as much the woman as women were five thousand
+years ago. Oh, I know all about you--you little girl whose hair tried
+so hard to be red. Your soul touched mine as we sat there writing
+words--words--words, the very words in which men try to tell things, and
+can't--and I know all about what you would do. But you shall not do
+it. Dear little copy maker, would a man standing out on the end of a
+slippery plank have any right to cry to someone on the shore--'Come out
+here on this plank with me?' If he loved the someone on the shore,
+would he not say instead--'Don't get on this plank?' Me get off the
+plank--come with you to the shore--you are saying? But you see, dear,
+you only know slippery planks as viewed from the shore--God grant you
+may never know them any other way!
+
+"It was you, was it not, who wrote our definition of happiness? Yes, I
+remember the day you did it. You were so interested; your cheeks grew so
+very red, and you pulled and pulled at your wavy hair. You said it was
+such an important definition. And so it is, Miss Noah, quite the most
+important of all. And on the page of life, Miss Noah, may happiness be
+written large and unblurred for you. It is because I cannot help you
+write it that I turn away. I want at least to leave the page unspoiled.
+
+"I carry a picture of you. I shall carry it always. You are sitting
+before a fireplace, and I think of that fireplace as symbolising the
+warmth and care and tenderness and the safety that will surround you.
+And sometimes as you sit there let a thought of me come for just a
+minute, Miss Noah--not long enough nor deep enough to bring you any
+pain. But only think--I brought him happiness after he believed all
+happiness had gone. He was so grateful for that light which came after
+he thought the darkness had settled down. It will light his way to the
+end.
+
+"We've come to Z, and it's good-bye. There is one thing I can give you
+without hurting you,--the hope, the prayer, that life may be very, very
+good to you."
+
+The sheets of paper fell from her hands. She sat staring out into
+Dearborn Street. She began to see. After all, he had not understood her.
+Perhaps men never understood women; certainly he had not understood
+her. What he did not know was that she was willing to _pay_ for her
+happiness--_pay_--pay any price that might be exacted. And anyway--she
+had no choice. Strange that he could not see that! Strange that he could
+not see the irony and cruelty of bidding her good-bye and then telling
+her to be happy!
+
+It simplified itself to such an extent that she _grew_ very calm. It
+would be easy to find him, easy to make him see--for it was so very
+simple--and then....
+
+She turned in her copy. She said good-bye quietly, naturally, rode down
+in the lumbering old elevator and started out into the now drenching
+rain toward the elevated trains which would take her to the West Side;
+it was so fortunate that she had heard him telling one day where he
+lived.
+
+When she reached the station she saw that more people were coming down
+the stairs than were going up. They were saying things about the trains,
+but she did not heed them. But at the top of the stairs a man in uniform
+said: "Blockade, Miss. You'll have to take the surface cars."
+
+She was sorry, for it would delay her, and there was not a minute to
+lose. She was dismayed, upon reaching the surface cars, to find she
+could not get near them; the rain, the blockade on the "L" had caused
+a great crowd to congregate there. She waited a long time, getting more
+and more wet, but it was impossible to get near the cars. She thought
+of a cab, but could see none, they too having all been pressed into
+service.
+
+She determined, desperately, to start and walk. Soon she would surely
+get either a cab or a car. And so she started, staunchly, though she was
+wet through now, and trembling with cold and nervousness.
+
+As she hurried through the driving rain she faced things fearlessly. Oh
+yes, she understood--everything. But if he were not well--should he not
+have her with him? If he had that thing to fight, did he not need her
+help? What did men think women were like? Did he think she was one to
+sit down and reason out what would be advantageous? Better a little
+while with him on a slippery plank than forever safe and desolate upon
+the shore!
+
+She never questioned her going; were not life and love too great to be
+lost through that which could be so easily put right?
+
+The buildings were reeling, the streets moving up and down--that
+awful rain, she thought, was making her dizzy. Labouriously she walked
+on--more slowly, less steadily, a pain in her side, that awful reeling
+in her head.
+
+Carriages returning to the city were passing her, but she had not
+strength to call to them, and it seemed if she walked to the curbing she
+would fall. She was not thinking so clearly now. The thing which took
+all of her force was the lifting of her feet and the putting them
+down in the right place. Her throat seemed to be closing up--and her
+side--and her head....
+
+Someone had her by the arm. Then someone was speaking her name; speaking
+it in surprise--consternation--alarm.
+
+It was Harold.
+
+It was all vague then. She knew that she was in a carriage, and
+that Harold was talking to her kindly. "You're taking me there?" she
+murmured.
+
+"Yes--yes, Edna, everything's all right," he replied soothingly.
+
+"Everything's all right," she repeated, in a whisper, and leaned her
+head back against the cushions.
+
+They stopped after a while, and Harold was standing at the open door
+of the cab with something steaming hot which he told her to drink. "You
+need it," he said decisively, and thinking it would help her to tell it,
+she drank it down.
+
+The world was a little more defined after that, and she saw things which
+puzzled her. "Why, it looks like the city," she whispered, her throat
+too sore now to speak aloud.
+
+"Why sure," he replied banteringly; "don't you know we have to go
+through the city to get out to the South Side?"
+
+"Oh, but you see," she cried, holding her throat, "but you see, it's the
+_other_ way!"
+
+"Not to-night," he insisted; "the place for you to-night is home. I'm
+taking you where you belong."
+
+She reached over wildly, trying to open the door, but he held her back;
+she began to cry, and he talked to her, gently but unbendingly. "But you
+don't _understand!_" she whispered, passionately. "I've _got_ to go!"
+
+"Not to-night," he said again, and something in the way he said it made
+her finally huddle back in the corner of the carriage.
+
+Block after block, mile after mile, they rode on in silence. She felt
+overpowered. And with submission she knew that it was Z. For the
+whole city was piled in between. Great buildings were in between, and
+thousands of men running to and fro on the streets; man, and all man
+had builded up, were in between. And then Harold--Harold who had always
+seemed to count for so little, had come and taken her away.
+
+Dully, wretchedly--knowing that her heart would ache far worse to-morrow
+than it did to-night--she wondered about things. Did things like rain
+and street-cars and wet feet and a sore throat determine life? Was it
+that way with other people, too? Did other people have barriers--whole
+cities full of them--piled in between? And then did the Harolds come and
+take them where they said they belonged? Were there not _some_ people
+strong enough to go where they wanted to go?
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
+
+
+The elements without were not in harmony with the spirit which it was
+desired should be engendered within. By music, by gay decorations,
+by speeches from prominent men, the board in charge of the boys'
+reformatory was striving to throw about this dedication of the new
+building an atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will--an atmosphere
+vibrant with the kindness and generosity which emanated from the State,
+and the thankfulness and loyalty which it was felt should emanate from
+the boys.
+
+Outside the world was sobbing. Some young trees which had been planted
+along the driveway of the reformatory grounds, and which were expected
+to grow up in the way they should go, were rocking back and forth in
+passionate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being spit viciously through
+the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape which Philip Grayson, he who
+was to be the last speaker of the afternoon, saw stretching itself down
+the hill, across the little valley, and up another little hill of that
+rolling prairie state. In his ears was the death wail of the summer.
+It seemed the spirit of out-of-doors was sending itself up in mournful,
+hopeless cries.
+
+The speaker who had been delivering himself of pedantic encouragement
+about the open arms with which the world stood ready to receive the most
+degraded one, would that degraded one but come to the world in proper
+spirit, sat down amid perfunctory applause led by the officers
+and attendants of the institution, and the boys rose to sing. The
+brightening of their faces told that their work as performers was more
+to their liking than their position as auditors. They threw back their
+heads and waited with well-disciplined eagerness for the signal to
+begin. Then, with the strength and native music there are in some three
+hundred boys' throats, there rolled out the words of the song of the
+State.
+
+There were lips which opened only because they must, but as a whole
+they sang with the same heartiness, the same joy in singing, that he
+had heard a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the week
+before. When the last word had died away it seemed to Philip Grayson
+that the sigh of the world without was giving voice to the sigh of the
+world within as the well-behaved crowd of boys sat down to resume their
+duties as auditors.
+
+And then one of the most important of the professors from the State
+University was telling them about the kindness of the State: the State
+had provided for them this beautiful home; it gave them comfortable
+clothing and nutritious food; it furnished that fine gymnasium in which
+to train their bodies, books and teachers to train their minds;
+it provided those fitted to train their souls, to work against the
+unfortunate tendencies--the professor stumbled a little there--which had
+led to their coming. The State gave liberally, gladly, and in return it
+asked but one thing: that they come out into the world and make useful,
+upright citizens, citizens of which any State might be proud. Was that
+asking too much? the professor from the State University was saying.
+
+The sobbing of the world without was growing more intense. Many pairs of
+eyes from among the auditors were straying out to where the summer
+lay dying. Did they know--those boys whom the State classed as
+unfortunates--that out of this death there would come again life? Or did
+they see but the darkness--the decay--of to-day?
+
+The professor from the State University was putting the case very
+fairly. There were no flaws--seemingly--to be picked in his logic. The
+State had been kind; the boys were obligated to good citizenship.
+But the coldness!--comfortlessness!--of it all. The open arms of the
+world!--how mocking in its abstractness. What did it mean? Did it mean
+that they--the men who uttered the phrase so easily--would be willing to
+give these boys aid, friendship when they came out into the world? What
+would they say, those boys whose ears were filled with high-sounding,
+non-committal phrases, if some man were to stand before them and say,
+"And so, fellows, when you get away from this place, and are ready to
+get your start in the world, just come around to my office and I'll help
+you get a job?" At thought of it there came from Philip Grayson a queer,
+partly audible laugh, which caused those nearest him to look his way in
+surprise.
+
+But he was all unconscious of their looks of inquiry, absorbed in the
+thoughts that crowded upon him. How far away the world--his kind of
+people--must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The speeches
+they had heard, the training that had been given them, had taught
+them--unconsciously perhaps, but surely--to divide the world into two
+great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who made speeches
+and those who must listen, the so-called good and the so-called bad;
+perhaps--he smiled a little at his own cynicism--those who were caught
+and those who were not.
+
+There came to him these words of a poet of whom he used to be fond:
+
+    In men whom men pronounce as ill,
+    I find so much of goodness still;
+    In men whom men pronounce divine,
+      I find so much of sin and blot;
+    I hesitate to draw the line
+      Between the two, when God has not.
+
+When God has not! He turned and looked out at the sullen sky,
+returning--as most men do at times--to that conception of his childhood
+that somewhere beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God care for the boys
+of the State Reformatory? Was that poet of the western mountains right
+when he said that God was not a drawer of lines, but a seer of the good
+that was in the so-called bad, and of the bad in the so-called good, and
+a lover of them both?
+
+If that was God, it was not the God the boys of the reformatory had been
+taught to know. They had been told that God would forgive the
+wicked, but it had been made clear to them--if not in words, in
+implications--that it was they who were the wicked. And the so-called
+godly men, men of such exemplary character as had been chosen to address
+them that afternoon, had so much of the spirit of God that they, too,
+were willing to forgive, be tolerant, and--he looked out at the bending
+trees with a smile--disburse generalities about the open arms of the
+world.
+
+What would they think--those three hundred speech-tired boys--if some
+man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and lay bare
+his own life--its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its crimes--and tell
+them there was weakness and there was strength in every human being, and
+that the world-old struggle of life was to overcome one's weakness with
+one's strength.
+
+The idea took strange hold on him. It seemed the method of the world--at
+any rate it had been the method of that afternoon--for the men who stood
+before their fellows with clean hands to plant themselves on the far
+side of a chasm of conventions, or narrow self-esteem, or easily won
+virtue, and cry to those beings who struggled on the other side of that
+chasm--to those human beings whose souls had never gone to school: "Look
+at us! Our hands are clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful it
+is to be good! Come ye, poor sinners, and be good also." And the poor
+sinners, the untaught, birthmarked human souls, would look over at the
+self-acclaimed goodness they could see far across the chasm, and even
+though attracted to it (which, he grimly reflected, would not seem
+likely) the thing that was left with them was a sense of the width of
+the chasm.
+
+He had a sense of needless waste, of unnecessary blight. He looked down
+at those three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human waste;
+and it was human stupidity, human complacency and cowardice kept those
+human beings human drift.
+
+With what a smug self-satisfaction--under the mask of benevolence--the
+speakers of that afternoon had flaunted their virtue--their position!
+How condescendingly they had spoken of the home which we, the good,
+prepare for you, the bad, and what namby-pambyness there was, after all,
+in that sentiment which all of them had voiced--and now you must pay us
+back by being good!
+
+Oh for a man of flesh and blood to stand up and tell how he himself had
+failed and suffered! For a man who could bridge that chasm with strong,
+broad, human understanding and human sympathies--a man who would stand
+among them pulse-beat to pulse-beat and cry out, "I know! I understand!
+I fought it and I'll help you fight it too!"
+
+The sound of his own name broke the spell that was upon him. He looked
+to the centre of the stage and saw that the professor from the State
+University had seated himself and that the superintendent of
+the institution was occupying the place of the speaker. And the
+superintendent was saying:
+
+"We may esteem ourselves especially fortunate in having him with us this
+afternoon. He is one of the great men of the State, one of the men
+who by high living, by integrity and industry, has raised himself to a
+position of great honour among his fellow men. A great party--may I say
+the greatest of all parties?--has shown its unbounded confidence in him
+by giving him the nomination for the governorship of the State. No man
+in the State is held in higher esteem to-day than he. And so it is with
+special pleasure that I introduce to you that man of the future--Philip
+Grayson."
+
+The superintendent sat down then, and he himself--Philip Grayson--was
+standing in the place where the other speakers had stood. It was with
+a rush which almost swept away his outward show of calm that it came to
+him that he--candidate for the governorship--was well fitted to be
+that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself was
+within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into the
+very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a man of
+sins and virtues, of weaknesses and strength, a man who had had much to
+conquer, and for whom the fight would never be finally won, was standing
+before them stripped of his coat of conventions and platitudes, and in
+nakedness of soul and sincerity of heart was talking to them as a man
+who understood.
+
+Almost with the inception of the idea was born the consciousness of what
+it might cost. And as in answer to the silent, blunt question, Is it
+worth it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of eyes--eyes
+behind which there was good as well as bad, eyes which had burned with
+the fatal rush of passion, and had burned, too, with the hot tears of
+remorse--eyes which had opened on a hostile world.
+
+And then the eyes of Philip Grayson could not see the eyes which were
+before him, and he put up his hand to break the mist--little caring
+what the men upon the platform would think of him, little thinking what
+effect the words which were crowding into his heart would have upon his
+candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now: to bring upon that ugly
+chasm the levelling forces of a common humanity, and to make those boys
+who were of his clay feel that a being who had fallen and risen again,
+a fellow being for whom life would always mean a falling and a rising
+again, was standing before them, and--not as the embodiment of a distant
+goodness, not as a pattern, but as one among them, verily as man to
+man--was telling them a few things which his own life had taught him
+were true.
+
+It was his very consecration which made it hard to begin. He was fearful
+of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between them and him
+that very thing he was determined there should not be.
+
+"I have a strange feeling," he said, with a winning little smile, "that
+if I were to open my heart to-day, just open it clear up the way I'd
+like to if I could, that you boys would look into it, and then jump back
+in a scared kind of way and cry, 'Why--that's me!' You would be a little
+surprised--wouldn't you?--if you could look back and see the kind of boy
+I was, and find I was much the kind of boy you are?
+
+"Do you know what I think? I think hypocrisy is the worst thing in the
+world. I think it's worse than stealing, or lying, or any of the other
+bad things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of the
+hypocrisy comes from? I think it comes from the so-called self-made
+men--from the real good men, the men who say 'I haven't got one bad
+thing charged up to my account.'
+
+"Now the men out campaigning for me call me a self-made man. Your
+superintendent just now spoke of my integrity, of the confidence reposed
+in me, and all that. But do you know what is the honest truth? If I am
+any kind of a man worth mentioning, if I am deserving of any honour, any
+confidence, it is not because I was born with my heart filled with good
+and beautiful things, for I was not. It is because I was born with much
+in my heart that we call the bad, and because, after that bad had grown
+stronger and stronger through the years it was unchecked, and after it
+had brought me the great shock, the great sorrow of my life, I began
+then, when older than you boys are now, to see a little of that great
+truth which you can put briefly in these words: 'There is good and there
+is bad in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer
+the bad with the good.' What I am trying to say is, that if I am worthy
+any one's confidence to-day, it is because, having seen that truth, I
+have been able, through never ceasing trying, through slow conquering,
+to crowd out some of the bad and make room for a little of the good.
+
+"You see," he went on, three hundred pairs of eyes hard upon him now,
+"some of us are born to a harder struggle than others. There are people
+who would object to my saying that to you, even if I believed it. They
+would say you would make the fact of being born with much against which
+to struggle an excuse for being bad. But look here a minute; if you were
+born with a body not as strong as other boys' bodies, if you couldn't
+run as far, or jump as high, you wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't
+be expected to do much; I wasn't born right.' Not a bit of it! You'd
+make it your business to get as strong as you could, and you wouldn't
+make any parade of the fact that you weren't as strong as you should be.
+We don't like people who whine, whether it's about weak bodies or weak
+souls.
+
+"I've been sitting here this afternoon wondering what to say to you
+boys. I had intended telling some funny stories about things which
+happened to me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood has
+come over me, and I don't feel just like those stories now. I haven't
+been thinking of the funny side of life in the last half-hour. I've been
+thinking of how much suffering I've endured since the days when I, too,
+was a boy."
+
+He paused then; and when he went on his voice tested to the utmost the
+silence of the room: "There is lots of sorrow in this old world. Maybe
+I'm on the wrong track, but as I see it to-day human beings are making
+a much harder thing of their existence than there is any need of. There
+are millions and millions of them, and year after year, generation after
+generation, they fight over the same old battles, live through the same
+old sorrows. Doesn't it seem all wrong that after the battle has been
+fought a million times it can't be made a little easier for those who
+still have it before them?
+
+"If a farmer had gone over a bad road, and the next day saw another
+farmer about to start over the same road, wouldn't he send him back?
+Doesn't it seem too bad that in things which concern one's whole life
+people can't be as decent as they are about things which involve only an
+inconvenience? Doesn't it seem that when we human beings have so much in
+common we might stand together a little better? I'll tell you what's the
+matter. Most of the people of this world are coated round and round with
+self-esteem, and they're afraid to admit any understanding of the things
+which aren't good. Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit
+he had been over that road, and so had said: 'From what I have read in
+books, and from what I have learned in a general way, I fancy that road
+isn't good.' Would the other farmer have gone back? I rather think he
+would have said he'd take his chances. But you see the farmer said
+he _knew_; and how did he know? Why, because he'd been over the road
+himself."
+
+As he paused again, looking at them, he saw it all with a clarifying
+simplicity. He himself knew life for a fine and beautiful thing. He had
+won for himself some of the satisfactions of understanding, certain rare
+delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the spirits of these
+boys to whom he talked; wanted to show them that spirits could free
+themselves, indicate to them that self-control and self-development
+carried one to pleasures which sordid self-indulgences had no power to
+bestow. It was a question of getting the most from life. It was a matter
+of happiness.
+
+It was thus he began, slowly, the telling of his life's story:
+
+"I was born with strange, wild passions in my heart. I don't know where
+they came from; I only know they were there. I resented authority. If
+someone who had a right to dictate to me said, 'Philip, do this,' then
+Philip would immediately begin to think how much he would rather do the
+other thing. And," he smiled a little, and some of the boys smiled with
+him in anticipation, "it was the other thing which Philip usually did.
+
+"I didn't go to a reform school, for the very good reason that there
+wasn't any in the State where I lived." Some of he boys smiled again,
+and he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party managers
+sitting close to him. "I was what you would call a very bad boy. I
+didn't mind any one. I was defiant--insolent. I did bad things
+just because I knew they were bad, and--and I took a great deal of
+satisfaction out of it."
+
+The sighing of the world without was the only sound which vibrated
+through the room. "I say," he went on, "that I got a form of
+satisfaction from it. I did not say I got happiness; there is a vast
+difference between a kind of momentary satisfaction and that thing--that
+most precious of all things--which we call happiness. Indeed, I was very
+far from happy. I had hours when I was so morose and miserable that I
+hated the whole world. And do you know what I thought? I thought there
+was no one in all the world who had the same kind of things surging up
+in his heart that I did. I thought there was no one else with whom it
+was as easy to be bad, or as hard to be good. I thought that no one
+understood. I thought that I was all alone.
+
+"Did you ever feel like that? Did you ever feel that no one else knew
+anything about such feelings as you had? Did you ever feel that here was
+you, and there was the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world
+didn't know anything about you, and was just generally down on you? Now
+that's the very thing I want to talk away from you to-day. You're not
+the only one. We're all made of the same kind of stuff, and there's none
+of us made of stuff that's flawless. We all have a fight; some an easy
+one, and some a big one, and if you have formed the idea that there is
+a kind of dividing-line in the world, and that on the one side is the
+good, and on the other side the bad, why, all I can say is that you have
+a wrong notion of things.
+
+"Well, I grew up to be a man, and because I hadn't fought against any of
+the stormy things in my heart they kept growing stronger and stronger. I
+did lots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am bitterly ashamed.
+I went to another place, and I fell in with the kind of fellows you can
+imagine I felt at home with. I had been told when I was a boy that it
+was wrong to drink and gamble. I think that was the chief reason I took
+to drink and gambling."
+
+There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party
+manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat.
+It was the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the boys'
+reformatory. The boys were leaning forward--self-forgetful, intent. "One
+night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, and one of the
+men, the best friend I had, said something that made me mad. There was a
+revolver right there which one of the men had been showing us. Some kind
+of a demon got hold of me, and without so much as a thought I picked up
+that revolver and fired at my friend."
+
+The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the
+superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say
+a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened faces
+before him: "I suppose you wonder why I am not in the penitentiary. I
+had been drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was with friends, and it
+was hushed up."
+
+He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen
+landscape. His voice was not steady as he went on: "It's not an easy
+thing to talk about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before in
+all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to create
+a sensation. I'm telling it," his voice grew tense in its earnestness,
+"because I believe that this world could be made a better and a sweeter
+place if those who have lived and suffered would not be afraid to reach
+out their hands and cry: 'I know that road--it's bad! I steered off to a
+better place, and I'll help you steer off, too.'"
+
+There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted
+upon the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and defiance
+had fallen from them. They were listening now--not because they must,
+but because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being poured the
+very sustenance for which--unknowingly--they had yearned.
+
+"We sometimes hear people say," resumed the candidate for Governor,
+"that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've lived
+through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I can say
+that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after I went home
+that night no one in this world will ever know. Words couldn't tell it;
+it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere near. My whole life
+spread itself out before me; it was not a pleasant thing to look at. But
+at last, boys, out of the depths of my darkness, I began to get a little
+light. I began to get some understanding of the battle which it falls
+to the lot of some of us human beings to wage. There was good in me,
+you see, or I wouldn't have cared like that, and it came to me then, all
+alone that terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away
+somewhere in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so--all alone,
+boys--I began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do
+you know--this is the truth--it was with the beginning of that battle I
+got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this world
+than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is like opening
+a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in a minute. This
+is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But it's a fight that can
+be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth the winning. I'm not saying
+to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.' Maybe you won't succeed. Life
+as we've arranged it for ourselves makes success a pretty tough
+proposition. But that doesn't alter the fact that it pays to be a decent
+sort. You and I know about how much happiness there is in the other kind
+of thing. And there is happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to
+develop what's in you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having
+done your part,--that bully sense of having put up the best fight you
+could."
+
+He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. "I don't know, I am
+sure, what the people of my State will think of all this. Perhaps they
+won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to kill another man.
+But," he looked around at them with that smile of his which got straight
+to men's hearts, "there's only one of me, and there are three hundred
+of you, and how do I know but that in telling you of that stretch of bad
+road ahead I've made a dozen Governors this very afternoon!"
+
+He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word
+which would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did say
+was: "And so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into the
+world to get your start, if you find the arms of that world aren't quite
+as wide open as you were told they would be, if there seems no place
+where you can get a hold, and you are saying to yourself, 'It's no
+use--I'll not try,' before you give up just remember there was one man
+who said he knew all about it, and give that one man a chance to show
+he meant what he said. So look me up, if luck goes all against you, and
+maybe I can give you a little lift." He took a backward step, as though
+to resume his seat, and then he said, with a dry little smile which took
+any suggestion of heroics from what had gone before, "If I'm not at the
+State-house, you'll find my name in the directory of the city where your
+programme tells you I live."
+
+He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled,
+heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants this
+time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And when the
+clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were raised to
+eyes which had long been dry.
+
+The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party
+manager standing by his side. "It was very grand," he sneered, "very
+high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know," jerking his hand
+angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the
+opposition was writing, "that you've given them the winning card."
+
+As he replied, in far-off tone, "I hope so," the candidate for Governor
+was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new cry for
+the opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of new
+understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them filing
+out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a last look,
+and as he turned then and looked from the window it was to see that
+the storm had sobbed itself away, and that along the driveway of the
+reformatory grounds the young trees--unbroken and unhurt--were rearing
+their heads in the way they should go.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA
+
+
+They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every
+hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the stairways
+and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's to the
+custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet. A
+long whistle had sounded through the building. There was magic in its
+note.
+
+"What's the matter with you fellows?" asked the attorney-general,
+swinging around in his chair.
+
+"Strike," declared one of the men, with becoming brevity.
+
+"Strike of what?"
+
+"Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One," replied the man, kindly gathering up
+a few tacks.
+
+"Never heard of it."
+
+"Organised last night," said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat.
+
+"Well I'll--" he paused expressively, then inquired: "What's your game?"
+
+"Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the State-house
+has refused our demands."
+
+"What are your demands?"
+
+"Double pay."
+
+"Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have double
+pay?"
+
+"Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get
+every carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon. Now
+you know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you ever get
+rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was anxious as
+anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this afternoon. But
+there's reason in all things."
+
+"Yes," agreed his auditor, "there is."
+
+The man looked at him a little doubtfully. "Our president--we elected
+Johnny McGuire president last night--went to the Governor this morning
+with our demands."
+
+The Governor's fellow official smiled--he knew the Governor pretty well.
+"And he turned you down?"
+
+The striker nodded. "But there's an election next fall; maybe the
+turning down will be turned around."
+
+"Maybe so--you never can tell. I don't know just what power
+Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's pretty
+solid, you know, with Labour as a whole."
+
+That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot uncertainly
+across the floor, and took courage from its splinters. "Well, there's
+one thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load of big guns show
+up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare floors, and pretty
+bum bare floors, on deck at this place."
+
+The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered,
+miserable boards. "They are pretty bum," he reflected. "I wonder," he
+added, as the man was half-way out of the door, "what Prince Ludwig will
+think of the American working-man when he arrives this afternoon?"
+
+"Just about as much," retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker, "as
+he does about American generosity. And he may think a few things," he
+added weightily, "about American independence."
+
+"Oh, he's sure to do that," agreed the attorney-general.
+
+He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all
+the offices, all talking of the one thing. "It was a straight case of
+hold-up," declared the Governor's secretary. "They supposed they had us
+on the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you see they
+just figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have these wretched
+floors for the reception this afternoon. They thought the Governor would
+argue the question, and then give in, or, at any rate, compromise. They
+never intended for one minute that the Prince should find bare floors
+here. And I rather think," he concluded, "that they feel a little done
+up about it themselves."
+
+"What's the situation?" asked a stranger within the gates.
+
+"It's like this," a newspaper reporter told him; "about a month ago
+there was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well knocked
+out with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things anyway,
+so they voted new ones. And I want to tell you"--he swelled with
+pride--"that the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great when we
+get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd cross the State
+on their way to the coast, and of course they were invited to stop. Last
+week Billy Patton--he's running the whole show--declined the invitation
+on account of lack of time, and then yesterday comes a telegram saying
+the Prince himself insisted on stopping. You know he's keen about Indian
+dope--and we've got Indian traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to
+make over his schedule to please the Prince, and of course we were all
+pretty tickled about it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't
+come until five o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer
+the Governor is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building
+should be put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole
+lot of fellows to work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but
+get together last night--well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old
+shack just now, isn't it?" and the reporter looked around ruefully.
+
+It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the
+members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd--and the
+indignation--in the rotunda.
+
+The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but
+Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The biggest
+furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. "Pipes burst
+last night," he said, "and they may not do a thing for us if we get
+mixed up in this. Sorry--but I can't let my customers get pneumonia."
+
+Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or
+another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and when
+the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda he was
+about as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. "It's the idea of
+lying down," he said. "I'd do anything--anything!--if I could only think
+what to do."
+
+A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. "By George,
+Governor," he burst forth, after a minute's deep study--"say--by Jove, I
+say, let's do it ourselves!"
+
+They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he
+looked hard at the young man.
+
+"Why not?" the young legislator went on. "It's a big job, but there are
+a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we afraid to
+tackle it here for?"
+
+Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. "Say, Weston," he
+said, "I'd give a lot--I tell you I'd give a lot--if we just could!"
+
+"Leave it to me!"--and he was lost in the crowd.
+
+The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston. He
+was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor smiled
+knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his different
+manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a few steps of the
+stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd.
+
+"Now look here," he began, after silence had been obtained, "this isn't
+a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a clear
+case of Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want to know
+is--Is the State going to lie down?"
+
+There were loud cries of "No!"--"Well, I should say not!"
+
+"Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't get
+them. Now the next thing I want to know is--What's the matter with us?"
+
+They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed.
+
+"It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use of
+pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes--I know, bigger
+building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle of
+carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my scheme
+is this--Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's office
+puts down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts down the
+Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate carpet--and we'll
+look after our little patch in the House!"
+
+"But you've got more fellows than anybody else," cried a member of the
+Senate.
+
+"Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors
+and stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her part,"--that
+brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them.
+
+"Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here; the
+building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at four--by
+his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we going to
+receive him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what Senator Arnold
+thinks about it."
+
+That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke.
+Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and
+tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to drive a tack
+or two." That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the
+atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for the State in more ways
+than one,"--Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil
+War--"and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's
+tacking down carpets I'm ready to go at. Just count on me for what
+little I'm worth."
+
+Someone started the cry for the Governor. "Prince Ludwig is being
+entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner," he began,
+with his characteristic directness in stating a situation. "By his own
+request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I must say that I,
+for one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like to tell him that we
+had a labour complication and couldn't get the carpets down. Speaking
+for myself, it is a great pleasure to inform you that the carpet in
+the Governor's office will be in proper shape by four o'clock this
+afternoon."
+
+That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard sufficiently
+to suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine o'clock motions to
+adjourn be entertained. "And as to the rest of you fellows," he cried,
+"I don't see what's to hinder your getting busy right now!"
+
+There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends
+and there were enemies; there were good, bad and--no, there were no
+indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like
+unity of action was born out of that sturdy cry--Every man his own
+carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove the
+first tack, but during the remainder of his life the Superintendent of
+Public Instruction also contended hotly for that honour. The rivalry
+as to who would do the best job, and get it done most quickly, became
+intense. Early in the day Harry Weston made the rounds of the building
+and announced a fine of one-hundred dollars for every wrinkle. There
+were pounded fingers and there were broken backs, but slowly, steadily
+and good-naturedly the State-house carpet was going down. It was a good
+deal bigger job than they had anticipated, but that only added zest
+to the undertaking. The news of how the State officials were employing
+themselves had spread throughout the city, and guards were stationed at
+every door to keep out people whose presence would work more harm than
+good. All assistance from women was courteously refused. "This is solemn
+business," said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some of
+the fair sex, "and the introduction of the feminine element might throw
+about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of time. And
+then some of the boys might feel called upon to put on their collars and
+coats."
+
+Stretch--stretch--stretch, and tack--tack--tack, all morning long it
+went on, for the State-house was large--oh, very large. There should
+have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for the novelty of the
+situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had never glowed before.
+Choice bits which at other times would fairly have gone on official
+record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the surfeit.
+Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them. Bridget
+Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the boarding-house
+across the street was a sort of unofficial official of the State, came
+over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the while calling down
+blessings on the head of every mother's son of them, and announcing in
+loud, firm tones that while all five of her boys belonged to the union
+she'd be after tellin' them what she thought of this day's work!
+
+It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be fair,
+the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He came over
+there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, and in a few
+hurried words--it was no day for conversation--was told what was going
+on. It was while standing out in the corridor watching the perspiring
+dignitaries that the idea of his duty came to him, and one reason he was
+sure he was right was the way in which it came to him in the light of
+a duty. Here was America in undress uniform! Here was--not a thing
+arranged for show, but absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig had
+come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was
+not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags
+and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches.
+But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country?
+Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was
+just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court
+was contending hotly for a better hammer. "It's an insult to expect any
+decent man to drive tacks with a hammer like this," he was saying.
+Here were men--real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When
+the Prince had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see
+anything but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits and other externals
+and non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow;
+he was hospitable--patriotic. He decided now in favour of the Prince.
+
+He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of
+the vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into
+confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the special
+train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next station.
+The stop was made that Senator Patton might receive a long telegram
+from Senator Bruner. "I figure it like this," the Senator told the
+vice-president. "They get to Boden at a quarter of one and were going
+to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a little while at
+Creyville. I've told Patton the situation, and that if he wants to do
+the right thing by the prince he'll cut out those stops and rush right
+through here. That will bring him in--well, they could make it at a
+quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it with Boden and Creyville.
+Oh, he'll do it all right."
+
+And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: "Too good to miss.
+Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water Street."
+
+"That's great!" cried the Senator. "Trust Billy Patton for falling
+in with a good thing. And he's right about missing the station crowd.
+Patton can always go you one better," he admitted, grinningly.
+
+They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like
+sophomores in college than like a United States Senator and a big
+railroad man. "You don't think there's any danger of their getting
+through too soon?" McVeigh kept asking, anxiously.
+
+"Not a bit," the Senator assured him. "They can't possibly make it
+before three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish. It's
+going to be a jolly rush at the last."
+
+They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State
+library building was across from the Capitol, and they were connected
+by tunnel. "I never saw before," said the Senator, "what that tunnel
+was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll get him in at
+the west door of the library--we can drive right up to it, you know, and
+then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a stone floor"--the Senator
+was chuckling with every sentence--"so I guess they won't be carpeting
+it. There's a little stairway running up from the tunnel---and say, we
+must telephone over and arrange about those keys. There'll be a good
+deal of climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It
+wouldn't be safe to try the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it
+taking somebody a bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store
+rooms; we'll not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the
+rotunda and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time;
+some one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't
+see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that for
+two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in pretty
+neat shape."
+
+It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the
+special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing
+a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at
+all formidable or unusual. "You've saved the country," Senator Patton
+whispered in an aside. "He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly
+up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would
+be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't looking for him."
+
+Senator Bruner beamed. "That's just the point. He's caught my idea
+exactly."
+
+It went without a hitch. "I feel," said the Prince, as they were
+hurrying him through the tunnel, "that I am a little boy who has run
+away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some
+band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a speech."
+
+They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed
+that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. The final
+skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators--coatless, tieless,
+collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finishing the
+stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House
+was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and
+a member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a
+disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most
+exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member
+who fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another
+were now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large
+wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men
+were standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply
+absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all
+open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of
+pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with
+"finishing touches." The Prince grew so excited about it all that they
+had to keep urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.
+
+"And I'll tell you," Senator Bruner was saying, "it isn't only because
+I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; but--well, you see
+America isn't the real America when she has on her best clothes and is
+trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared for
+your coming, and that means you haven't seen them as they are at all.
+Now here we are. This is us! You see that fellow hanging a picture down
+there? He's president of the First National Bank. Came over a little
+while ago, got next to the situation, and stayed to help. And--say, this
+is good! Notice that red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees?
+Well, he's president of the teamsters' union--figured so big in a strike
+here last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all
+so afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it
+themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.--There's the Governor. He's
+a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody--not even to get ready
+for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to make things come
+his way. Yes sir--this is the sure-enough thing. Here you have the
+boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from our dignity every day,
+but--see what I mean?"
+
+"I see," replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.
+
+"You know--say, dodge there! Move back! No--too late. The Governor's
+caught us. Look at him!"
+
+The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his hands
+on his back--he couldn't look up without doing that--and gave a long,
+steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator Patton waved;
+then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved. Other people were
+beginning to look up. "They're all on," laughed Patton, "let's go down."
+
+At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. "We
+worked all day to get in shape," grumbled Harry Weston, "and then you go
+ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to begin."
+
+But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good time
+that they were forced to concede the move had been a success. And he
+said to the Governor as he was leaving: "I see that the only way to see
+America is to see it when America is not seeing you."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES
+
+
+"Nine--ten--" The old clock paused as if in dramatic appreciation of
+the situation, and then slowly, weightily, it gave the final stroke,
+"Eleven!"
+
+The Governor swung his chair half-way round and looked the timepiece
+full in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last
+hour of his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would be
+Governor of the State. He sat there watching the movement of the minute
+hand.
+
+The sound of voices, some jovial, some argumentative, was borne to
+him through the open transom. People were beginning to gather in
+the corridors, and he could hear the usual disputes about tickets of
+admission to the inaugural.
+
+His secretary came in just then with some letters. "Could you see
+Whitefield now?" he asked. "He's waiting out here for you."
+
+The old man looked up wearily. "Oh, put him off, Charlie. Tell him you
+can talk to him about whatever it is he wants to know."
+
+The secretary had his hand on the knob, when the Governor added, "And,
+Charlie, keep everybody out, if you can. I'm--I've got a few private
+matters to go over."
+
+The younger man nodded and opened the door. He half closed it behind
+him, and then turned to say, "Except Francis. You'll want to see him if
+he comes in, won't you?"
+
+He frowned and moved impatiently as he answered, curtly: "Oh, yes."
+
+Francis! Of course it never occurred to any of them that he could close
+the door on Francis. He drummed nervously on his desk, then suddenly
+reached down and, opening one of the drawers, tossed back a few things
+and drew out a newspaper. He unfolded this and spread it out on the
+desk. Running across the page was the big black line, "Real Governors
+of Some Western States," and just below, the first of the series,
+and played up as the most glaring example of nominal and real in
+governorship, was a sketch of Harvey Francis.
+
+He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not
+contribute to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of spirit
+to be told at the end of things that he had, as a matter of fact, never
+been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was that, looking back
+on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one stepping from it, he
+could see just how true was the statement: "Harvey Francis has been
+the real Governor of the State; John Morrison his mouthpiece and
+figurehead."
+
+He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape. It
+may have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing him
+down, that carried him back across the years to one snowy afternoon when
+he stood up in a little red schoolhouse and delivered an oration on "The
+Responsibilities of Statesmanship." He smiled as the title came back to
+him, and yet--what had become of the spirit of that seventeen-year-old
+boy? He had meant it all then; he could remember the thrill with which
+he stood there that afternoon long before and poured out his sentiments
+regarding the sacredness of public trusts. What was it had kept him,
+when his chance came, from working out in his life the things he had so
+fervently poured into his schoolboy oration?
+
+Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and
+there was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's "Come in."
+
+"Indulging in a little meditation?"
+
+The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went on,
+easily: "Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding him up
+for tickets, and he--poor young fool--looks as though he wanted to jump
+in the river. Takes things tremendously to heart--Dorman does."
+
+He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of
+Dorman's. "Well," he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking
+about the room, "I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see
+I'll not have the _entree_ to the Governor's office by afternoon." He
+laughed, the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated to spend
+emotion uselessly.
+
+It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat looking at
+him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him: "Harvey Francis
+is the most dangerous type of boss politician. His is not the crude and
+vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is worth. He deals gently
+and tenderly with consciences. He knows how to get a man without fatally
+injuring that man's self-respect."
+
+The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to
+office as State Senator he had cherished old-fashioned ideas of serving
+his constituents and doing his duty. But the very first week Francis
+had asked one of those little favours of him, and, wishing to show his
+appreciation of support given him in his election, he had granted it.
+Then various courtesies were shown him; he was let in on a "deal," and
+almost before he realised it, it seemed definitely understood that he
+was a "Francis man."
+
+Francis roused himself and murmured: "Fools!--amateurs."
+
+"Leyman?" ventured the Governor.
+
+"Leyman and all of his crowd!"
+
+"And yet," the Governor could not resist, "in another hour this same
+fool will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won."
+
+Francis rose, impatiently. "For the moment. It won't be lasting. In any
+profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They can't keep
+it up. They don't know _how_. Oh, no," he insisted, cheerfully, "Leyman
+will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting on this contract
+business we've saved up for him getting in good work." He was moving
+toward the door. "Well," he concluded, with a curious little laugh, "see
+you upstairs."
+
+The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five minutes
+past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short time he must
+join the party in the anteroom of the House. But weariness had come over
+him. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
+
+He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his years.
+It was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one. People who
+wanted to say nice things of the Governor called him pleasant or genial
+or kindly. Even the men in the appointive offices did not venture to say
+he had much force.
+
+He felt it to-day as he never had before. He had left no mark; he had
+done nothing, stood for nothing. Never once had his personality made
+itself felt. He had signed the documents; Harvey Francis had always
+"suggested"--the term was that man's own--the course to be pursued. And
+the "suggestions" had ever dictated the policy that would throw the most
+of influence or money to that splendidly organised machine that Francis
+controlled.
+
+With an effort he shook himself free from his cheerless retrospect.
+There was a thing or two he wanted to get from his desk, and his time
+was growing very short. He found what he wanted, and then, just as he
+was about to close the drawer, his eye fell on a large yellow envelope.
+
+He closed the drawer; but only to reopen it, take out the envelope and
+remove the documents it contained; and then one by one he spread them
+out before him on the desk.
+
+He sat there looking down at them, wondering whether a man had ever
+stepped into office with as many pitfalls laid for him. During the last
+month they had been busy about the old State-house setting traps for the
+new Governor. The "machine" was especially jubilant over those contracts
+the Governor now had spread out before him. The convict labour question
+was being fought out in the State just then--organised labour demanding
+its repeal; country taxpayers insisting that it be maintained. Under
+the system the penitentiary had become self-supporting. In November the
+contracts had come up for renewal; but on the request of Harvey Francis
+the matter had been put off from time to time, and still remained open.
+Just the week before, Francis had put it to the Governor something like
+this:
+
+"Don't sign those contracts. We can give some reason for holding them
+off, and save them up for Leyman. Then we can see that the question is
+agitated, and whatever he does about it is going to prove a bad thing
+for him. If he doesn't sign, he's in bad with the country fellows, the
+men who elected him. Don't you see? At the end of his administration the
+penitentiary, under you self-sustaining, will have cost them a pretty
+penny. We've got him right square!"
+
+The clock was close to twenty minutes of twelve, and he concluded that
+he would go out and join some of his friends he could hear in the other
+room. It would never do for him to go upstairs with a long, serious
+face. He had had his day, and now Leyman was to have his, and if the new
+Governor did better than the old one, then so much the better for the
+State. As for the contracts, Leyman surely must understand that there
+was a good deal of rough sailing on political waters.
+
+But it was not easy to leave the room. Walking to the window he again
+stood there looking out across the snow, and once more he went back now
+at the end of things to that day in the little red schoolhouse which
+stood out as the beginning.
+
+He was called back from that dreaming by the sight of three men coming
+up the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things Francis and
+the rest of them would say about the new Governor's arriving on foot.
+Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be done away with--but
+one would suppose he would at least dignify the occasion by arriving in
+a carriage. Francis would see that the opposing papers handled it as a
+grand-stand play to the country constituents.
+
+And then, forgetful of Francis, and of the approaching ceremony, the old
+man stood there by the window watching the young man who was coming
+up to take his place. How firmly the new Governor walked! With what
+confidence he looked ahead at the State-house. The Governor--not
+considering the inconsistency therein--felt a thrill of real pride in
+thought of the State's possessing a man like that.
+
+Standing though he did for the things pitted against him, down in his
+heart John Morrison had all along cherished a strong admiration for
+that young man who, as District Attorney of the State's metropolis,
+had aroused the whole country by his fearlessness and unquestionable
+sincerity. Many a day he had sat in that same office reading what the
+young District Attorney was doing in the city close by--the fight he was
+making almost single-handed against corruption, how he was striking in
+the high places fast and hard as in the low, the opposition, threats,
+and time after time there had been that same secret thrill at thought of
+there being a man like that. And when the people of the State, convinced
+that here was one man who would serve _them_, began urging the District
+Attorney for chief executive, Governor Morrison, linked with the
+opposing forces, doing all he could to bring about Leyman's defeat,
+never lost that secret feeling for the young man, who, unbacked by any
+organisation, struck blow after blow at the machine that had so long
+dominated the State, winning in the end that almost incomprehensible
+victory.
+
+The new Governor had passed from sight, and a moment later his voice
+came to the ear of the lonely man in the executive office. Some friends
+had stopped him just outside the Governor's door with a laughing "Here's
+hoping you'll do as much for us in the new office as you did in the
+old," and the new Governor replied, buoyantly: "Oh, but I'm going to do
+a great deal more!"
+
+The man within the office smiled a little wistfully and with a sigh
+sat down before his desk. The clock now pointed to thirteen minutes of
+twelve; they would be asking for him upstairs. There were some scraps of
+paper on his desk and he threw them into the waste-basket, murmuring: "I
+can at least give him a clean desk."
+
+He pushed his chair back sharply. A clean desk! The phrase opened to
+deeper meanings.... Why not clean it up in earnest? Why not give him a
+square deal--a real chance? Why not _sign the contracts_?
+
+Again he looked at the clock--not yet ten minutes of twelve. For
+ten minutes more he was Governor of the State! Ten minutes of real
+governorship! Might it not make up a little, both to his own soul and to
+the world, for the years he had weakly served as another man's puppet?
+The consciousness that he could do it, that it was not within the power
+of any man to stop him, was intoxicating. Why not break the chains now
+at the last, and just before the end taste the joy of freedom?
+
+He took up his pen and reached for the inkwell. With trembling, excited
+fingers he unfolded the contracts. He dipped his pen into the ink; he
+even brought it down on the paper; and then the tension broke. He sank
+back in his chair, a frightened, broken old man.
+
+"Oh, no," he whispered; "no, not now. It's--" his head went lower and
+lower until at last it rested on the desk--"too late."
+
+When he raised his head and grew more steady, it was only to see the
+soundness of his conclusion. He had not the right now in the final
+hour to buy for himself a little of glory. It would only be a form of
+self-indulgence. They would call it, and perhaps rightly, hush money
+to his conscience. They would say he went back on them only when he was
+through with them. Oh, no, there would be no more strength in it than
+in the average deathbed repentance. He would at least step out with
+consistency.
+
+He folded the contracts and put them back into the envelope. The minute
+hand now pointed to seven minutes to twelve. Some one was tapping at
+the door, and the secretary appeared to say they were waiting for him
+upstairs. He replied that he would be there in a minute, hoping that his
+voice did not sound as strange to the other man as it had to himself.
+
+Slowly he walked to the door leading into the corridor. This, then, was
+indeed the end; this the final stepping down from office! After years of
+what they called public service, he was leaving it all now with a sense
+of defeat and humiliation. A lump was in the old man's throat; his
+eyes were blurred. "But you, Frank Leyman," he whispered passionately,
+turning as if for comfort to the other man, "it will be different with
+you! They'll not get you--not you!"
+
+It lifted him then as a great wave--this passionate exultation that here
+was one man whom corruption could not claim as her own. Here was one
+human soul not to be had for a price! There flitted before him again a
+picture of that seventeen-year-old boy in the little red schoolhouse,
+and close upon it came the picture of this other young man against whom
+all powers of corruption had been turned in vain. With the one it
+had been the emotional luxury of a sentiment, a thing from life's
+actualities apart; with the other it was a force that dominated all
+things else, a force over which circumstances and design could not
+prevail. "I know all about it," he was saying. "I know about it all! I
+know how easy it is to fall! I know how fine it is to stand!"
+
+His sense of disappointment in his own empty, besmirched career was
+almost submerged then as he projected himself on into the career of
+this other man who within the hour would come there in his stead. How
+glorious was his opportunity, how limitless his possibilities, and how
+great to his own soul the satisfaction the years would bring of having
+done his best!
+
+It had all changed now. That passionate longing to vindicate himself,
+add one thing honourable and fine to his own record, had altogether left
+him, and with the new mood came new insight and what had been an impulse
+centred to a purpose.
+
+It pointed to three minutes to twelve as he walked over to his desk,
+unfolded the contracts, and one by one affixed his signature. In a dim
+way he was conscious of how the interpretation of his first motive would
+be put upon it, how they would call him traitor and coward; but that
+mattered little. The very fact that the man for whom he was doing
+it would never see it as it was brought him no pang. And when he had
+carefully blotted the papers, affixed the seal and put them away, there
+was in his heart the clean, sweet joy of a child because he had been
+able to do this for a man in whom he believed.
+
+The band was playing the opening strains as he closed the door behind
+him and started upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+"OUT THERE"
+
+
+The old man held the picture up before him and surveyed it with admiring
+but disapproving eye. "No one that comes along this way'll have the
+price for it," he grumbled. "It'll just set here 'till doomsday."
+
+It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the shop.
+A persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his stock let
+the old man have it for what he called a song. It was only a little
+out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing of pictures.
+The old man looked around at his views of the city, his pictures of cats
+and dogs and gorgeous young women, his flaming bits of landscape. "Don't
+belong in here," he fumed, "any more 'an I belong in Congress."
+
+And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. He seemed all
+at once to be lifted from his realm of petty tradesman to that of patron
+of art. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he shuffled about
+pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture.
+
+It is not fair to the picture to try repainting it in words, for words
+reduce it to a lithograph. It was a bit of a pine forest, through which
+there exuberantly rushed an unspoiled little mountain stream. Chromos
+and works of art may deal with kindred subjects. There is just that one
+difference of dealing with them differently. "It ain't what you _see_,
+so much as what you can guess is there," was the thought it brought to
+the old man who was dusting it. "Now this frame ain't three feet long,
+but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if that timber kept right on for a
+hundred miles. I kind of suspect it's on a mountain--looks cool enough
+in there to be on a mountain. Wish I was there. Bet they never see no
+such days as we do in Chicago. Looks as though a man might call his soul
+his own--out there."
+
+He began removing some views of Lincoln Park and some corpulent Cupids
+in order to make room in the window for the new picture. When he went
+outside to look at it he shook his head severely and hastened in to take
+away some ardent young men and women, some fruit and flowers and fish
+which he had left thinking they might "set it off." It was evident that
+the new picture did not need to be "set off." "And anyway," he told
+himself, in vindication of entrusting all his goods to one bottom, "I
+might as well take them out, for the new one makes them look so kind of
+sick that no one would have them, anyhow." Then he went back to mounting
+views with the serenity of one who stands for the finer things.
+
+His clamorous little clock pointed to a quarter of six when he finally
+came back to the front of the store. It was time to begin closing up
+for the night, but for the minute he stood there watching the crowd
+of workers coming from the business district not far away over to the
+boarding-house region, a little to the west. He watched them as they
+came by in twos and threes and fours: noisy people and worn-out people,
+people hilarious and people sullen, the gaiety and the weariness, the
+acceptance and the rebellion of humanity--he saw it pass. "As if any of
+_them_ could buy it," he pronounced severely, adding, contemptuously,
+"or wanted to."
+
+The girl was coming along by herself. He watched her as she crossed to
+his side of the street, thinking it was too bad for a poor girl to be
+as tired as that. She was dressed like many of the rest of them, and
+yet she looked different--like the picture and the chromo. She turned an
+indifferent glance toward the window, and then suddenly she stood there
+very still, and everything about her seemed to change. "For all the
+world," he told himself afterward, "as if she'd found a long-lost
+friend, and was 'fraid to speak for fear it was too good to be true."
+
+She did seem afraid to speak--afraid to believe. For a minute she stood
+there right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the picture. And
+when she came toward the window it was less as if coming than as if
+drawn. What she really seemed to want to do was to edge away; yet she
+came closer, as close as she could, her eyes never leaving the picture,
+and then fear, or awe, or whatever it was made her look so queer
+gave way to wonder--that wondering which is ready to open the door to
+delight. She looked up and down the street as one rubbing one's eyes to
+make sure of a thing, and then it all gave way to a joy which lighted
+her pale little face like--"Well, like nothing I ever saw before," was
+all the old man could say of it. "Why, she'd never know if the whole
+fire department was to run right up here on the sidewalk," he gloated.
+Just then she drew herself up for a long breath. "See?" he chuckled,
+delightedly. "She knows it has a smell!" She looked toward the door,
+but shook her head. "Knows she can't pay the price," he interpreted her.
+Then, she stepped back and looked at the number above the door. "Coming
+again," he made of that; "ain't going to run no chances of losing the
+place." And then for a long time she stood there before the picture, so
+deeply and so strangely quiet that he could not translate her. "I can't
+just get the run of it," was his bewildered conclusion. "I don't see why
+it should make anybody act like that." And yet he must have understood
+more than he knew, for suddenly he was seeing her through a blur of
+tears.
+
+As he began shutting up for the night he was so excited about the way
+she looked when she finally turned away that it never occurred to him to
+be depressed about her inability to pay the price.
+
+He kept thinking of her, wondering about her, during the next day. At
+a little before six he took up his station near the front window.
+Once more the current of workers flowed by. "I'm an old fool," he told
+himself, irritated at the wait; "as if it makes any difference whether
+she comes or not--when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just as big a
+fool as I am--liking it when she can't have it, only I'm the biggest
+fool of all--caring whether she likes it or not." But just then the
+girl passed quickly by a crowd of girls who were ahead of her and came
+hurrying across the street. She was walking fast, and looked excited and
+anxious. "Afraid it might be gone," he said--adding, grimly: "Needn't
+worry much about that."
+
+She came up to the picture as some people would enter a church. And yet
+the joy which flooded her face is not well known to churches. "I'll tell
+you what it's like"--the old man's thoughts stumbling right into the
+heart of it--"it's like someone that's been wandering round in a desert
+country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's _thirsty_--she's
+drinking it in--she can't get enough of it. It's--it's the water of life
+to her!" And then, ashamed of saying a thing that sounded as if it were
+out of a poem, he shook his shoulders roughly as if to shake off a piece
+of sentiment unbecoming his age and sex.
+
+He went to the door and watched her as she passed away. "I'll bet she'd
+never tip the scale to one hundred pounds," he decided. "Looks like a
+good wind could blow her away." She stooped a little and just as she
+passed from sight he saw that she was coughing.
+
+Then the old man made what he prided himself was a great deduction.
+"She's been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her back
+for a minute, and when she gets the breath of it she ain't so homesick."
+
+All through those July days he watched each night for the frail-looking
+little girl who liked the picture of the pines. She would always come
+hurrying across the street in the same eager way, an eagerness close
+to the feverish. But the tenseness would always relax as she saw the
+picture. "She never looks quite so wilted down when she goes away as
+she does when she comes," the old man saw. "Upon my soul, I believe she
+really _goes_ there. It's--oh, Lord"--irritated at getting beyond his
+depth--"_I_ don't know!"
+
+He never called it anything now but "Her Picture." One day at just ten
+minutes of six he took it out of the window. "Seems kind of mean," he
+admitted, "but I just want to find out how much she does think of it."
+
+And when he found out he told himself that of all the mean men God had
+ever let live, he was the meanest. The girl came along in the usual
+hurried, anxious fashion. And when she saw the empty window he thought
+for a minute she was going to sink right down there on the sidewalk.
+Everything about her seemed to give way--as if something from which she
+had been drawing had been taken from her. The luminousness gone from
+her face, there were cruel revelations. "Blast my _soul!_" the old man
+muttered angrily, not far from tearfully. She looked up and down the
+noisy, dirty, parched street, then back to the empty window. For a
+minute she just stood there--that was the worst minute of all. And
+then--accepting--she turned and walked slowly away, walked as the
+too-weary and the too-often disappointed walk.
+
+It was with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to replace
+the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought of himself:
+more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse, meaner than the
+man who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be loved than the man who
+would kick over the child's play-house, only to be compared with the
+brute who would snatch the cup of water from the dying--such were the
+verdicts he pronounced. He thought perhaps she would come back, and
+stayed there until almost seven, waiting for her, though pretending
+it was necessary that he take down and then put up again the front
+curtains. All the next day he was restless and irritable. As if to make
+up to the girl for the contemptible trick he had played he spent a whole
+hour that afternoon arranging a tapestry background for the picture.
+"She'll think," he told himself, "that this was why it was out, and
+won't be worried about its being gone again. This will just be a little
+sign to her that it's here to stay."
+
+He began his watch that night at half-past five. After fifteen minutes
+the thought came to him that she might be so disheartened she would go
+home by another street. He became so gloomily certain she would do this
+that he was jubilant when he finally saw her coming along on the other
+side--coming purposelessly, shorn of that eagerness which had always
+been able, for the moment, to vanquish the tiredness. But when she came
+to the place where she always crossed the street she only stood there an
+instant and then, a little more slowly, a little more droopingly, walked
+on. She had given up! She was not coming over!
+
+But she did come. After she had gone a few steps she hesitated again and
+this time started across the street. "That's right," approved the old
+man, "never give up the ship!"
+
+She passed the store as if she were not going to look in; she seemed
+trying not to look, but her head turned--and she saw the picture. First
+her body seemed to stiffen, and then something--he couldn't make out
+whether or not it was a sob--shook her, and as she came toward the
+picture on her white, tired face were the tears.
+
+"Don't you worry," he murmured affectionately to her retreating form,
+"it won't never be gone again."
+
+The very next week he was put to the test. The kind of lady who did
+not often pass along that street entered the shop and asked to see the
+picture in the window. He looked at her suspiciously. Then he frowned at
+her, as he stood there, fumbling. _Her_ picture! What would she think?
+What would she do? Then a crafty smile stole over his face and he walked
+to the window and got the picture. "The price of this picture, madame,"
+he said, haughtily, "is forty dollars,"--adding to himself, "That'll fix
+her."
+
+But the lady made no comment, and stood there holding the picture up
+before her. "I will take it," she said, quietly.
+
+He stared at her stupidly. Forty dollars! Then it must be that the
+picture was better than the young man had known. "Will you wrap it,
+please?" she asked. "I will take it with me."
+
+He turned to the back of the store. Forty dollars!--he kept repeating
+it in dazed fashion. And they had raised the rent on him, and the
+papers said coal would be high that winter--those facts seemed to have
+something to do with forty dollars. _Forty dollars!_--it was hammering
+at him, overwhelmed him, too big a sum to contend with. With long, grim
+stroke he tore off the wrapping paper; stoically he began folding it.
+But something was the matter. The paper would not go on right. Three
+times he took it off, and each time he could not help looking down at
+the picture of the pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a
+little farther; each time it seemed bigger--bigger even than forty
+dollars; it seemed as if it _knew things_--things more important than
+even coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the
+forest faded away into its own shadowy distances, and in its place was
+a noisy, crowded, sun-baked street, and across the street was eagerly
+hurrying an anxious little girl, a frail little wisp of a girl who
+probably should not be crossing hot, noisy streets at all--then a
+light in tired eyes, a smile upon a worn face, relief as from a
+cooling breeze--and _anyway_, suddenly furious at the lady, furious at
+himself--"he'd be gol-_darned_ if it wasn't _her_ picture!"
+
+He walked firmly back to the front of the store.
+
+"I forgot at first," he said, brusquely, "that this picture belongs to
+someone else."
+
+The lady looked at him in astonishment. "I do not understand," she said.
+
+"There's nothing to understand," he fairly shouted, "except that it
+belongs to someone else!"
+
+She turned away, but came back to him. "I will give you fifty dollars
+for it," she said, in her quiet way.
+
+"Madame," he thundered at her, "you can stand there and offer me five
+hundred dollars, and I'm here to tell you that this picture is not for
+sale. Do you _hear_?"
+
+"I certainly do," replied the lady, and walked from the store.
+
+He was a long time in cooling off. "I tell you," he stormed to a
+very blue Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, "it's hers--it's
+_hern_--and anybody that comes along here with any nonsense is just
+going to hear from _me_!"
+
+In the days which followed he often thought to go out and speak to her,
+but perhaps the old man had a restraining sense of values. He planned
+some day to go out and tell her the picture was hers, but that seemed
+a silly thing to tell her, for surely she knew it anyway. He worried a
+good deal about her cough, which seemed to be getting worse, and he had
+it all figured out that when cold weather came he would have her come in
+where it was warm, and take her look in there. He felt that he knew
+all about her, and though he did not know her name, though he had never
+heard her speak one word, in some ways he felt closer to her than to any
+one else in the world.
+
+Yet if the old man had known just how it was with the girl it is
+altogether unlikely that he would have understood. It would have
+mystified and disappointed him had he known that she had never seen a
+pine forest or a mountain in her life. Indeed there was a great deal
+about the little girl which the old man, together with almost all the
+rest of the world, would not have understood.
+
+Not that the surface facts about her were either incomprehensible or
+interesting. The tale of her existence would sound much like that of
+a hundred other girls in the same city. Inquiry about her would have
+developed the facts that she did typewriting for a land company, that
+she did not seem to have any people, and lived at a big boarding-house.
+At the boarding-house they would have told you that she was a nice
+little thing, quiet as a mouse, and that it was too bad she had to work,
+for she seemed more than half sick. There the story would have rested,
+and the real things about her would not have been touched.
+
+She worked for the Chicago branch of a big Northwestern land company.
+They dealt in the lands of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The
+things she sat at her typewriter and wrote were of the wonders of that
+great country: the great timber lands, the valleys and hills, towering
+mountain peaks and rushing rivers. She typewrote "literature" telling
+how there was a chance for every man out there, how the big, exhaustless
+land was eager to yield of its store to all who would come and seek. Day
+after day she wrote those things telling how the sick were made well
+and the poor were made rich, how it was a land of indescribable wonders
+which the feeble pen could not hope to portray.
+
+And the girl with whom almost everything in life had gone wrong came to
+think of Out There as the place where everything was right. It was the
+far country where there was no weariness nor loneliness, the land where
+one did not grow tired, where one never woke up in the morning too tired
+to get up, where no one went to bed at night too tired to go to sleep.
+The street-cars did not ring their gongs so loud Out There, the newsboys
+had pleasant voices, and there were no elevated trains. It was a pure,
+high land which knew no smoke nor dirt, a land where great silences drew
+one to the heart of peace, where the people in the next room did not
+come in and bang things around late at night. Out There was a wide land
+where buildings were far apart and streets were not crowded. Even the
+horses did not grow tired Out There. Oh, it was a land where dreams
+came true--a beautiful land where no one ate prunes, where the gravy was
+never greasy and the potatoes never burned. It was a land of flowers and
+birds and lovely people--a land of wealth and health and many smiles.
+
+Her imagination made use of it all. She knew how men were reclaiming the
+desert of Idaho, of the tremendous undeveloped wealth of what had been
+an almost undiscovered State. She thrilled to the poetry of irrigation.
+Often when hot and tired and dusty her fancy would follow the little
+mountain stream from its birth way up in the clouds, her imagination
+rushing with it through sweetening forest and tumbling with it down
+cooling rocks until finally strong, bold, wise men guided it to the
+desert which had yearned for it through all the years, and the grateful
+desert smiled rich smiles of grain and flowers. She could make it more
+like a story than any story in any book. And she could always breathe
+better in thinking of the pine forests of Oregon. There was something
+liberating--expanding--in just the thought of them. She dreamed cooling
+dreams about them, dreams of their reaching farther than one's fancy
+could reach, big widening dreams of their standing there serene in the
+consciousness of their own immensity. They stood to her for a beautiful
+idea: the idea of space, of room--room for everybody, and then much more
+room! Even one's understanding grew big as one turned to them.
+
+And she loved to listen for the Pacific Ocean, coming from
+incomprehensible distances and unknowable countries, now rushing with
+passion to the wild coast of Oregon, again stealing into the Washington
+harbours. She loved to address the letters to Portland, Seattle,
+Spokane, Tacoma--all those pulsing, vivid cities of a country of big
+chances and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle, a city builded
+upon many hills--how wonderful that a city should be builded upon
+hills!--in Chicago there was nothing that could possibly be thought of
+as a hill. And she loved to shut her eyes and let the great mountain
+peak grow in the distance, as one could see it from Portland--how noble
+a thing to see a mountain peak from a city! Sometimes she trembled
+before that consciousness of a mountain. Often when so tired she
+scarcely knew what she was doing she found she was saying her prayers
+to a mountain. Indeed, Out There seemed the place to send one's
+prayers--for was it not a place where prayers were answered?
+
+During that summer when the West was overrun with tourists who grumbled
+about everything from the crowded trains to the way in which sea-foods
+were served, this little girl sat in one of the hot office buildings of
+Chicago and across the stretch of miles drew to herself the spirit of
+that country of coming days. Thousands rode in Pullman cars along the
+banks of the Columbia--saw, and felt not; she sat before her typewriter
+in a close, noisy room and heard the cooling rush of waters and got the
+freeing message of the pines. In some rare moments when she rose from
+the things about her to the things of which she dreamed she possessed
+the whole great land, and as the sultry days sapped of her meagre
+strength, and the bending over the typewriter cramped an already too
+cramped chest she clung with a more and more passionate tenacity to the
+bigness and the beauty and rightness of things Out There. And it was so
+kind to her--that land of deep breaths and restoring breezes. It never
+shut her out. It always kept itself bigger and more wonderful than one
+could ever hope to fancy it.
+
+And the night she found the picture she knew that it was all really
+so. That was why it was so momentous a night. The picture was a dream
+visualised--a dreamer vindicated. They had pictures in the office, of
+course--some pictures trying to tell of that very kind of a place. But
+those were just pictures; this _proved_ it, told what it meant. It
+told that she had been right, and there was joy in knowing that she had
+known. She clung to the picture as one would to that which proves as
+real all one has long held dear, loved it as the dreamer loves that
+which secures him in his dreaming.
+
+She came to think of it as her own abiding place. Often when too tired
+for long wings of fancy she would just sink down in the deep, cool
+shadows of the pines, beside the little river which one knew so well was
+the gift of distant snows. It rested her most of all; it quieted her.
+
+She smiled sometimes to think how no one in the office knew about
+it, wondered what they would think if they knew. Often she would find
+someone in the office looking at her strangely. She used to wonder about
+it a little.
+
+And then one day Mr. Osborne sent for her to come into his office. He
+acted so queerly. As she came in and sat down near his desk he swung his
+chair around and sat there with his back to her. After that he got up
+and walked to the window.
+
+The head stenographer had complained of her cough. She said she did not
+think it right either to the girl or to the rest of them for her to be
+there. She said she hated to speak of it, but could not stand it any
+longer. That had been the week before, and ever since he had been
+putting it off. But now he could put it off no longer; the head
+stenographer was valuable, and besides he knew that she was right.
+
+And so he told her--this was all he could think of just then--that they
+were contemplating some changes in the office, and for a time would have
+less desk room. If he sent her machine to her home, would she be willing
+to do her work there for a while? Hers was the kind of work that could
+be done at home.
+
+She was sorry, for she wondered if she could find a place in her room
+for the typewriter, and it did not seem there would be air enough there
+to last her all day long. And she had grown fond of the office, with its
+"literature" and pictures and maps and the men who had just come from
+Out There coming in every once in a while. It was a bond--a place to
+touch realities. But of course there was nothing for her to do but
+comply, and she made no comment on the arrangement.
+
+She pushed her chair back and rose to go. "Are you alone in the world?"
+he asked abruptly then,
+
+"Yes; I--oh yes."
+
+It was too much for him. "How would you like," he asked recklessly, "to
+have me get you transportation out West?"
+
+She sank back in her chair. Every particle of colour had left her
+face. Her deep eyes had grown almost wild. "Oh," she gasped--"you can't
+mean--you don't think--"
+
+"You wouldn't want to go?"
+
+"I mean"--it was but a whisper--"it would be--too wonderful."
+
+"You would like it then?"
+
+She only nodded; but her lips were parted, her eyes glowing. He wondered
+why he had never seen before how different looking and--yes, beautiful,
+in a strange kind of way--she was.
+
+"I see you have a cold," he said, "and I think you would get along
+better out there. I'll see if I can fix up the transportation, and get
+something with our people in one of the towns that would be good for
+you."
+
+She leaned back in her chair and sat there smiling at him. Something in
+the smile made him say, abruptly: "That's all; you may go now, and I'll
+send a boy with your machine."
+
+She walked through the streets as one who had already found another
+country. More than one turned to look at her. She reached her room at
+last and pulling her one little chair up to the window sat staring out
+across the alley at the brick wall across from her. But she was not
+seeing a narrow alley and a high brick wall. She was seeing rushing
+rivers and mighty forests and towering peaks. She leaned back in her
+chair--an indulgence less luxurious than it sounds, as the chair only
+reached the middle of her back--and looked out at the high brick wall
+and saw a snow-clad range of hills. But she was tired; this tremendous
+idea was too much for her; the very wonder of it was exhausting. She lay
+down on her bed--radiant, but languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters.
+At first it was only someone filling the bath-tub, but after a while it
+was the little stream which flowed through her forest. And then she was
+not lying on a lumpy bed; she was sinking down under pine trees--all so
+sweet and still and cool. But an awful thing was happening!--the forest
+was on fire--it was choking and burning her! She awoke to find smoke
+from the building opposite pouring into her room; flies were buzzing
+about, and her face and hands were hot.
+
+She did little work in the next few days. It was hard to go on with the
+same work when waiting for a thing which was to make over one's whole
+life. The stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great languor to
+come over her. And her chair was not right for her typewriter, and the
+smoke came in all the time. Strangely enough Out There seemed farther
+away. Sometimes she could not go there at all; she supposed it was
+because she was really going.
+
+At the close of the week she went to the office with her work. She was
+weak with excitement as she stepped into the elevator. Would Mr. Osborne
+have the transportation for her? Would he tell her when she was to go?
+
+But she did not see Mr. Osborne at all. When she asked for him the clerk
+just replied carelessly that he was not there. She was going to ask if
+he had left any message for her, but the telephone rang then and the
+man to whom she was talking turned away. Someone was sitting at her
+old desk, and they did not seem to be making the changes they had
+contemplated; everyone in the office seemed very busy and uncaring, and
+because she knew her chin was trembling she turned away.
+
+She had a strange feeling as she left the office: as if standing on
+ground which quivered, an impulse to reach out her hand and tell someone
+that something must be done right away, a dreadful fear that she was
+going to cry out that she could not wait much longer.
+
+All at once she found that she was crossing the street, and saw ahead
+the little art store with the wonderful picture which proved it was all
+really so. In the same old way, her step quickened. It would show her
+again that it was all just as she had thought it was, and if that were
+true, then it must be true also that Mr. Osborne was going to get her
+the transportation. It would prove that everything was all right.
+
+But a cruel thing happened. It failed her. It was just as beautiful--but
+something a long way off, impossible to reach. Try as she would, she
+could not get _into_ it, as she used to. It was only a picture; a
+beautiful picture of some pine trees. And they were very far away, and
+they had nothing at all to do with her.
+
+Through the window, at the back of the store, she saw the old man
+standing with his back to her. She thought of going in and asking to sit
+down--she wanted to sit down--but perhaps he would say something cross
+to her--he was such a queer looking old man--and she knew she would
+cry if anything cross was said to her. That he had watched for her each
+night, that he had tried and tried to think of a way of finding her,
+that he would have been more glad to see her than to see anyone in the
+world, would have been kinder to her than anyone on earth would have
+been--those were the things she did not know. And so--more lonely than
+she had ever been before--she turned away.
+
+On Monday she felt she could wait no longer. It did not seem that it
+would be _safe_. She got ready to go to see Mr. Osborne, but the getting
+ready tired her so that she sat a long time resting, looking out at the
+high brick wall beyond which there was nothing at all. She was counting
+the blocks, thinking of how many times she would have to cross the
+street. But just then it occurred to her that she could telephone.
+
+When she came back upstairs she crept up on the bed and lay there very
+still. The boy had said that Mr. Osborne was away and would be gone
+two weeks. No one in the office had heard him say anything about her
+transportation.
+
+All through the day she lay there, and what she saw before her was a
+narrow alley and a high brick wall. She had lost her mountains and her
+forests and her rivers and her lakes. She tried to go out to them in the
+same old way--but she could not get beyond the high brick wall. She was
+shut in. She tried to draw them to her, but they could not come across
+the wall. It shut them out. She tried to pray to the great mountain
+which one could see from Portland. But even prayers could get no farther
+than the wall.
+
+Late that afternoon, because she was so shut in that she was choking,
+because she was consumed with the idea that she must claim her country
+now or lose it forever, she got up and started for the picture. It was
+a long, long way to go, and dreadful things were in between--people who
+would bump against her, hot, uneven streets, horses that might run over
+her--but she must make the journey. She must make it because the things
+that she lived on were slipping from her--and she was choking--sinking
+down--and all alone.
+
+Step by step, never knowing just how her foot was going to make the next
+step, sick with the fear that people were going to run into her--the
+streets going up and down, the buildings round and round, she did
+go; holding to the window casings for the last few steps--each step
+a terrible chasm which she was never sure she was going to be able to
+cross--she was there at last. And in the window as she stood there,
+swayingly, was a dark, blurred thing which might have been anything at
+all. She tried to remember why she had come. What _was_ it--? And then
+she was sinking down into an abyss.
+
+That the hemorrhage came then, that the old man came out and found her
+and tenderly took her in, that he had her taken where she should have
+been taken long before, that the doctors said it was too late, and that
+soon their verdict was confirmed--those are the facts which would seem
+to tell the rest of the story. But deep down beneath facts rests truth,
+and the truth is that this is a story with the happiest kind of a happy
+ending. What facts would call the breeze from an electric fan was in
+truth the gracious breath of the pines. And when the nurse said "She's
+going," she was indeed going, but to a land of great spaces and benign
+breezes, a land of deep shadows and rushing waters. For a most wondrous
+thing had happened. She had called to the mountain, and the mountain had
+heard her voice; and because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew
+her to itself, across high brick walls and past millions of hurrying,
+noisy people--oh, a most triumphant flight! And the mountain said--"I
+give you this whole great land. It is yours because you have loved it so
+well. Hills and valleys and rivers and forests and lakes--it is all for
+you." Yes, the nurse was quite right; she was going: going for a long
+sweet sleep beneath trees of many shadows, beside clear waters which had
+come from distant snows--really going "Out There."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE
+
+
+The Governor was sitting alone in his private office with an open letter
+in his hand. He was devoutly and gloomily wishing that some other man
+was just then in his shoes. The Governor had not devoted a large portion
+of his life to nursing a desire of that nature, for he was a man in
+whose soul the flame of self-satisfaction glowed cheeringly; but just
+now there were reasons, and he deemed them ample, for deploring that he
+had been made chief executive of his native State.
+
+Had he chosen to take you into his confidence--a thing the Governor
+would assuredly choose not to do--he would have told you there were
+greater things in the world than the governorship of that State. He
+might have suggested a seat in the Senate of the United States as one
+of those things. It was of the United States Senate his Excellency
+was thinking as he sat there alone moodily deploring the gubernatorial
+shoes.
+
+The senior Senator was going to die. He differed therein from his
+fellows in that he was going to die soon, almost immediately. He had
+reached the tottering years even at the time of his reelection, and it
+had never been supposed that his life would outstretch his term. He had
+been sent back, not for another six years of service, but to hold out
+the leader of the Boxers, as they called themselves--the younger and
+unorthodox element of the party in the State, an element growing to
+dangerous proportions. It was only by returning the aged Senator, whom
+they held it would be brutal to turn down after a life of service to
+the party, that the "machine" won the memorable fight of the previous
+winter.
+
+From the viewpoint of the machine, the Governor was the senior Senator's
+logical successor. Had it not been for the heavy inroads of the Boxers,
+his Excellency would even then have been sitting in the Senate Chamber
+at Washington. It had not been considered safe to nominate the Governor.
+Had his supporters conceded that the time was at hand for a change,
+there would have been a general clamour for the leader of the
+Boxers--Huntington, undeniably the popular man of the State. And so
+they concocted a beautiful sentiment about "rounding out the veteran's
+career," and letting him "die with his boots on"; and through the
+omnipotence of sentiment, they won.
+
+Down in his heart the venerable Senator was not seeking to die with his
+boots on. He would have preferred sitting in a large chair before the
+fire and reading quietly of what other men were doing in the Senate of
+the United States. But they told him he must sacrifice that wish, for
+if he retired he would be succeeded by a dangerous man. And the old man,
+believing them, had gone dutifully back into the arena.
+
+Now it seemed that a power outside man's control was declaring against
+the well-laid plans of the machine. As the machine saw things, the time
+was not ripe for the senior Senator to die. He had just entered upon his
+new term, and the Governor himself had but lately stepped into a second
+term. They had assumed that the Senator would live on for at least two
+years, but now they heard that he was likely to die almost at once.
+His Excellency could not very well name himself for the vacancy, and it
+seemed dangerous just then to risk a call of the Assembly. They dared
+not let the Governor appoint a weaker man, even if he would consent
+to do so, for they would need the best they had to put up against the
+leader of the Boxers. With the Governor, they believed they could win,
+but the question of appointing him had suddenly become a knotty one.
+
+The Governor himself was bowed with chagrin. He saw now that he had
+erred in taking a second term, and he was not the man to enjoy reviewing
+his mistakes. As he sat there reading and rereading the letter which
+told him that the work of the senior Senator was almost done, he said to
+himself that it was easy enough to wrestle with men, but a harder thing
+to try one's mettle with fate. He spent a gloomy and unprofitable day.
+
+Late in the afternoon a telegram reached the executive office. Styles
+was coming to town that night, and wanted to see the Governor at the
+hotel. Things always cleared when Styles came to town; and so, though
+still unable to foresee the outcome, he brightened at once.
+
+Styles was a railroad man, and rich. People to whom certain things were
+a sealed book said that it was nice of Mr. Styles to take an interest in
+politics when he had so many other things on his mind, and that he must
+be a very public-spirited man. That he took an interest in politics,
+no one familiar with the affairs of the State would deny. The orthodox
+papers painted him as a public benefactor, but the Boxers arrayed him
+with hoofs and horns.
+
+The Governor and Mr. Styles were warm friends. It was said that their
+friendship dated from mere boyhood, and that the way the two men had
+held together through all the vicissitudes of life was touching and
+beautiful--at least, so some people observed. There were others whose
+eyebrows went up when the Governor and Mr. Styles were mentioned in
+their Damon and Pythias capacity.
+
+That night, in the public benefactor's room at the hotel, the Governor
+and his old friend had a long talk. When twelve o'clock came they were
+still talking; more than that, the Governor was excitedly pacing the
+floor.
+
+"I tell you, Styles," he expostulated, "I don't like it! It doesn't put
+me in a good light. It's too apparent, and I'll suffer for it, sure as
+fate. Mark my words, we'll all suffer for it!"
+
+Mr. Styles was sitting in an easy attitude before the table. The public
+benefactor never paced the floor; it did not seem necessary. He smoked
+in silence for a minute; then raised himself a little in his chair.
+
+"Well, have you anything better to offer?"
+
+"No, I haven't," replied the Governor, tartly; "but it seems to me you
+ought to have."
+
+Styles sank back in his chair and for several minutes more devoted
+himself to the art of smoking. There were times when this philanthropic
+dabbler in politics was irritating.
+
+"I think," he began presently, "that you exaggerate the unpleasant
+features of the situation. It will cause talk, of course; but isn't it
+worth it? You say it's unheard of; maybe, but so is the situation, and
+wasn't there something in the copy-books about meeting new situations
+with new methods? If you have anything better to offer, produce it; if
+not, we've got to go ahead with this. And really, I don't see that it's
+so bad. You have to go South to look after your cotton plantation; you
+find now that it's going to take more time than you feel you should
+take from the State; you can't afford to give it up; consequently, you
+withdraw in favor of the Lieutenant-Governor. We all protest, but you
+say Berriman is a good man, and the State won't suffer, and you simply
+can't afford to go on. Well, we can keep the Senator's condition pretty
+quiet here; and after all, he's sturdy, and may live on to the close
+of the year. After due deliberation Berriman appoints you. A little
+talk?--Yes. But it's worth a little talk. It seems to me the thing works
+out very smoothly."
+
+When Tom Styles leaned back in his chair and declared a thing worked
+out very smoothly, that thing was quite likely to go. In three days the
+Governor went South. When he returned, the newspaper men were startled
+by the announcement that business considerations which he could not
+afford to overlook demanded his withdrawal from office. Previous to this
+time the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Styles had met and the result of
+their meeting was not made a matter of public record.
+
+As the Governor had anticipated, many things were said. Inquiries were
+made into the venerable Senator's condition--which, the orthodox
+papers declared, was but another example of the indecency of the
+Boxer journals. The Governor went to his cotton plantation. The
+Lieutenant-Governor went into office, and was pronounced a worthy
+successor to a good executive. The venerable Senator continued to live.
+As Mr. Styles had predicted, the gossip soon quieted into a friendly
+hope that the Governor would realise large sums with his cotton.
+
+It was late in the fall when the senior Senator finally succumbed. The
+day the papers printed the story of his death, they printed speculative
+editorials on his probable successor. When the bereaved family commented
+with bitterness on this ill-concealed haste, they were told that it was
+politics--enterprise--life.
+
+The old man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State Capitol,
+and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and looked upon the
+quiet face; but far more numerous than those who gathered at his bier
+to weep were those who assembled in secluded corners to speculate on the
+wearing of his toga. It was politics--enterprise--life.
+
+Mr. Styles told the Lieutenant-Governor to be deliberate. There was no
+need of an immediate appointment, he said. And so for a time things went
+on about the State-house much as usual, save that the absorbing topic
+was the senatorial situation, and that every one was watching the new
+chief executive. The retired Governor now spent part of his time in the
+South, and part at home. The cotton plantation was not demanding all his
+attention, after all.
+
+It could not be claimed that John Berriman had ever done any great
+thing. He was not on record as having ever risen grandly to an occasion;
+but there may have been something in the fact that an occasion
+admitting of a grand rising had never presented itself. Before he became
+Lieutenant-Governor, he had served inoffensively in the State Senate for
+two terms. No one had ever worked very hard for Senator Berriman's vote.
+He had been put in by the machine, and it had always been assumed that
+he was machine property.
+
+Berriman himself had never given the matter of his place in the human
+drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him to vote
+with his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a tool, he
+would have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the infallibility of
+the party.
+
+The Boxers did not approach him now concerning the appointment of
+Huntington. That, of course, was a fixed matter, and they were not young
+and foolish enough to attempt to change it.
+
+One day the Governor received a telegram from Styles suggesting that
+he "adjust that matter" immediately. He thought of announcing the
+appointment that very night, but the newspaper men had all left the
+building, and as he had promised that they should know of it as soon as
+it was made, he concluded to wait until the next morning.
+
+Governor Berriman had a brother in town that week, attending a meeting
+of the State Agricultural Society. Hiram Berriman had a large farm in
+the southern part of the State. He knew but little of political methods,
+and had primitive ideas about honesty. There had always been a strong
+tie between the brothers, despite the fact that Hiram was fifteen years
+the Governor's senior. They talked of many things that night, and the
+hour was growing late. They were about to retire when the Governor
+remarked, a little sleepily:
+
+"Well, to-morrow morning I announce the senatorial appointment."
+
+"You do, eh?" returned the farmer.
+
+"Yes, there's no need of waiting any longer, and it's getting on to the
+time the State wants two senators in Washington."
+
+"Well, I suppose, John," Hiram said, turning a serious face to his
+brother, "that you've thought the matter all over, and are sure you are
+right?"
+
+The Governor threw back his head with a scoffing laugh.
+
+"I guess it didn't require much thought on my part," he answered
+carelessly.
+
+"I don't see how you figure that out," contended Hiram warmly. "You're
+Governor of the State, and your own boss, ain't you?"
+
+It was the first time in all his life that anyone had squarely
+confronted John Berriman with the question whether or not he was his own
+boss, and for some reason it went deep into his soul, and rankled there.
+
+"Now see here, Hiram," he said at length, "there's no use of your
+putting on airs and pretending you don't understand this thing. You know
+well enough it was all fixed before I went in." The other man looked at
+him in bewilderment, and the Governor continued brusquely: "The party
+knew the Senator was going to die, and so the Governor pulled out and I
+went in just so the thing could be done decently when the time came."
+
+The old farmer was scratching his head.
+
+"That's it, eh? They got wind the Senator was goin' to die, and so the
+Governor told that lie about having to go South just so he could step
+into the dead man's shoes, eh?"
+
+"That's the situation--if you want to put it that way."
+
+"And now you're going to appoint the Governor?"
+
+"Of course I am; I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, look here, Hiram, haven't you any idea of political obligation?
+It's expected of me."
+
+"Oh, it is, eh? Did you promise to appoint the Governor?"
+
+"Why, I don't know that I exactly made any promises, but that doesn't
+make a particle of difference. The understanding was that the Governor
+was to pull out and I was to go in and appoint him. It's a matter of
+honour;" and Governor Berriman drew himself up with pride.
+
+The farmer turned a troubled face to the fire.
+
+"I suppose, then," he said finally, "that you all think the Governor
+is the best man we have for the United States Senate. I take it that in
+appointing him, John, you feel sure he will guard the interests of the
+people before everything else, and that the people--I mean the working
+people of this State--will always be safe in his hands; do you?"
+
+"Oh, Lord, no, Hiram!" exclaimed the Governor irritably. "I don't think
+that at all!"
+
+Hiram Berriman's brown face warmed to a dull red.
+
+"You don't?" he cried. "You mean to sit there, John Berriman, and tell
+me that you don't think the man you're going to put in the United States
+Senate will be an honest man? What do you mean by saying you're going to
+put a dishonest man in there to make laws for the people, to watch over
+them and protect them? If you don't think he's a good man, if you don't
+think he's the best man the State has"--the old farmer was pounding the
+table heavily with his huge fist--"if you don't think that, in God's
+name, _why do you appoint him_?"
+
+"I wish I could make you understand, Hiram," said the Governor in an
+injured voice, "that it's not for me to say."
+
+"Why ain't it for you to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's
+running you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying to
+steal from the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see the day
+a brother of mine put a thief in the United States Senate to bamboozle
+the honest, hard-working people of this State!"
+
+"Hold on, please--that's a little too strong!" flamed the Governor.
+
+"It ain't too strong. If a Senator ain't an honest man, he's a
+thief; and if he ain't lookin' after the welfare of the people, he's
+bamboozlin' them, and that's all there is about it. I don't know much
+about politics, but I ain't lived my life without learning a little
+about right and wrong, and it's a sorry day we've come to, John
+Berriman, if right and wrong don't enter into the makin' of a Senator!"
+
+The Governor could think of no fitting response, so he held his peace.
+This seemed to quiet the irate farmer, and he surveyed his brother
+intently, and not unkindly.
+
+"You're in a position now, John," he said, and there was a kind of
+homely eloquence in his serious voice, "to be a friend to the people.
+It ain't many of us ever get the chance of doin' a great thing. We work
+along, and we do the best we can with what comes our way, but most of
+us don't get the chance to do a thing that's goin' to help thousands
+of people, and that the whole country's goin' to say was a move for the
+right. You want to think of that, and when you're thinkin' so much about
+honour, you don't want to clean forget about honesty. Don't you stick
+to any foolish notions about bein' faithful to the party; it ain't the
+party that needs helpin'. No matter how you got where you are, you're
+Governor of the State right now, John, and your first duty is to the
+people of this State, not to Tom Styles or anybody else. Just you
+remember that when you're namin' your Senator in the morning."
+
+It was long before the Governor retired. He sat there by the fireplace
+until after the fire had died down, and he was too absorbed to grow
+cold. He thought of many things. Like the man who had preceded him in
+office, he wished that some one else was just then encumbered with the
+gubernatorial shoes.
+
+The next morning there was a heavy feeling in his head which he thought
+a walk in the bracing air might dispel, so he started on foot for the
+Statehouse. A light snow was on the ground, and there was something
+reassuring in the crispness of the morning. It would make a slave feel
+like a free man to drink in such air, he was thinking. Snatches of
+his brother's outburst of the night before kept breaking into his
+consciousness but curiously enough they did not greatly disturb him. He
+concluded that it was wonderful what a walk in the bracing air could do.
+From the foot of the hill he looked up at the State-house, for the first
+time in his experience seeing and thinking about it--not simply taking
+it for granted. There seemed a nobility about it--in the building
+itself, and back of that in what it stood for.
+
+As he walked through the corridor to his office he was greeted with
+cheerful, respectful salutations. His mood let him give the greetings a
+value they did not have and from that rose a sense of having the trust
+and goodwill of his fellows.
+
+But upon reaching his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It
+was imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and satisfaction
+went from his bearing. He walked to the window and stood there
+looking down at the city, and, as it had been in looking ahead at
+the State-house, he now looked out over the city really seeing and
+understanding it, not merely taking it for granted. He found himself
+wondering if many of the people in that city--in that State--looked to
+their Governor with the old-fashioned trust his brother had shown. His
+eyes dimmed; he was thinking of the satisfaction it would afford his
+children, if--long after he had gone--they could tell how a great chance
+had once come into their father's life, and how he had proved himself a
+man.
+
+"Will you sign these now, Governor?" asked a voice behind him.
+
+It was his secretary, a man who knew the affairs of the State well, and
+whom every one seemed to respect.
+
+"Mr. Haines," he said abruptly, "who do you think is the best man we
+have for the United States Senate?"
+
+The secretary stepped back, dumfounded; amazed that the question should
+be put to him, startled at that strange way of putting it. Then he told
+himself he must be discreet. Like many of the people at the State-house,
+in his heart Haines was a Boxer.
+
+"Why, I presume," he ventured, "that the Governor is looked upon as the
+logical candidate, isn't he?"
+
+"I'm not talking about logical candidates. I want to know who you think
+is the man who would most conscientiously and creditably represent this
+State in the Senate of the United States."
+
+It was so simply spoken that the secretary found himself answering it as
+simply. "If you put it that way, Governor, Mr. Huntington is the man, of
+course."
+
+"You think most of the people feel that way?"
+
+"I know they do."
+
+"You believe if it were a matter of popular vote, Huntington would be
+the new Senator?"
+
+"There can be no doubt of that, Governor. I think they all have to admit
+that. Huntington is the man the people want."
+
+"That's all, Mr. Haines. I merely wondered what you thought about it."
+
+Soon after that Governor Berriman rang for a messenger boy and sent a
+telegram. Then he settled quietly down to routine work. It was about
+eleven when one of the newspaper men came in.
+
+"Good-morning, Governor," he said briskly "how's everything to-day?"
+
+"All right, Mr. Markham. I have nothing to tell you to-day, except that
+I've made the senatorial appointment."
+
+"Oh," laughed the reporter excitedly, "that's all, is it?"
+
+"Yes," replied the Governor, smiling too; "that's all!"
+
+The reporter looked at the clock. "I'll just catch the noon edition," he
+said, "if I telephone right away."
+
+He was moving to the other room when the Governor called to him.
+
+"See here, it seems to me you're a strange newspaper man!"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, I tell you I've made a senatorial appointment--a matter of some
+slight importance--and you rush off never asking whom I've appointed."
+
+The reporter gave a forced laugh. He wished the Governor would not
+detain him with a joke now when every second counted.
+
+"That's right," he said, with strained pleasantness. "Well, who's the
+man?"
+
+The Governor raised his head. "Huntington," he said quietly, and resumed
+his work.
+
+"What?" gasped the reporter. "What?"
+
+Then he stopped in embarrassment, as if ashamed of being so easily taken
+in. "Guess you're trying to jolly me a little, aren't you, Governor?"
+
+"Jolly you, Mr. Markham? I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper
+reporters. Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you
+are still sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so impossible.
+Don't you consider Mr. Huntington a fit man for the place?"
+
+But for the minute the reporter seemed unable to speak. "May I ask," he
+fumbled at last, "why you did it?"
+
+"I had but one motive, Mr. Markham. I thought the matter over and it
+seemed to me the people should have the man they wanted. I am with them
+in believing Huntington the best man for the place." He said it simply,
+and went quietly back to his work.
+
+For many a long day politicians and papers continued the search for "the
+motive." Styles and his crowd saw it as a simple matter of selling out;
+they knew, of course, that it could be nothing else. After their first
+rage had subsided, and they saw there was nothing they could do, they
+wondered, sneeringly, why he did not "fix up a better story." That was a
+little _too_ simple-minded. Did he think people were fools? And even the
+men who profited by the situation puzzled their brains for weeks trying
+to understand it. There was something behind it, of course.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+HIS AMERICA
+
+
+He hated to see the reporter go. With the closing of that door it seemed
+certain that there was no putting it off any longer.
+
+But even when the man's footsteps were at last sounding on the stairway,
+he still clung to him.
+
+"Father," he asked, fretfully, "why do you always talk to those
+fellows?"
+
+Herman Beckman turned in his chair and stared at his son. Then he
+laughed. "Now, that's a fine question to come from the honour man of a
+law school! I hope, Fritz, that your oration to-night is going to have a
+little more sense in it than that."
+
+The calling up of his oration made him reach out another clutching
+hand to the vanished reporter. "But it's farcical, father, to be always
+interviewed by a paper nobody reads."
+
+"Nobody--_reads_?"
+
+"Why, nobody cares anything about the _Leader_. It's dead."
+
+Herman Beckman looked at his son sharply; something about him seemed
+strange. He decided that he was nervous about the commencement
+programme. Fritz had the one oration.
+
+The boy had opened the drawer of his study table and was fingering some
+papers he had taken out.
+
+"Sure you know it?" the man asked with affectionate parental anxiety.
+
+"Oh, I know it all right," Fred answered grimly, and again the father
+decided that he was nervous about the thing. He wasn't just like
+himself.
+
+The man walked to the window and stood looking across at the university
+buildings. Colleges had always meant much to Herman Beckman. The very
+day Fritz was born he determined that the boy was to go to college. It
+was good to witness the fulfilment of his dreams. He turned his glance
+to the comfortable room.
+
+"Pretty decent comfortable sort of place, isn't it, father?" Fred asked,
+following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair to the
+student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays seem an
+inevitable part of the acquirement of learning.
+
+It made his father laugh. "Yes, my boy, I should call it decent--and
+comfortable." He grew thoughtful after that.
+
+"Pretty different from the place you had, father?"
+
+"Oh--me? My place to study was any place I could find. Sometimes on top
+of a load of hay, lots of times by the light of the logs. I've studied
+in some funny places, Fritz."
+
+"Well, you _got_ there, father!" the boy burst out with feeling. "By
+Jove, there aren't many of them _know_ the things you know!"
+
+"I know enough to know what I don't know," said the old man, a little
+sadly. "I know enough to know what I missed. I wanted to go to college.
+No one will ever know how I wanted to! I began to think I'd never feel
+right about it. But I have a notion that when I sit there to-night
+listening to you, Fritz, knowing that you're speaking for two hundred
+boys, half of whose fathers did go to college, I think I'm going to feel
+better about it then."
+
+The boy turned away. Something in the kindly words seemed as the cut of
+a whip across his face.
+
+"Well, Fritz," his father continued, getting into his coat, "I'll
+be going downtown. Leave you to put on an extra flourish or two." He
+laughed in proud parental fashion. "Anyway, I have some things to see
+about."
+
+The boy stood up. "Father, I have something to tell you." He said it
+shortly and sharply.
+
+The father stood there, puzzled.
+
+"You won't like my oration to-night, father."
+
+And still the man did not speak. The words would not have bothered him
+much--it was the boy's manner.
+
+"In fact, father, you're going to be desperately disappointed in it."
+
+The dull red was creeping into the man's cheeks. He was one to have
+little patience with that thing of not doing one's work. "Why am I going
+to be disappointed? This is no time to shirk! You should--"
+
+"Oh, you'll not complain of the time and thought I've put on it,"
+the boy broke in with a short, hard laugh. "But, you see, father--you
+see"--his armour had slipped from him--"it doesn't express--your views."
+
+"Did I ever say I wanted you to express 'my views'? Did I bring you up
+to be a mouthpiece of mine? Haven't I told you to _think_?" But with a
+long, sharp glance at his boy anger gave way. "Come, boy"--going
+over and patting him on the back--"brace up now. You're acting like a
+seven-year-old girl afraid to speak her first piece," and his big laugh
+rang out, eager to reassure.
+
+"You won't see it! You won't believe it! I don't suppose you'll
+believe it when you hear it!" He turned away, overwhelmed by a sudden
+realisation of just how difficult was the thing that lay before him.
+
+The man started toward his son, but instead he walked over and sat down
+at the opposite side of the table, waiting. He was beginning to see that
+there was something in this which he did not understand.
+
+At last the boy turned to him, fighting back some things, taking on
+other things. He gazed at the care-worn, rugged face--face of a worker
+and a dreamer, reading in those lines the story of that life, seeing
+more clearly than he had ever seen before the beauty and futility of it.
+Here was the idealist, the man who would give his whole lifetime to a
+dream he had dreamed. He loved his father very tenderly as he looked at
+him, read him, then.
+
+"Father," he asked quietly, "are you satisfied with your life?"
+
+The man simply stared--waiting, seeking his bearings.
+
+"You came to this country when you were nineteen years old--didn't you,
+father?" The man nodded. "And now you're--it's sixty-one, isn't it?"
+
+Again he nodded.
+
+"You've been in America, then, forty-two years. Father, do you think as
+much of it now as you did forty-two years ago?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," the man said, searching his son's quiet,
+passionate face. "I can't make you out, Fritz."
+
+"My favourite story as a kid," the boy went on, "was to hear you tell of
+how you felt when your boat came sailing into New York Harbour, and you
+saw the first outlines of a country you had dreamed about all through
+your boyhood, which you had saved pennies for, worked nights for, ever
+since you were old enough to know the meaning of America. I mean," he
+corrected, significantly, "the meaning of what you thought was America.
+
+"It's a bully story, father," he continued, with a smile at once tender
+and hard; "the simple German boy, born a dreamer, standing there looking
+out at the dim shores of that land he had idealised. If ever a man came
+to America bringing it rich gifts, that man was you!"
+
+"Fritz," his father's voice was rendered harsh by mystification and
+foreboding, "tell me what you're talking about. Come to the point. Clear
+this up."
+
+"I'm talking about American politics--your party--having ruined your
+life! I'm talking about working like a slave all your days and having
+nothing but a mortgaged farm at sixty-one! I'm talking about playing a
+losing game! I'm saying, _What's the use?_ Father, I'm telling you that
+_I'm_ going to join the other party and make some money!"
+
+The man just sat there, staring.
+
+"Well," the boy took it up defiantly, "why not?"
+
+And then he moved, laid a not quite steady hand out upon the table. "My
+boy, you're not well. You've studied too hard. Now brace yourself up
+for to-night, and then we'll go down home and fix you up. What you need,
+Fritz," he said, trying to laugh, "is the hayfield."
+
+"You're not _seeing_ it!" The boy pushed back his chair and began moving
+about the room. "The only way I can brace myself up for to-night is
+to get so mad--father, usually you see things so easily! Don't you
+understand? It was my chance, my one moment, my time to strike. It will
+be years before I get such a hearing again. You see, father, the thing
+will be printed, and the men I want to have hear it, the men who _own
+this State_, will be there. One of them is to preside. And the story of
+it, the worth of it, to them, is that I'm your son. You see, after all,"
+he seized at this wildly, "I'm getting my start on the fact that I'm
+your son."
+
+"Go on," said the man; the brown of his wind-beaten face had yielded to
+a tinge of grey. "Just what is it you are going to say?"
+
+"I call it 'The New America,' a lot of this talk about doing things, the
+glory of industrial America, the true Americans the men of constructive
+genius, the patriotism of railroad and factory building, a eulogy of
+railroad officials and corporation presidents," he rushed on with a
+laugh. "Singing the song of Capital. Father, can't you see _why?_"
+
+The old man had risen. "Tell me this," he said. "None of it matters
+much, if you just tell me this: You _believe_ these things? You've
+thought it all out for yourself--and you _feel_ that way? You're honest,
+aren't you, Fritz?" He put that last in a whisper.
+
+The boy made no reply; after a minute the man sank back to his chair.
+The years seemed coming to him with the minutes.
+
+Fred was leaning against the wall. "Father," he said at last, "I hope
+you'll let me be a little roundabout. It's only fair to me to let me
+ramble on a little. I've got to put it all right before you or--or--You
+know, dad,"--he came back to his place by the table, "the first thing I
+remember very clearly is those men, your party managers, coming down to
+the farm one time and asking you to run for Governor. How many times is
+it you've run for Governor, father?" He put the question slowly.
+
+"Five," said the man heavily.
+
+"I don't know which time this was; but you didn't want to. You were
+sorry when you saw them coming. I heard some of the talk. You talked
+about your farm, what you wanted to do that summer, how you couldn't
+afford the time or the money. They argued that you owed it to the
+party--they always got you there; how no other man could hold down
+majorities as you could--a man like you giving the best years of his
+life to holding down majorities! They said you were the one man against
+whom no personal attack could be made. And when there was so much to
+fight, anyway--oh, I know that speech by heart! They've made great
+capital of your honesty and your clean life. In fact, they've held that
+up as a curtain behind which a great many things could go on. Oh, _you_
+didn't know about them; you were out in front of the curtain, but I
+haven't lived in this town without finding out that they needed your
+integrity and your clean record pretty bad!
+
+"That was out on the side porch. Mother had brought out some buttermilk,
+and they drank it while they talked. You put up a good fight. Your
+time was money to you at that time of year; a man shouldn't neglect his
+farm--but you never yet could hold out against that 'needing-you' kind
+of talk. They knew there was no chance for your election. You knew it.
+But it takes a man of just your grit to put any snap into a hopeless
+campaign.
+
+"Mother cried when you went to drive them back to town. You see, I
+remember all those things. She told about how hard you would work, and
+how it would do no good--that the State belonged to the other party.
+She talked about the farm, too, and the addition she had wanted for the
+house, and how now she wouldn't have it. Mother felt pretty bad that
+night. She's gone through a lot of those times."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"You were away a lot that summer, and all fall. You looked pretty
+well used up when you came home, but you said that you had held down
+majorities splendidly."
+
+Again there was silence. It was the silences that seemed to be saying
+the most.
+
+"You had one term in Congress--that's the only thing you ever had. Then
+you did so much that they concentrated in your district and saw to
+it that you never got back. Julius Caesar couldn't have been elected
+again," he laughed harshly.
+
+"Father," the boy went on, after a pause, "you asked me if I were
+honest. There are two kinds of honesty. The primitive kind--like
+yours--and then the kind you develop for yourself. Do I believe the
+things I'm going to say to-night? No--not now. But I'll believe them
+more after I've heard the applause I'm sure to get. I'll believe them
+still more after I've had my first case thrown to me by our railroad
+friends who own this State. More and more after I've said them over in
+campaigning next fall, and pretty soon I'll be so sure I believe them
+that I really will believe them--and that," he concluded, flippantly,
+"is the new brand of American honesty. Why, any smart man can persuade
+himself he's not a hypocrite!"
+
+"My _God!_" it wrenched from the man. "_This?_ If you'd stolen
+money--killed a man--but hypocrisy, cant--the very thing I've fought
+hardest, hated most! You lived all your life with me to learn _this?_"
+
+"I lived all my life with you to learn what pays, and what doesn't. I
+lived all my life with you to learn from failure the value of success."
+
+"I never was sure I was a failure until this hour."
+
+"Father! Can't you see--"
+
+"Oh, don't _talk_ to me!" cried the old man, rising, reaching out his
+fist as though he would strike him. "Son of mine sitting there telling
+me he is fixing up a brand of honesty for himself!"
+
+The boy grew quieter as self-restraint left his father. "I mean
+that--just that," he said at last. "Let a man either give or get. If he
+gives, let it be to the real thing. There are two Americas. The America
+of you dreamers--and then the real America. Yours is an idea--an
+idea quite as much as an ideal. I don't think you have the slightest
+comprehension of how far apart it is from the real America. The people
+who dream of it over in Europe are a great deal nearer it than you
+people who work for it here. Father, the spirit of this country flows in
+a strong, swift, resistless current. You never got into it at all.
+Your kind of idealists influence it about as much--about as much as
+red lights burned on the banks of the great river would influence the
+current of that river. You're not _of_ it. You came here, throbbing
+with the love for America; and with your ideal America you've fought
+the real, and you've worked and you've believed and you've sacrificed.
+Father, _what's the use?_ In this State, anyway, it's hopeless. It has
+been so through your lifetime; it will be through mine."
+
+The man sat looking at him. He felt that he should say something,
+but the words did not come--held back, perhaps, by a sense of their
+uselessness. It was not so much what Fred said as it was the look in his
+eyes as he said it. There was nothing impetuous or youthful about that
+look, nothing to be laughed at or argued away. He had always felt that
+Fred had a mind which saw things straight, saw them in their right
+relations, and at that moment he had no words to plead for what Fred
+called the America of the dreamers.
+
+"I'm of the second generation, dad," the boy went on, at length,
+"and the second generation has an ideal of its own, and that ideal is
+Success. It took us these forty years to come to understand the spirit
+of America. You were a dreamer who loved America. I'm an American. We've
+translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and
+opportunity and success--and that's getting Americanised. Now, father,"
+he sought refuge in the tone of every-day things, "you'll get used to
+it--won't you? I don't expect you to feel very good about it, but you
+aren't going to be broken up about it--are you? After all, father,"
+laughing and moving about as if to break the seriousness of things,
+"there's nothing criminal about being one of the other fellows--is
+there? Just remember that there _are_ folks who even think it's
+respectable!" The father had risen and picked up his hat. "No, Fred," he
+said, with a sadness in which there was great dignity, "there is nothing
+criminal in it if a man's conviction sends him that way. But to me there
+is something--something too sad for words in a man's selling his own
+soul."
+
+"Father! How extravagant! _Why_ is it selling one's soul to sit down
+and figure out what's the best thing to do?" He hesitated, hating to
+add hurt to hurt, not wanting to say that his father's fight should have
+been with the revolutionists, that his life was ineffective because,
+seeing his dream from within a dream, his thinking had been muddled. He
+only said: "As I say, father, it's a question of giving or getting. I
+couldn't even give in your way. And I've seen enough of giving to want
+a taste of getting. I want to make things go--and I see my chance. Why
+father," he laughed, trying to turn it, "there's nothing so American as
+wanting to make things _go_."
+
+He looked at him for a long minute. "My boy," he said, "I fear you are
+becoming so American that I am losing you."
+
+"Father," the boy pleaded, affectionately, "now don't--"
+
+The old man held up his hand. "You've tried to make me understand it,"
+he said, "and succeeded. You can't complain of the way you've succeeded.
+I don't know why I don't argue with you--plead; there are things I could
+say--should say, perhaps--but something assures me it would be useless.
+I feel a good many years older than I did when I came into this room,
+but the reason for it is not that you're joining the other party. You
+know what I think of the men who control this State, the men with whom
+you desire to cast your lot, but I trust the years I've spent fighting
+them haven't made a bigot of me. It's not joining their party--it's
+_using_ it--makes this the hardest thing I've been called upon to meet."
+
+"Father, don't look like that! How do you think I am going to get up and
+speak tonight with _that_ face before me?"
+
+"You didn't think, did you," the man laughed bitterly, "that I would
+inspire you to your effort?"
+
+The boy stood looking at his father, a strange new fire in his eyes.
+
+"Yes," he said, quietly, tenderly, "you will inspire me. When I get
+up before those men tonight I'm going to see the picture of that boy
+straining for his first glimpse of New York Harbour. I'm going to think
+for just a minute of the things that boy brought with him--things he
+has never lost. And then I'll see you as you stand here now---it will be
+enough. What I need to do is to get mad. If I falter I'll just think
+of some of those times when you came home from your campaigns--how you
+looked--what you said. It will bring the inspiration. Father, I figure
+it out like this. We're going to get it back. We're going to get what's
+coming to us. There's another America than the America of you dreamers.
+To yours you have given; from mine I will get. And the irony of
+it--don't think I don't see the irony of it--is that I will be called
+the real American. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make
+the railroads of this State--oh, it sounds like schoolboy talk, but just
+give me a little time--I'm going to make the railroads of this State
+pay off every cent of that mortgage on your farm! Father," he finished,
+impetuously, in a last appeal, "you're broken up now, disappointed, but
+would you honestly want me to travel the road you've traveled?"
+
+"My boy," answered the old man, and the tears came with it, "I wanted
+you to travel the road of an honest man."
+
+Herman Beckman did not go to the commencement exercises that night.
+There was no train home until morning, so he had the night to spend in
+town. He was alone, for his friends assumed that he would be out at the
+university. But he preferred being alone.
+
+He sat in his room at the hotel, reading. And he could read. Years of
+discipline stood him in good stead now. His life had taught him to read
+anywhere, at any time. He had never permitted himself the luxury of not
+being "in the mood." It was only the men who had gone to college who
+could do that. He _had_ to read. He always carried some little book with
+him, for how did a man know that he might not have to wait an hour for
+a train somewhere? The man had a simple-minded veneration for knowledge.
+He wanted to know about things. And he had never learned to pretend that
+he didn't want to know. He quite lacked the modern art of flippancy. He
+believed in great books.
+
+And so on the night that his son was being graduated from college he sat
+in his room at the hotel--cheap room in a mediocre hotel; he had never
+learned to feel at home in the rich ones--reading Marcus Aurelius. But
+his hand as he turned the pages trembled as the hand of a very old man.
+At midnight some reporters came in to ask him what he thought of his
+son's oration. They wanted a statement from him.
+
+He told them that he had never believed the sins of a parent should be
+visited on a child, and that it was even so with the thought. He had
+always contended that a man should do his own thinking. The contention
+applied to his son.
+
+"Gamey old brute!" was what one of the reporters said in the elevator.
+
+He could not read Marcus Aurelius after that. He went to bed, but he did
+not sleep. Many things passed before him. His anticipations, his dreams
+for Fritz, had brought the warmest pleasure of his stern, unrelaxing
+life. There was a great emptiness tonight. What was a man to turn to,
+think about, when he seemed stripped, not only of the future, but of the
+past? He seemed called upon to readjust the whole of his life, giving
+up that which he had held dearest. What was left? Daylight found him
+turning it over and over.
+
+In the morning he went home. He got away without seeing any of his
+friends.
+
+He did not try to read this morning; somehow it seemed there was no use
+in trying to read any more. He watched the country through which they
+were passing, thinking of the hundreds of times he had ridden over it in
+campaigning. He wondered, vaguely, just how much money he had spent on
+railroad fare--he had never accepted mileage. Fred's "What's the use?"
+kept ringing in his ears. There was something about that phrase which
+made one feel very tired and old. It even seemed there was no use
+looking out to see how the crops were getting on. _What's the use?
+What's the use?_ Was that a phrase one learned in college?
+
+There had been two things to tell "mother" that night. The first was
+that he had stopped in town and told Claus Hansen he could have that
+south hundred and sixty he had been wanting for two years.
+
+It was not easy to tell the woman who had worked shoulder to shoulder
+with him for thirty years, the woman who during those years had risen
+with him in the early morning and worked with him until darkness rescued
+the weary bodies, that in their old age they must surrender the fruit of
+their toil. They would have left just what they had started with. They
+had just held their own.
+
+Coming down on the train he had made up his mind that if Hansen were
+in town he would tell him that he could have the land. He felt so very
+tired and old, so bowed down with Fred's "What's the use?" that he saw
+that he himself would never get the mortgage paid off. And Fred had said
+something about making the railroads pay it. He did not know just how
+the boy figured that out--indeed, he was getting a little dazed about
+the whole thing--but if Fritz had any idea of having the railroads pay
+off the mortgage on _his_ farm--he couldn't forget how the boy looked
+when he said it, face white, eyes burning--he would see to it right now
+that there was no chance of that.
+
+He tried not to look at the land as he drove past it on the way home. He
+wondered just how much campaign literature it had paid for. He wondered
+if he would ever get used to seeing Claus Hansen putting up his hay over
+there in that field.
+
+He had felt so badly about telling mother that he told it very bluntly.
+And because he felt so sorry for her he said not one kind word, but just
+sat quiet, looking the other way.
+
+She was clearing off the table. He heard her scraping out the potato
+dish with great care. Then she was coming over to him. She came
+awkwardly, hesitatingly--her life had not schooled her in meeting
+emotional moments beautifully--but she laid her hand upon him, patted
+him on the shoulder as one would a child. "Never mind, papa--never you
+mind. It will make it easier for us. There's enough left--and it will
+make it easier. We're getting on--we're--" There she broke off abruptly
+into a vigorous scolding of the dog, who was lifting covetous nostrils
+to a piece of meat.
+
+That was all. And there was no woman in the country had worked harder.
+And Martha was ambitious; she liked land, and she did not like Claus
+Hansen's wife.
+
+Yes, he had had a good wife.
+
+Then there was that other thing to tell her--about Fritz. That was
+harder.
+
+Mother had not gone up to the city to hear Fritz "speak" because her
+feet were bothering her, and she could not wear her shoes. He had had a
+vague idea of how disappointed she was, though she had said very little
+about it. Martha never had been one to say much about things. When he
+came back, of course she had wanted to know all about it, and he had put
+her off. Now he had to tell her.
+
+It was much harder; and in the telling of it he broke down.
+
+This time she did not come over and pat his shoulder. Perhaps Martha
+knew--likely she had never heard the word intuition, but, anyway, she
+knew--that it was beyond that.
+
+It seemed difficult for her to comprehend. She was bewildered to find
+that Fritz could change parties all in a minute. She seemed to grasp,
+first of all, that it was disrespectful to his father. Some boys at
+school had been putting notions into his head.
+
+But gradually she began to see it. Fritz wanted to make money. Fritz
+wanted to have it easier. And the other people did "have it easier."
+
+It divided her feeling: sorry and indignant for the father, secretly
+glad and relieved for the boy. "He will have it easier than we had
+it, papa," she said at the last. "But it was not right of Fritz," she
+concluded, vaguely but severely.
+
+As she washed the dishes Martha was thinking that likely Fritz's wife
+would have a hired girl.
+
+Then Martha went up to bed. He said that he would come in a few minutes,
+but many minutes went by while he sat out on the side porch trying to
+think it out.
+
+The moon was shining brightly down on that hundred and sixty which Claus
+Hansen was to have. And the moon, too, seemed to be saying: "What's the
+use?"
+
+Well, what _was_ the use? Perhaps, after all, the boy was right. What
+had it all amounted to? What was there left? What had he done?
+
+Two Americas, Fred had said, and his but the America of the dreamers. He
+had always thought that he was fighting for the real. And now Fred said
+that he had never become an American at all.
+
+From the time he was twelve years old he had wanted to be an American.
+A queer old man back in the German village--an old man, he recalled
+strangely now, who had never been in America--told him about it. He told
+how all men were brothers in America, how the poor and the rich loved
+each other--indeed, how there were no poor and rich at all, but the
+same chance for every man who would work. He told about the marvellous
+resources of that distant America--gold in the earth, which men were
+free to go and get, hundreds upon hundreds of miles of untouched forests
+and great rivers--all for men to use, great cities no older than the men
+who were in them, which men at that present moment were _making_--every
+man his equal chance. He told of rich land which a man could have for
+nothing, which would be _his_, if he would but go and work upon it. In
+the heart of the little German boy there was kindled then a fire which
+the years had never put out. His cheeks grew red, his eyes bright and
+very deep as he listened to the story. He went home that night and
+dreamed of going to America. And through the years of his boyhood, penny
+by penny, he saved his money for America. It was his dream. It was
+the passion of his life. More plainly than the events of yesterday, he
+remembered his first glimpse of those wonderful shores--the lump in his
+throat, the passionate excitement, the uplift. Leaning over the railing
+of his boat, staring, searching, penetrating, worshipping, he lifted up
+his heart and sent out his pledge of allegiance to the new land. How he
+would love America, work for it, be true to it!
+
+He had three dollars and sixty cents in his pocket when he stepped upon
+American soil. He wondered if any man had ever felt richer. For had he
+not reached the land where there was an equal chance for every man who
+would work, where men loved each other as brothers, and where the earth
+itself was so rich and so gracious in its offerings?
+
+The old man crossed one leg over the other--slowly, stiffly. It made him
+tired and stiff now just to think of the work he had done between that
+day and this.
+
+But there was something which he had always had--that something was
+_his_ America. That had never wavered, though he soon learned that
+between it and realities were many things which were wrong and
+unfortunate. With the whole force and passion of his nature, with all
+his single mindedness--would some call it simple mindedness?--he threw
+himself into the fight against those things which were blurring men's
+vision of his America. No work, no sacrifice was too great, for America
+had enemies who called themselves friends, men who were striking heavy
+blows at that equal chance for every man. When he failed, it was because
+he did not know enough; he must work, he must study, he must think, in
+order to make more real to other men the America which was in his heart.
+He must fight for it because it was his.
+
+And now it seemed that the end had come; he was old, he was tired, he
+was not sure. Claus Hansen would have his land and his son would join
+hands with the things which he had spent his life in fighting. And far
+deeper and sadder and more bitter than that, he had not transmitted the
+America of his heart even to his own son. He was not leaving someone to
+fight for it in his stead, to win where he had failed. Fred saw in
+it but a place for gain. "I lived all my life with you to learn from
+failure the value of success." That was what he had given to his boy.
+Yes, that was what he had bequeathed to America. Could the failure, the
+futility of his life be more clearly revealed?
+
+Twice Martha had called to him, but still he sat, smoking, thinking.
+There was much to think about to-night.
+
+Finally, it was not thought, but visions. Too tired for conscious
+thinking, he gave himself up to what came--Fred's America, his America,
+the America of the dreamers--and the things which stood between. The
+America of the future---what would that America be?
+
+At the last, taking form from many things which came and went, shaping
+itself slowly, form giving place to new form, he seemed to see it grow.
+Out beyond that land Claus Hansen was to have, a long way off, there
+rose the vision of the America of the future--an America of realities,
+and yet an America of dreams; for the dreamers had become the
+realists---or was it that the realists had become dreamers? In the
+manifold forms taken on and cast aside destroying dualism had made way
+for the strength and the dignity and harmony of unity. He watched it as
+breathlessly, as yearningly, as the nineteen-year-old boy had watched
+the other America taking shape in the distance some forty years before.
+"How did you come?" he whispered. "What are you?"
+
+And the voice of that real America seemed to answer: "I came because for
+a long-enough time there were enough men who held me in their hearts. I
+came because there were men who never gave me up. I was won by men who
+believed that they had failed."
+
+Again there was a lump in his throat--once more an exultation flooded
+all his being. For to the old man--tired, stiff, smitten though he had
+been, there came again that same uplift which long before had come to
+the boy. Was there not here an answer to "What's the use?" For he would
+leave America as he came to it--loving it, believing in it. What were
+the work and the failure of a lifetime when there was something in his
+heart which was his? Should he say that he had fought in vain when
+he had kept it for himself? It was as real, as wonderful--yes as
+inevitable, as it had been forty years before. Realities had taken his
+land, his career, his hopes for the boy. But realities had not stripped
+him of his dream. The futility of the years could not harm the things
+which were in his heart. Even in America he had not lost His America.
+
+"Perhaps it is then that it is like that," he murmured, his vision
+carrying him back to the days of his broken English. "Perhaps it is that
+every man's America is in the inside of his own heart. Perhaps it is
+that it will come when it has grown big--big and very strong--in the
+hearts."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG
+
+
+Stubby had a route, and that was how he happened to get a dog. For the
+benefit of those who have never carried papers it should be thrown in
+that having a route means getting up just when there is really some fun
+in sleeping, lining up at the _Leader_ office--maybe having a scrap with
+the fellow who says you took his place in the line--getting your papers
+all damp from the press and starting for the outskirts of the city.
+Then you double up the paper in the way that will cause all possible
+difficulty in undoubling and hurl it with what force you have against
+the front door. It is good to have a route, for you at least earn your
+salt, so your father can't say _that_ any more. If he does, you know it
+isn't so.
+
+When you have a route, you whistle. All the fellows whistle. They may
+not feel like it, but it is the custom--as could be sworn to by many
+sleepy citizens. And as time goes on you succeed in acquiring the easy
+manner of a brigand.
+
+Stubby was little and everything about him seemed sawed off just a
+second too soon,--his nose, his fingers, and most of all, his hair. His
+head was a faithful replica of a chestnut burr. His hair did not lie
+down and take things easy. It stood up--and out!--gentle ladies couldn't
+possibly have let their hands sink into it--as we are told they do--for
+the hands just wouldn't sink. They'd have to float.
+
+And alas, gentle ladies didn't particularly want their hands to sink
+into it. There was not that about Stubby's short person to cause
+the hands of gentle ladies to move instinctively to his head. Stubby
+bristled. That is, he appeared to bristle. Inwardly, Stubby yearned,
+though he would have swung into his very best brigand manner on the spot
+were you to suggest so offensive a thing. Just to look at Stubby you'd
+never in a thousand years guess what a funny feeling he had sometimes
+when he got to the top of the hill where his route began and could see
+a long way down the river and the town curled in on the other side.
+Sometimes when the morning sun was shining through a mist--making things
+awful queer--some of the mist got into Stubby's squinty little eyes.
+After the mist behaved that way he always whistled so rakishly and threw
+his papers with such abandonment that people turned over in their beds
+and muttered things about having that little heathen of a paper boy
+shot.
+
+All along the route are dogs. Indeed, routes are distinguished by their
+dogs. Mean routes are those that have terraces and mean dogs; good
+routes--where the houses are close together and the dogs run out and wag
+their tails. Though Stubby's greater difficulty came through the wagging
+tails; he carried in a collie neighbourhood, and all collies seemed
+consumed with mighty ambitions to have routes. If you spoke to them--and
+how could you _help_ speaking to a collie when he came bounding out to
+you that way?--you had an awful time chasing him back, and when he got
+lost--and it seemed collies spent most of their time getting lost--the
+woman would put her head out next morning and want to know if you had
+coaxed her dog away.
+
+Some of the fellows had dogs that went with them on their routes. One
+day one of them asked Stubby why he didn't have a dog and he replied in
+surly fashion that he didn't have one 'cause he didn't want one. If he
+wanted one, he guessed he'd have one.
+
+And there was no one within ear-shot old enough or wise enough--or
+tender enough?--to know from the meanness of Stubby's tone, and by his
+evil scowl, that his heart was just breaking to own a dog.
+
+One day a new dog appeared along the route. He was yellow and looked
+like a cheap edition of a bull-dog. He was that kind of dog most
+accurately described by saying it is hard to describe him, the kind you
+say is just dog--and everybody knows.
+
+He tried to follow Stubby; not in the trusting, bounding manner of the
+collies--not happily, but hopingly. Stubby, true to the ethics of his
+profession, chased him back where he had come from. That there might
+be nothing whatever on his conscience, he even threw a stone after him.
+Stubby was an expert in throwing things at dogs. He could seem to just
+miss them and yet never hit them.
+
+The next day it happened again; but just as he had a clod poised for
+throwing, a window went up and a woman called: "For pity _sake_, little
+boy, don't chase him back _here_."
+
+"Why--why, ain't he yours?" called Stubby.
+
+"Mercy, _no_. We can't chase him away."
+
+"Who's is he?" demanded Stubby.
+
+"Why, he's nobody's! He just hangs around. I wish you'd coax him away."
+
+Well, that was a _new_ one! And then all in a heap it rushed over Stubby
+that this dog who was nobody's dog could, if he coaxed him away--and the
+woman _wanted_ him coaxed away--be his dog.
+
+And because that idea had such a strange effect on him he sang out, in
+off-hand fashion: "Oh, all right, I'll take him away and drown him for
+you!
+
+"Oh, little _boy_," called the woman, "why, don't _drown_ him!"
+
+"Oh, all right, I'll shoot him then!" called obliging Stubby, whistling
+for the dog--while all morning long the woman grieved over having sent a
+helpless little dog away with that perfectly _brutal_ paper boy!
+
+Stubby's mother was washing. She looked up from her tubs on the back
+porch to say, "Wish you'd take that bucket--" then seeing what was
+slinking behind her son, straightway assumed the role of destiny with,
+"Git out o' here!"
+
+Stubby snapped his fingers behind his back as much as to say, "Wait a
+minute."
+
+"A woman gave him to me," he said to his mother.
+
+"_Gave_ him to you?" she scoffed. "I sh' think she would!"
+
+Then something happened that had not happened many times in Stubby's
+short lifetime. He acknowledged his feelings.
+
+"I'd like to keep him. I'd like to have a dog."
+
+His mother shook her hands and the flying suds seemed expressing her
+scorn. "Huh! _That_ ugly good-for-nothing thing?"
+
+The dog had edged in between Stubby's feet and crouched there. "He could
+go with me on my route," said Stubby. "He'd kind of be company for me."
+
+And when he had said that he knew all at once just how lonesome he had
+been sometimes on his route, how he had wanted something to "kind of be
+company" for him.
+
+His face twitched as he stooped down to pat the dog. Mrs. Lynch looked
+at her son--youngest of her five. Not the hardness of her heart but the
+hardness of her life had made her unpractised in moments of tenderness.
+Something in the way Stubby was patting the dog suggested to her that
+Stubby was a "queer one." He _was_ kind of little to be carrying papers
+all by himself.
+
+Stubby looked up. "He could eat what's thrown away."
+
+That was an error in diplomacy. The woman's face hardened. "Mighty
+little'll be thrown away _this_ winter," she muttered.
+
+But just then Mrs. Johnson appeared on the other side of the fence and
+began hanging up her clothes and with that Mrs. Lynch saw her way to
+justify herself in indulging her son. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Lynch had
+"had words." "You just let him stay around, Stubby," she called, and
+you would have supposed from her tone it was Stubby who was on the other
+side of the fence, "maybe he'll keep the neighbour's chickens out! Them
+that ain't got chickens o' their own don't want to be bothered with the
+neighbours'!"
+
+That was how it happened that he stayed; and no one but Stubby knew--and
+possibly Stubby didn't either--how it happened that he was named Hero.
+It would seem that Hero should be a noble St. Bernard, or a particularly
+mean-looking bulldog, not a stocky, shapeless, squint-eyed yellow dog
+with one ear bitten half off and one leg built on an entirely different
+plan from its fellow legs. Possibly Stubby's own spiritual experiences
+had suggested to him that you weren't necessarily the way you looked.
+
+The chickens were pretty well kept out, though no one ever saw Hero
+doing any of it. Perhaps Hero had been too long associated with chasing
+to desire any part in it--even with roles reversed. If Stubby could help
+it, no one really saw Stubby doing the chasing either; he became skilled
+in chasing when he did not appear to be chasing; then he would get Hero
+to barking and turn to his mother with, "Guess you don't see so many
+chickens round nowadays."
+
+The fellows in the line jeered at Hero at first, but they soon tired of
+it when Stubby said he didn't want the cur but his mother made him
+stay around to keep the chickens out. He was a fine chicken dog, Stubby
+grudgingly admitted. He couldn't keep him from following, said Stubby,
+so he just let him come. Sometimes when they were waiting in line Stubby
+made ferocious threats at Hero. He was going to break his back and wring
+his head off and do other heartless things which for some reason he
+never started in right then and there to accomplish.
+
+It was different when they were alone--and they were alone a good deal.
+Stubby's route wasn't nearly so long after he had Hero to go with him.
+When winter came and five o'clock was dark and cold for starting out
+it was pretty good to have Hero trotting at his heels. And Hero always
+wanted to go; it was never so rainy nor so cold that that yellow dog
+seemed to think he would rather stay home by the fire. Then Hero was
+always waiting for him when he came home from school. Stubby would sing
+out, "Hello, cur!" and the tone was such that Hero did not grasp that he
+was being insulted. Sometimes when there was nobody about, Stubby
+picked Hero up in his arms and squeezed him--Stubby had not had a large
+experience with squeezing. At those times Hero would lick Stubby's face
+and whimper a little love whimper and such were the workings of Stubby's
+heart and mind that that made him of quite as much account as if he
+really had chased the chickens. Stubby, who had seen the way dogs can
+look at you out of their eyes, was not one to say of a dog, "What good
+is he?"
+
+But it seemed there were such people. There were even people who thought
+you oughtn't to have a dog to love and to love you if you weren't one
+of those rich people who could pay two dollars and a half a year for the
+luxury.
+
+Stubby first heard of those people one night in June. The father of the
+Lynch family was sitting in the back yard reading the paper when Hero
+and Stubby came running in from the alley. It was one of those moments
+when Hero, forgetting the bleakness of his youth, abandoned himself to
+the joy of living. He was tearing round and round Stubby, barking, when
+Stubby's father called out: "Here!--shut up there, you cur. You better
+lie low. You're going to be shot the first of August."
+
+Stubby, and as regards the joy of living Hero had done as much for
+Stubby as Stubby for Hero, came to a halt. The fun and frolic just
+died right out of him and he stood there staring at his father, who had
+turned the page and was settling himself to a new horror. At last Stubby
+spoke. "Why's he going to be shot on the first of August?" he asked in a
+tight little voice.
+
+His father looked up. "Why's he going to be shot? You got any two
+dollars and a half to pay for him?"
+
+He laughed as though that were a joke. Well, it was something of a joke.
+Stubby got ten cents a week out of his paper money. The rest he "turned
+in."
+
+Then he went back to his paper. There was another long pause before
+Stubby asked, in that tight queer little voice: "What'd I have to pay
+two dollars and a half for? Nobody owns him."
+
+His parent stirred scornfully. "Suppose you never heard of a dog tax,
+did you? S'pose they don't learn you nothing like that at school?"
+
+Yes, Stubby did know that dogs had to have checks, but he hadn't
+thought anything about that in connection with Hero. He ventured another
+question. "You have to have 'em for all dogs, even if you just picked
+'em up on the street and took care of 'em when nobody else would?"
+
+"You bet you do," his parent assured him genially. "You pay your dog tax
+or the policeman comes on the first of August and shoots your dog."
+
+With that he dismissed it for good, burying himself in his paper. For a
+minute the boy stood there in silence. Then he walked slowly round the
+house and sat down where his father couldn't see him. Hero followed--it
+was a way Hero had. The dog sat down beside the boy and after a couple
+of minutes the boy's arm stole furtively around him and they sat there
+very still for a long time.
+
+As nobody but Hero paid much attention to him, nobody save Hero noticed
+how quiet and queer Stubby was for the next three days. Hero must have
+noticed it, for he was quiet and queer too. He followed wherever Stubby
+would let him, and every time he got a chance he would nestle up to him
+and look into his face--that way even cur dogs have of doing when they
+fear something is wrong.
+
+At the end of three days Stubby, his little freckled face set and grim,
+took his stand in front of his father and came right out with: "I want
+to keep one week's paper money to pay Hero's tax."
+
+His father's chair had been tilted back against a tree. Now it came down
+with a thud. "Oh, you _do_, do you?"
+
+"I can earn the other fifty cents at little jobs."
+
+"You _can_, can you? Now ain't you smart!"
+
+The tone brought the blood to Stubby's face. "I think I got a right to,"
+he said, his voice low.
+
+The man's face, which had been taunting, grew ugly. "Look a-here, young
+man, none o' your lip!"
+
+The tears rushed to Stubby's eyes but he stumbled on: "I guess Hero's
+got a right to some of my paper money when he goes with me every day on
+my route."
+
+At that his father stared for a minute and then burst into a loud laugh.
+Blinded with tears, the boy turned to the house.
+
+After she had gone to bed that night Stubby's mother heard a sound from
+the alcove at the head of the stairs where her youngest child slept. As
+the sound kept on she got out of her bed and went to Stubby's cot.
+
+"Look here," she said, awkwardly but not unkindly, "this won't do. We're
+poor folks, Freddie" (it was only once in a while she called him that),
+"all we can do to live these times--we can't pay no dog tax."
+
+As Stubby did not speak she added: "I know you've taken to the dog, but
+just the same you ain't to feel hard to your pa. He can't help it--and
+neither can I. Things is as they is--and nobody can help it."
+
+As, despite this bit of philosophy Stubby was still gulping back sobs,
+she added what she thought a master stroke in consolation. "Now you just
+go right to sleep, and if they come to take this dog away maybe you can
+pick up another one in the fall."
+
+The sobs suddenly stopped and Stubby stared at her. And what he said
+after a long stare was: "I guess there ain't no use in you and me
+talking about it."
+
+"That's right," said she, relieved; "now you go right off to sleep."
+And she left him, never dreaming why Stubby had seen there was no use
+talking about it.
+
+Nor did he talk about it; but a change came over Stubby's funny little
+person in the next few days. The change was particularly concerned with
+his jaw, though there was something different, too, in the light in his
+eyes as he looked straight ahead, and something different in his voice
+when he said: "Come on, Hero."
+
+He got so he could walk into a store and demand, in a hard little voice:
+"Want a boy to do anything for you?" and when they said, "Got more boys
+than we know what to do with, sonny," Stubby would say, "All right," and
+stalk sturdily out again. Sometimes they laughed and said: "What could
+_you_ do?" and then Stubby would stalk out, but possibly a little less
+sturdily.
+
+Vacation came the next week, and still he had found nothing. His father,
+however, had been more successful. He found a place where they wanted a
+boy to work in a yard a couple of hours in the morning. For that Stubby
+was to get a dollar and a half a week. But that was to be turned in for
+his "keep." There were lots of mouths to feed--as Stubby's mother was
+always calling to her neighbour across the alley.
+
+But the yard gave Stubby an idea, and he earned some dimes and one
+quarter in the next week. Most folks thought he was too little--one kind
+lady told him he ought to be playing, not working--but there were people
+who would let him take a big shears and cut grass around flower beds,
+and things like that. This he had to do afternoons, when he was supposed
+to be off playing, and when he came home his mother sometimes said some
+folks had it easy--playing around all day.
+
+It was now the first week in July and Stubby had a dollar and twenty
+cents. It was getting to the point where he would wake in the night and
+find himself sitting up in bed, hands clenched. He dreamed dreams about
+how folks would let him live if he had ninety-nine cents but how he only
+had ninety-seven and a half, so they were going to shoot him.
+
+Then one day he found Mr. Stuart. He was passing the house after having
+asked three people if they wanted a boy, and they didn't, and seemed so
+surprised at the idea of their wanting him that Stubby's throat was all
+tight, when Mr. Stuart sang out: "Say, boy, want a little job?"
+
+It seemed at first it must be a joke--or a dream--anybody asking him if
+he _wanted_ one, but the man was beckoning to him, so he pulled himself
+together and ran up the steps.
+
+"Now here's a little package"--he took something out of the mail box.
+"It doesn't belong here. It's to go to three-hundred-two Pleasant
+street. You take it for a dime?"
+
+Stubby nodded.
+
+As he was going down the steps the man called: "Say, boy, how'd you like
+a steady job?"
+
+For the first minute it seemed pretty mean--making fun of a fellow that
+way!
+
+"This will be here every day. Suppose you come each day, about this
+time, and take it over there--not mentioning it to anybody."
+
+Stubby felt weak. "Why, all right," he managed to say.
+
+"I'll give you fifty cents a week. That fair?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Stubby, doing some quick calculation.
+
+"Then here goes for the first week"--and he handed him the other forty
+cents.
+
+It was funny how fast the world could change! Stubby wanted to run--he
+hadn't been doing much running of late. He wanted to go home and get
+Hero to go with him to Pleasant street, but didn't. No, _sir_, when you
+had a job you had to 'tend to things!
+
+Well, a person could do things, if he had to, thought Stubby. No use
+saying you couldn't, you _could_, if you had to. He was back in tune
+with life. He whistled; he turned up his collar in the old rakish way;
+he threw a stick at a cat. Back home he jumped over the fence instead
+of going in the gate--lately he had actually been using the gate. And
+he cried, "Get out of my sight, you cur!" in tones which, as Hero
+understood things, meant anything but getting out of his sight.
+
+He was a little boy again. He slept at night as little boys sleep. He
+played with Hero along the route--taught him some new tricks. His jaw
+relaxed from its grown-upishness.
+
+It was funny about those Stuarts. Sometimes he saw Mr. Stuart, but never
+anybody else; the place seemed shut up. But each day the little package
+was there, and every day he took it to Pleasant street and left it at
+the door there--that place seemed shut up, too.
+
+When it was well into the second week Stubby ventured to say something
+about the next fifty cents.
+
+The man fumbled in his pockets. Something in his face was familiar to
+experienced Stubby. It suggested a having to have two dollars and a half
+by August first and only having a dollar and a quarter state of mind.
+
+"I haven't got the change. Pay you at the end of next week for the whole
+business. That all right?"
+
+Stubby considered. "I've got to have it before the first of August," he
+said.
+
+At that the man laughed--funny kind of laugh, it was, and muttered
+something. But he told Stubby he would have it before the first.
+
+It bothered Stubby. He wished the man had given it to him _then_. He
+would rather get it each week and keep it himself. A little of the
+grown-up look stole back.
+
+After that he didn't see Mr. Stuart, and one day, a week or so later,
+the package was not in the box and a man who wore the kind of clothes
+Stubby's father wore came around the house and asked him what he was
+doing.
+
+Stubby was wary. "Oh, I've got a little job I do for Mr. Stuart."
+
+The man laughed. "I had a little job I did for Mr. Stuart, too. You paid
+in advance?"
+
+Stubby pricked up his ears.
+
+"'Cause if you ain't, I'd advise you to look out for a little job
+some'eres else."
+
+Then it came out. Mr. Stuart was broke; more than that, he was "off his
+nut." Lots of people were doing little jobs for him--there was no sense
+in any of them, and now he had suddenly been called out of town!
+
+There was a trembly feeling through Stubby's insides, but outwardly he
+was bristling just like his hair bristled as he demanded: "Where am I to
+get what's coming to me?"
+
+"'Fraid you won't get it, sonny. We're all in the same boat." He looked
+Stubby up and down and then added: "Kind of little for that boat."
+
+"I _got_ to have it!" cried Stubby. "I tell you, I _got_ to!"
+
+The man shook his head. "_That_ cuts no ice. Hard luck, sonny, but we've
+got to take our medicine in this world. 'Taint no medicine for kids,
+though," he muttered.
+
+Stubby's face just then was too much for him. He put his hand in his
+pocket and drew out a dime, saying: "There now. You run along and get
+you a soda and forget your troubles. It ain't always like this. You'll
+have better luck next time."
+
+But Stubby did not get the soda. He put the dime in his pocket and
+turned toward home. Something was the matter with his legs--they acted
+funny about carrying him. He tried to whistle, but something was the
+matter with his lips, too.
+
+Counting this dime, he now had a dollar and eighty cents, and it was the
+twenty-eighth day of July. "Thirty days has September--April, June and
+November--" he was saying to himself. Then July was one of the long
+ones. Well, _that_ was a good thing! Been a great deal worse if July was
+a short one. Again he tried to whistle, and that time did manage to pipe
+out a few shrill little notes.
+
+When Hero came running up the hill to meet him he slapped him on the
+back and cried, "Hello, Hero!" in tones fairly swaggering with bravado.
+
+That night he engaged his father in conversation--the phrase is well
+adapted to the way Stubby went about it. "How is it about--'bout things
+like taxes"--Stubby crossed his knees and swung one foot to show his
+indifference--"if you have _almost_ enough--do they sometimes let you
+off?"--the detachment was a shade less perfect on that last.
+
+His father laughed scoffingly. "Well, I guess _not!_"
+
+"I thought maybe," said Stubby, "if a person had _tried_ awful hard--and
+had _most_ enough--"
+
+Something inside him was all shaky, so he didn't go on. His father said
+that _trying_ didn't have anything to do with it.
+
+It was hard for Stubby not to sob out that he thought trying _ought_ to
+have something to do with it, but he only made a hissing noise between
+his teeth that took the place of the whistle that wouldn't come.
+
+"Kind of seems," he resumed, "if a person would have had enough if they
+hadn't been beat out of it, maybe--if he done the best he could--"
+
+His father snorted derisively and informed him that doing the best you
+could made no difference to the government; hard luck stories didn't go
+when it came to the laws of the land.
+
+Thereupon Stubby took a little walk out to the alley and spent a
+considerable time in contemplation of the neighbour's chicken-yard. When
+he came back he walked right up to his father and standing there, feet
+planted, shoulders squared, wanted to know, in a desperate little voice:
+"If some one else was to give--say a dollar and eighty cents for Hero,
+could I take the other seventy out of my paper money?"
+
+The man turned upon him roughly. "Uh-_huh_! _That's_ it, is it? _That's_
+why you're getting so smart all of a sudden about government! Look
+a-here. Just l'me tell you something. You're lucky if you git enough
+to _eat_ this winter. Do you know there's talk of the factory shuttin'
+down? _Dog_ tax! Why you're lucky if you git _shoes_."
+
+Stubby had turned away and was standing with his back to his father,
+hands in his pockets.
+
+"And l'me tell you some'en else, young man. If you got any dollar and
+eighty cents, you give it to your mother!"
+
+As Stubby was turning the corner of the house he called after him:
+"How'd you like to have me get you an automobile?"
+
+He went doggedly from house to house the next afternoon, but nobody had
+any jobs. When Hero came running out to him that night he patted him,
+but didn't speak.
+
+That evening as they were sitting in the back yard--Stubby and Hero
+a little apart from the others--his father was discoursing with his
+brother about anarchists. They were getting commoner, his father
+thought. There were a good many of them at the shop. They didn't call
+themselves that, but that was what they were.
+
+"Well, what is an anarchist, anyhow?" Stubby's mother wanted to know.
+
+"Why, an anarchist," her lord informed her, "is one that's against
+the government. He don't believe in the law and order. The real bad
+anarchists shoot them that tries to enforce the laws of the land. Guess
+if you'd read the papers these days you'd know."
+
+Stubby's brain had been going round and round and these words caught in
+it as it whirled. The government--the laws of the land--why, it was the
+government and the laws of the land that were going to shoot Hero! It
+was the government--the laws of the land--that didn't care how hard you
+had _tried_--didn't care whether you had been cheated--didn't care how
+you _felt_--didn't care about anything except getting the money! His
+brain got hotter. Well, _he_ didn't believe in the government, either.
+He was one of those people--those anarchists--that were against the laws
+of the land.
+
+He'd done the very best he could and now the government was going
+to take Hero away from him just because he couldn't get--_couldn't_
+get--that other seventy cents.
+
+Stubby's mother didn't hear her son crying that night. That was because
+Stubby was successful in holding the pillow over his head.
+
+The next morning he looked in one of the papers he was carrying to
+see what it said about anarchists. Sure enough, some place way off
+somewhere, the anarchists had shot somebody that was trying to enforce
+the laws of the land. The laws of the land--that didn't _care_.
+
+That afternoon as Stubby tramped around looking for jobs he saw a good
+many boys playing with dogs. None of them seemed to be worrying about
+whether their dogs had checks. To Stubby's hot little brain and sore
+little heart came the thought that they didn't love their dogs any more
+than he loved Hero, either. But the government didn't care whether he
+loved Hero or not! Pooh!--what was that to the government? All it cared
+about was getting the money. He stood for a long time watching a boy
+giving his dog a bath. The dog was trying to get away and the boy and
+another boy were having lots of fun about it. All of a sudden Stubby
+turned and ran away--ran down an alley, ran through a number of alleys,
+just kept on running, blinded by the tears.
+
+And that night, in the middle of the night, that something in his head
+going round and round, getting hotter and hotter, he decided that the
+only thing for him to do was to shoot the policeman who came to take
+Hero away on the morning of August first--that would be day after
+to-morrow.
+
+All night long policemen with revolvers stood around his bed. When his
+mother called him at half-past four he was shaking so he could scarcely
+get into his clothes.
+
+On his way home from his route Stubby had to pass a police-station. He
+went on the other side of the street and stood there looking across. One
+of the policemen was playing with a dog!
+
+Suddenly he wanted to rush over and throw himself down at that
+policeman's feet--sob out the story--ask him to please, _please_ wait
+till he could get that other seventy cents.
+
+But just then the policeman got up and went in the station, and Stubby
+was afraid to go in the police-station.
+
+That policeman complicated things for Stubby. Before that it had been
+quite simple. The policeman would come to enforce the law of the land;
+but he did not believe in the law of the land, so he would just kill the
+policeman. But it seemed a policeman wasn't just a person who enforced
+the laws of the land. He was also a person who played with a dog.
+
+After a whole day of walking around thinking about it--his eyes burning,
+his heart pounding--he decided that the thing to do was to warn the
+policeman by writing a letter. He did not know whether real anarchists
+warned them or not, but Stubby couldn't get reconciled to the idea of
+killing a person without telling him you were going to do it. It seemed
+that even a policeman should be told--especially a policeman who played
+with a dog.
+
+The following letter was pencilled by a shaking hand, late that
+afternoon. It was written upon a barrel in the Lynch wood-shed, on a
+piece of wrapping paper, a bristly little head bending over it:
+
+To the Policeman who comes to take my dog 'cause I ain't got the two
+fifty--'cause I tried but could only get one eighty--'cause a man was
+off his nut and didn't pay me what I earned--
+
+This is to tell you I am an anarchist and do not believe in the
+government or the law and the order and will shoot you when you come. I
+wouldn't a been an anarchist if I could a got the money and I tried to
+get it but I couldn't get it--not enough. I don't think the government
+had ought to take things you like like I like Hero so I am against the
+government.
+
+Thought I would tell you first.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+F. LYNCH.
+
+I don't see how I can shoot you 'cause where would I get the revolver.
+So I will have to do it with the butcher knife. Folks are sometimes
+killed that way 'cause my father read it in the paper.
+
+If you wanted to take the one eighty and leave Hero till I can get the
+seventy I will not do anything to you and would be very much obliged.
+
+1113 Willow street.
+
+The letter was properly addressed and sealed--not for nothing had
+Stubby's teacher given those instructions in the art of letter writing.
+The stamp he paid for out of the dime the man gave him to get a soda
+with--and forget his troubles.
+
+Now Bill O'Brien was on the desk at the police-station and Miss Murphy
+of the Herald stood in with Bill. That was how it came about that the
+next morning a fat policeman, an eager-looking girl and a young fellow
+with a kodak descended into the hollow to 1113 Willow street.
+
+A little boy peeped around the corner of the house--such a wild-looking
+little boy--hair all standing up and eyes glittering. A yellow dog ran
+out and barked. The boy darted out and grabbed the dog in his arms and
+in that moment the girl called to the man with the black box: "Right
+now! Quick! Get him!"
+
+They were getting ready to shoot Hero! That box was the way the police
+did it! He must--oh, he _must--must_ ... Boy and dog sank to the
+ground--but just the same the boy was shielding the dog!
+
+When Stubby had pulled himself together the policeman was holding Hero.
+He said that Hero was certainly a fine dog--he had a dog a good
+deal like him at home. And Miss Murphy--she was choking back sobs
+herself--knew how he could earn the seventy cents that afternoon.
+
+In such wise do a good anarchist and a good story go down under the same
+blow. Some of those sobs Miss Murphy choked back got into what she wrote
+about Stubby and his yellow dog and the next day citizens with no sense
+of the dramatic sent money enough to check Hero through life.
+
+At first Stubby's father said he had a good mind to lick him. But
+something in the quality of Miss Murphy's journalism left a hazy feeling
+of there being something remarkable about his son. He confided to his
+good wife that it wouldn't surprise him much if Stubby was some day
+President. Somebody had to be President, said he, and he had noticed
+it was generally those who in their youthful days did things that made
+lively reading in the newspapers.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+AT TWILIGHT
+
+
+A breeze from the May world without blew through the class-room, and as
+it lifted his papers he had a curious sense of freshness and mustiness
+meeting. He looked at the group of students before him, half smiling at
+the way the breath of spring was teasing the hair of the girls sitting
+by the window. Anna Lawrence was trying to pin hers back again, but May
+would have none of such decorum, and only waited long enough for her
+to finish her work before joyously undoing it. She caught the laughing,
+admiring eyes of a boy sitting across from her and sought to conceal her
+pleasure in her unmanageable wealth of hair by a wry little face, and
+then the eyes of both strayed out to the trees that had scented
+that breeze for them, looking with frank longing at the campus which
+stretched before them in all its May glory that sunny afternoon. He
+remembered having met this boy and girl strolling in the twilight the
+evening before, and as a buoyant breeze that instant swept his own face
+he had a sudden, irrelevant consciousness of being seventy-three years
+old.
+
+Other eyes were straying to the trees and birds and lilacs of that world
+from which the class-room was for the hour shutting them out. He was
+used to it--that straying of young eyes in the spring. For more than
+forty years he had sat at that desk and talked to young men and women
+about philosophy, and in those forty years there had always been
+straying eyes in May. The children of some of those boys and girls had
+in time come to him, and now there were other children who, before
+many years went by, might be sitting upon those benches, listening to
+lectures upon what men had thought about life, while their eyes strayed
+out where life called. So it went on--May, perhaps, the philosopher
+triumphant.
+
+As, with a considerable effort--for the languor of spring, or some other
+languor, was upon him too--he brought himself back to the papers they
+had handed in, he found himself thinking of those first boys and girls,
+now men and women, and parents of other boys and girls. He hoped that
+philosophy had, after all, done something more than shut them out from
+May. He had always tried, not so much to instruct them in what men had
+thought, as to teach them to think, and perhaps now, when May had become
+a time for them to watch the straying of other eyes, they were the less
+desolate because of the habits he had helped them to form. He wanted to
+think that he had done something more than hold them prisoners.
+
+There was a sadness to-day in his sympathy. He was tired. It was hard
+to go back to what he had been saying about the different things the
+world's philosophers had believed about the immortality of the soul. So,
+as often when his feeling for his thought dragged, he turned to Gretta
+Loring. She seldom failed to bring a revival of interest--a freshening.
+She was his favourite student. He did not believe that in all the years
+there had been any student who had not only pleased, but helped him as
+she did.
+
+He had taught her father and mother. And now there was Gretta,
+clear-eyed and steady of gaze, asking more of life than either of them
+had asked; asking, not only May, but what May meant. For Gretta there
+need be no duality. She was one of those rare ones for whom the meaning
+of life opened new springs to the joy of life, for whom life intensified
+with the understanding of it. He never said a thing that gratified him
+as reaching toward the things not easy to say but that he would find
+Gretta's face illumined--and always that eager little leaning ahead for
+more.
+
+She had that look of waiting now, but to-day it seemed less an expectant
+than a troubled look. She wanted him to go on with what he had been
+saying about the immortality of the soul. But it was not so much a
+demand upon him--he had come to rely upon those demands, as it was--he
+had an odd, altogether absurd sense of its being a fear for him. She
+looked uncomfortable, fretted; and suddenly he was startled to see her
+searching eyes blurred by something that must be tears.
+
+She turned away, and for just a minute it seemed to leave him alone and
+helpless. He rubbed his forehead with his hand. It felt hot. It got that
+way sometimes lately when he was tired. And the close of that hour often
+found him tired.
+
+He believed he knew what she wanted. She would have him declare his own
+belief. In the youthful flush of her modernism she was impatient with
+that fumbling around with what other men had thought. Despising the
+muddled thinking of some of her classmates, she would have him put it
+right to them with "As for yourself--"
+
+He tried to formulate what he would care to say. But, perhaps just
+because he was too tired to say it right, the life the robin in the
+nearest tree was that moment celebrating in song seemed more important
+than anything he had to say about his own feeling toward the things men
+had thought about the human soul.
+
+It was ten minutes before closing time, but suddenly he turned to his
+class with: "Go out-of-doors and think about it. This is no day to sit
+within and talk of philosophy. What men have thought about life in the
+past is less important than what you feel about it to-day." He paused,
+then added, he could not have said why, "And don't let the shadow of
+either belief or unbelief fall across the days that are here for you
+now." Again he stopped, then surprised himself by ending, "Philosophy
+should quicken life, not deaden it."
+
+They were not slow in going, their astonishment in his wanting them to
+go quickly engulfed in their pleasure in doing so. It was only Gretta
+who lingered a moment, seeming too held by his manner in sending her out
+into the sunshine to care about going there. He thought she was going to
+come to the desk and speak to him. He was sure she wanted to. But at the
+last she went hastily, and he thought, just before she turned her face
+away, that it was a tear he saw on her lashes.
+
+Strange! Was she unhappy, she through whom life surged so richly? And
+yet was it not true, that where it gave much it exacted much? Feeling
+much, and understanding what she felt, and feeling for what she
+understood--must she also suffer much? Must one always pay?
+
+He sighed, and began gathering together his papers. Thoughts about life
+tired him to-day.
+
+On the steps he paused, unreasonably enough a little saddened as he
+watched some of them beginning a tennis game. Certainly they were losing
+no time--eager to let go thoughts about life for its pleasures, very few
+of them awake to that rich life he had tried to make them ready for.
+He drooped still more wearily at the thought that perhaps the most real
+gift he had for them was that unexpected ten minutes.
+
+Remembering a book he must have from the library, he turned back. He
+went to the alcove where the works on philosophy were to be found, and
+was reaching up for the volume he wanted, when a sentence from a lowly
+murmured conversation in the next aisle came to him across the stack of
+books.
+
+"That's all very well; we know, of course, that he doesn't believe, but
+what will he do when it comes to _himself?_"
+
+It arrested him, coming as it did from one of the girls who had just
+left his class-room. He stood there motionless, his hand still reaching
+up for the book.
+
+"Do? Why, face it, of course. Face it as squarely as he's faced every
+other fact of life."
+
+That was Gretta, and though, mindful of the library mandate for silence,
+her tone was low, it was vibrant with a fine scorn.
+
+"Well," said the first speaker, "I guess he'll have to face it before
+very long."
+
+That was not answered; there was a movement on the other side of the
+barricade of books--it might have been that Gretta had turned away. His
+hand dropped down from the high shelf. He was leaning against the books.
+
+"Haven't you noticed, Gretta, how he's losing his grip?"
+
+At that his head went up sharply; he stood altogether tense as he waited
+for Gretta to set the other girl right--Gretta, so sure-seeing, so much
+wiser and truer than the rest of them. Gretta would _laugh!_
+
+But she did not laugh. And what his strained ear caught at last was--not
+her scornful denial, but a little gasp of breath suggesting a sob.
+
+"_Noticed_ it? Why it breaks my heart!"
+
+He stared at the books through which her low, passionate voice had
+carried. Then he sank to the chair that fortunately was beside him.
+Power for standing had gone from him.
+
+"Father says--father's on the board, you know" (it was the first girl
+who spoke)--"that they don't know what to do about it. It's not justice
+to the school to let him begin another year. These things are arranged
+with less embarrassment in the big schools, where a man begins emeritus
+at a certain time. Though of course they'll pension him--he's done a lot
+for the school."
+
+He thanked Gretta for her little laugh of disdain. The memory of it was
+more comforting--more satisfying--than any attempt to put it into words
+could have been.
+
+He heard them move away, their skirts brushing the book-stacks in
+passing. A little later he saw them out in the sunshine on the campus.
+Gretta joined one of the boys for a game of tennis. Motionless, he sat
+looking out at her. She looked so very young as she played.
+
+For an hour he remained at the table in the alcove where he had
+overheard what his students had to say of him. And when the hour had
+gone by he took up the pen which was there upon the study table and
+wrote his resignation to the secretary of the board of trustees. It was
+very brief--simply that he felt the time had come when a younger man
+could do more for the school than he, and that he should like his
+resignation to take effect at the close of the present school year. He
+had an envelope, and sealed and stamped the letter--ready to drop in the
+box in front of the building as he left. He had always served the school
+as best he could; he lost no time now, once convinced, in rendering
+to it the last service he could offer it--that of making way for the
+younger man.
+
+Looking things squarely in the face, and it was the habit of a lifetime
+to look things squarely in the face, he had not been long in seeing that
+they were right. Things tired him now as they had not once tired him. He
+had less zest at the beginning of the hour, more relief at the close
+of it. He seemed stupid in not having seen it for himself, but possibly
+many people were a little stupid in seeing that their own time was over.
+Of course he had thought, in a vague way, that his working time couldn't
+be much longer, but it seemed part of the way human beings managed with
+themselves that things in even the very near future kept the remoteness
+of future things.
+
+Now he understood Gretta's troubled look and her tears. He knew how
+those fine nerves of hers must have suffered, how her own mind had
+wanted to leap to the aid of his, how her own strength must have
+tormented her in not being able to reach his flagging powers. It seemed
+part of the whole hardness of life that she who would care the most
+would be the one to see it most understandingly.
+
+What he was trying to do was to see it all very simply, in
+matter-of-fact fashion, that there might be no bitterness and the least
+of tragedy. It was nothing unique in human history he was facing. One
+did one's work; then, when through, one stopped. He tried to feel that
+it was as simple as it sounded, but he wondered if back of many of those
+brief letters of resignation that came at quitting-time there was the
+hurt, the desolation, that there was no use denying to himself was back
+of his.
+
+He hoped that most men had more to turn to. Most men of seventy-three
+had grandchildren. That would help, surrounding one with a feeling of
+the naturalness of it all. But that school had been his only child. And
+he had loved it with the tenderness one gives a child. That in him which
+would have gone to the child had gone to the school.
+
+The woman whom he loved had not loved him; he had never married. His
+life had been called lonely; but lonely though it undeniably had been,
+the life he won from books and work and thinking had kept the chill from
+his heart. He had the gift of drawing life from all contact with life.
+Working with youth, he kept that feeling for youth that does for the
+life within what sunshine and fresh air do for the room in which one
+dwells.
+
+It was now that the loneliness that blights seemed waiting for him....
+Life _used_ one--and that in the ugly, not the noble sense of being
+used. Stripped of the fine fancies men wove around it, what was it
+beyond just a matter of being sucked dry and then thrown aside? Why not
+admit that, and then face it? And the abundance with which one might
+have given--the joy in the giving--had no bearing upon the fact that it
+came at last to that question of getting one out of the way. It was
+no one's unkindness; it was just that life was like that. Indeed, the
+bitterness festered around the thought that it _was_ life itself--the
+way of life--not the brutality of any particular people. "They'll
+pension him--he's done a lot for the school." Even the grateful memory
+of Gretta's tremulous, scoffing little laugh for the way it fell short
+could not follow to the deep place that had been hurt.
+
+Getting himself in hand again, and trying to face this as simply and
+honestly as he had sought to face the other, he knew that it was true he
+had done a great deal for the school. He did not believe it too much to
+say he had done more for it than any other man. Certainly more than any
+other man he had given it what place it had with men who thought. He had
+come to it in his early manhood, and at a time when the school was in
+its infancy--just a crude, struggling little Western college. Gretta
+Loring's grandfather had been one of its founders--founding it in revolt
+against the cramping sectarianism of another college. He had gloried
+in the spirit which gave it birth, and it was he who, through the
+encroachings of problems of administration and the ensnarements and
+entanglements of practicality, had fought to keep unattached and
+unfettered that spirit of freedom in the service of truth.
+
+His own voice had been heard and recognised, and a number of times
+during the years calls had come from more important institutions, but he
+had not cared to go. For year by year there deepened that personal love
+for the little college to which he had given the youthful ardour of his
+own intellectual passion. All his life's habits were one with it. His
+days seemed beaten into the path that cut across the campus. The vines
+that season after season went a little higher on the wall out there
+indicated his strivings by their own, and the generation that had worn
+down even the stones of those front steps had furrowed his forehead and
+stooped his shoulders. He had grown old along with it! His days were
+twined around it. It was the place of his efforts and satisfactions
+(joys perhaps he should not call them), of his falterings and his hopes.
+He loved it because he had given himself to it; loved it because he had
+helped to bring it up. On the shelves all around him were books which it
+had been his pleasure--because during some of those hard years they were
+to be had in no other way--to order himself and pay for from his own
+almost ludicrously meagre salary. He remembered the excitement there
+always was in getting them fresh from the publisher and bringing them
+over there in his arms; the satisfaction in coming in next day and
+finding them on the shelves. Such had been his dissipations, his
+indulgences of self. Many things came back to him as he sat there going
+back over busy years, the works on philosophy looking down upon him, the
+shadows of that spring afternoon gathering around him. He looked like
+a very old man indeed as he at last reached out for the letter he had
+written to the trustees, relieving them of their embarrassment.
+
+Twilight had come on. On the front steps he paused and looked around
+the campus. It was growing dark in that lingering way it has in the
+spring--daylight creeping away under protest, night coming gently, as
+if it knew that the world having been so pleasant, day would be loath to
+go. The boys and girls were going back and forth upon the campus and the
+streets. They could not bear to go within. For more than forty years
+it had been like that. It would be like that for many times forty
+years--indeed, until the end of the world, for it would be the end of
+the world when it was not like that. He was glad that they were out in
+the twilight, not indoors trying to gain from books something of the
+meaning of life. That course had its satisfactions along the way, but it
+was surely no port of peace to which it bore one at the last.
+
+He shrunk from going home. There were so many readjustments he must
+make, once home. So, lingering, he saw that off among the trees a girl
+was sitting alone. She threw back her head in a certain way just then,
+and he knew by the gesture that it was Gretta Loring. He wondered what
+she was thinking about. What did one who thought think about--over there
+on the other side of life? Youth and age looked at life from opposite
+sides. Then they could not see it alike, for what one saw in life seemed
+to depend so entirely upon how the light was falling from where one
+stood.
+
+He could not have said just what it was made him cross the campus toward
+her. Part of it was the desire for human sympathy--one thing, at least,
+which age did not deaden. But that was not the whole of it, nor the
+deepest thing in it. It was an urge of the spirit to find and keep for
+itself a place where the light was falling backward upon life.
+
+She was quiet in her greeting, and gentle. Her cheeks were still
+flushed, her hair tumbled from her game, but her eyes were thoughtful
+and, he thought, sad. He felt that the sadness was because of him; of
+him and the things of which he made her think. He knew of her affection
+for him, the warmth there was in her admiration of the things for which
+he had fought. He had discovered that it hurt her now that others
+should be seeing and not he, pained her to watch so sorry a thing as his
+falling below himself, wounded both pride and heart that men whom she
+would doubtless say had never appreciated him were whispering among
+themselves about how to get rid of him. Why, the poor child might even
+be tormenting herself with the idea she ought to tell him!
+
+That was why he told her. He pointed to the address on the envelope,
+saying: "That carries my resignation, Gretta."
+
+Her start and the tears which rushed to her eyes told him he was right
+about her feeling. She did not seem able to say anything. Her chin was
+trembling.
+
+"I see that the time has come," he said, "when a younger man can do more
+for the school than I can hope to do for it."
+
+Still she said nothing at all, but her eyes were deepening and she
+had that very steadfast, almost inspired look that had so many times
+quickened him in the class-room.
+
+She was not going to deny it! She was not going to pretend!
+
+After the first feeling of not having got something needed he rose to
+her high ground--ground she had taken it for granted he would take.
+
+"And will you believe it, Gretta," he said, rising to that ground and
+there asking, not for the sympathy that bends down, but for a hand in
+passing, "there comes a hard hour when first one feels the time has come
+to step aside and be replaced by that younger man?"
+
+She nodded. "It must be," she said, simply; "it must be very much harder
+than any of us can know till we come to it."
+
+She brought him a sense of his advantage in experience--his riches. To
+be sure, there was that.
+
+And he was oddly comforted by the honesty in her which could not stoop
+to dishonest comforting. In what superficially might seem her failure
+there was a very real victory for them both. And there was nothing of
+coldness in her reserve! There was the fulness of understanding, and of
+valuing the moments too highly for anything there was to be said about
+it. There was a great spiritual dignity, a nobility, in the way she was
+looking at him. It called upon the whole of his own spiritual dignity.
+It was her old demand upon him, but this time the tears through which
+her eyes shone were tears of pride in fulfilment, not of sorrowing for
+failure.
+
+Suddenly he felt that his life had not been spent in vain, that the
+lives of all those men of his day who had fought the good fight for
+intellectual honesty--spiritual dignity--had not been spent in vain
+if they were leaving upon the earth even a few who were like the girl
+beside them.
+
+It turned him from himself to her. She was what counted--for she was
+what remained. And he remained in just the measure that he remained
+through her; counted in so far as he counted for her. It was as if he
+had been facing in the wrong direction and now a kindly hand had turned
+him around. It was not in looking back there he would find himself. He
+was not back there to be found. Only so much of him lived as had been
+able to wing itself ahead--on in the direction she was moving.
+
+It did not particularly surprise him that when she at last spoke it was
+to voice a shade of that same feeling. "I was thinking," she began, "of
+that younger man. Of what he must mean to the man who gives way to him."
+
+She was feeling her way as she went--groping among the many dim things
+that were there. He had always liked to watch her face when she was
+thinking her way step by step.
+
+"I think you used a word wrongly a minute ago," she said, with a smile.
+"You spoke of being replaced. But that isn't it. A man like you isn't
+replaced; he's"--she got it after a minute and came forth with it
+triumphantly--"fulfilled!"
+
+Her face was shining as she turned to him after that. "Don't you see?
+He's there waiting to take your place because you got him ready. Why,
+you made that younger man! Your whole life has been a getting ready for
+him. He can do his work be cause you first did yours. Of course he can
+go farther than you can! Wouldn't it be a sorry commentary on you if he
+couldn't?"
+
+Her voice throbbed warmly upon that last, and during the pause the light
+it had brought still played upon her face. "We were talking in class
+about immortality," she went on, more slowly. "There's one form of
+immortality I like to think about. It's that all those who from the very
+first have given anything to the world are living in the world to-day."
+There was a rush of tears to her eyes and of affection to her voice
+as she finished, very low: "You'll never die. You've deepened the
+consciousness of life too much for that."
+
+They sat there as twilight drew near to night, the old man and the young
+girl, silent. The laughter of boys and girls and the good-night calls of
+the birds were all around them. The fragrance of life was around
+them. It was one of those silences to which come impressions, faiths,
+longings, not yet born as thoughts.
+
+Something in the quality of that silence brought the rescuing sense
+of its having been good to have lived and done one's part--that sense
+which, from places of desolation and over ways rough and steep and dark,
+can find its way to the meadows of serenity.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #7368 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7368)
diff --git a/old/masks10.txt b/old/masks10.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Lifted Masks
+       Stories
+
+Author: Susan Glaspell
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7368]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 21, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFTED MASKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+LIFTED MASKS
+
+
+STORIES BY
+
+
+SUSAN GLASPELL
+
+1912
+
+
+
+
+
+[Dedication]
+To
+THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
+JENNIE PRESTON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I   "ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS"
+
+II   THE PLEA
+
+III  FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS
+
+IV   FRECKLES M'GRATH
+
+V    FROM A TO Z
+
+VI   THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
+
+VII  HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA
+
+VIII THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES
+
+IX   "OUT THERE"
+
+X    THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE
+
+XI   HIS AMERICA
+
+XII  THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG
+
+XIII AT TWILIGHT
+
+
+
+
+LIFTED MASKS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+"ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS"
+
+
+"N'avez-vous pas--" she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she
+saw that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly
+dangling two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured
+young woman assured him were _bien chic_ was edging nearer her.
+She was never so conscious of the truly American quality of her
+French as when a countryman was at hand. The French themselves had
+an air of "How marvellously you speak!" but fellow Americans
+listened superciliously in an "I can do better than that myself"
+manner which quite untied the Gallic twist in one's tongue. And so,
+feeling her French was being compared, not with mere French itself,
+but with an arrogant new American brand thereof, she moved a little
+around the corner of the counter and began again in lower voice:
+"_Mais, n'avez_--"
+
+"Say, Young Lady," a voice which adequately represented the figure
+broke in, "_you_, aren't French, are you?"
+
+She looked up with what was designed for a haughty stare. But what
+is a haughty stare to do in the face of a broad grin? And because it
+was such a long time since a grin like that had been grinned at her
+it happened that the stare gave way to a dimple, and the dimple to a
+laughing: "Is it so bad as that?"
+
+"Oh, not your French," he assured her. "You talk it just like the
+rest of them. In fact, I should say, if anything--a little more so.
+But do you know,"--confidentially--"I can just spot an American girl
+every time!"
+
+"How?" she could not resist asking, and the modest black hose she
+was thinking of purchasing dangled against his gorgeous red ones in
+friendliest fashion.
+
+"Well, Sir--I don't know. I don't think it can be the
+clothes,"--judicially surveying her.
+
+"The clothes," murmured Virginia, "were bought in Paris."
+
+"Well, you've got _me_. Maybe it's the way you wear 'em. Maybe
+it's 'cause you look as if you used to play tag with your brother.
+Something--anyhow--gives a fellow that 'By jove there's an American
+girl!' feeling when he sees you coming round the corner."
+
+"But why--?"
+
+"Lord--don't begin on _why_. You can say _why_ to
+anything. Why don't the French talk English? Why didn't they lay
+Paris out at right angles? Now look here, Young Lady, for that
+matter--_why_ can't you help me buy some presents for my wife?
+There'd be nothing wrong about it," he hastened to assure her,
+"because my wife's a mighty fine woman."
+
+The very small American looked at the very large one. Now Virginia
+was a well brought up young woman. Her conversations with strange
+men had been confined to such things as, "Will you please tell me
+the nearest way to--?" but preposterously enough--she could not for
+the life of her have told why--frowning upon this huge American--fat
+was the literal word--who stood there with puckered-up face swinging
+the flaming hose would seem in the same shameful class with snubbing
+the little boy who confidently asked her what kind of ribbon to buy
+for his mother.
+
+"Was it for your wife you were thinking of buying these red
+stockings?" she ventured.
+
+"Sure. What do you think of 'em? Look as if they came from Paris all
+right, don't they?"
+
+"Oh, they look as though they came from Paris, all right," Virginia
+repeated, a bit grimly. "But do you know"--this quite as to that
+little boy who might be buying the ribbon--"American women don't
+always care for all the things that look as if they came from Paris.
+Is your wife--does she care especially for red stockings?"
+
+"Don't believe she ever had a pair in her life. That's why I thought
+it might please her."
+
+Virginia looked down and away. There were times when dimples made
+things hard for one.
+
+Then she said, with gentle gravity: "There are quite a number of
+women in America who don't care much for red stockings. It would
+seem too bad, wouldn't it, if after you got these clear home your
+wife should turn out to be one of those people? Now, I think these
+grey stockings are lovely. I'm sure any woman would love them. She
+could wear them with grey suede slippers and they would be so soft
+and pretty."
+
+"Um--not very lively looking, are they? You see I want something to
+cheer her up. She--well she's not been very well lately and I
+thought something--oh something with a lot of _dash_ in it, you
+know, would just fill the bill. But look here. We'll take both.
+Sure--that's the way out of it. If she don't like the red, she'll
+like the grey, and if she don't like the--You like the grey ones,
+don't you? Then here"--picking up two pairs of the handsomely
+embroidered grey stockings and handing them to the clerk--"One,"
+holding up his thumb to denote one--"me,"--a vigorous pounding of
+the chest signifying me. "One"--holding up his forefinger and
+pointing to the girl--"mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh no--no--no!" cried Virginia, her face instantly the colour of
+the condemned stockings. Then, standing straight: "Certainly
+_not_."
+
+"No? Just as you say," he replied good humouredly. "Like to have you
+have 'em. Seems as if strangers in a strange land oughtn't to stand
+on ceremony."
+
+The clerk was bending forward holding up the stockings alluringly.
+"_Pour mademoiselle, n'est-ce-pas_?"
+
+"_Mais--non!_" pronounced Virginia, with emphasis.
+
+There followed an untranslatable gesture. "How droll!" shoulder and
+outstretched hands were saying. "If the kind gentleman _wishes_
+to give mademoiselle the _joli bas_--!"
+
+His face had puckered up again. Then suddenly it unpuckered. "Tell
+you what you might do," he solved it. "Just take 'em along and send
+them to your mother. Now your mother might be real glad to have
+'em."
+
+Virginia stared. And then an awful thing happened. What she was
+thinking about was the letter she could send with the stockings.
+"Mother dear," she would write, "as I stood at the counter buying
+myself some stockings to-day along came a nice man--a stranger to
+me, but very kind and jolly--and gave me--"
+
+There it was that the awful thing happened. Her dimple was
+showing--and at thought of its showing she could not keep it from
+showing! And how could she explain why it was showing without its
+going on showing? And how--?
+
+But at that moment her gaze fell upon the clerk, who had taken the
+dimple as signal to begin putting the stockings in a box. The
+Frenchwoman's eyebrows soon put that dimple in its proper place.
+"And so the _petite Americaine_ was not too--oh, not _too_--" those
+French eyebrows were saying.
+
+All in an instant Virginia was something quite different from a
+little girl with a dimple. "You are very kind," she was saying, and
+her mother herself could have done it no better, "but I am sure our
+little joke had gone quite far enough. I bid you good-morning". And
+with that she walked regally over to the glove counter, leaving red
+and grey and black hosiery to their own destinies.
+
+"I loathe them when their eyebrows go up," she fumed. "Now
+_his_ weren't going up--not even in his mind."
+
+She could not keep from worrying about him. "They'll just 'do' him,"
+she was sure. "And then laugh at him in the bargain. A man like that
+has no _business_ to be let loose in a store all by himself."
+
+And sure enough, a half hour later she came upon him up in the dress
+department. Three of them had gathered round to "do" him. They were
+making rapid headway, their smiling deference scantily concealing
+their amused contempt. The spectacle infuriated Virginia. "They just
+think they can _work_ us!" she stormed. "They think we're
+_easy_. I suppose they think he's a _fool_. I just wish
+they could get him in a business deal! I just wish--!"
+
+"I can assure you, sir," the English-speaking manager of the
+department was saying, "that this garment is a wonderful value. We
+are able to let you have it at so absurdly low a figure because--"
+
+Virginia did not catch why it was they were able to let him have it
+at so absurdly low a figure, but she did see him wipe his brow and
+look helplessly around. "Poor _thing_," she murmured, almost
+tenderly, "he doesn't know what to do. He just _does_ need
+somebody to look after him." She stood there looking at his back. He
+had a back a good deal like the back of her chum's father at home.
+Indeed there were various things about him suggested "home." Did one
+want one's own jeered at? One might see crudities one's self, but
+was one going to have supercilious outsiders coughing those sham
+coughs behind their hypocritical hands?
+
+"For seven hundred francs," she heard the suave voice saying.
+
+_Seven hundred francs_! Virginia's national pride, or, more
+accurately, her national rage, was lashed into action. It was with
+very red cheeks that the small American stepped stormily to the
+rescue of her countryman.
+
+"Seven hundred francs for _that_?" she jeered, right in the
+face of the enraged manager and stiffening clerks. "Seven hundred
+francs--indeed! Last year's model--a hideous colour, and "--picking
+it up, running it through her fingers and tossing it contemptuously
+aside--"abominable stuff!"
+
+"Gee, but I'm grateful to you!" he breathed, again wiping his brow.
+"You know, I was a little leery of it myself."
+
+The manager, quivering with rage and glaring uglily, stepped up to
+Virginia. "May I ask--?"
+
+But the fat man stepped in between--he was well qualified for that
+position. "Cut it out, partner. The young lady's a friend of
+_mine_--see? She's looking out for me--not you. I don't want
+your stuff, anyway." And taking Virginia serenely by the arm he
+walked away.
+
+"This was no place to buy dresses," said she crossly.
+
+"Well, I wish I knew where the places _were_ to buy things," he
+replied, humbly, forlornly.
+
+"Well, what do you want to buy?" demanded she, still crossly.
+
+"Why, I want to buy some nice things for my wife. Something the real
+thing from Paris, you know. I came over from London on purpose. But
+Lord,"--again wiping his brow--"a fellow doesn't know where to
+_go_."
+
+"Oh well," sighed Virginia, long-sufferingly, "I see I'll just have
+to take you. There doesn't seem any way out of it. It's evident you
+can't go _alone_. _Seven hundred francs_!"
+
+"I suppose it was too much," he conceded meekly. "I tell you I
+_will_ be grateful if you'll just stay by me a little while. I
+never felt so up against it in all my life."
+
+"Now, a very nice thing to take one's wife from Paris," began
+Virginia didactically, when they reached the sidewalk, "is lace."
+
+"L--ace? Um! Y--es, I suppose lace is all right. Still it never
+struck me there was anything so very _lively_ looking about
+lace."
+
+"'Lively looking' is not the final word in wearing apparel,"
+pronounced Virginia in teacher-to-pupil manner. "Lace is always in
+good taste, never goes out of style, and all women care for it. I
+will take you to one of the lace shops."
+
+"Very well," acquiesced he, truly chastened. "Here, let's get in
+this cab."
+
+Virginia rode across the Seine looking like one pondering the
+destinies of nations. Her companion turned several times to address
+her, but it would have been as easy for a soldier to slap a general
+on the back. Finally she turned to him.
+
+"Now when we get there," she instructed, "don't seem at all
+interested in things. Act--oh, bored, you know, and seeming to want
+to get me away. And when they tell the price, no matter what they
+say, just--well sort of groan and hold your head and act as though
+you are absolutely overcome at the thought of such an outrage."
+
+"U--m. You have to do that here to get--lace?"
+
+"You have to do that here to get _anything_---at the price you
+should get it. You, and people who go shopping the way you do, bring
+discredit upon the entire American nation."
+
+"That so? Sorry. Never meant to do that. All right, Young Lady, I'll
+do the best I can. Never did act that way, but suppose I can, if the
+rest of them do."
+
+"Groan and hold my head," she heard him murmuring as they entered
+the shop.
+
+He proved an apt pupil. It may indeed be set down that his aptitude
+was their undoing. They had no sooner entered the shop than he
+pulled out his watch and uttered an exclamation of horror at the
+sight of the time. Virginia could scarcely look at the lace, so
+insistently did he keep waving the watch before her. His contempt
+for everything shown was open and emphatic. It was also articulate.
+Virginia grew nervous, seeing the real red showing through in the
+Frenchwoman's cheeks. And when the price was at last named--a price
+which made Virginia jubilant--there burst upon her outraged ears
+something between a jeer and a howl of rage, the whole of it
+terrifyingly done in the form of a groan; she looked at her
+companion to see him holding up his hands and wobbling his head as
+though it had been suddenly loosened from his spine, cast one look
+at the Frenchwoman--then fled, followed by her groaning compatriot.
+
+"I didn't mean you to act like _that_!" she stormed.
+
+"Why, I did just what you told me to! Seemed to me I was following
+directions to the letter. Don't think for a minute _I'm_ going
+to bring discredit on the American nation! Not a bad scheme--taking
+out my watch that way, was it?"
+
+"Oh, beautiful _scheme_. I presume you notice, however, that we
+have no lace."
+
+They walked half a block in silence. "Now I'll take you to another
+shop," she then volunteered, in a turning the other cheek fashion,
+"and here please do nothing at all. Please just--sit."
+
+"Sort of as if I was feeble-minded, eh?"
+
+"Oh, don't _try_ to look feeble-minded," she begged, alarmed at
+seeming to suggest any more parts; "just sit there--as if you were
+thinking of something very far away."
+
+"Say, Young Lady, look here; this is very nice, being put on to the
+tricks of the trade, but the money end of it isn't cutting much ice,
+and isn't there any way you can just _buy_ things--the way you
+do in Cincinnati? Can't you get their stuff without making a comic
+opera out of it?"
+
+"No, you can't," spoke relentless Virginia; "not unless you want
+them to laugh and say 'Aren't Americans fools?' the minute the door
+is shut."
+
+"Fools--eh? I'll show them a thing or two!"
+
+"Oh, please show them nothing here! Please just--sit."
+
+While employing her wiles to get for three hundred and fifty francs a
+yoke and scarf aggregating four hundred, she chanced to look at her
+American friend. Then she walked rapidly to the rear of the shop,
+buried her face in her handkerchief, and seemed making heroic efforts
+to sneeze. Once more he was following directions to the letter. Chin
+resting on hands, hands resting on stick, the huge American had taken
+on the beatific expression of a seventeen-year-old girl thinking of
+something "very far away." Virginia was long in mastering the sneeze.
+
+On the sidewalk she presented him with the package of lace and also
+with what she regarded the proper thing in the way of farewell
+speech. She supposed it _was_ hard for a man to go shopping
+alone; she could see how hard it would be for her own father; indeed
+it was seeing how difficult it would be for her father had impelled
+her to go with him, a stranger. She trusted his wife would like the
+lace; she thought it very nice, and a bargain. She was glad to have
+been of service to a fellow countryman who seemed in so difficult a
+position.
+
+But he did not look as impressed as one to whom a farewell speech
+was being made should look. In fact, he did not seem to be hearing
+it. Once more, and in earnest this time, he appeared to be thinking
+of something very far away. Then all at once he came back, and it
+was in anything but a far-away voice he began, briskly: "Now look
+here, Young Lady, I don't doubt but this lace is great stuff. You
+say so, and I haven't seen man, woman or child on this side of the
+Atlantic knows as much as you do. I'm mighty grateful for the
+lace--don't you forget that, but just the same--well, now I'll tell
+you. I have a very special reason for wanting something a little
+livelier than lace. Something that seems to have Paris written on it
+in red letters--see? Now, where do you get the kind of hats you see
+some folks wearing, and where do you get the dresses--well, it's
+hard to describe 'em, but the kind they have in pictures marked
+'Breezes from Paris'? You see--_S-ay!_--_what_ do you think of
+_that?_"
+
+"That" was in a window across the street. It was an opera cloak. He
+walked toward it, Virginia following. "Now _there_," he turned
+to her, his large round face all aglow, "is what I want."
+
+It was yellow; it was long; it was billowy; it was insistently and
+recklessly regal.
+
+"That's the ticket!" he gloated.
+
+"Of course," began Virginia, "I don't know anything about it. I am
+in a very strange position, not knowing what your wife likes or--or
+has. This is the kind of thing everything has to go _with_ or
+one wouldn't--one couldn't--"
+
+"Sure! Good idea. We'll just get everything to go with it."
+
+"It's the sort of thing one doesn't see worn much outside of
+Paris--or New York. If one is--now my mother wouldn't care for that
+coat at all." Virginia took no little pride in that tactful finish.
+
+"Can't sidetrack me!" he beamed. "I _want_ it. Very thing I'm
+after, Young Lady."
+
+"Well, of course you will have no difficulty in buying the coat
+without me," said she, as a dignified version of "I wash my hands of
+you." "You can do here as you said you wished to do, simply go in
+and pay what they ask. There would be no use trying to get it cheap.
+They would know that anyone who wanted it would"--she wanted to say
+"have more money than they knew what to do with," but contented
+herself with, "be able to pay for it."
+
+But when she had finished she looked at him; at first she thought
+she wanted to laugh, and then it seemed that wasn't what she wanted
+to do after all. It was like saying to a small boy who was one beam
+over finding a tin horn: "Oh well, take the horn if you want to, but
+you can't haul your little red waggon while you're blowing the
+horn." There seemed something peculiarly inhuman about taking the
+waggon just when he had found the horn. Now if the waggon were
+broken, then to take away the horn would leave the luxury of grief.
+But let not shadows fall upon joyful moments.
+
+With the full ardour of her femininity she entered into the
+purchasing of the yellow opera cloak. They paid for that decorative
+garment the sum of two thousand five hundred francs. It seemed it
+was embroidered, and the lining was--anyway, they paid it.
+
+And they took it with them. He was going to "take no chances on
+losing it." He was leaving Paris that night and held that during his
+stay he had been none too impressed with either Parisian speed or
+Parisian veracity.
+
+Then they bought some "Breezes from Paris," a dress that would
+"go with" the coat. It was violet velvet, and contributed to the
+sense of doing one's uttermost; and hats--"the kind you see some
+folks wearing." One was the rainbow done into flowers, and the
+other the kind of black hat to outdo any rainbow. "If you could
+just give me some idea what type your wife is," Virginia was
+saying, from beneath the willow plumes. "Now you see this hat
+quite overpowers me. Do you think it will overpower her?"
+
+"Guess not. Anyway, if it don't look right on her head she may enjoy
+having it around to look at."
+
+Virginia stared out at him. The _oddest_ man! As if a hat were
+any good at all if it didn't look right on one's head!
+
+Upon investigation--though yielding to his taste she was still
+vigilant as to his interests--Virginia discovered a flaw in one of
+the plumes. The sylph in the trailing gown held volubly that it did
+not _fait rien_; the man with the open purse said he couldn't
+see that it figured much, but the small American held firm. That
+must be replaced by a perfect plume or they would not take the hat.
+And when she saw who was in command the sylph as volubly acquiesced
+that _naturellement_ it must be _tout a fait_ perfect. She would
+send out and get one that would be oh! so, so, _so_ perfect. It
+would take half an hour.
+
+"Tell you what we'll do," Virginia's friend proposed, opera cloak
+tight under one arm, velvet gown as tight under the other, "I'm
+tired--hungry--thirsty; feel like a ham sandwich--and something. I'm
+playing you out, too. Let's go out and get a bite and come back for
+the so, so, _so_ perfect hat."
+
+She hesitated. But he had the door open, and if he stood holding it
+that way much longer he was bound to drop the violet velvet gown.
+She did not want him to drop the velvet gown and furthermore, she
+_would_ like a cup of tea. There came into her mind a fortifying
+thought about the relative deaths of sheep and lambs. If to be
+killed for the sheep were indeed no worse than being killed for
+the lamb, and if a cup of tea went with the sheep and nothing at
+all with the lamb--?
+
+So she agreed. "There's a nice little tea-shop right round the
+corner. We girls often go there."
+
+"Tea? Like tea? All right, then"--and he started manfully on.
+
+But as she entered the tea-shop she was filled with keen sense of
+the desirableness of being slain for the lesser animal. For, cosily
+installed in their favourite corner, were "the girls."
+
+Virginia had explained to these friends some three hours before that
+she could not go with them that afternoon as she must attend a
+musicale some friends of her mother's were giving. Being friends of
+her mother's, she expatiated, she would have to go.
+
+Recollecting this, also for the first time remembering the musicale,
+she bowed with the _hauteur_ of self-consciousness.
+
+Right there her friend contributed to the tragedy of a sheep's death
+by dropping the yellow opera cloak. While he was stooping to pick it
+up the violet velvet gown slid backward and Virginia had to steady
+it until he could regain position. The staring in the corner gave
+way to tittering--and no dying sheep had ever held its head more
+haughtily.
+
+The death of this particular sheep proved long and painful. The legs
+of Virginia's friend and the legs of the tea-table did not seem well
+adapted to each other. He towered like a human mountain over the
+dainty thing, twisting now this way and now that. It seemed
+Providence--or at least so much of it as was represented by the
+management of that shop--had never meant fat people to drink tea.
+The table was rendered further out of proportion by having a large
+box piled on either side of it.
+
+Expansively, and not softly, he discoursed of these things. What did
+they think a fellow was to do with his _knees_? Didn't they
+sell tea enough to afford any decent chairs? Did all these women
+pretend to really _like_ tea?
+
+Virginia's sense of humour rallied somewhat as she viewed him eating
+the sandwiches. Once she had called them doll-baby sandwiches; now
+that seemed literal: tea-cups, _petit gateau_, the whole service
+gave the fancy of his sitting down to a tea-party given by a little
+girl for her dollies.
+
+But after a time he fell silent, looking around the room. And when
+he broke that pause his voice was different.
+
+"These women here, all dressed so fine, nothing to do but sit around
+and eat this folderol, _they_ have it easy--don't they?"
+
+The bitterness in it, and a faint note of wistfulness, puzzled her.
+Certainly _he_ had money.
+
+"And the husbands of these women," he went on; "lots of 'em, I
+suppose, didn't always have so much. Maybe some of these women
+helped out in the early days when things weren't so easy. Wonder if
+the men ever think how lucky they are to be able to get it back at
+'em?"
+
+She grew more bewildered. Wasn't he "getting it back?" The money he
+had been spending that day!
+
+"Young Lady," he said abruptly, "you must think I'm a queer one."
+
+She murmured feeble protest.
+
+"Yes, you must. Must wonder what I want with all this stuff, don't
+you?"
+
+"Why, it's for your wife, isn't it?" she asked, startled.
+
+"Oh yes, but you must wonder. You're a shrewd one, Young Lady;
+judging the thing by me, you must wonder."
+
+Virginia was glad she was not compelled to state her theory. Loud
+and common and impossible were terms which had presented themselves,
+terms which she had fought with kind and good-natured and generous.
+Their purchases she had decided were to be used, not for a knock,
+but as a crashing pound at the door of the society of his town. For
+her part, Virginia hoped the door would come down.
+
+"And if you knew that probably this stuff would never be worn at
+all, that ten to one it would never do anything more than lie round
+on chairs--then you _would_ think I was queer, wouldn't you?"
+
+She was forced to admit that that would seem rather strange.
+
+"Young Lady, I believe I'll tell you about it. Never do talk about
+it to hardly anybody, but I feel as if you and I were pretty well
+acquainted--we've been through so much together."
+
+She smiled at him warmly; there was something so real about him when
+he talked that way.
+
+But his look then frightened her. It seemed for an instant as though
+he would brush the tiny table aside and seize some invisible thing
+by the throat. Then he said, cutting off each word short: "Young
+Lady, what do you think of this? I'm worth more 'an a million
+dollars--and my wife gets up at five o'clock every morning to do
+washing and scrubbing."
+
+"Oh, it's not that she _has_ to," he answered her look, "but
+she _thinks_ she has to. See? Once we were poor. For twenty
+years we were poor as dirt. Then she did have to do things like
+that. Then I struck it. Or rather, it struck me. Oil. Oil on a bit
+of land I had. I had just sense enough to make the most of it; one
+thing led to another--well, you're not interested in that end of it.
+But the fact is that now we're rich. Now she could have all the
+things that these women have--Lord A'mighty she could lay abed every
+day till noon if she wanted to! But--you see?--it _got_ her--those
+hard, lonely, grinding years _took_ her. She's"--he shrunk from the
+terrible word and faltered out--"her mind's not--"
+
+There was a sobbing little flutter in Virginia's throat. In a dim
+way she was glad to see that the girls were going. She _could_
+not have them laughing at him--now.
+
+"Well, you can about figure out how it makes me feel," he continued,
+and looking into his face now it was as though the spirit redeemed
+the flesh. "You're smart. You can see it without my callin' your
+attention to it. Last time I went to see her I had just made fifty
+thousand on a deal. And I found her down on her knees thinking she
+was scrubbing the floor!"
+
+Unconsciously Virginia's hand went out, following the rush of
+sympathy and understanding. "But can't they--restrain her?" she
+murmured.
+
+"Makes her worse. Says she's got it to do--frets her to think she's
+not getting it done."
+
+"But isn't there some _way_?" she whispered. "Some way to make
+her _know_?"
+
+He pointed to the large boxes. "That," he said simply, "is the
+meaning of those. It's been seven years--but I keep on trying."
+
+She was silent, the tears too close for words. And she had thought
+it cheap ambition!--vulgar aspiration--silly show--vanity!
+
+"Suppose you thought I was a queer one, talking about lively looking
+things. But you see now? Thought it might attract her attention,
+thought something real gorgeous like this might impress money on
+her. Though I don't know,"--he seemed to grow weary as he told it;
+"I got her a lot of diamonds, thinking they might interest her, and
+she thought she'd stolen 'em, and they had to take them away."
+
+Still the girl did not speak. Her hand was shading her eyes.
+
+"But there's nothing like trying. Nothing like keeping right on
+trying. And anyhow--a fellow likes to think he's taking his wife
+something from Paris."
+
+They passed before her in their heartbreaking folly, their tragic
+uselessness, their lovable absurdity and stinging irony--those
+things they had bought that afternoon: an _opera cloak_--a
+_velvet dress_--_those hats_--_red silk stockings_.
+
+The mockery of them wrung her heart. Right there in the tea-shop
+Virginia was softly crying.
+
+"Oh, now that's too bad," he expostulated clumsily. "Why, look here,
+Young Lady, I didn't mean you to take it so hard."
+
+When she had recovered herself he told her much of the story. And
+the thing which revealed him--glorified him--was less the grief he
+gave to it than the way he saw it. "It's the cursed unfairness of
+it," he concluded. "When you consider it's all because she did those
+things--when you think of her bein' bound to 'em for life just
+because she was _too faithful doin' 'em_--when you think that
+now--when I could give her everything these women have got!--she's
+got to go right on worrying about baking the bread and washing the
+dishes--did it for me when I was poor--and now with me rich she can't
+get _out_ of it--and I _can't reach_ her--oh, it's _rotten!_ I
+tell you it's _rotten!_ Sometimes I can just hear my money _laugh_
+at me! Sometimes I get to going round and round in a circle about it
+till it seems I'm going crazy myself."
+
+"I think you are a--a noble man," choked Virginia.
+
+That disconcerted him. "Oh Lord--don't think that. No, Young Lady,
+don't try to make any plaster saint out of _me_. My life goes
+on. I've got to eat, drink and be merry. I'm built that way. But
+just the same my heart on the inside's pretty sore, Young Lady. I
+want to tell you that the whole inside of my heart is _sore as a
+boil_!"
+
+They were returning for the hats. Suddenly Virginia stopped, and it
+was a soft-eyed and gentle Virginia who turned to him after the
+pause. "There are lovely things to be bought in Paris for women who
+aren't well. Such soft, lovely things to wear in your room. Not but
+what I think these other things are all right. As you say, they
+may--interest her. But they aren't things she can use just now, and
+wouldn't you like her to have some of those soft lovely things she
+could actually wear? They might help most of all. To wake in the
+morning and find herself in something so beautiful--"
+
+"Where do you get 'em?" he demanded promptly.
+
+And so they went to one of those shops which have, more than all the
+others, enshrined Paris in feminine hearts. And never was lingerie
+selected with more loving care than that which Virginia picked out
+that afternoon. A tear fell on one particularly lovely _robe de
+nuit_--so soothingly soft, so caressingly luxurious, it seemed
+that surely it might help bring release from the bondage of those
+crushing years.
+
+As they were leaving they were given two packages. "Just the kimona
+thing you liked," he said, "and a trinket or two. Now that we're
+such good friends, you won't feel like you did this morning."
+
+"And if I don't want them myself, I might send them to my mother,"
+Virginia replied, a quiver in her laugh at her own little joke.
+
+He had put her in her cab; he had tried to tell her how much he thanked
+her; they had said good-bye and the _cocher_ had cracked his whip
+when he came running after her. "Why, Young Lady," he called out,
+"we don't know each other's _names_."
+
+She laughed and gave hers. "Mine's William P. Johnson," he said.
+"Part French and part Italian. But now look here, Young Lady--or I
+mean, Miss Clayton. A fellow at the hotel was telling me something
+last night that made me _sick_. He said American girls sometimes
+got awfully up against it here. He said one actually starved last
+year. Now, I don't like that kind of business. Look here, Young Lady,
+I want you to promise that if you--you or any of your gang--get up
+against it you'll cable William P. Johnson, of Cincinnati, Ohio."
+
+The twilight grey had stolen upon Paris. And there was a mist which
+the street lights only penetrated a little way--as sometimes one's
+knowledge of life may only penetrate life a very little way. Her cab
+stopped by a blockade, she watched the burly back of William P.
+Johnson disappearing into the mist. The red box which held the
+yellow opera cloak she could see longer than all else.
+
+"You never can tell," murmured Virginia. "It just goes to show that
+you never can tell."
+
+And whatever it was you never could tell had brought to Virginia's
+girlish face the tender knowingness of the face of a woman.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PLEA
+
+
+Senator Harrison concluded his argument and sat down. There was no
+applause, but he had expected none. Senator Dorman was already
+saying "Mr. President?" and there was a stir in the crowded
+galleries, and an anticipatory moving of chairs among the Senators.
+In the press gallery the reporters bunched together their scattered
+papers and inspected their pencil-points with earnestness. Dorman
+was the best speaker of the Senate, and he was on the popular side
+of it. It would be the great speech of the session, and the prospect
+was cheering after a deluge of railroad and insurance bills.
+
+"I want to tell you," he began, "why I have worked for this
+resolution recommending the pardon of Alfred Williams. It is one of
+the great laws of the universe that every living thing be given a
+chance. In the case before us that law has been violated. This does
+not resolve itself into a question of second chances. The boy of
+whom we are speaking has never had his first."
+
+Senator Harrison swung his chair half-way around and looked out at
+the green things which were again coming into their own on the
+State-house grounds. He knew--in substance--what Senator Dorman
+would say without hearing it, and he was a little tired of the whole
+affair. He hoped that one way or other they would finish it up that
+night, and go ahead with something else. He had done what he could,
+and now the responsibility was with the rest of them. He thought
+they were shouldering a great deal to advocate the pardon in the
+face of the united opposition of Johnson County, where the crime had
+been committed. It seemed a community should be the best judge of
+its own crimes, and that was what he, as the Senator from Johnson,
+had tried to impress upon them.
+
+He knew that his argument against the boy had been a strong one. He
+rather liked the attitude in which he stood. It seemed as if he were
+the incarnation of outraged justice attempting to hold its own at
+the floodgates of emotion. He liked to think he was looking far
+beyond the present and the specific and acting as guardian of the
+future--and the whole. In summing it up that night the reporters
+would tell in highly wrought fashion of the moving appeal made by
+Senator Dorman, and then they would speak dispassionately of the
+logical argument of the leader of the opposition. There was more
+satisfaction to self in logic than in mere eloquence. He was even a
+little proud of his unpopularity. It seemed sacrificial.
+
+He wondered why it was Senator Dorman had thrown himself into it so
+whole-heartedly. All during the session the Senator from Maxwell had
+neglected personal interests in behalf of this boy, who was nothing
+to him in the world. He supposed it was as a sociological and
+psychological experiment. Senator Dorman had promised the Governor
+to assume guardianship of the boy if he were let out. The Senator
+from Johnson inferred that as a student of social science his
+eloquent colleague wanted to see what he could make of him. To
+suppose the interest merely personal and sympathetic would seem
+discreditable.
+
+"I need not dwell upon the story," the Senator from Maxwell was
+saying, "for you all are familiar with it already. It is said to
+have been the most awful crime ever committed in the State. I grant
+you that it was, and then I ask you to look for a minute into the
+conditions leading up to it.
+
+"When the boy was born, his mother was instituting divorce
+proceedings against his father. She obtained the divorce, and
+remarried when Alfred was three months old. From the time he was a
+mere baby she taught him to hate his father. Everything that went
+wrong with him she told him was his father's fault. His first vivid
+impression was that his father was responsible for all the wrong of
+the universe.
+
+"For seven years that went on, and then his mother died. His
+stepfather did not want him. He was going to Missouri, and the boy
+would be a useless expense and a bother. He made no attempt to find
+a home for him; he did not even explain--he merely went away and
+left him. At the age of seven the boy was turned out on the world,
+after having been taught one thing--to hate his father. He stayed a
+few days in the barren house, and then new tenants came and closed
+the doors against him. It may have occurred to him as a little
+strange that he had been sent into a world where there was no place
+for him.
+
+"When he asked the neighbours for shelter, they told him to go to
+his own father and not bother strangers. He said he did not know
+where his father was. They told him, and he started to walk--a
+distance of fifty miles. I ask you to bear in mind, gentlemen, that
+he was only seven years of age. It is the age when the average boy
+is beginning the third reader, and when he is shooting marbles and
+spinning tops.
+
+"When he reached his father's house he was told at once that he was
+not wanted there. The man had remarried, there were other children,
+and he had no place for Alfred. He turned him away; but the
+neighbours protested, and he was compelled to take him back. For
+four years he lived in this home, to which he had come unbidden, and
+where he was never made welcome.
+
+"The whole family rebelled against him. The father satisfied his
+resentment against the boy's dead mother by beating her son, by
+encouraging his wife to abuse him, and inspiring the other children
+to despise him. It seems impossible such conditions should exist.
+The only proof of their possibility lies in the fact of their
+existence.
+
+"I need not go into the details of the crime. He had been beaten by
+his father that evening after a quarrel with his stepmother about
+spilling the milk. He went, as usual, to his bed in the barn; but
+the hay was suffocating, his head ached, and he could not sleep. He
+arose in the middle of the night, went to the house, and killed both
+his father and stepmother.
+
+"I shall not pretend to say what thoughts surged through the boy's
+brain as he lay there in the stifling hay with the hot blood
+pounding against his temples. I shall not pretend to say whether he
+was sane or insane as he walked to the house for the perpetration of
+the awful crime. I do not even affirm it would not have happened had
+there been some human being there to lay a cooling hand on his hot
+forehead, and say a few soothing, loving words to take the sting
+from the loneliness, and ease the suffering. I ask you to consider
+only one thing: he was eleven years old at the time, and he had no
+friend in all the world. He knew nothing of sympathy; he knew only
+injustice."
+
+Senator Harrison was still looking out at the budding things on the
+State-house grounds, but in a vague way he was following the story.
+He knew when the Senator from Maxwell completed the recital of facts
+and entered upon his plea. He was conscious that it was stronger
+than he had anticipated--more logic and less empty exhortation. He
+was telling of the boy's life in reformatory and penitentiary since
+the commission of the crime,--of how he had expanded under kindness,
+of his mental attainments, the letters he could write, the books he
+had read, the hopes he cherished. In the twelve years he had spent
+there he had been known to do no unkind nor mean thing; he responded
+to affection--craved it. It was not the record of a degenerate, the
+Senator from Maxwell was saying.
+
+A great many things were passing through the mind of the Senator
+from Johnson. He was trying to think who it was that wrote that
+book, "Put Yourself in His Place." He had read it once, and it
+bothered him to forget names. Then he was wondering why it was the
+philosophers had not more to say about the incongruity of people who
+had never had any trouble of their own sitting in judgment upon
+people who had known nothing but trouble. He was thinking also that
+abstract rules did not always fit smoothly over concrete cases, and
+that it was hard to make life a matter of rules, anyway.
+
+Next he was wondering how it would have been with the boy Alfred
+Williams if he had been born in Charles Harrison's place; and then
+he was working it out the other way and wondering how it would have
+been with Charles Harrison had he been born in Alfred Williams's
+place. He wondered whether the idea of murder would have grown in
+Alfred Williams's heart had he been born to the things to which
+Charles Harrison was born, and whether it would have come within the
+range of possibility for Charles Harrison to murder his father if he
+had been born to Alfred Williams's lot. Putting it that way, it was
+hard to estimate how much of it was the boy himself, and how much
+the place the world had prepared for him. And if it was the place
+prepared for him more than the boy, why was the fault not more with
+the preparers of the place than with the occupant of it? The whole
+thing was very confusing.
+
+"This page," the Senator from Maxwell was saying, lifting the little
+fellow to the desk, "is just eleven years of age, and he is within
+three pounds of Alfred Williams's weight when he committed the
+murder. I ask you, gentlemen, if this little fellow should be guilty
+of a like crime to-night, to what extent would you, in reading of it
+in the morning, charge him with the moral discernment which is the
+first condition of moral responsibility? If Alfred Williams's story
+were this boy's story, would you deplore that there had been no one
+to check the childish passion, or would you say it was the inborn
+instinct of the murderer? And suppose again this were Alfred
+Williams at the age of eleven, would you not be willing to look into
+the future and say if he spent twelve years in penitentiary and
+reformatory, in which time he developed the qualities of useful and
+honourable citizenship, that the ends of justice would then have
+been met, and the time at hand for the world to begin the payment of
+her debt?"
+
+Senator Harrison's eyes were fixed upon the page standing on the
+opposite desk. Eleven was a younger age than he had supposed. As he
+looked back upon it and recalled himself when eleven years of
+age--his irresponsibility, his dependence--he was unwilling to say
+what would have happened if the world had turned upon him as it had
+upon Alfred Williams. At eleven his greatest grievance was that the
+boys at school called him "yellow-top." He remembered throwing a
+rock at one of them for doing it. He wondered if it was criminal
+instinct prompted the throwing of the rock. He wondered how high the
+percentage of children's crimes would go were it not for
+countermanding influences. It seemed the great difference between
+Alfred Williams and a number of other children of eleven had been
+the absence of the countermanding influence.
+
+There came to him of a sudden a new and moving thought. Alfred
+Williams had been cheated of his boyhood. The chances were he had
+never gone swimming, nor to a ball game, or maybe never to a circus.
+It might even be that he had never owned a dog. The Senator from
+Maxwell was right when he said the boy had never been given his
+chance, had been defrauded of that which has been a boy's heritage
+since the world itself was young.
+
+And the later years--how were they making it up to him? He recalled
+what to him was the most awful thing he had ever heard about the
+State penitentiary: they never saw the sun rise down there, and they
+never saw it set. They saw it at its meridian, when it climbed above
+the stockade, but as it rose into the day, and as it sank into the
+night, it was denied them. And there, at the penitentiary, they
+could not even look up at the stars. It had been years since Alfred
+Williams raised his face to God's heaven and knew he was part of it
+all. The voices of the night could not penetrate the little cell in
+the heart of the mammoth stone building where he spent his evenings
+over those masterpieces with which, they said, he was more familiar
+than the average member of the Senate. When he read those things
+Victor Hugo said of the vastness of the night, he could only look
+around at the walls that enclosed him and try to reach back over the
+twelve years for some satisfying conception of what night really
+was.
+
+The Senator from Johnson shuddered: they had taken from a living
+creature the things of life, and all because in the crucial hour there
+had been no one to say a staying word. Man had cheated him of the
+things that were man's, and then shut him away from the world that
+was God's. They had made for him a life barren of compensations.
+
+There swept over the Senator a great feeling of self-pity. As
+representative of Johnson County, it was he who must deny this boy
+the whole great world without, the people who wanted to help him,
+and what the Senator from Maxwell called "his chance." If Johnson
+County carried the day, there would be something unpleasant for him
+to consider all the remainder of his life. As he grew to be an older
+man he would think of it more and more--what the boy would have done
+for himself in the world if the Senator from Johnson had not been
+more logical and more powerful than the Senator from Maxwell.
+
+Senator Dorman was nearing the end of his argument. "In spite of the
+undying prejudice of the people of Johnson County," he was saying,
+"I can stand before you today and say that after an unsparing
+investigation of this case I do not believe I am asking you to do
+anything in violation of justice when I beg of you to give this boy
+his chance."
+
+It was going to a vote at once, and the Senator from Johnson County
+looked out at the budding things and wondered whether the boy down
+at the penitentiary knew the Senate was considering his case that
+afternoon. It was without vanity he wondered whether what he had
+been trained to think of as an all-wise providence would not have
+preferred that Johnson County be represented that session by a less
+able man.
+
+A great hush fell over the Chamber, for ayes and noes followed
+almost in alternation. After a long minute of waiting the secretary
+called, in a tense voice:
+
+"Ayes, 30; Noes, 32."
+
+The Senator from Johnson had proven too faithful a servant of his
+constituents. The boy in the penitentiary was denied his chance.
+
+The usual things happened: some women in the galleries, who had boys
+at home, cried aloud; the reporters were fighting for occupancy of
+the telephone booths, and most of the Senators began the perusal of
+the previous day's Journal with elaborate interest. Senator Dorman
+indulged in none of these feints. A full look at his face just then
+told how much of his soul had gone into the fight for the boy's
+chance, and the look about his eyes was a little hard on the theory
+of psychological experiment.
+
+Senator Harrison was looking out at the budding trees, but his face
+too had grown strange, and he seemed to be looking miles beyond and
+years ahead. It seemed that he himself was surrendering the voices
+of the night, and the comings and goings of the sun. He would never
+look at them--feel them--again without remembering he was keeping
+one of his fellow creatures away from them. He wondered at his own
+presumption in denying any living thing participation in the
+universe. And all the while there were before him visions of the boy
+who sat in the cramped cell with the volume of a favourite poet
+before him, trying to think how it would seem to be out under the
+stars.
+
+The stillness in the Senate-Chamber was breaking; they were going
+ahead with something else. It seemed to the Senator from Johnson
+that sun, moon, and stars were wailing out protest for the boy who
+wanted to know them better. And yet it was not sun, moon, and stars
+so much as the unused swimming hole and the uncaught fish, the
+unattended ball game, the never-seen circus, and, above all, the
+unowned dog, that brought Senator Harrison to his feet.
+
+They looked at him in astonishment, their faces seeming to say it
+would have been in better taste for him to have remained seated just
+then.
+
+"Mr. President," he said, pulling at his collar and looking straight
+ahead, "I rise to move a reconsideration."
+
+There was a gasp, a moment of supreme quiet, and then a mighty burst
+of applause. To men of all parties and factions there came a single
+thought. Johnson was the leading county of its Congressional
+district. There was an election that fall, and Harrison was in the
+race. Those eight words meant to a surety he would not go to
+Washington, for the Senator from Maxwell had chosen the right word
+when he referred to the prejudice of Johnson County on the Williams
+case as "undying." The world throbs with such things at the moment
+of their doing--even though condemning them later, and the part of
+the world then packed within the Senate-Chamber shared the universal
+disposition.
+
+The noise astonished Senator Harrison, and he looked around with
+something like resentment. When the tumult at last subsided, and he
+saw that he was expected to make a speech, he grew very red, and
+grasped his chair desperately.
+
+The reporters were back in their places, leaning nervously forward.
+This was Senator Harrison's chance to say something worth putting
+into a panel by itself with black lines around it--and they were
+sure he would do it.
+
+But he did not. He stood there like a schoolboy who had forgotten
+his piece--growing more and more red. "I--I think," he finally
+jerked out, "that some of us have been mistaken. I'm in favour now
+of--of giving him his chance."
+
+They waited for him to proceed, but after a helpless look around the
+Chamber he sat down. The president of the Senate waited several
+minutes for him to rise again, but he at last turned his chair
+around and looked out at the green things on the State-house
+grounds, and there was nothing to do but go ahead with the second
+calling of the roll. This time it stood 50 to 12 in favour of the
+boy.
+
+A motion to adjourn immediately followed--no one wanted to do
+anything more that afternoon. They all wanted to say things to the
+Senator from Johnson; but his face had grown cold, and as they were
+usually afraid of him, anyhow, they kept away. All but Senator
+Dorman--it meant too much with him. "Do you mind my telling you," he
+said, tensely, "that it was as fine a thing as I have ever known a
+man to do?"
+
+The Senator from Johnson moved impatiently. "You think it 'fine,'"
+he asked, almost resentfully, "to be a coward?"
+
+"Coward?" cried the other man. "Well, that's scarcely the word. It
+was--heroic!"
+
+"Oh no," said Senator Harrison, and he spoke wearily, "it was a
+clear case of cowardice. You see," he laughed, "I was afraid it
+might haunt me when I am seventy."
+
+Senator Dorman started eagerly to speak, but the other man stopped
+him and passed on. He was seeing it as his constituency would see
+it, and it humiliated him. They would say he had not the courage of
+his convictions, that he was afraid of the unpopularity, that his
+judgment had fallen victim to the eloquence of the Senator from
+Maxwell.
+
+But when he left the building and came out into the softness of the
+April afternoon it began to seem different. After all, it was not he
+alone who leaned to the softer side. There were the trees--they were
+permitted another chance to bud; there were the birds--they were
+allowed another chance to sing; there was the earth--to it was given
+another chance to yield. There stole over him a tranquil sense of
+unison with Life.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+FOR LOVE OF THE HILLS
+
+
+"Sure you're done with it?"
+
+"Oh, yes," replied the girl, the suggestion of a smile on her face,
+and in her voice the suggestion of a tear. "Yes; I was just going."
+
+But she did not go. She turned instead to the end of the alcove and
+sat down before a table placed by the window. Leaning her elbows
+upon it she looked about her through a blur of tears.
+
+Seen through her own eyes of longing, it seemed that almost all of
+the people whom she could see standing before the files of the daily
+papers were homesick. The reading-room had been a strange study to
+her during those weeks spent in fruitless search for the work she
+wanted to do, and it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When
+tired and disconsolate and utterly sick at heart there was always
+one thing she could do--she could go down to the library and look at
+the paper from home. It was not that she wanted the actual news of
+Denver. She did not care in any vital way what the city officials
+were doing, what buildings were going up, or who was leaving town.
+She was only indifferently interested in the fires and the murders.
+She wanted the comforting companionship of that paper from home.
+
+It seemed there were many to whom the papers offered that same
+sympathy, companionship, whatever it might be. More than anything
+else it perhaps gave to them--the searchers, drifters--a sense of
+anchorage. She would not soon forget the day she herself had stumbled
+in there and found the home paper. Chicago had given her nothing but
+rebuffs that day, and in desperation, just because she must go
+somewhere, and did not want to go back to her boarding-place, she had
+hunted out the city library. It was when walking listlessly about in
+the big reading-room it had occurred to her that perhaps she could
+find the paper from home; and after that when things were their worst,
+when her throat grew tight and her eyes dim, she could always comfort
+herself by saying: "After a while I'll run down and look at the paper."
+
+But to-night it had failed her. It was not the paper from home
+to-night; it was just a newspaper. It did not inspire the belief
+that things would be better to-morrow, that it must all come right
+soon. It left her as she had come---heavy with the consciousness
+that in her purse was eleven dollars, and that that was every cent
+she had in the whole world.
+
+It was hard to hold back the tears as she dwelt upon the fact that
+it was very little she had asked of Chicago. She had asked only a
+chance to do the work for which she was trained, in order that she
+might go to the art classes at night. She had read in the papers of
+that mighty young city of the Middle West--the heart of the
+continent--of its brawn and its brain and its grit. She had supposed
+that Chicago, of all places, would appreciate what she wanted to do.
+The day she drew her hard-earned one hundred dollars from the bank
+in Denver--how the sun had shone that day in Denver, how clear the
+sky had been, and how bracing the air!--she had quite taken it for
+granted that her future was assured. And now, after tasting for
+three weeks the cruelty of indifference, she looked back to those
+visions with a hard little smile.
+
+She rose to go, and in so doing her eyes fell upon the queer little
+woman to whom she had yielded her place before the Denver paper.
+Submerged as she had been in her own desolation she had given no
+heed to the small figure which came slipping along beside her beyond
+the bare thought that she was queer-looking. But as her eyes rested
+upon her now there was something about the woman which held her.
+
+She was a strange little figure. An old-fashioned shawl was pinned
+tightly about her shoulders, and she was wearing a queer, rusty
+little bonnet. Her hair was rolled up in a small knot at the back of
+her head. She did not look as though she belonged in Chicago. And
+then, as the girl stood there looking at her, she saw the thin
+shoulders quiver, and after a minute the head that was wearing the
+rusty bonnet went down into the folds of the Denver paper.
+
+The girl's own eyes filled, and she turned to go. It seemed she
+could scarcely bear her own unhappiness that day, without coming
+close to the heartache of another. But when she reached the end of
+the alcove she glanced back, and the sight of that shabby, bent
+figure, all alone before the Denver paper, was not to be withstood.
+
+"I am from Colorado, too," she said softly, laying a hand upon the
+bent shoulders.
+
+The woman looked up at that and took the girl's hand in both of her
+thin, trembling ones. It was a wan and a troubled face she lifted,
+and there was something about the eyes which would not seem to have
+been left there by tears alone.
+
+"And do you have a pining for the mountains?" she whispered, with a
+timid eagerness. "Do you have a feeling that you want to see the sun
+go down behind them tonight and that you want to see the darkness
+come stealing up to the tops?"
+
+The girl half turned away, but she pressed the woman's hand tightly
+in hers. "I know what you mean," she murmured.
+
+"I wanted to see it so bad," continued the woman, tremulously, "that
+something just drove me here to this paper. I knowed it was here
+because my nephew's wife brought me here one day and we come across
+it. We took this paper at home for more 'an twenty years. That's why
+I come. 'Twas the closest I could get."
+
+"I know what you mean," said the girl again, unsteadily.
+
+"And it's the closest I will ever get!" sobbed the woman.
+
+"Oh, don't say that," protested the girl, brushing away her own
+tears, and trying to smile; "you'll go back home some day."
+
+The woman shook her head. "And if I should," she said, "even if I
+should, 'twill be too late."
+
+"But it couldn't be too late," insisted the girl. "The mountains,
+you know, will be there forever."
+
+"The mountains will be there forever," repeated the woman, musingly;
+"yes, but not for me to see." There was a pause. "You see,"--she
+said it quietly--"I'm going blind."
+
+The girl took a quick step backward, then stretched out two
+impulsive hands. "Oh, no, no you're not! Why--the doctors, you know,
+they do everything now."
+
+The woman shook her head. "That's what I thought when I come here.
+That's why I come. But I saw the biggest doctor of them all
+today--they all say he's the best there is--and he said right out
+'twas no use to do anything. He said 'twas--hopeless."
+
+Her voice broke on that word. "You see," she hurried on, "I wouldn't
+care so much, seems like I wouldn't care 't all, if I could get
+there first! If I could see the sun go down behind them just one
+night! If I could see the black shadows come slippin' over 'em just
+once! And then, if just one morning--just once!--I could get up and
+see the sunlight come a streamin'--oh, you know how it looks! You
+know what 'tis I want to see!"
+
+"Yes; but why can't you? Why not? You won't go--your eyesight will
+last until you get back home, won't it?"
+
+"But I can't go back home; not now."
+
+"Why not?" demanded the girl. "Why can't you go home?"
+
+"Why, there ain't no money, my dear," she explained, patiently.
+"It's a long way off--Colorado is, and there ain't no money. Now,
+George--George is my brother-in-law--he got me the money to come;
+but you see it took it all to come here, and to pay them doctors
+with. And George--he ain't rich, and it pinched him hard for me to
+come--he says I'll have to wait until he gets money laid up again,
+and--well he can't tell just when 't will be. He'll send it soon as
+he gets it," she hastened to add.
+
+"But what are you going to do in the meantime? It would cost less to
+get you home than to keep you here."
+
+"No, I stay with my nephew here. He's willin' I should stay with him
+till I get my money to go home."
+
+"Yes, but this nephew, can't he get you the money? Doesn't he know,"
+she insisted, heatedly, "what it means to you?"
+
+"He's got five children, and not much laid up. And then, he never
+seen the mountains. He doesn't know what I mean when I try to tell
+him about gettin' there in time. Why, he says there's many a one
+living back in the mountains would like to be livin' here. He don't
+understand--my nephew don't," she added, apologetically.
+
+"Well, _someone_ ought to understand!" broke from the girl. "I
+understand! But--" she did her best to make it a laugh--"eleven
+dollars is every cent I've got in the world!"
+
+"Don't!" implored the woman, as the girl gave up trying to control
+the tears. "Now, don't you be botherin'. I didn't mean to make you
+feel so bad. My nephew says I ain't reasonable, and maybe I ain't."
+
+The girl raised her head. "But you _are_ reasonable. I tell
+you, you _are_ reasonable!"
+
+"I must be going back," said the woman, uncertainly. "I'm just
+making you feel bad, and it won't do no good. And then they may be
+stirred up about me. Emma--Emma's my nephew's wife--left me at the
+doctor's office 'cause she had some trading to do, and she was to
+come back there for me. And then, as I was sittin' there, the pinin'
+came over me so strong it seemed I just must get up and start!
+And"---she smiled wanly---"this was far as I got."
+
+"Come over and sit down by this table," said the girl, impulsively,
+"and tell me a little about your home back in the mountains.
+Wouldn't you like to?"
+
+The woman nodded gratefully. "Seems most like getting back to them
+to find someone that knows about them," she said, after they had
+drawn their chairs up to the table and were sitting there side by
+side.
+
+The girl put her rounded hand over on the thin, withered one. "Tell
+me about it," she said again.
+
+"Maybe it wouldn't be much interesting to you, my dear. It's just a
+common life--mine is. You see, William and I--William was my
+husband--we went to Georgetown before it really was any town at all.
+Years and years before the railroad went through, we was there. Was
+you ever there?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"Oh, very often," replied the girl. "I love every inch of that
+country!"
+
+A tear stole down the woman's face. "It's most like being home to
+find someone that knows about it," she whispered.
+
+"Yes, William and I went there when 'twas all new country," she went
+on, after a pause. "We worked hard, and we laid up a little money.
+Then, three years ago, William took sick. He was sick for a year,
+and we had to live up most of what we'd saved. That's why I ain't
+got none now. It ain't that William didn't provide."
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"We seen some hard days. But we was always harmonious--William and I
+was. And William had a great fondness for the mountains. The night
+before he died he made them take him over by the window and he
+looked out and watched the darkness come stealin' over the
+daylight--you know how it does in them mountains. 'Mother,' he said
+to me--his voice was that low I could no more 'an hear what he
+said--'I'll never see another sun go down, but I'm thankful I seen
+this one.'"
+
+She was crying outright now, and the girl did not try to stop her.
+
+"And that's the reason I love the mountains," she whispered at last.
+"It ain't just that they're grand and wonderful to look at. It ain't
+just the things them tourists sees to talk about. But the mountains
+has always been like a comfortin' friend to me. John and Sarah is
+buried there--John and Sarah is my two children that died of fever.
+And then William is there--like I just told you. And the mountains
+was a comfort to me in all those times of trouble. They're like an
+old friend. Seems like they're the best friend I've got on earth."
+
+"I know what you mean," said the girl, brokenly. "I know all about
+it."
+
+"And you don't think I'm just notional," she asked wistfully, "in
+pinin' to get back while--whilst I can look at them?"
+
+The girl held the old hand tightly in hers with a clasp more
+responsive than words.
+
+"It ain't but I'd know they was there. I could feel they was there
+all right, but"--her voice sank with the horror of it--"I'm 'fraid
+I might forget just how they look!"
+
+"Oh, but you won't," the girl assured her. "You'll remember just how
+they look."
+
+"I'm scared of it. I'm scared there might be something I'd forget.
+And so I just torment myself thinkin'--'Now do I remember this? Can
+I see just how that looks?' That's the way I got to thinkin' up in
+the doctor's office, when he told me there was nothing to do, and I
+was so worked up it seemed I must get up and start!"
+
+"You must try not to worry about it," murmured the girl. "You'll
+remember."
+
+"Well, maybe so. Maybe I will. But that's why I want just one more
+look. If I could look once more I'd remember it forever. You see I'd
+look to remember it, and I would. And do you know--seems like I
+wouldn't mind going blind so much then? When I'd sit facin' them I'd
+just say to myself: 'Now I know just how they look. I'm seeing them
+just as if I had my eyes!' The doctor says my sight'll just kind of
+slip away, and when I look my last look, when it gets dimmer and
+dimmer to me, I want the last thing I see to be them mountains where
+William and me worked and was so happy! Seems like I can't bear it
+to have my sight slip away here in Chicago, where there's nothing I
+want to look at! And then to have a little left--to have just a
+little left!--and to know I could see if I was there to look--and to
+know that when I get there 'twill be--Oh, I'll be rebellious-like
+here--and I'd be contented there! I don't want to be complainin'--I
+don't want to!--but when I've only got a little left I want it--oh,
+I want it for them things I want to see!"
+
+"You will see them," insisted the girl passionately. "I'm not going
+to believe the world can be so hideous as that!"
+
+"Well, maybe so," said the woman, rising. "But I don't know where
+'twill come from," she added doubtfully.
+
+She took her back to the doctor's office and left her in the care of
+the stolid Emma. "Seems most like I'd been back home," she said in
+parting; and the girl promised to come and see her and talk with her
+about the mountains. The woman thought that talking about them would
+help her to remember just how they looked.
+
+And then the girl returned to the library. She did not know why she
+did so. In truth she scarcely knew she was going there until she
+found herself sitting before that same secluded table at which she
+and the woman had sat a little while before. For a long time she sat
+there with her head in her hands, tears falling upon a pad of yellow
+paper on the table before her.
+
+Finally she dried her eyes, opened her purse, and counted her money.
+It seemed that out of her great desire, out of her great new need,
+there must be more than she had thought. But there was not, and she
+folded her hands upon the two five-dollar bills and the one silver
+dollar and looked hopelessly about the big room.
+
+She had forgotten her own disappointments, her own loneliness. She
+was oblivious to everything in the world now save what seemed the
+absolute necessity of getting the woman back to the mountains while
+she had eyes to see them.
+
+But what could she do? Again she counted the money. She could make
+herself, some way or other, get along without one of the five-dollar
+bills, but five dollars would not take one very close to the
+mountains. It was at that moment that she saw a man standing before
+the Denver paper, and noticed that another man was waiting to take
+his place. The one who was reading had a dinner pail in his hand.
+The clothes of the other told that he, too, was of the world's
+workers. It was clear to the girl that the man at the file was
+reading the paper from home; and the man who was ready to take his
+place looked as if waiting for something less impersonal than the
+news of the day.
+
+The idea came upon her with such suddenness, so full born, that it
+made her gasp. They--the people who came to read the Denver paper,
+the people who loved the mountains and were far from them, the
+people who were themselves homesick and full of longing--were the
+people to understand.
+
+It took her but a minute to act. She put the silver dollar and one
+five-dollar bill back in her purse. She clutched the other bill in
+her left hand, picked up a pencil, and began to write. She headed
+the petition: "To all who know and love the mountains," and she told
+the story with the simpleness of one speaking from the heart, and
+the directness of one who speaks to those sure to understand. "And
+so I found her here by the Denver paper," she said, after she had
+stated the tragic facts, "because it was the closest she could come
+to the mountains. Her heart is not breaking because she is going
+blind. It is breaking because she may never again look with seeing
+eyes upon those great hills which rise up about her home. We must do
+it for her simply because we would wish that, under like
+circumstances, someone would do it for us. She belongs to us because
+we understand.
+
+"If you can only give fifty cents, please do not hold it back
+because it seems but little. Fifty cents will take her twenty miles
+nearer home--twenty miles closer to the things upon which she longs
+that her last seeing glance may fall."
+
+After she had written it she rose, and, the five-dollar bill in one
+hand, the sheets of yellow paper in the other, walked down the long
+room to the desk at which one of the librarians sat. The girl's
+cheeks were very red, her eyes shining as she poured out the story.
+They mingled their tears, for the girl at the desk was herself young
+and far from home, and then they walked back to the Denver paper and
+pinned the sheets of yellow paper just above the file. At the bottom
+of the petition the librarian wrote: "Leave your money at the desk
+in this room. It will be properly attended to." The girl from
+Colorado then turned over her five-dollar bill and passed out into
+the gathering night.
+
+Her heart was brimming with joy. "I can get a cheaper boarding
+place," she told herself, as she joined the home-going crowds, "and
+until something else turns up I'll just look around and see if I
+can't get a place in a store."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One by one they had gathered around while the woman was telling the
+story. "And so, if you don't mind," she said, in conclusion, "I'd
+like to have you put in a little piece that I got to Denver safe,
+so's they can see it. They was all so worked up about when I'd get
+here. Would that cost much?" she asked timidly.
+
+"Not a cent," said the city editor, his voice gruff with the attempt
+to keep it steady.
+
+"You might say, if it wouldn't take too much room, that I was much
+pleased with the prospect of getting home before sundown to-night."
+
+"You needn't worry but what we'll say it all," he assured her.
+"We'll say a great deal more than you have any idea of."
+
+"I'm very thankful to you," she said, as she rose to go.
+
+They sat there for a moment in silence. "When one considers,"
+someone began, "that they were people who were pushed too close even
+to subscribe to a daily paper--"
+
+"When one considers," said the city editor, "that the girl who
+started it had just eleven dollars to her name--" And then he, too,
+stopped abruptly and there was another long moment of silence.
+
+After that he looked around at the reporters. "Well, it's too bad
+you can't all have it, when it's so big a chance, but I guess it
+falls logically to Raymond. And in writing it, just remember,
+Raymond, that the biggest stories are not written about wars, or
+about politics, or even murders. The biggest stories are written
+about the things which draw human beings closer together. And the
+chance to write them doesn't come every day, or every year, or every
+lifetime. And I'll tell you, boys, all of you, when it seems
+sometimes that the milk of human kindness has all turned sour, just
+think back to the little story you heard this afternoon."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Slowly the sun slipped down behind the mountains; slowly the long
+purple shadows deepened to black; and with the coming of the night
+there settled over the everlasting hills, and over the soul of one
+who had returned to them, that satisfying calm that men call peace.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FRECKLES M'GRATH
+
+
+Many visitors to the State-house made the mistake of looking upon
+the Governor as the most important personage in the building. They
+would walk up and down the corridors, hoping for a glimpse of some
+of the leading officials, when all the while Freckles McGrath, the
+real character of the Capitol, and by all odds the most illustrious
+person in it, was at once accessible and affable.
+
+Freckles McGrath was the elevator boy. In the official register his
+name had gone down as William, but that was a mere concession to the
+constituents to whom the official register was sent out. In the
+newspapers--and he appeared with frequency in the newspapers--he was
+always "Freckles," and every one from the Governor down gave him
+that title, the appropriateness of which was stamped a hundred fold
+upon his shrewd, jolly Irish face.
+
+Like every one else on the State pay-roll, Freckles was keyed high
+during this first week of the new session. It was a reform
+Legislature, and so imbued was it with the idea of reforming that
+there was grave danger of its forcing reformation upon everything in
+sight. It happened that the Governor was of the same faction of the
+party as that dominant in the Legislature; reform breathed through
+every nook and crevice of the great building.
+
+But high above all else in importance towered the Kelley Bill. From
+the very opening of the session there was scarcely a day when some
+of Freckles' passengers did not in hushed whispers mention the
+Kelley Bill. From what he could pick up about the building, and what
+he read in the newspapers, Freckles put together a few ideas as to
+what the Kelley Bill really was. It was a great reform measure, and
+it was going to show the railroads that they did not own the State.
+The railroads were going to have to pay more taxes, and they were
+making an awful fuss about it; but if the Kelley Bill could be put
+through it would be a great victory for reform, and would make the
+Governor "solid" in the State.
+
+Freckles McGrath was strong for reform. That was partly because the
+snatches of speeches he heard in the Legislature were more thrilling
+when for reform than when against it; it was partly because he
+adored the Governor, and in no small part because he despised Mr.
+Ludlow.
+
+Mr. Ludlow was a lobbyist. Some of the members of the Legislature
+were Mr. Ludlow's property--or at least so Freckles inferred from
+conversation overheard at his post. There had been a great deal of
+talk that session about Mr. Ludlow's methods.
+
+Freckles himself was no snob. Although he had heard Mr. Ludlow
+called disgraceful, and although he firmly believed he was
+disgraceful, he did not consider that any reason for not speaking to
+him. And so when Mr. Ludlow got in all alone one morning, and the
+occasion seemed to demand recognition of some sort, Freckles had
+chirped: "Good-morning!"
+
+But the man, possibly deep in something else, simply knit together
+his brows and gave no sign of having heard. After that, Henry
+Ludlow, lobbyist, and Freckles McGrath, elevator boy, were enemies.
+
+A little before noon, one day near the end of the session, a member
+of the Senate and a member of the House rode down together in the
+elevator.
+
+"There's no use waiting any longer," the Senator was saying as they
+got in. "We're as strong now as we're going to be. It's a matter of
+Stacy's vote, and that's a matter of who sees him last."
+
+Freckles widened out his ears and gauged the elevator for very slow
+running. Stacy had been written up in the papers as a wabbler on the
+Kelley Bill.
+
+"He's all right now," pursued the Senator, "but there's every chance
+that Ludlow will see him before he casts his vote this afternoon,
+and then--oh, I don't know!" and with a weary little flourish of his
+hands the Senator stepped off.
+
+Freckles McGrath sat wrapped in deep thought. The Kelley Bill was
+coming up in the Senate that afternoon. If Senator Stacy voted for
+it, it would pass. If he voted against it, it would fail. He would
+vote for it if he didn't see Mr. Ludlow; he wouldn't vote for it if
+he did. That was the situation, and the Governor's whole future,
+Freckles felt, was at stake.
+
+The bell rang sharply, and he was vaguely conscious then that it had
+been ringing before. In the next half-hour he was very busy taking
+down the members of the Legislature. Strangely enough, Senator Stacy
+and the Governor went down the same trip, and Freckles beamed with
+approbation when, he saw them walk out of the building together.
+
+Stacy was one of the first of the senators to return. Freckles sized
+him up keenly as he stepped into the elevator, and decided that he
+was still firm. But there was a look about Senator Stacy's mouth
+which suggested that there was no use in being too sure of him.
+Freckles considered the advisability of bursting forth and telling
+him how much better it would be to stick with the reform fellows;
+but just as the boy got his courage screwed up to speaking point,
+Senator Stacy got off.
+
+About ten minutes later Freckles had the elevator on the ground
+floor, and was sitting there reading a paper, when he heard a step
+that made him prick up his ears. The next minute Mr. Ludlow turned
+the corner. He was immaculately dressed, as usual, and his iron-grey
+moustache seemed to stand out just a little more pompously than
+ever. There was a sneering look in his eyes as he stepped into the
+car. It seemed to be saying: "They thought they could beat me, did
+they? Oh, they're easy, they are!"
+
+Freckles McGrath slammed the door of the cage and started the car
+up. He did not know what he was going to do, but he had an idea that
+he did not want any other passenger. When half way between the
+basement and the first floor, he stopped the elevator. He must have
+time to think. If he took that man up to the Senate Chamber, he
+would simply strike the death-blow to reform! And so he knelt and
+pretended to be fixing something, and he thought fast and hard.
+
+"Something broke?" asked an anxious voice.
+
+Freckles looked around into Mr. Ludlow's face, and he saw that the
+eminent lobbyist was nervous.
+
+"Yes," he said calmly. "It's acting queer. Something's all out of
+whack."
+
+"Well, drop it to the basement and let me out," said Mr. Ludlow
+sharply.
+
+"Can't drop it," responded Freckles. "She's stuck."
+
+Mr. Ludlow came and looked things over, but his knowledge did not
+extend to the mechanism of elevators.
+
+"Better call someone to come and take us out," he said nervously.
+
+Freckles straightened himself up. A glitter had come into his small
+grey eyes, and red spots were burning in his freckled cheeks.
+
+"I think she'll run now," he said.
+
+And she did run. Never in all its history had that State-house
+elevator run as it ran then. It rushed past the first and second
+floors like a thing let loose, with an utter abandonment that caused
+the blood to forsake the eminent lobbyist's face.
+
+"Stop it, boy!" he cried in alarm.
+
+"Can't!" responded Freckles, his voice thick with terror. "Running
+away!" he gasped.
+
+"Will it--fall?" whispered the lobbyist.
+
+"I--I think so!" blubbered Freckles.
+
+The central portion of the State-house was very high. Above that
+part of the building which was in use there was a long stretch
+leading to the tower. The shaft had been built clear up, though
+practically unused. Past floors used for store-rooms, past floors
+used for nothing at all, they went--the man's face white, the boy
+wailing out incoherent supplications. And then, within ten feet of
+the top of the shaft, and within a foot of the top floor of the
+building, the elevator came to a rickety stop. It wabbled back and
+forth; it did strange and terrible things.
+
+"She's falling!" panted Freckles. "Climb!"
+
+And Henry Ludlow climbed. He got the door open, and he clambered up.
+No sooner had the man's feet touched the solid floor than Freckles
+reached up and slammed the door of the cage. Why he did that he was
+not sure at the time. Later he felt that something had warned him
+not to give his prisoner's voice a full sweep down the shaft.
+
+Henry Ludlow was far from dull. As he saw the quick but even descent
+of the car, he knew that he had been tricked. He would have been
+more than human had there not burst from him furious and threatening
+words. But what was the use? The car was going down--down--down, and
+there he was, perhaps hundreds of feet above any one else in the
+building--alone, tricked, beaten!
+
+Of course he tried the door at the head of the winding stairway,
+knowing full well that it would be locked. They always kept it
+locked; he had heard one of the janitors asking for the keys to take
+a party up just a few days before. Perhaps he could get out on top
+of the building and make signals of distress. But the door leading
+outside was locked also. There he was--helpless. And below--well,
+below they were passing the Kelley Bill!
+
+He rattled the grating of the elevator shaft. He made strange, loud
+noises, knowing all the while he could not make himself heard. And
+then at last, alone in the State-house attic, Henry Ludlow, eminent
+lobbyist, sat down on a box and nursed his fury.
+
+Below, Freckles McGrath, the youngest champion of reform in the
+building, was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and
+he whistled. He took people up and down with as much nonchalance as
+if he did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were
+straining themselves for a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses
+were descending, literally, upon his stubby red head.
+
+It was a great afternoon at the State-house. Every one thronged to
+the doors of the Senate Chamber, where they were putting through the
+Kelley Bill. The speeches made in behalf of the measure were brief.
+The great thing now was not to make speeches; it was to reach "S" on
+roll-call before a man with iron-grey hair and an iron-grey
+moustache could come in and say something to the fair-haired member
+with the weak mouth who sat near the rear of the chamber.
+
+Freckles was called away just as it went to a vote. When he came
+back Senator Kelley was standing out in the corridor, and a great
+crowd of men were standing around slapping him on the back. The
+Governor himself was standing on the steps of the Senate Chamber;
+his eyes were bright, and he was smiling.
+
+Freckles turned his car back to the basement. He wanted to be all
+alone for a minute, to dwell in solitude upon the fact that it was
+he, Freckles McGrath, who had won this great victory for reform. It
+was he, Freckles McGrath, who had assured the Governor's future.
+Why, perhaps he had that afternoon made for himself a name which
+would be handed down in the histories!
+
+Freckles was a kind little boy, and he knew that an elegant
+gentleman could not find the attic any too pleasant a place in which
+to spend the afternoon, go he decided to go up and get Mr. Ludlow.
+It took courage; but he had won his victory and this was no time for
+faltering.
+
+There was something gruesome about the long ascent. He thought of
+stories he had read of lonely turrets in which men were beheaded,
+and otherwise made away with. It seemed he would never come to the
+top, and when at last he did it was to find two of the most
+awful-looking eyes he had ever seen--eyes that looked as though
+furies were going to escape from them--peering down upon him.
+
+The sight of that car, moving smoothly and securely up to the top,
+and the sight of that audacious little boy with the freckled face
+and the bat-like eyes, that little boy who had played his game so
+well, who had wrought such havoc, was too much for Henry Ludlow's
+self-control. Words such as he had never used before, such as he
+would not have supposed himself capable of using, burst from him.
+But Freckles stood calmly gazing up at the infuriated lobbyist, and
+just as Mr. Ludlow was saying, "I'll beat your head open, you little
+brat!" he calmly reversed the handle and sent the car skimming
+smoothly to realms below. He was followed by an angry yell, and then
+by a loud request to return, but he heeded them not, and for some
+time longer the car made its usual rounds between the basement and
+the legislative chambers.
+
+In just an hour Freckles tried it again. He sent the car to within
+three feet of the attic floor, and then peered through the grating,
+his face tied in a knot of interrogation. The eminent lobbyist stood
+there gulping down wrath and pride, knowing well enough what was
+expected of him.
+
+"Oh--all right," he muttered at last, and with that much of an
+understanding Freckles sent the car up, opened the door, and Henry
+Ludlow stepped in.
+
+No word was spoken between them until the light from the floor upon
+which the Senate Chamber was situated came in view. Then Freckles
+turned with a polite inquiry as to where the gentleman wished to get
+off.
+
+"You may take me down to the office of the Governor," said Mr.
+Ludlow stonily, meaningly.
+
+"Sure," said Freckles cheerfully. "Guess you'll find the Governor in
+his office now. He's been in the Senate most of the afternoon,
+watching 'em pass that Kelley Bill."
+
+Mr. Ludlow's lips drew in tightly. He squared his shoulders, and his
+silence was tremendous.
+
+In just fifteen minutes Freckles was sent for from the executive
+office.
+
+"I demand his discharge!" Mr. Ludlow was saying as the elevator boy
+entered.
+
+"It happens you're not running this building," the Governor returned
+with a good deal of acidity. "Though of course," he added with
+dignity, "the matter will be carefully investigated."
+
+The Governor was one great chuckle inside, and his heart was full of
+admiration and gratitude; but would Freckles be equal to bluffing it
+through? Would the boy have the finesse, the nice subtlety, the real
+master hand, the situation demanded? If not, then--imp of salvation
+though he was--in the interest of reform, Freckles would have to go.
+
+It was a very innocent looking boy who stood before him and looked
+inquiringly into his face.
+
+"William," began the Governor--Freckles was pained at first, and
+then remembered that officially he was William--"this gentleman has
+made a very serious charge against you."
+
+Freckles looked at Mr. Ludlow in a hurt way, and waited for the
+Governor to proceed.
+
+"He says," went on the chief executive, "that you deliberately took
+him to the top of the building and wilfully left him there a
+prisoner all afternoon. Did you do that?"
+
+"Oh, sir," burst forth Freckles, "I did the very best I could to
+save his life! I was willing to sacrifice mine for him. I--"
+
+"You little liar!" broke in Ludlow.
+
+The Governor held up his hand. "You had your chance. Let him have
+his."
+
+"You see, Governor," began Freckles, as if anxious to set right
+a great wrong which had been done him, "the car is acting bad.
+The engineer said only this morning it needed a going over. When
+it took that awful shoot, I lost control of it. Maybe I'm to be
+discharged for losing control of it, but not"--Freckles sniffled
+pathetically---"but not for anything like what he says I done. Why
+Governor," he went on, ramming his knuckles into his eyes, "I ain't
+got nothing against him! What'd I take him to the attic for?"
+
+"Of course not for money," sneered Mr. Ludlow.
+
+The Governor turned on him sharply. "When you can bring any proof of
+that, I'll be ready to hear it. Until you can, you'd better leave it
+out of the question."
+
+"Strange it should have happened this very afternoon," put in the
+eminent lobbyist.
+
+The Governor looked at him with open countenance. "You were
+especially interested in something this afternoon? I thought you
+told me you had no vital interest here this session."
+
+There was nothing to be said. Mr. Ludlow said nothing.
+
+"Now, William," pursued the Governor, fearful in his heart that this
+would be Freckles' undoing, "why did you close the door of the shaft
+before you started down?"
+
+"Well, you see, sir," began Freckles, still tremulously, "I'm so
+used to closin' doors. Closin' doors has become a kind of second
+nature with me. I've been told about it so many times. And up there,
+though I thought I was losin' my life, still I didn't neglect my
+duty."
+
+The Governor put his hand to his mouth and coughed.
+
+"And why," he went on, more secure now, for a boy who could get out
+of that could get out of anything, "why was it you didn't make some
+immediate effort to get Mr. Ludlow down? Why didn't you notify
+someone, or do something about it?"
+
+"Why, I supposed, of course, he walked down by the stairs," cried
+Freckles. "I never dreamed he'd want to trust the elevator after the
+way she had acted."
+
+"The door was locked," snarled the eminent lobbyist.
+
+"Well, now, you see, I didn't know that," explained Freckles
+expansively. "Late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test the
+car--and there you were! I never was so surprised in my life. I
+supposed, of course, sir, that you'd spent the afternoon in the
+Senate, along with everybody else."
+
+Once more the Governor put his hand to his mouth.
+
+"Your case will come before the executive council at its next
+meeting, William. And if anything like this should happen again, you
+will be discharged on the spot." Freckles bowed. "You may go now."
+
+When he was almost at the door the Governor called to him.
+
+"Don't you think, William," he said--the Governor felt that he and
+Freckles could afford to be generous--"that you should apologise to
+the gentleman for the really grave inconvenience to which you have
+been the means of subjecting him?"
+
+Freckles' little grey eyes grew steely. He looked at Henry Ludlow,
+and there was an ominous silence. Then light broke over his face.
+"On behalf of the elevator," he said, "I apologise."
+
+And a third time the Governor's hand was raised to his mouth.
+
+The next week Freckles was wearing a signet ring; long and audibly
+had he sighed for a ring of such kind and proportions. He was at
+some pains in explaining to everyone to whom he showed it that it
+had been sent him by "a friend up home."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+FROM A TO Z
+
+
+Thus had another ideal tumbled to the rubbish heap! She seemed to be
+breathing the dust which the newly fallen had stirred up among its
+longer dead fellows. Certainly she was breathing the dust from
+somewhere.
+
+During her senior year at the university, when people would ask:
+"And what are you going to do when you leave school, Miss Willard?"
+she would respond with anything that came to hand, secretly hugging
+to her mind that idea of getting a position in a publishing house. Her
+conception of her publishing house was finished about the same time
+as her class-day gown. She was to have a roll-top desk--probably of
+mahogany--and a big chair which whirled round like that in the office
+of the under-graduate dean. She was to have a little office all by
+herself, opening on a bigger office--the little one marked "Private."
+There were to be beautiful rugs--the general effect not unlike the
+library at the University Club--books and pictures and cultivated
+gentlemen who spoke often of Greek tragedies and the Renaissance.
+She was a little uncertain as to her duties, but had a general idea
+about getting down between nine and ten, reading the morning paper,
+cutting the latest magazine, and then "writing something."
+
+Commencement was now four months past, and one of her professors had
+indeed secured for her a position in a Chicago "publishing house."
+This was her first morning and she was standing at the window
+looking down into Dearborn Street while the man who was to have her
+in charge was fixing a place for her to sit.
+
+That the publishing house should be on Dearborn Street had been her
+first blow, for she had long located her publishing house on that
+beautiful stretch of Michigan Avenue which overlooked the lake. But
+the real insult was that this publishing house, instead of having a
+building, or at least a floor, all to itself, simply had a place
+penned off in a bleak, dirty building such as one who had done work
+in sociological research instinctively associated with a box
+factory. And the thing which fairly trailed her visions in the dust
+was that the partition penning them off did not extend to the
+ceiling, and the adjoining room being occupied by a patent medicine
+company, she was face to face with glaring endorsements of Dr.
+Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. Taken all in all there
+seemed little chance for Greek tragedies or the Renaissance.
+
+The man who was "running things"--she buried her phraseology with
+her dreams--wore a skull cap, and his moustache dragged down below
+his chin. Just at present he was engaged in noisily pulling a most
+unliterary pine table from a dark corner to a place near the window.
+That accomplished, an ostentatious hunt ensued, resulting in the
+triumphant flourish of a feather duster. Several knocks at the
+table, and the dust of many months--perhaps likewise of many
+dreams--ascended to a resting place on the endorsement of Dr.
+Bunting's Kidney and Bladder Cure. He next produced a short,
+straight-backed chair which she recognised as brother to the one
+which used to stand behind their kitchen stove. He gave it a shake,
+thus delicately indicating that she was receiving special favours in
+this matter of an able-bodied chair, and then announced with brisk
+satisfaction: "So! Now we are ready to begin." She murmured a "Thank
+you," seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did
+not whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did not even
+dream in mahogany.
+
+In the _other_ publishing house, one pushed buttons and
+uniformed menials appeared--noiselessly, quickly and deferentially.
+At this moment a boy with sandy hair brushed straight back in a
+manner either statesmanlike or clownlike--things were too involved
+to know which--shuffled in with an armful of yellow paper which he
+flopped down on the pine table. After a minute he returned with a
+warbled "Take Me Back to New York Town" and a paste-pot. And upon
+his third appearance he was practising gymnastics with a huge pair
+of shears, which he finally presented, grinningly.
+
+There was a long pause, broken only by the sonorous voice of Dr.
+Bunting upbraiding someone for not having billed out that stuff to
+Apple Grove, and then the sandy-haired boy appeared bearing a large
+dictionary, followed by the man in the skull cap behind a dictionary
+of equal unwieldiness. These were set down on either side of the
+yellow paper, and he who was filling the position of cultivated
+gentleman pulled up a chair, briskly.
+
+"Has Professor Lee explained to you the nature of our work?" he
+wanted to know.
+
+"No," she replied, half grimly, a little humourously, and not far
+from tearfully, "he didn't--explain."
+
+"Then it is my pleasure to inform you," he began, blinking at her
+importantly, "that we are engaged here in the making of a
+dictionary."
+
+"A _dic--?_" but she swallowed the gasp in the laugh coming up
+to meet it, and of their union was born a saving cough.
+
+"Quite an overpowering thought, is it not?" he agreed pleasantly.
+"Now you see you have before you the two dictionaries you will use
+most, and over in that case you will find other references. The main
+thing"--his voice sank to an impressive whisper--"is _not_ to
+infringe the copyright. The publisher was in yesterday and made a
+little talk to the force, and he said that any one who handed in a
+piece of copy infringing the copyright simply employed that means of
+writing his own resignation. Neat way of putting it, was it not?"
+
+"Yes, _wasn't_ it--neat?" she agreed, wildly.
+
+She was conscious of a man's having stepped in behind her and taken
+a seat at the table next hers. She heard him opening his dictionaries
+and getting out his paper. Then the man in the skull cap had risen
+and was saying genially: "Well, here is a piece of old Webster, your
+first 'take'--no copyright on this, you see, but you must modernise
+and expand. Don't miss any of the good words in either of these
+dictionaries. Here you have dictionaries, copy-paper, paste, and
+Professor Lee assures me you have brains--all the necessary
+ingredients for successful lexicography. We are to have some rules
+printed to-morrow, and in the meantime I trust I've made myself clear.
+The main thing"--he bent down and spoke it solemnly--"is _not_ to
+infringe the copyright." With a cheerful nod he was gone, and she heard
+him saying to the man at the next table: "Mr. Clifford, I shall have
+to ask you to be more careful about getting in promptly at eight."
+
+She removed the cover from her paste-pot and dabbled a little on a
+piece of paper. Then she tried the unwieldy shears on another piece
+of paper. She then opened one of her dictionaries and read
+studiously for fifteen minutes. That accomplished, she opened the
+other dictionary and pursued it for twelve minutes. Then she took
+the column of "old Webster," which had been handed her pasted on a
+piece of yellow paper, and set about attempting to commit it to
+memory. She looked up to be met with the statement that Mrs. Marjory
+Van Luce De Vane, after spending years under the so-called best
+surgeons of the country, had been cured in six weeks by Dr.
+Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. She pushed the
+dictionaries petulantly from her, and leaning her very red cheek
+upon her hand, her hazel eyes blurred with tears of perplexity and
+resentment, her mouth drawn in pathetic little lines of uncertainty,
+looked over at the sprawling warehouse on the opposite side of
+Dearborn Street. She was just considering the direct manner of
+writing one's resignation--not knowing how to infringe the
+copyright--when a voice said: "I beg pardon, but I wonder if I can
+help you any?"
+
+She had never heard a voice like that before. Or, _had_ she
+heard it?--and where? She looked at him, a long, startled gaze.
+Something made her think of the voice the prince used to have in
+long-ago dreams. She looked into a face that was dark and thin
+and--different. Two very dark eyes were looking at her kindly, and a
+mouth which was a baffling combination of things to be loved and
+things to be deplored was twitching a little, as though it would
+like to join the eyes in a smile, if it dared.
+
+Because he saw both how funny and how hard it was, she liked him. It
+would have been quite different had he seen either one without the
+other.
+
+"You can tell me how _not_ to infringe the copyright," she
+laughed. "I'm not sure that I know what a copyright is."
+
+He laughed--a laugh which belonged with his voice. "Mr. Littletree
+isn't as lucid as he thinks he is. I've been here a week or so, and
+picked up a few things you might like to know."
+
+He pulled his chair closer to her table then and gave her a lesson in
+the making of copy. Edna Willard was never one-half so attractive as
+when absorbed in a thing which someone was showing her how to do. Her
+hazel eyes would widen and glisten with the joy of comprehending; her
+cheeks would flush a deeper pink with the coming of new light, her
+mouth would part in a child-like way it had forgotten to outgrow,
+her head would nod gleefully in token that she understood, and she
+had a way of pulling at her wavy hair and making it more wavy than
+it had been before. The man at the next table was a long time in
+explaining the making of a dictionary. He spoke in low tones, often
+looking at the figure of the man in the skull cap, who was sitting
+with his back to them, looking over copy. Once she cried, excitedly:
+"Oh--I _see_!" and he warned, "S--h!" explaining, "Let him think
+you got it all from him. It will give you a better stand-in." She
+nodded, appreciatively, and felt very well acquainted with this kind
+man whose voice made her think of something--called to something--she
+did not just know what.
+
+After that she became so absorbed in lexicography that when the men
+began putting away their things it was hard to realise that the
+morning had gone. It was a new and difficult game, the evasion of
+the copyright furnishing the stimulus of a hazard.
+
+The man at the next table had been watching her with an amused
+admiration. Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from
+perplexity to satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head
+and the pucker of her face, took him back over years emotionally
+barren to the time when he too had those easily stirred enthusiasms
+of youth. For the man at the next table was far from young now. His
+mouth had never quite parted with boyishness, but there was more
+white than black in his hair, and the lines about his mouth told
+that time, as well as forces more aging than time, had laid heavy
+hand upon him. But when he looked at the girl and told her with a
+smile that it was time to stop work, it was a smile and a voice to
+defy the most tell-tale face in all the world.
+
+During her luncheon, as she watched the strange people coming and
+going, she did much wondering. She wondered why it was that so many
+of the men at the dictionary place were very old men; she wondered
+if it would be a good dictionary--one that would be used in the
+schools; she wondered if Dr. Bunting had made a great deal of money,
+and most of all she wondered about the man at the next table whose
+voice was like--like a dream which she did not know that she had
+dreamed.
+
+When she had returned to the straggling old building, had stumbled
+down the narrow, dark hall and opened the door of the big bleak
+room, she saw that the man at the next table was the only one who
+had returned from luncheon. Something in his profile made her stand
+there very still. He had not heard her come in, and he was looking
+straight ahead, eyes half closed, mouth set--no unsurrendered
+boyishness there now. Wholly unconsciously she took an impulsive
+step forward. But she stopped, for she saw, and felt without really
+understanding, that it was not just the moment's pain, but the
+revealed pain of years. Just then he began to cough, and it seemed
+the cough, too, was more than of the moment. And then he turned and
+saw her, and smiled, and the smile changed all.
+
+As the afternoon wore on the man stopped working and turning a
+little in his chair sat there covertly watching the girl. She was
+just typically girl. It was written that she had spent her days in
+the happy ways of healthful girlhood. He supposed that a great many
+young fellows had fallen in love with her--nice, clean young
+fellows, the kind she would naturally meet. And then his eyes closed
+for a minute and he put up his hand and brushed back his hair; there
+was weariness, weariness weary of itself, in the gesture. He looked
+about the room and scanned the faces of the men, most of them older
+than he, many of them men whose histories were well known to him.
+They were the usual hangers on about newspaper offices; men who, for
+one reason or other--age, dissipation, antiquated methods--had been
+pitched over, men for whom such work as this came as a godsend. They
+were the men of yesterday--men whom the world had rushed past. She
+was the only one there, this girl who would probably sit here beside
+him for many months, with whom the future had anything to do.
+Youth!--Goodness!--Joy!--Hope!--strange things to bring to a place
+like this. And as if their alienism disturbed him, he moved
+restlessly, almost resentfully, bit his lips nervously, moistened
+them, and began putting away his things.
+
+As the girl was starting home along Dearborn Street a few minutes
+later, she chanced to look in a window. She saw that it was a
+saloon, but before she could turn away she saw a man with a white
+face--white with the peculiar whiteness of a dark face, standing
+before the bar drinking from a small glass. She stood still,
+arrested by a look such as she had never seen before: a panting
+human soul sobbingly fluttering down into something from which it
+had spent all its force in trying to rise. When she recalled herself
+and passed on, a mist which she could neither account for nor banish
+was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes.
+
+The next day was a hard one at the dictionary place. She told
+herself it was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because
+her fingers ached, because it tired her back to sit in that horrid
+chair. She did not admit of any connection between her flagging
+interest and the fact that the place at the next table was vacant.
+
+The following day he was still absent. She assumed that it was
+nervousness occasioned by her queer surroundings made her look
+around whenever she heard a step behind her. Where was he? Where had
+that look carried him? If he were in trouble, was there no one to
+help him?
+
+The third day she did an unpremeditated thing. The man in the skull
+cap had been showing her something about the copy. As he was
+leaving, she asked: "Is the man who sits at the next table coming
+back?"
+
+"Oh yes," he replied grimly, "he'll be back."
+
+"Because," she went on, "if he wasn't, I thought I would take his
+shears. These hurt my fingers."
+
+He made the exchange for her--and after that things went better.
+
+He did return late the next morning. After he had taken his place he
+looked over at her and smiled. He looked sick and shaken--as if
+something that knew no mercy had taken hold of him and wrung body
+and soul.
+
+"You have been ill?" she asked, with timid solicitude.
+
+"Oh no," he replied, rather shortly.
+
+He was quiet all that day, but the next day they talked about the
+work, laughed together over funny definitions they found. She felt
+that he could tell many interesting things about himself, if he
+cared to.
+
+As the days went on he did tell some of those things--out of the way
+places where he had worked, queer people whom he had known. It
+seemed that words came to him as gifts, came freely, happily,
+pleased, perhaps, to be borne by so sympathetic a voice. And there
+was another thing about him. He seemed always to know just what she
+was trying to say; he never missed the unexpressed. That made it
+easy to say things to him; there seemed a certain at-homeness
+between his thought and hers. She accounted for her interest in him
+by telling herself she had never known any one like that before. Now
+Harold, the boy whom she knew best out at the university, why one
+had to _say_ things to Harold to make him understand! And
+Harold never left one wondering--wondering what he had meant by that
+smile, what he had been going to say when he started to say
+something and stopped, wondering what it was about his face that one
+could not understand. Harold never could claim as his the hour after
+he had left her, and was one ever close to anyone with whom one did
+not spend some of the hours of absence? She began to see that hours
+spent together when apart were the most intimate hours of all.
+
+And as Harold did not make one wonder, so he did not make one worry.
+Never in all her life had there been a lump in her throat when she
+thought of Harold. There was often a lump in her throat when the man
+at the next table was coughing.
+
+One day, she had been there about two months, she said something to
+him about it. It was hard; it seemed forcing one's way into a room
+that had never been opened to one--there were several doors he kept
+closed.
+
+"Mr. Clifford," she turned to him impetuously as they were putting
+away their things that night, "will you mind if I say something to
+you?"
+
+He was covering his paste-pot. He looked up at her strangely. The
+closed door seemed to open a little way. "I can't conceive of
+'minding' anything you might say to me, Miss Noah,"--he had called
+her Miss Noah ever since she, by mistake, had one day called him Mr.
+Webster.
+
+"You see," she hurried on, very timid, now that the door had opened
+a little, "you have been so good to me. Because you have been so
+good to me it seems that I have some right to--to--"
+
+His head was resting upon his hand, and he leaned a little closer as
+though listening for something he wanted to hear.
+
+"I had a cousin who had a cough like yours,"--brave now that she
+could not go back--"and he went down to New Mexico and stayed for a
+year, and when he came back--when he came back he was as well as any
+of us. It seems so foolish not to"--her voice broke, now that it had
+so valiantly carried it--"not to--"
+
+He looked at her, and that was all. But she was never wholly the
+same again after that look. It enveloped her being in a something
+which left her richer--different. It was a look to light the dark
+place between two human souls. It seemed for the moment that words
+would follow it, but as if feeling their helplessness--perhaps
+needlessness--they sank back unuttered, and at the last he got up,
+abruptly, and walked away.
+
+One night, while waiting for the elevator, she heard two of the men
+talking about him. When she went out on the street it was with head
+high, cheeks hot. For nothing is so hard to hear as that which one
+has half known, and evaded. One never denies so hotly as in denying
+to one's self what one fears is true, and one never resents so
+bitterly as in resenting that which one cannot say one has the right
+to resent.
+
+That night she lay in her bed with wide open eyes, going over and
+over the things they had said. "_Cure?_"--one of them had
+scoffed, after telling how brilliant he had been before he "went to
+pieces"--"why all the cures on earth couldn't help him! He can go
+just so far, and then he can no more stop himself--oh, about as much
+as an ant could stop a prairie fire!"
+
+She finally turned over on her pillow and sobbed; and she wondered
+why--wondered, yet knew.
+
+But it resulted in the flowering of her tenderness for him. Interest
+mounted to defiance. It ended in blind, passionate desire to "make
+it up" to him. And again he was so different from Harold; Harold did
+not impress himself upon one by upsetting all one's preconceived
+ideas.
+
+She felt now that she understood better--understood the closed
+doors. He was--she could think of no better word than sensitive.
+
+And that is why, several mornings later, she very courageously--for
+it did take courage--threw this little note over on his desk--they
+had formed a habit of writing notes to each other, sometimes about
+the words, sometimes about other things.
+
+"IN-VI-TA-TION, _n._ That which Miss Noah extends to Mr.
+Webster for Friday evening, December second, at the house where she
+lives--hasn't she already told him where that is? It is the wish of
+Miss Noah to present Mr. Webster to various other Miss Noahs, all of
+whom are desirous of making his acquaintance."
+
+She was absurdly nervous at luncheon that day, and kept telling
+herself with severity not to act like a high-school girl. He was
+late in returning that noon, and though there seemed a new something
+in his voice when he asked if he hadn't better sharpen her pencils,
+he said nothing about her new definition of invitation. It was
+almost five o'clock when he threw this over on her desk:
+
+"AP-PRE-CI-A-TION, _n._ That sentiment inspired in Mr. Webster
+by the kind invitation of Miss Noah for Friday evening.
+
+"RE-GRET, _n._ That which Mr. Webster experiences because, for
+reasons into which he cannot go in detail, it is impossible for him
+to accept Miss Noah's invitation.
+
+"RE-SENT-MENT, _n._ That which is inspired in Mr. Webster by
+the insinuation that there are other Miss Noahs in the world."
+
+Then below he had written: "Three hours later. Miss Noah, the world
+is queer. Some day you may find out--though I hope you never
+will--that it is frequently the things we most want to do that we
+must leave undone. Miss Noah, won't you go on bringing me as much of
+yourself as you can to Dearborn Street, and try not to think much
+about my not being able to know the Miss Noah of Hyde Park? And
+little Miss Noah--I thank you. There aren't words enough in this old
+book of ours to tell you how much--or why."
+
+That night he hurried away with never a joke about how many words
+she had written that day. She did not look up as he stood there
+putting on his coat.
+
+It was spring now, and the dictionary staff had begun on W.
+
+They had written of Joy, of Hope and Life and Love, and many other
+things. Life seemed pressing just behind some of those definitions,
+pressing the harder, perhaps, because it could not break through the
+surface.
+
+For it did not break through; it flooded just beneath.
+
+How did she know that he cared for her? She could not possibly have
+told. Perhaps the nearest to actual proof she could bring was that
+he always saw that her overshoes were put in a warm place. And when
+one came down to facts, the putting of a girl's rubbers near the
+radiator did not necessarily mean love.
+
+Perhaps then it was because there was no proof of it that she was
+most sure. For some of the most sure things in the world are things
+which cannot be proved.
+
+It was only that they worked together and were friends; that they
+laughed together over funny definitions they found, that he was kind
+to her, and that they seemed remarkably close together.
+
+That is as far as facts can take it.
+
+And just there--it begins.
+
+For the force which rushes beneath the facts of life, caring nothing
+for conditions, not asking what one desires or what one thinks best,
+caring as little about a past as about a future--save its own
+future--the force which can laugh at man's institutions and batter
+over in one sweep what he likes to call his wisdom, was sweeping
+them on. And because it could get no other recognition it forced its
+way into the moments when he asked her for an eraser, when she
+wanted to know how to spell a word. He could not so much as ask her
+if she needed more copy-paper without seeming to be lavishing upon
+her all the love of all the ages.
+
+And so the winter had worn on, and there was really nothing whatever
+to tell about it.
+
+She was quiet this morning, and kept her head bent low over her
+work. For she had estimated the number of pages there were between W
+and Z. Soon they would be at Z;--and then? Then? Shyly she turned
+and looked at him; he too was bent over his work. When she came in
+she had said something about its being spring, and that there must
+be wild flowers in the woods. Since then he had not looked up.
+
+Suddenly it came to her--tenderly, hotly, fearfully yet bravely,
+that it was she who must meet Z. She looked at him again, covertly.
+And she felt that she understood. It was the lines in his face made
+it clearest. Years, and things blacker, less easily surmounted than
+years--oh yes, that too she faced fearlessly--were piled in between.
+She knew now that it was she--not he--who could push them aside.
+
+It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love
+and life and desire may crowd from the page.
+
+Perhaps she would not have thrown it after all--the little note she
+had written--had it not been that when she went over for more
+copy-paper she stood for a minute looking out the window. Even on
+Dearborn Street the seductiveness of spring was in the air. Spring,
+and all that spring meant, filled her.
+
+Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of
+far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press
+she could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was
+strong, the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to
+his desk:
+
+"CHAFING-DISH, n. That out of which Miss Noah asks Mr. Webster to
+eat his Sunday night lunch tomorrow. All the other Miss Noahs are
+going to be away, and if Mr. Webster does not come, Miss Noah will
+be all alone. Miss Noah does not like to be lonely."
+
+She ate no lunch that day; she only drank a cup of coffee and walked
+around.
+
+He did not come back that afternoon. It passed from one to two, from
+two to three, and then very slowly from three to four, and still he
+had not come.
+
+He too was walking about. He had walked down to the lake and was
+standing there looking out across it.
+
+Why not?--he was saying to himself--fiercely, doggedly. Over and
+over again--Well, _why_ not?
+
+A hundred nights, alone in his room, he had gone over it. Had not
+life used him hard enough to give him a little now?--longing had
+pleaded. And now there was a new voice--more prevailing voice--the
+voice of her happiness. His face softened to an almost maternal
+tenderness as he listened to that voice.
+
+Too worn to fight any longer, he gave himself up to it, and sat
+there dreaming. They were dreams of joy rushing in after lonely
+years, dreams of stepping into the sunlight after long days in fog
+and cold, dreams of a woman before a fireplace--her arms about him,
+her cheer and her tenderness, her comradeship and her passion--all
+his to take! Ah, dreams which even thoughts must not touch--so
+wonderful and sacred they were.
+
+A long time he sat there, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The
+force that rules the race was telling him that the one crime was the
+denial of happiness--his happiness, her happiness; and when at last
+his fight seemed but a puerile fight against forces worlds mightier
+than he, he rose, and as one who sees a great light, started back
+toward Dearborn Street.
+
+On the way he began to cough. The coughing was violent, and he
+stepped into a doorway to gain breath. And after he had gone in
+there he realised that it was the building of Chicago's greatest
+newspaper.
+
+He had been city editor of that paper once. Facts, the things he
+knew about himself, talked to him then. There was no answer.
+
+It left him weak and dizzy and crazy for a drink. He walked on
+slowly, unsteadily, his white face set. For he had vowed that if it
+took the last nerve in his body there should be no more of that
+until after they had finished with Z. He knew himself too well to
+vow more. He was not even sure of that.
+
+He did not turn in where he wanted to go, but resistance took the
+last bit of force that was in him. He was trembling like a sick man
+when he stepped into the elevator.
+
+She was just leaving. She was in the little cloak room putting on
+her things. She was all alone in there.
+
+He stepped in. He pushed the door shut, and stood there leaning
+against it, looking at her, saying nothing.
+
+"Oh--you are ill?" she gasped, and laid a frightened hand upon him.
+
+The touch crazed him. All resistance gone, he swept her into his
+arms; he held her fiercely, and between sobs kissed her again and
+again. He could not let her go. He frightened her. He hurt her. And
+he did not care--he did not know.
+
+Then he held her off and looked at her. And as he looked into her
+eyes, passion melted to tenderness. It was she now--not he;
+love--not hunger. Holding her face in his two hands, looking at her
+as if getting something to take away, his white lips murmured words
+too inarticulate for her to hear. And then again he put his arms
+around her--all differently. Reverently, sobbingly, he kissed her
+hair. And then he was gone.
+
+He did not come out that Sunday afternoon, but Harold dropped in
+instead, and talked of some athletic affairs over at the university.
+She wondered why she did not go crazy in listening to him, and yet
+she could answer intelligently. It was queer--what one _could_
+do.
+
+They had come at last to Z. There would be no more work upon the
+dictionary after that day. And it was raining--raining as in Chicago
+alone it knows how to rain.
+
+They wrote no notes to each other now. It had been different since
+that day. They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the
+mantle of commonplace words.
+
+Both of them had tried to stay away that last day. But both were in
+their usual places.
+
+The day wore on eventlessly. Those men with whom she had worked, the
+men of yesterday, who had been kind to her, came up at various times
+for little farewell chats. The man in the skull cap told her that
+she had done excellent work. She was surprised at the ease with
+which she could make decent reply, thinking again that it was
+queer--what one could do.
+
+He was moving. She saw him lay some sheets of yellow paper on the
+desk in front. He had finished with his "take." There would not be
+another to give him. He would go now.
+
+He came back to his desk. She could hear him putting away his
+things. And then for a long time there was no sound. She knew that
+he was just sitting there in his chair.
+
+Then she heard him get up. She heard him push his chair up to the
+table, and then for a minute he stood there. She wanted to turn
+toward him; she wanted to say something--do something. But she had
+no power.
+
+She saw him lay an envelope upon her desk. She heard him walking
+away. She knew, numbly, that his footsteps were not steady. She knew
+that he had stopped; she was sure that he was looking back. But
+still she had no power.
+
+And then she heard him go.
+
+Even then she went on with her work; she finished her "take" and
+laid down her pencil. It was finished now--and he had gone.
+Finished?--_Gone?_ She was tearing open the envelope of the
+letter.
+
+This was what she read:
+
+"Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vender, and girl to be loved, if
+I were a free man I would say to you--Come, little one, and let us
+learn of love. Let us learn of it, not as one learns from
+dictionaries, but let us learn from the morning glow and the evening
+shades. But Miss Noah, maker of dictionaries and creeper into
+hearts, the bound must not call to the free. They might fittingly
+have used my name as one of the synonyms under that word Failure,
+but I trust not under Coward.
+
+"And now, you funny little Miss Noah from the University of Chicago,
+don't I know that your heart is blazing forth the assurance that you
+don't _care_ for any of those things--the world, people, common
+sense--that you want just love? They made a grand failure of you out
+at your university; they taught you philosophy and they taught you
+Greek, and they've left you just as much the woman as women were
+five thousand years ago. Oh, I know all about you--you little girl
+whose hair tried so hard to be red. Your soul touched mine as we sat
+there writing words--words--words, the very words in which men try
+to tell things, and can't--and I know all about what you would do.
+But you shall not do it. Dear little copy maker, would a man
+standing out on the end of a slippery plank have any right to cry to
+someone on the shore--'Come out here on this plank with me?' If he
+loved the someone on the shore, would he not say instead--'Don't get
+on this plank?' Me get off the plank--come with you to the
+shore--you are saying? But you see, dear, you only know slippery
+planks as viewed from the shore--God grant you may never know them
+any other way!
+
+"It was you, was it not, who wrote our definition of happiness? Yes,
+I remember the day you did it. You were so interested; your cheeks
+grew so very red, and you pulled and pulled at your wavy hair. You
+said it was such an important definition. And so it is, Miss Noah,
+quite the most important of all. And on the page of life, Miss Noah,
+may happiness be written large and unblurred for you. It is because
+I cannot help you write it that I turn away. I want at least to
+leave the page unspoiled.
+
+"I carry a picture of you. I shall carry it always. You are sitting
+before a fireplace, and I think of that fireplace as symbolising the
+warmth and care and tenderness and the safety that will surround
+you. And sometimes as you sit there let a thought of me come for
+just a minute, Miss Noah--not long enough nor deep enough to bring
+you any pain. But only think--I brought him happiness after he
+believed all happiness had gone. He was so grateful for that light
+which came after he thought the darkness had settled down. It will
+light his way to the end.
+
+"We've come to Z, and it's good-bye. There is one thing I can give
+you without hurting you,--the hope, the prayer, that life may be
+very, very good to you."
+
+The sheets of paper fell from her hands. She sat staring out
+into Dearborn Street. She began to see. After all, he had not
+understood her. Perhaps men never understood women; certainly
+he had not understood her. What he did not know was that she
+was willing to _pay_ for her happiness--_pay_--pay any price
+that might be exacted. And anyway--she had no choice. Strange that
+he could not see that! Strange that he could not see the irony and
+cruelty of bidding her good-bye and then telling her to be happy!
+
+It simplified itself to such an extent that she _grew_ very
+calm. It would be easy to find him, easy to make him see--for it was
+so very simple--and then....
+
+She turned in her copy. She said good-bye quietly, naturally, rode
+down in the lumbering old elevator and started out into the now
+drenching rain toward the elevated trains which would take her to
+the West Side; it was so fortunate that she had heard him telling
+one day where he lived.
+
+When she reached the station she saw that more people were coming
+down the stairs than were going up. They were saying things about
+the trains, but she did not heed them. But at the top of the stairs
+a man in uniform said: "Blockade, Miss. You'll have to take the
+surface cars."
+
+She was sorry, for it would delay her, and there was not a minute to
+lose. She was dismayed, upon reaching the surface cars, to find she
+could not get near them; the rain, the blockade on the "L" had
+caused a great crowd to congregate there. She waited a long time,
+getting more and more wet, but it was impossible to get near the
+cars. She thought of a cab, but could see none, they too having all
+been pressed into service.
+
+She determined, desperately, to start and walk. Soon she would
+surely get either a cab or a car. And so she started, staunchly,
+though she was wet through now, and trembling with cold and
+nervousness.
+
+As she hurried through the driving rain she faced things fearlessly.
+Oh yes, she understood--everything. But if he were not well--should
+he not have her with him? If he had that thing to fight, did he not
+need her help? What did men think women were like? Did he think she
+was one to sit down and reason out what would be advantageous?
+Better a little while with him on a slippery plank than forever safe
+and desolate upon the shore!
+
+She never questioned her going; were not life and love too great to
+be lost through that which could be so easily put right?
+
+The buildings were reeling, the streets moving up and down--that
+awful rain, she thought, was making her dizzy. Labouriously she
+walked on--more slowly, less steadily, a pain in her side, that
+awful reeling in her head.
+
+Carriages returning to the city were passing her, but she had not
+strength to call to them, and it seemed if she walked to the curbing
+she would fall. She was not thinking so clearly now. The thing which
+took all of her force was the lifting of her feet and the putting
+them down in the right place. Her throat seemed to be closing
+up--and her side--and her head....
+
+Someone had her by the arm. Then someone was speaking her name;
+speaking it in surprise--consternation--alarm.
+
+It was Harold.
+
+It was all vague then. She knew that she was in a carriage, and that
+Harold was talking to her kindly. "You're taking me there?" she
+murmured.
+
+"Yes--yes, Edna, everything's all right," he replied soothingly.
+
+"Everything's all right," she repeated, in a whisper, and leaned her
+head back against the cushions.
+
+They stopped after a while, and Harold was standing at the open door
+of the cab with something steaming hot which he told her to drink.
+"You need it," he said decisively, and thinking it would help her to
+tell it, she drank it down.
+
+The world was a little more defined after that, and she saw things
+which puzzled her. "Why, it looks like the city," she whispered, her
+throat too sore now to speak aloud.
+
+"Why sure," he replied banteringly; "don't you know we have to go
+through the city to get out to the South Side?"
+
+"Oh, but you see," she cried, holding her throat, "but you see, it's
+the _other_ way!"
+
+"Not to-night," he insisted; "the place for you to-night is home.
+I'm taking you where you belong."
+
+She reached over wildly, trying to open the door, but he held her
+back; she began to cry, and he talked to her, gently but unbendingly.
+"But you don't _understand!_" she whispered, passionately. "I've
+_got_ to go!"
+
+"Not to-night," he said again, and something in the way he said it
+made her finally huddle back in the corner of the carriage.
+
+Block after block, mile after mile, they rode on in silence. She
+felt overpowered. And with submission she knew that it was Z. For
+the whole city was piled in between. Great buildings were in
+between, and thousands of men running to and fro on the streets;
+man, and all man had builded up, were in between. And then
+Harold--Harold who had always seemed to count for so little, had
+come and taken her away.
+
+Dully, wretchedly--knowing that her heart would ache far worse
+to-morrow than it did to-night--she wondered about things. Did
+things like rain and street-cars and wet feet and a sore throat
+determine life? Was it that way with other people, too? Did other
+people have barriers--whole cities full of them--piled in between?
+And then did the Harolds come and take them where they said they
+belonged? Were there not _some_ people strong enough to go
+where they wanted to go?
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD
+
+
+The elements without were not in harmony with the spirit which it
+was desired should be engendered within. By music, by gay
+decorations, by speeches from prominent men, the board in charge of
+the boys' reformatory was striving to throw about this dedication of
+the new building an atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will--an
+atmosphere vibrant with the kindness and generosity which emanated
+from the State, and the thankfulness and loyalty which it was felt
+should emanate from the boys.
+
+Outside the world was sobbing. Some young trees which had been
+planted along the driveway of the reformatory grounds, and which
+were expected to grow up in the way they should go, were rocking
+back and forth in passionate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being
+spit viciously through the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape
+which Philip Grayson, he who was to be the last speaker of the
+afternoon, saw stretching itself down the hill, across the little
+valley, and up another little hill of that rolling prairie state. In
+his ears was the death wail of the summer. It seemed the spirit of
+out-of-doors was sending itself up in mournful, hopeless cries.
+
+The speaker who had been delivering himself of pedantic
+encouragement about the open arms with which the world stood ready
+to receive the most degraded one, would that degraded one but come
+to the world in proper spirit, sat down amid perfunctory applause
+led by the officers and attendants of the institution, and the boys
+rose to sing. The brightening of their faces told that their work as
+performers was more to their liking than their position as auditors.
+They threw back their heads and waited with well-disciplined
+eagerness for the signal to begin. Then, with the strength and
+native music there are in some three hundred boys' throats, there
+rolled out the words of the song of the State.
+
+There were lips which opened only because they must, but as a whole
+they sang with the same heartiness, the same joy in singing, that he
+had heard a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the
+week before. When the last word had died away it seemed to Philip
+Grayson that the sigh of the world without was giving voice to the
+sigh of the world within as the well-behaved crowd of boys sat down
+to resume their duties as auditors.
+
+And then one of the most important of the professors from the State
+University was telling them about the kindness of the State: the
+State had provided for them this beautiful home; it gave them
+comfortable clothing and nutritious food; it furnished that fine
+gymnasium in which to train their bodies, books and teachers to
+train their minds; it provided those fitted to train their souls, to
+work against the unfortunate tendencies--the professor stumbled a
+little there--which had led to their coming. The State gave
+liberally, gladly, and in return it asked but one thing: that they
+come out into the world and make useful, upright citizens, citizens
+of which any State might be proud. Was that asking too much? the
+professor from the State University was saying.
+
+The sobbing of the world without was growing more intense. Many
+pairs of eyes from among the auditors were straying out to where the
+summer lay dying. Did they know--those boys whom the State classed
+as unfortunates--that out of this death there would come again life?
+Or did they see but the darkness--the decay--of to-day?
+
+The professor from the State University was putting the case very
+fairly. There were no flaws--seemingly--to be picked in his logic.
+The State had been kind; the boys were obligated to good
+citizenship. But the coldness!--comfortlessness!--of it all. The
+open arms of the world!--how mocking in its abstractness. What did
+it mean? Did it mean that they--the men who uttered the phrase so
+easily--would be willing to give these boys aid, friendship when
+they came out into the world? What would they say, those boys whose
+ears were filled with high-sounding, non-committal phrases, if some
+man were to stand before them and say, "And so, fellows, when you
+get away from this place, and are ready to get your start in the
+world, just come around to my office and I'll help you get a job?"
+At thought of it there came from Philip Grayson a queer, partly
+audible laugh, which caused those nearest him to look his way in
+surprise.
+
+But he was all unconscious of their looks of inquiry, absorbed in the
+thoughts that crowded upon him. How far away the world--his kind of
+people--must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The
+speeches they had heard, the training that had been given them,
+had taught them--unconsciously perhaps, but surely--to divide the
+world into two great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who
+made speeches and those who must listen, the so-called good and the
+so-called bad; perhaps--he smiled a little at his own cynicism--those
+who were caught and those who were not.
+
+There came to him these words of a poet of whom he used to be fond:
+
+    In men whom men pronounce as ill,
+    I find so much of goodness still;
+    In men whom men pronounce divine,
+      I find so much of sin and blot;
+    I hesitate to draw the line
+      Between the two, when God has not.
+
+When God has not! He turned and looked out at the sullen sky,
+returning--as most men do at times--to that conception of his
+childhood that somewhere beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God
+care for the boys of the State Reformatory? Was that poet of the
+western mountains right when he said that God was not a drawer of
+lines, but a seer of the good that was in the so-called bad, and of
+the bad in the so-called good, and a lover of them both?
+
+If that was God, it was not the God the boys of the reformatory had
+been taught to know. They had been told that God would forgive the
+wicked, but it had been made clear to them--if not in words, in
+implications--that it was they who were the wicked. And the
+so-called godly men, men of such exemplary character as had been
+chosen to address them that afternoon, had so much of the spirit of
+God that they, too, were willing to forgive, be tolerant, and--he
+looked out at the bending trees with a smile--disburse generalities
+about the open arms of the world.
+
+What would they think--those three hundred speech-tired boys--if
+some man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and
+lay bare his own life--its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its
+crimes--and tell them there was weakness and there was strength in
+every human being, and that the world-old struggle of life was to
+overcome one's weakness with one's strength.
+
+The idea took strange hold on him. It seemed the method of the
+world--at any rate it had been the method of that afternoon--for the
+men who stood before their fellows with clean hands to plant
+themselves on the far side of a chasm of conventions, or narrow
+self-esteem, or easily won virtue, and cry to those beings who
+struggled on the other side of that chasm--to those human beings
+whose souls had never gone to school: "Look at us! Our hands are
+clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful it is to be good! Come
+ye, poor sinners, and be good also." And the poor sinners, the
+untaught, birthmarked human souls, would look over at the
+self-acclaimed goodness they could see far across the chasm, and
+even though attracted to it (which, he grimly reflected, would not
+seem likely) the thing that was left with them was a sense of the
+width of the chasm.
+
+He had a sense of needless waste, of unnecessary blight. He looked
+down at those three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human
+waste; and it was human stupidity, human complacency and cowardice
+kept those human beings human drift.
+
+With what a smug self-satisfaction--under the mask of
+benevolence--the speakers of that afternoon had flaunted their
+virtue--their position! How condescendingly they had spoken of the
+home which we, the good, prepare for you, the bad, and what
+namby-pambyness there was, after all, in that sentiment which all of
+them had voiced--and now you must pay us back by being good!
+
+Oh for a man of flesh and blood to stand up and tell how he himself
+had failed and suffered! For a man who could bridge that chasm with
+strong, broad, human understanding and human sympathies--a man who
+would stand among them pulse-beat to pulse-beat and cry out, "I
+know! I understand! I fought it and I'll help you fight it too!"
+
+The sound of his own name broke the spell that was upon him. He
+looked to the centre of the stage and saw that the professor from
+the State University had seated himself and that the superintendent
+of the institution was occupying the place of the speaker. And the
+superintendent was saying:
+
+"We may esteem ourselves especially fortunate in having him with us
+this afternoon. He is one of the great men of the State, one of the
+men who by high living, by integrity and industry, has raised
+himself to a position of great honour among his fellow men. A great
+party--may I say the greatest of all parties?--has shown its
+unbounded confidence in him by giving him the nomination for the
+governorship of the State. No man in the State is held in higher
+esteem to-day than he. And so it is with special pleasure that I
+introduce to you that man of the future--Philip Grayson."
+
+The superintendent sat down then, and he himself--Philip Grayson--was
+standing in the place where the other speakers had stood. It was with
+a rush which almost swept away his outward show of calm that it came
+to him that he--candidate for the governorship--was well fitted to be
+that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself
+was within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into
+the very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a
+man of sins and virtues, of weaknesses and strength, a man who had
+had much to conquer, and for whom the fight would never be finally
+won, was standing before them stripped of his coat of conventions
+and platitudes, and in nakedness of soul and sincerity of heart was
+talking to them as a man who understood.
+
+Almost with the inception of the idea was born the consciousness of
+what it might cost. And as in answer to the silent, blunt question,
+Is it worth it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of
+eyes--eyes behind which there was good as well as bad, eyes which
+had burned with the fatal rush of passion, and had burned, too, with
+the hot tears of remorse--eyes which had opened on a hostile world.
+
+And then the eyes of Philip Grayson could not see the eyes which
+were before him, and he put up his hand to break the mist--little
+caring what the men upon the platform would think of him, little
+thinking what effect the words which were crowding into his heart
+would have upon his candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now:
+to bring upon that ugly chasm the levelling forces of a common
+humanity, and to make those boys who were of his clay feel that a
+being who had fallen and risen again, a fellow being for whom life
+would always mean a falling and a rising again, was standing before
+them, and--not as the embodiment of a distant goodness, not as a
+pattern, but as one among them, verily as man to man--was telling
+them a few things which his own life had taught him were true.
+
+It was his very consecration which made it hard to begin. He was
+fearful of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between them
+and him that very thing he was determined there should not be.
+
+"I have a strange feeling," he said, with a winning little smile,
+"that if I were to open my heart to-day, just open it clear up the
+way I'd like to if I could, that you boys would look into it, and
+then jump back in a scared kind of way and cry, 'Why--that's me!'
+You would be a little surprised--wouldn't you?--if you could look
+back and see the kind of boy I was, and find I was much the kind of
+boy you are?
+
+"Do you know what I think? I think hypocrisy is the worst thing in
+the world. I think it's worse than stealing, or lying, or any of the
+other bad things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of
+the hypocrisy comes from? I think it comes from the so-called
+self-made men--from the real good men, the men who say 'I haven't
+got one bad thing charged up to my account.'
+
+"Now the men out campaigning for me call me a self-made man. Your
+superintendent just now spoke of my integrity, of the confidence
+reposed in me, and all that. But do you know what is the honest
+truth? If I am any kind of a man worth mentioning, if I am deserving
+of any honour, any confidence, it is not because I was born with my
+heart filled with good and beautiful things, for I was not. It is
+because I was born with much in my heart that we call the bad, and
+because, after that bad had grown stronger and stronger through the
+years it was unchecked, and after it had brought me the great shock,
+the great sorrow of my life, I began then, when older than you boys
+are now, to see a little of that great truth which you can put
+briefly in these words: 'There is good and there is bad in every
+human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad with
+the good.' What I am trying to say is, that if I am worthy any one's
+confidence to-day, it is because, having seen that truth, I have
+been able, through never ceasing trying, through slow conquering, to
+crowd out some of the bad and make room for a little of the good.
+
+"You see," he went on, three hundred pairs of eyes hard upon him
+now, "some of us are born to a harder struggle than others. There
+are people who would object to my saying that to you, even if I
+believed it. They would say you would make the fact of being born
+with much against which to struggle an excuse for being bad. But
+look here a minute; if you were born with a body not as strong as
+other boys' bodies, if you couldn't run as far, or jump as high, you
+wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't be expected to do much; I
+wasn't born right.' Not a bit of it! You'd make it your business to
+get as strong as you could, and you wouldn't make any parade of the
+fact that you weren't as strong as you should be. We don't like
+people who whine, whether it's about weak bodies or weak souls.
+
+"I've been sitting here this afternoon wondering what to say to you
+boys. I had intended telling some funny stories about things which
+happened to me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood
+has come over me, and I don't feel just like those stories now. I
+haven't been thinking of the funny side of life in the last
+half-hour. I've been thinking of how much suffering I've endured
+since the days when I, too, was a boy."
+
+He paused then; and when he went on his voice tested to the utmost
+the silence of the room: "There is lots of sorrow in this old world.
+Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but as I see it to-day human beings
+are making a much harder thing of their existence than there is any
+need of. There are millions and millions of them, and year after
+year, generation after generation, they fight over the same old
+battles, live through the same old sorrows. Doesn't it seem all
+wrong that after the battle has been fought a million times it can't
+be made a little easier for those who still have it before them?
+
+"If a farmer had gone over a bad road, and the next day saw another
+farmer about to start over the same road, wouldn't he send him back?
+Doesn't it seem too bad that in things which concern one's whole
+life people can't be as decent as they are about things which
+involve only an inconvenience? Doesn't it seem that when we human
+beings have so much in common we might stand together a little
+better? I'll tell you what's the matter. Most of the people of this
+world are coated round and round with self-esteem, and they're
+afraid to admit any understanding of the things which aren't good.
+Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit he had been
+over that road, and so had said: 'From what I have read in books,
+and from what I have learned in a general way, I fancy that road
+isn't good.' Would the other farmer have gone back? I rather think
+he would have said he'd take his chances. But you see the farmer
+said he _knew_; and how did he know? Why, because he'd been
+over the road himself."
+
+As he paused again, looking at them, he saw it all with a clarifying
+simplicity. He himself knew life for a fine and beautiful thing. He
+had won for himself some of the satisfactions of understanding,
+certain rare delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the
+spirits of these boys to whom he talked; wanted to show them that
+spirits could free themselves, indicate to them that self-control
+and self-development carried one to pleasures which sordid
+self-indulgences had no power to bestow. It was a question of
+getting the most from life. It was a matter of happiness.
+
+It was thus he began, slowly, the telling of his life's story:
+
+"I was born with strange, wild passions in my heart. I don't know
+where they came from; I only know they were there. I resented
+authority. If someone who had a right to dictate to me said,
+'Philip, do this,' then Philip would immediately begin to think how
+much he would rather do the other thing. And," he smiled a little,
+and some of the boys smiled with him in anticipation, "it was the
+other thing which Philip usually did.
+
+"I didn't go to a reform school, for the very good reason that there
+wasn't any in the State where I lived." Some of he boys smiled
+again, and he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party
+managers sitting close to him. "I was what you would call a very bad
+boy. I didn't mind any one. I was defiant--insolent. I did bad
+things just because I knew they were bad, and--and I took a great
+deal of satisfaction out of it."
+
+The sighing of the world without was the only sound which vibrated
+through the room. "I say," he went on, "that I got a form of
+satisfaction from it. I did not say I got happiness; there is a vast
+difference between a kind of momentary satisfaction and that
+thing--that most precious of all things--which we call happiness.
+Indeed, I was very far from happy. I had hours when I was so morose
+and miserable that I hated the whole world. And do you know what I
+thought? I thought there was no one in all the world who had the
+same kind of things surging up in his heart that I did. I thought
+there was no one else with whom it was as easy to be bad, or as hard
+to be good. I thought that no one understood. I thought that I was
+all alone.
+
+"Did you ever feel like that? Did you ever feel that no one else
+knew anything about such feelings as you had? Did you ever feel that
+here was you, and there was the rest of the world, and that the rest
+of the world didn't know anything about you, and was just generally
+down on you? Now that's the very thing I want to talk away from you
+to-day. You're not the only one. We're all made of the same kind of
+stuff, and there's none of us made of stuff that's flawless. We all
+have a fight; some an easy one, and some a big one, and if you have
+formed the idea that there is a kind of dividing-line in the world,
+and that on the one side is the good, and on the other side the bad,
+why, all I can say is that you have a wrong notion of things.
+
+"Well, I grew up to be a man, and because I hadn't fought against
+any of the stormy things in my heart they kept growing stronger and
+stronger. I did lots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am
+bitterly ashamed. I went to another place, and I fell in with the
+kind of fellows you can imagine I felt at home with. I had been told
+when I was a boy that it was wrong to drink and gamble. I think that
+was the chief reason I took to drink and gambling."
+
+There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party
+manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat.
+It was the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the
+boys' reformatory. The boys were leaning forward--self-forgetful,
+intent. "One night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends,
+and one of the men, the best friend I had, said something that made
+me mad. There was a revolver right there which one of the men had
+been showing us. Some kind of a demon got hold of me, and without so
+much as a thought I picked up that revolver and fired at my friend."
+
+The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the
+superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say
+a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened
+faces before him: "I suppose you wonder why I am not in the
+penitentiary. I had been drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was
+with friends, and it was hushed up."
+
+He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen
+landscape. His voice was not steady as he went on: "It's not an easy
+thing to talk about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before
+in all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to
+create a sensation. I'm telling it," his voice grew tense in its
+earnestness, "because I believe that this world could be made a
+better and a sweeter place if those who have lived and suffered
+would not be afraid to reach out their hands and cry: 'I know that
+road--it's bad! I steered off to a better place, and I'll help you
+steer off, too.'"
+
+There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted
+upon the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and
+defiance had fallen from them. They were listening now--not because
+they must, but because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being
+poured the very sustenance for which--unknowingly--they had yearned.
+
+"We sometimes hear people say," resumed the candidate for Governor,
+"that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've
+lived through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I
+can say that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after
+I went home that night no one in this world will ever know. Words
+couldn't tell it; it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere
+near. My whole life spread itself out before me; it was not a
+pleasant thing to look at. But at last, boys, out of the depths of
+my darkness, I began to get a little light. I began to get some
+understanding of the battle which it falls to the lot of some of us
+human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't
+have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that
+terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere
+in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so--all alone, boys--I
+began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you
+know--this is the truth--it was with the beginning of that battle I
+got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this
+world than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is
+like opening a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in
+a minute. This is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But
+it's a fight that can be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth
+the winning. I'm not saying to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.'
+Maybe you won't succeed. Life as we've arranged it for ourselves
+makes success a pretty tough proposition. But that doesn't alter the
+fact that it pays to be a decent sort. You and I know about how much
+happiness there is in the other kind of thing. And there is
+happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to develop what's in
+you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having done your
+part,--that bully sense of having put up the best fight you could."
+
+He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. "I don't know,
+I am sure, what the people of my State will think of all this.
+Perhaps they won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to
+kill another man. But," he looked around at them with that smile of
+his which got straight to men's hearts, "there's only one of me, and
+there are three hundred of you, and how do I know but that in
+telling you of that stretch of bad road ahead I've made a dozen
+Governors this very afternoon!"
+
+He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word
+which would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did
+say was: "And so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into
+the world to get your start, if you find the arms of that world
+aren't quite as wide open as you were told they would be, if there
+seems no place where you can get a hold, and you are saying to
+yourself, 'It's no use--I'll not try,' before you give up just
+remember there was one man who said he knew all about it, and give
+that one man a chance to show he meant what he said. So look me up,
+if luck goes all against you, and maybe I can give you a little
+lift." He took a backward step, as though to resume his seat, and
+then he said, with a dry little smile which took any suggestion of
+heroics from what had gone before, "If I'm not at the State-house,
+you'll find my name in the directory of the city where your
+programme tells you I live."
+
+He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled,
+heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants
+this time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And
+when the clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were
+raised to eyes which had long been dry.
+
+The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party
+manager standing by his side. "It was very grand," he sneered, "very
+high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know," jerking his hand
+angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the
+opposition was writing, "that you've given them the winning card."
+
+As he replied, in far-off tone, "I hope so," the candidate for
+Governor was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new
+cry for the opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of
+new understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them
+filing out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a
+last look, and as he turned then and looked from the window it was
+to see that the storm had sobbed itself away, and that along the
+driveway of the reformatory grounds the young trees--unbroken and
+unhurt--were rearing their heads in the way they should go.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA
+
+
+They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every
+hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the
+stairways and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's
+to the custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their
+feet. A long whistle had sounded through the building. There was
+magic in its note.
+
+"What's the matter with you fellows?" asked the attorney-general,
+swinging around in his chair.
+
+"Strike," declared one of the men, with becoming brevity.
+
+"Strike of what?"
+
+"Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One," replied the man, kindly
+gathering up a few tacks.
+
+"Never heard of it."
+
+"Organised last night," said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat.
+
+"Well I'll--" he paused expressively, then inquired: "What's your
+game?"
+
+"Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the
+State-house has refused our demands."
+
+"What are your demands?"
+
+"Double pay."
+
+"Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have
+double pay?"
+
+"Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get
+every carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon.
+Now you know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you
+ever get rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was
+anxious as anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this
+afternoon. But there's reason in all things."
+
+"Yes," agreed his auditor, "there is."
+
+The man looked at him a little doubtfully. "Our president--we
+elected Johnny McGuire president last night--went to the Governor
+this morning with our demands."
+
+The Governor's fellow official smiled--he knew the Governor pretty
+well. "And he turned you down?"
+
+The striker nodded. "But there's an election next fall; maybe the
+turning down will be turned around."
+
+"Maybe so--you never can tell. I don't know just what power
+Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's
+pretty solid, you know, with Labour as a whole."
+
+That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot
+uncertainly across the floor, and took courage from its splinters.
+"Well, there's one thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load
+of big guns show up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare
+floors, and pretty bum bare floors, on deck at this place."
+
+The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered,
+miserable boards. "They are pretty bum," he reflected. "I wonder,"
+he added, as the man was half-way out of the door, "what Prince
+Ludwig will think of the American working-man when he arrives this
+afternoon?"
+
+"Just about as much," retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker,
+"as he does about American generosity. And he may think a few
+things," he added weightily, "about American independence."
+
+"Oh, he's sure to do that," agreed the attorney-general.
+
+He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all
+the offices, all talking of the one thing. "It was a straight case
+of hold-up," declared the Governor's secretary. "They supposed they
+had us on the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you
+see they just figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have
+these wretched floors for the reception this afternoon. They thought
+the Governor would argue the question, and then give in, or, at any
+rate, compromise. They never intended for one minute that the Prince
+should find bare floors here. And I rather think," he concluded,
+"that they feel a little done up about it themselves."
+
+"What's the situation?" asked a stranger within the gates.
+
+"It's like this," a newspaper reporter told him; "about a month ago
+there was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well
+knocked out with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things
+anyway, so they voted new ones. And I want to tell you"--he swelled
+with pride--"that the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great
+when we get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd
+cross the State on their way to the coast, and of course they were
+invited to stop. Last week Billy Patton--he's running the whole
+show--declined the invitation on account of lack of time, and then
+yesterday comes a telegram saying the Prince himself insisted on
+stopping. You know he's keen about Indian dope--and we've got Indian
+traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to make over his schedule
+to please the Prince, and of course we were all pretty tickled about
+it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't come until five
+o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer the Governor
+is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building should be
+put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole lot of
+fellows to work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but get
+together last night--well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old
+shack just now, isn't it?" and the reporter looked around ruefully.
+
+It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the
+members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd--and the
+indignation--in the rotunda.
+
+The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but
+Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The
+biggest furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers.
+"Pipes burst last night," he said, "and they may not do a thing for
+us if we get mixed up in this. Sorry--but I can't let my customers
+get pneumonia."
+
+Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or
+another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and
+when the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda
+he was about as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. "It's the
+idea of lying down," he said. "I'd do anything--anything!--if I
+could only think what to do."
+
+A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. "By
+George, Governor," he burst forth, after a minute's deep
+study--"say--by Jove, I say, let's do it ourselves!"
+
+They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he
+looked hard at the young man.
+
+"Why not?" the young legislator went on. "It's a big job, but there
+are a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we
+afraid to tackle it here for?"
+
+Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. "Say, Weston,"
+he said, "I'd give a lot--I tell you I'd give a lot--if we just
+could!"
+
+"Leave it to me!"--and he was lost in the crowd.
+
+The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston.
+He was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor
+smiled knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his
+different manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a
+few steps of the stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd.
+
+"Now look here," he began, after silence had been obtained, "this
+isn't a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a
+clear case of Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want
+to know is--Is the State going to lie down?"
+
+There were loud cries of "No!"--"Well, I should say not!"
+
+"Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't
+get them. Now the next thing I want to know is--What's the matter
+with us?"
+
+They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed.
+
+"It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use
+of pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes--I know, bigger
+building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle
+of carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my
+scheme is this--Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's
+office puts down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts
+down the Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate
+carpet--and we'll look after our little patch in the House!"
+
+"But you've got more fellows than anybody else," cried a member of
+the Senate.
+
+"Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors
+and stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her
+part,"--that brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them.
+
+"Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here;
+the building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at
+four--by his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we
+going to receive him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what
+Senator Arnold thinks about it."
+
+That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a
+joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right
+arm and tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to
+drive a tack or two." That brought applause and they drew closer
+together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for
+the State in more ways than one,"--Senator Arnold was a
+distinguished veteran of the Civil War--"and if I can serve her now
+by tacking down carpets, then it's tacking down carpets I'm ready to
+go at. Just count on me for what little I'm worth."
+
+Someone started the cry for the Governor. "Prince Ludwig is being
+entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner," he
+began, with his characteristic directness in stating a situation.
+"By his own request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I
+must say that I, for one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like
+to tell him that we had a labour complication and couldn't get the
+carpets down. Speaking for myself, it is a great pleasure to inform
+you that the carpet in the Governor's office will be in proper shape
+by four o'clock this afternoon."
+
+That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard
+sufficiently to suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine
+o'clock motions to adjourn be entertained. "And as to the rest of
+you fellows," he cried, "I don't see what's to hinder your getting
+busy right now!"
+
+There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends
+and there were enemies; there were good, bad and--no, there were no
+indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like
+unity of action was born out of that sturdy cry--Every man his own
+carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove
+the first tack, but during the remainder of his life the
+Superintendent of Public Instruction also contended hotly for that
+honour. The rivalry as to who would do the best job, and get it done
+most quickly, became intense. Early in the day Harry Weston made the
+rounds of the building and announced a fine of one-hundred dollars
+for every wrinkle. There were pounded fingers and there were broken
+backs, but slowly, steadily and good-naturedly the State-house
+carpet was going down. It was a good deal bigger job than they had
+anticipated, but that only added zest to the undertaking. The news
+of how the State officials were employing themselves had spread
+throughout the city, and guards were stationed at every door to keep
+out people whose presence would work more harm than good. All
+assistance from women was courteously refused. "This is solemn
+business," said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some
+of the fair sex, "and the introduction of the feminine element might
+throw about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of
+time. And then some of the boys might feel called upon to put on
+their collars and coats."
+
+Stretch--stretch--stretch, and tack--tack--tack, all morning long it
+went on, for the State-house was large--oh, very large. There should
+have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for the novelty of
+the situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had never glowed
+before. Choice bits which at other times would fairly have gone on
+official record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the
+surfeit. Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them.
+Bridget Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the
+boarding-house across the street was a sort of unofficial official
+of the State, came over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the
+while calling down blessings on the head of every mother's son of
+them, and announcing in loud, firm tones that while all five of her
+boys belonged to the union she'd be after tellin' them what she
+thought of this day's work!
+
+It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be
+fair, the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He
+came over there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor,
+and in a few hurried words--it was no day for conversation--was told
+what was going on. It was while standing out in the corridor
+watching the perspiring dignitaries that the idea of his duty came
+to him, and one reason he was sure he was right was the way in which
+it came to him in the light of a duty. Here was America in undress
+uniform! Here was--not a thing arranged for show, but absolutely the
+thing itself! Prince Ludwig had come with a sincere desire to see
+America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would
+go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up
+standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back
+one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner
+looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying
+the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly
+for a better hammer. "It's an insult to expect any decent man to
+drive tacks with a hammer like this," he was saying. Here were
+men--real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When the Prince
+had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see anything
+but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits and other externals and
+non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow;
+he was hospitable--patriotic. He decided now in favour of the
+Prince.
+
+He had to hurry about it, for it was almost twelve then. One of the
+vice-presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into
+confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the
+special train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next
+station. The stop was made that Senator Patton might receive a long
+telegram from Senator Bruner. "I figure it like this," the Senator
+told the vice-president. "They get to Boden at a quarter of one and
+were going to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a
+little while at Creyville. I've told Patton the situation, and that
+if he wants to do the right thing by the prince he'll cut out those
+stops and rush right through here. That will bring him in--well,
+they could make it at a quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it
+with Boden and Creyville. Oh, he'll do it all right."
+
+And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: "Too good to
+miss. Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water
+Street."
+
+"That's great!" cried the Senator. "Trust Billy Patton for falling
+in with a good thing. And he's right about missing the station
+crowd. Patton can always go you one better," he admitted,
+grinningly.
+
+They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like
+sophomores in college than like a United States Senator and a big
+railroad man. "You don't think there's any danger of their getting
+through too soon?" McVeigh kept asking, anxiously.
+
+"Not a bit," the Senator assured him. "They can't possibly make it
+before three. We'll come in just in time for the final skirmish.
+It's going to be a jolly rush at the last."
+
+They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State
+library building was across from the Capitol, and they were
+connected by tunnel. "I never saw before," said the Senator, "what
+that tunnel was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll
+get him in at the west door of the library--we can drive right up to
+it, you know, and then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a
+stone floor"--the Senator was chuckling with every sentence--"so I
+guess they won't be carpeting it. There's a little stairway running
+up from the tunnel---and say, we must telephone over and arrange
+about those keys. There'll be a good deal of climbing, but the
+Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It wouldn't be safe to try
+the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it taking somebody a
+bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store rooms; we'll
+not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the rotunda
+and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time; some
+one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't
+see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that
+for two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in
+pretty neat shape."
+
+It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the
+special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing
+a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at
+all formidable or unusual. "You've saved the country," Senator
+Patton whispered in an aside. "He was getting bored. Never saw a
+fellow jolly up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some
+fun. Said it would be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't
+looking for him."
+
+Senator Bruner beamed. "That's just the point. He's caught my idea
+exactly."
+
+It went without a hitch. "I feel," said the Prince, as they were
+hurrying him through the tunnel, "that I am a little boy who has run
+away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute
+some band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a
+speech."
+
+They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so
+placed that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure.
+The final skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators--coatless,
+tieless, collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were
+finishing the stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations
+committee in the House was doing the stretching in a still
+uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and a member who had recently
+denounced the appropriations committee as a disgrace to the State
+was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most exquisitely
+harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member who fought
+every time they came within speaking distance of one another were
+now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large
+wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many
+men were standing around holding their backs, and many others were
+deeply absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices
+were all open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and
+hanging of pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing
+their best with "finishing touches." The Prince grew so excited
+about it all that they had to keep urging him not to take too many
+chances of being seen.
+
+"And I'll tell you," Senator Bruner was saying, "it isn't only
+because I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it;
+but--well, you see America isn't the real America when she has on
+her best clothes and is trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody
+who hasn't prepared for your coming, and that means you haven't seen
+them as they are at all. Now here we are. This is us! You see that
+fellow hanging a picture down there? He's president of the First
+National Bank. Came over a little while ago, got next to the
+situation, and stayed to help. And--say, this is good! Notice that
+red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees? Well, he's
+president of the teamsters' union--figured so big in a strike here
+last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all so
+afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it
+themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.--There's the Governor.
+He's a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody--not even to
+get ready for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to
+make things come his way. Yes sir--this is the sure-enough thing.
+Here you have the boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from
+our dignity every day, but--see what I mean?"
+
+"I see," replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.
+
+"You know--say, dodge there! Move back! No--too late. The Governor's
+caught us. Look at him!"
+
+The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his
+hands on his back--he couldn't look up without doing that--and gave
+a long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator
+Patton waved; then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved.
+Other people were beginning to look up. "They're all on," laughed
+Patton, "let's go down."
+
+At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. "We
+worked all day to get in shape," grumbled Harry Weston, "and then
+you go ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to
+begin."
+
+But the Prince made them feel right about it. He had such a good
+time that they were forced to concede the move had been a success.
+And he said to the Governor as he was leaving: "I see that the only
+way to see America is to see it when America is not seeing you."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE LAST SIXTY MINUTES
+
+
+"Nine--ten--" The old clock paused as if in dramatic appreciation of
+the situation, and then slowly, weightily, it gave the final stroke,
+"Eleven!"
+
+The Governor swung his chair half-way round and looked the timepiece
+full in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last
+hour of his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would
+be Governor of the State. He sat there watching the movement of the
+minute hand.
+
+The sound of voices, some jovial, some argumentative, was borne to
+him through the open transom. People were beginning to gather in the
+corridors, and he could hear the usual disputes about tickets of
+admission to the inaugural.
+
+His secretary came in just then with some letters. "Could you see
+Whitefield now?" he asked. "He's waiting out here for you."
+
+The old man looked up wearily. "Oh, put him off, Charlie. Tell him
+you can talk to him about whatever it is he wants to know."
+
+The secretary had his hand on the knob, when the Governor added,
+"And, Charlie, keep everybody out, if you can. I'm--I've got a few
+private matters to go over."
+
+The younger man nodded and opened the door. He half closed it behind
+him, and then turned to say, "Except Francis. You'll want to see him
+if he comes in, won't you?"
+
+He frowned and moved impatiently as he answered, curtly: "Oh, yes."
+
+Francis! Of course it never occurred to any of them that he could
+close the door on Francis. He drummed nervously on his desk, then
+suddenly reached down and, opening one of the drawers, tossed back a
+few things and drew out a newspaper. He unfolded this and spread it
+out on the desk. Running across the page was the big black line,
+"Real Governors of Some Western States," and just below, the first
+of the series, and played up as the most glaring example of nominal
+and real in governorship, was a sketch of Harvey Francis.
+
+He sat there looking at it, knowing full well that it would not
+contribute to his peace of mind. It did not make for placidity of
+spirit to be told at the end of things that he had, as a matter of
+fact, never been anybody at all. And the bitterest part of it was
+that, looking back on it now, getting it from the viewpoint of one
+stepping from it, he could see just how true was the statement:
+"Harvey Francis has been the real Governor of the State; John
+Morrison his mouthpiece and figurehead."
+
+He walked to the window and looked out over the January landscape.
+It may have been the snowy hills, as well as the thoughts weighing
+him down, that carried him back across the years to one snowy
+afternoon when he stood up in a little red schoolhouse and delivered
+an oration on "The Responsibilities of Statesmanship." He smiled as
+the title came back to him, and yet--what had become of the spirit
+of that seventeen-year-old boy? He had meant it all then; he could
+remember the thrill with which he stood there that afternoon long
+before and poured out his sentiments regarding the sacredness of
+public trusts. What was it had kept him, when his chance came, from
+working out in his life the things he had so fervently poured into
+his schoolboy oration?
+
+Someone was tapping at the door. It was an easy, confident tap, and
+there was a good deal of reflex action in the Governor's "Come in."
+
+"Indulging in a little meditation?"
+
+The Governor frowned at the way Francis said it, and the latter went
+on, easily: "Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding
+him up for tickets, and he--poor young fool--looks as though he
+wanted to jump in the river. Takes things tremendously to
+heart--Dorman does."
+
+He lighted a cigar, smiling quietly over that youthful quality of
+Dorman's. "Well," he went on, leaning back in his chair and looking
+about the room, "I thought I'd look in on you for a minute. You see
+I'll not have the _entree_ to the Governor's office by afternoon."
+He laughed, the easy, good-humoured laugh of one too sophisticated
+to spend emotion uselessly.
+
+It was he who fell into meditation then, and the Governor sat
+looking at him; a paragraph from the newspaper came back to him:
+"Harvey Francis is the most dangerous type of boss politician. His
+is not the crude and vulgar method that asks a man what his vote is
+worth. He deals gently and tenderly with consciences. He knows how
+to get a man without fatally injuring that man's self-respect."
+
+The Governor's own experience bore out the summary. When elected to
+office as State Senator he had cherished old-fashioned ideas of
+serving his constituents and doing his duty. But the very first week
+Francis had asked one of those little favours of him, and, wishing
+to show his appreciation of support given him in his election, he
+had granted it. Then various courtesies were shown him; he was let
+in on a "deal," and almost before he realised it, it seemed
+definitely understood that he was a "Francis man."
+
+Francis roused himself and murmured: "Fools!--amateurs."
+
+"Leyman?" ventured the Governor.
+
+"Leyman and all of his crowd!"
+
+"And yet," the Governor could not resist, "in another hour this same
+fool will be Governor of the State. The fool seems to have won."
+
+Francis rose, impatiently. "For the moment. It won't be lasting. In
+any profession, fools and amateurs may win single victories. They
+can't keep it up. They don't know _how_. Oh, no," he insisted,
+cheerfully, "Leyman will never be re-elected. Fact is, I'm counting
+on this contract business we've saved up for him getting in good
+work." He was moving toward the door. "Well," he concluded, with a
+curious little laugh, "see you upstairs."
+
+The Governor looked at the clock. It pointed now to twenty-five
+minutes past eleven. The last hour was going fast. In a very short
+time he must join the party in the anteroom of the House. But
+weariness had come over him. He leaned back in his chair and closed
+his eyes.
+
+He was close upon seventy, and to-day looked even older than his
+years. It was not a vicious face, but it was not a strong one.
+People who wanted to say nice things of the Governor called him
+pleasant or genial or kindly. Even the men in the appointive offices
+did not venture to say he had much force.
+
+He felt it to-day as he never had before. He had left no mark; he
+had done nothing, stood for nothing. Never once had his personality
+made itself felt. He had signed the documents; Harvey Francis had
+always "suggested"--the term was that man's own--the course to be
+pursued. And the "suggestions" had ever dictated the policy that
+would throw the most of influence or money to that splendidly
+organised machine that Francis controlled.
+
+With an effort he shook himself free from his cheerless retrospect.
+There was a thing or two he wanted to get from his desk, and his
+time was growing very short. He found what he wanted, and then, just
+as he was about to close the drawer, his eye fell on a large yellow
+envelope.
+
+He closed the drawer; but only to reopen it, take out the envelope
+and remove the documents it contained; and then one by one he spread
+them out before him on the desk.
+
+He sat there looking down at them, wondering whether a man had ever
+stepped into office with as many pitfalls laid for him. During the
+last month they had been busy about the old State-house setting
+traps for the new Governor. The "machine" was especially jubilant
+over those contracts the Governor now had spread out before him. The
+convict labour question was being fought out in the State just
+then--organised labour demanding its repeal; country taxpayers
+insisting that it be maintained. Under the system the penitentiary
+had become self-supporting. In November the contracts had come up
+for renewal; but on the request of Harvey Francis the matter had
+been put off from time to time, and still remained open. Just the
+week before, Francis had put it to the Governor something like this:
+
+"Don't sign those contracts. We can give some reason for holding
+them off, and save them up for Leyman. Then we can see that the
+question is agitated, and whatever he does about it is going to
+prove a bad thing for him. If he doesn't sign, he's in bad with the
+country fellows, the men who elected him. Don't you see? At the end
+of his administration the penitentiary, under you self-sustaining,
+will have cost them a pretty penny. We've got him right square!"
+
+The clock was close to twenty minutes of twelve, and he concluded
+that he would go out and join some of his friends he could hear in
+the other room. It would never do for him to go upstairs with a
+long, serious face. He had had his day, and now Leyman was to have
+his, and if the new Governor did better than the old one, then so
+much the better for the State. As for the contracts, Leyman surely
+must understand that there was a good deal of rough sailing on
+political waters.
+
+But it was not easy to leave the room. Walking to the window he
+again stood there looking out across the snow, and once more he went
+back now at the end of things to that day in the little red
+schoolhouse which stood out as the beginning.
+
+He was called back from that dreaming by the sight of three men
+coming up the hill. He smiled faintly in anticipation of the things
+Francis and the rest of them would say about the new Governor's
+arriving on foot. Leyman had requested that the inaugural parade be
+done away with--but one would suppose he would at least dignify the
+occasion by arriving in a carriage. Francis would see that the
+opposing papers handled it as a grand-stand play to the country
+constituents.
+
+And then, forgetful of Francis, and of the approaching ceremony, the
+old man stood there by the window watching the young man who was
+coming up to take his place. How firmly the new Governor walked!
+With what confidence he looked ahead at the State-house. The
+Governor--not considering the inconsistency therein--felt a thrill
+of real pride in thought of the State's possessing a man like that.
+
+Standing though he did for the things pitted against him, down in
+his heart John Morrison had all along cherished a strong admiration
+for that young man who, as District Attorney of the State's
+metropolis, had aroused the whole country by his fearlessness and
+unquestionable sincerity. Many a day he had sat in that same office
+reading what the young District Attorney was doing in the city close
+by--the fight he was making almost single-handed against corruption,
+how he was striking in the high places fast and hard as in the low,
+the opposition, threats, and time after time there had been that
+same secret thrill at thought of there being a man like that. And
+when the people of the State, convinced that here was one man who
+would serve _them_, began urging the District Attorney for
+chief executive, Governor Morrison, linked with the opposing forces,
+doing all he could to bring about Leyman's defeat, never lost that
+secret feeling for the young man, who, unbacked by any organisation,
+struck blow after blow at the machine that had so long dominated the
+State, winning in the end that almost incomprehensible victory.
+
+The new Governor had passed from sight, and a moment later his voice
+came to the ear of the lonely man in the executive office. Some
+friends had stopped him just outside the Governor's door with a
+laughing "Here's hoping you'll do as much for us in the new office
+as you did in the old," and the new Governor replied, buoyantly:
+"Oh, but I'm going to do a great deal more!"
+
+The man within the office smiled a little wistfully and with a sigh
+sat down before his desk. The clock now pointed to thirteen minutes
+of twelve; they would be asking for him upstairs. There were some
+scraps of paper on his desk and he threw them into the waste-basket,
+murmuring: "I can at least give him a clean desk."
+
+He pushed his chair back sharply. A clean desk! The phrase opened to
+deeper meanings.... Why not clean it up in earnest? Why not give him
+a square deal--a real chance? Why not _sign the contracts_?
+
+Again he looked at the clock--not yet ten minutes of twelve. For ten
+minutes more he was Governor of the State! Ten minutes of real
+governorship! Might it not make up a little, both to his own soul
+and to the world, for the years he had weakly served as another
+man's puppet? The consciousness that he could do it, that it was not
+within the power of any man to stop him, was intoxicating. Why not
+break the chains now at the last, and just before the end taste the
+joy of freedom?
+
+He took up his pen and reached for the inkwell. With trembling,
+excited fingers he unfolded the contracts. He dipped his pen into
+the ink; he even brought it down on the paper; and then the tension
+broke. He sank back in his chair, a frightened, broken old man.
+
+"Oh, no," he whispered; "no, not now. It's--" his head went lower
+and lower until at last it rested on the desk--"too late."
+
+When he raised his head and grew more steady, it was only to see the
+soundness of his conclusion. He had not the right now in the final
+hour to buy for himself a little of glory. It would only be a form
+of self-indulgence. They would call it, and perhaps rightly, hush
+money to his conscience. They would say he went back on them only
+when he was through with them. Oh, no, there would be no more
+strength in it than in the average deathbed repentance. He would
+at least step out with consistency.
+
+He folded the contracts and put them back into the envelope. The
+minute hand now pointed to seven minutes to twelve. Some one was
+tapping at the door, and the secretary appeared to say they were
+waiting for him upstairs. He replied that he would be there in a
+minute, hoping that his voice did not sound as strange to the other
+man as it had to himself.
+
+Slowly he walked to the door leading into the corridor. This, then,
+was indeed the end; this the final stepping down from office! After
+years of what they called public service, he was leaving it all now
+with a sense of defeat and humiliation. A lump was in the old man's
+throat; his eyes were blurred. "But you, Frank Leyman," he whispered
+passionately, turning as if for comfort to the other man, "it will
+be different with you! They'll not get you--not you!"
+
+It lifted him then as a great wave--this passionate exultation that
+here was one man whom corruption could not claim as her own. Here
+was one human soul not to be had for a price! There flitted before
+him again a picture of that seventeen-year-old boy in the little red
+schoolhouse, and close upon it came the picture of this other young
+man against whom all powers of corruption had been turned in vain.
+With the one it had been the emotional luxury of a sentiment, a
+thing from life's actualities apart; with the other it was a force
+that dominated all things else, a force over which circumstances and
+design could not prevail. "I know all about it," he was saying. "I
+know about it all! I know how easy it is to fall! I know how fine it
+is to stand!"
+
+His sense of disappointment in his own empty, besmirched career was
+almost submerged then as he projected himself on into the career of
+this other man who within the hour would come there in his stead.
+How glorious was his opportunity, how limitless his possibilities,
+and how great to his own soul the satisfaction the years would bring
+of having done his best!
+
+It had all changed now. That passionate longing to vindicate
+himself, add one thing honourable and fine to his own record, had
+altogether left him, and with the new mood came new insight and what
+had been an impulse centred to a purpose.
+
+It pointed to three minutes to twelve as he walked over to his desk,
+unfolded the contracts, and one by one affixed his signature. In a
+dim way he was conscious of how the interpretation of his first
+motive would be put upon it, how they would call him traitor and
+coward; but that mattered little. The very fact that the man for
+whom he was doing it would never see it as it was brought him no
+pang. And when he had carefully blotted the papers, affixed the seal
+and put them away, there was in his heart the clean, sweet joy of a
+child because he had been able to do this for a man in whom he
+believed.
+
+The band was playing the opening strains as he closed the door
+behind him and started upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+"OUT THERE"
+
+
+The old man held the picture up before him and surveyed it with
+admiring but disapproving eye. "No one that comes along this way'll
+have the price for it," he grumbled. "It'll just set here 'till
+doomsday."
+
+It did seem that the picture failed to fit in with the rest of the
+shop. A persuasive young fellow who claimed he was closing out his
+stock let the old man have it for what he called a song. It was only
+a little out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing
+of pictures. The old man looked around at his views of the city, his
+pictures of cats and dogs and gorgeous young women, his flaming bits
+of landscape. "Don't belong in here," he fumed, "any more 'an I
+belong in Congress."
+
+And yet the old man was secretly proud of his acquisition. He seemed
+all at once to be lifted from his realm of petty tradesman to that
+of patron of art. There was a hidden dignity in his scowling as he
+shuffled about pondering the least ridiculous place for the picture.
+
+It is not fair to the picture to try repainting it in words, for
+words reduce it to a lithograph. It was a bit of a pine forest,
+through which there exuberantly rushed an unspoiled little mountain
+stream. Chromos and works of art may deal with kindred subjects.
+There is just that one difference of dealing with them differently.
+"It ain't what you _see_, so much as what you can guess is
+there," was the thought it brought to the old man who was dusting
+it. "Now this frame ain't three feet long, but it wouldn't surprise
+me a bit if that timber kept right on for a hundred miles. I kind of
+suspect it's on a mountain--looks cool enough in there to be on a
+mountain. Wish I was there. Bet they never see no such days as we do
+in Chicago. Looks as though a man might call his soul his own--out
+there."
+
+He began removing some views of Lincoln Park and some corpulent
+Cupids in order to make room in the window for the new picture. When
+he went outside to look at it he shook his head severely and
+hastened in to take away some ardent young men and women, some fruit
+and flowers and fish which he had left thinking they might "set it
+off." It was evident that the new picture did not need to be "set
+off." "And anyway," he told himself, in vindication of entrusting
+all his goods to one bottom, "I might as well take them out, for the
+new one makes them look so kind of sick that no one would have them,
+anyhow." Then he went back to mounting views with the serenity of
+one who stands for the finer things.
+
+His clamorous little clock pointed to a quarter of six when he
+finally came back to the front of the store. It was time to begin
+closing up for the night, but for the minute he stood there watching
+the crowd of workers coming from the business district not far away
+over to the boarding-house region, a little to the west. He watched
+them as they came by in twos and threes and fours: noisy people and
+worn-out people, people hilarious and people sullen, the gaiety and
+the weariness, the acceptance and the rebellion of humanity--he saw
+it pass. "As if any of _them_ could buy it," he pronounced
+severely, adding, contemptuously, "or wanted to."
+
+The girl was coming along by herself. He watched her as she crossed
+to his side of the street, thinking it was too bad for a poor girl
+to be as tired as that. She was dressed like many of the rest of
+them, and yet she looked different--like the picture and the chromo.
+She turned an indifferent glance toward the window, and then
+suddenly she stood there very still, and everything about her seemed
+to change. "For all the world," he told himself afterward, "as if
+she'd found a long-lost friend, and was 'fraid to speak for fear it
+was too good to be true."
+
+She did seem afraid to speak--afraid to believe. For a minute she
+stood there right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the
+picture. And when she came toward the window it was less as if
+coming than as if drawn. What she really seemed to want to do was to
+edge away; yet she came closer, as close as she could, her eyes
+never leaving the picture, and then fear, or awe, or whatever it was
+made her look so queer gave way to wonder--that wondering which is
+ready to open the door to delight. She looked up and down the street
+as one rubbing one's eyes to make sure of a thing, and then it all
+gave way to a joy which lighted her pale little face like--"Well,
+like nothing I ever saw before," was all the old man could say of
+it. "Why, she'd never know if the whole fire department was to run
+right up here on the sidewalk," he gloated. Just then she drew
+herself up for a long breath. "See?" he chuckled, delightedly. "She
+knows it has a smell!" She looked toward the door, but shook her
+head. "Knows she can't pay the price," he interpreted her. Then, she
+stepped back and looked at the number above the door. "Coming
+again," he made of that; "ain't going to run no chances of losing
+the place." And then for a long time she stood there before the
+picture, so deeply and so strangely quiet that he could not
+translate her. "I can't just get the run of it," was his bewildered
+conclusion. "I don't see why it should make anybody act like that."
+And yet he must have understood more than he knew, for suddenly he
+was seeing her through a blur of tears.
+
+As he began shutting up for the night he was so excited about the
+way she looked when she finally turned away that it never occurred
+to him to be depressed about her inability to pay the price.
+
+He kept thinking of her, wondering about her, during the next day.
+At a little before six he took up his station near the front window.
+Once more the current of workers flowed by. "I'm an old fool," he
+told himself, irritated at the wait; "as if it makes any difference
+whether she comes or not--when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just
+as big a fool as I am--liking it when she can't have it, only I'm
+the biggest fool of all--caring whether she likes it or not." But
+just then the girl passed quickly by a crowd of girls who were ahead
+of her and came hurrying across the street. She was walking fast,
+and looked excited and anxious. "Afraid it might be gone," he
+said--adding, grimly: "Needn't worry much about that."
+
+She came up to the picture as some people would enter a church. And
+yet the joy which flooded her face is not well known to churches.
+"I'll tell you what it's like"--the old man's thoughts stumbling
+right into the heart of it--"it's like someone that's been wandering
+round in a desert country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's
+_thirsty_--she's drinking it in--she can't get enough of it.
+It's--it's the water of life to her!" And then, ashamed of saying a
+thing that sounded as if it were out of a poem, he shook his
+shoulders roughly as if to shake off a piece of sentiment unbecoming
+his age and sex.
+
+He went to the door and watched her as she passed away. "I'll bet
+she'd never tip the scale to one hundred pounds," he decided. "Looks
+like a good wind could blow her away." She stooped a little and just
+as she passed from sight he saw that she was coughing.
+
+Then the old man made what he prided himself was a great deduction.
+"She's been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her
+back for a minute, and when she gets the breath of it she ain't so
+homesick."
+
+All through those July days he watched each night for the
+frail-looking little girl who liked the picture of the pines. She
+would always come hurrying across the street in the same eager way,
+an eagerness close to the feverish. But the tenseness would always
+relax as she saw the picture. "She never looks quite so wilted down
+when she goes away as she does when she comes," the old man saw.
+"Upon my soul, I believe she really _goes_ there. It's--oh,
+Lord"--irritated at getting beyond his depth--"_I_ don't know!"
+
+He never called it anything now but "Her Picture." One day at just
+ten minutes of six he took it out of the window. "Seems kind of
+mean," he admitted, "but I just want to find out how much she does
+think of it."
+
+And when he found out he told himself that of all the mean men God
+had ever let live, he was the meanest. The girl came along in the
+usual hurried, anxious fashion. And when she saw the empty window he
+thought for a minute she was going to sink right down there on the
+sidewalk. Everything about her seemed to give way--as if something
+from which she had been drawing had been taken from her. The
+luminousness gone from her face, there were cruel revelations.
+"Blast my _soul!_" the old man muttered angrily, not far from
+tearfully. She looked up and down the noisy, dirty, parched street,
+then back to the empty window. For a minute she just stood
+there--that was the worst minute of all. And then--accepting--she
+turned and walked slowly away, walked as the too-weary and the
+too-often disappointed walk.
+
+It was with not wholly steady hand that the old man hastened to
+replace the picture, all the while telling himself what he thought
+of himself: more low-down than the cat who plays with the mouse,
+meaner than the man who'd take the bone from the dog, less to be
+loved than the man who would kick over the child's play-house, only
+to be compared with the brute who would snatch the cup of water from
+the dying--such were the verdicts he pronounced. He thought perhaps
+she would come back, and stayed there until almost seven, waiting
+for her, though pretending it was necessary that he take down and
+then put up again the front curtains. All the next day he was
+restless and irritable. As if to make up to the girl for the
+contemptible trick he had played he spent a whole hour that
+afternoon arranging a tapestry background for the picture. "She'll
+think," he told himself, "that this was why it was out, and won't be
+worried about its being gone again. This will just be a little sign
+to her that it's here to stay."
+
+He began his watch that night at half-past five. After fifteen
+minutes the thought came to him that she might be so disheartened
+she would go home by another street. He became so gloomily certain
+she would do this that he was jubilant when he finally saw her
+coming along on the other side--coming purposelessly, shorn of that
+eagerness which had always been able, for the moment, to vanquish
+the tiredness. But when she came to the place where she always
+crossed the street she only stood there an instant and then, a
+little more slowly, a little more droopingly, walked on. She had
+given up! She was not coming over!
+
+But she did come. After she had gone a few steps she hesitated again
+and this time started across the street. "That's right," approved
+the old man, "never give up the ship!"
+
+She passed the store as if she were not going to look in; she seemed
+trying not to look, but her head turned--and she saw the picture.
+First her body seemed to stiffen, and then something--he couldn't
+make out whether or not it was a sob--shook her, and as she came
+toward the picture on her white, tired face were the tears.
+
+"Don't you worry," he murmured affectionately to her retreating
+form, "it won't never be gone again."
+
+The very next week he was put to the test. The kind of lady who did
+not often pass along that street entered the shop and asked to see
+the picture in the window. He looked at her suspiciously. Then he
+frowned at her, as he stood there, fumbling. _Her_ picture!
+What would she think? What would she do? Then a crafty smile stole
+over his face and he walked to the window and got the picture. "The
+price of this picture, madame," he said, haughtily, "is forty
+dollars,"--adding to himself, "That'll fix her."
+
+But the lady made no comment, and stood there holding the picture up
+before her. "I will take it," she said, quietly.
+
+He stared at her stupidly. Forty dollars! Then it must be that the
+picture was better than the young man had known. "Will you wrap it,
+please?" she asked. "I will take it with me."
+
+He turned to the back of the store. Forty dollars!--he kept
+repeating it in dazed fashion. And they had raised the rent on him,
+and the papers said coal would be high that winter--those facts
+seemed to have something to do with forty dollars. _Forty
+dollars!_--it was hammering at him, overwhelmed him, too big a
+sum to contend with. With long, grim stroke he tore off the wrapping
+paper; stoically he began folding it. But something was the matter.
+The paper would not go on right. Three times he took it off, and
+each time he could not help looking down at the picture of the
+pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a little farther;
+each time it seemed bigger--bigger even than forty dollars; it
+seemed as if it _knew things_--things more important than even
+coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the
+forest faded away into its own shadowy distances, and in its place
+was a noisy, crowded, sun-baked street, and across the street was
+eagerly hurrying an anxious little girl, a frail little wisp of a
+girl who probably should not be crossing hot, noisy streets at
+all--then a light in tired eyes, a smile upon a worn face, relief as
+from a cooling breeze--and _anyway_, suddenly furious at the
+lady, furious at himself--"he'd be gol-_darned_ if it wasn't
+_her_ picture!"
+
+He walked firmly back to the front of the store.
+
+"I forgot at first," he said, brusquely, "that this picture belongs
+to someone else."
+
+The lady looked at him in astonishment. "I do not understand," she
+said.
+
+"There's nothing to understand," he fairly shouted, "except that it
+belongs to someone else!"
+
+She turned away, but came back to him. "I will give you fifty
+dollars for it," she said, in her quiet way.
+
+"Madame," he thundered at her, "you can stand there and offer me
+five hundred dollars, and I'm here to tell you that this picture is
+not for sale. Do you _hear_?"
+
+"I certainly do," replied the lady, and walked from the store.
+
+He was a long time in cooling off. "I tell you," he stormed to a
+very blue Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, "it's
+hers--it's _hern_--and anybody that comes along here with any
+nonsense is just going to hear from _me_!"
+
+In the days which followed he often thought to go out and speak to
+her, but perhaps the old man had a restraining sense of values. He
+planned some day to go out and tell her the picture was hers, but
+that seemed a silly thing to tell her, for surely she knew it
+anyway. He worried a good deal about her cough, which seemed to be
+getting worse, and he had it all figured out that when cold weather
+came he would have her come in where it was warm, and take her look
+in there. He felt that he knew all about her, and though he did not
+know her name, though he had never heard her speak one word, in some
+ways he felt closer to her than to any one else in the world.
+
+Yet if the old man had known just how it was with the girl it is
+altogether unlikely that he would have understood. It would have
+mystified and disappointed him had he known that she had never seen
+a pine forest or a mountain in her life. Indeed there was a great
+deal about the little girl which the old man, together with almost
+all the rest of the world, would not have understood.
+
+Not that the surface facts about her were either incomprehensible or
+interesting. The tale of her existence would sound much like that of
+a hundred other girls in the same city. Inquiry about her would have
+developed the facts that she did typewriting for a land company,
+that she did not seem to have any people, and lived at a big
+boarding-house. At the boarding-house they would have told you that
+she was a nice little thing, quiet as a mouse, and that it was too
+bad she had to work, for she seemed more than half sick. There the
+story would have rested, and the real things about her would not
+have been touched.
+
+She worked for the Chicago branch of a big Northwestern land
+company. They dealt in the lands of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and
+Washington. The things she sat at her typewriter and wrote were of
+the wonders of that great country: the great timber lands, the
+valleys and hills, towering mountain peaks and rushing rivers. She
+typewrote "literature" telling how there was a chance for every man
+out there, how the big, exhaustless land was eager to yield of its
+store to all who would come and seek. Day after day she wrote those
+things telling how the sick were made well and the poor were made
+rich, how it was a land of indescribable wonders which the feeble
+pen could not hope to portray.
+
+And the girl with whom almost everything in life had gone wrong came
+to think of Out There as the place where everything was right. It
+was the far country where there was no weariness nor loneliness, the
+land where one did not grow tired, where one never woke up in the
+morning too tired to get up, where no one went to bed at night too
+tired to go to sleep. The street-cars did not ring their gongs so
+loud Out There, the newsboys had pleasant voices, and there were no
+elevated trains. It was a pure, high land which knew no smoke nor
+dirt, a land where great silences drew one to the heart of peace,
+where the people in the next room did not come in and bang things
+around late at night. Out There was a wide land where buildings were
+far apart and streets were not crowded. Even the horses did not grow
+tired Out There. Oh, it was a land where dreams came true--a
+beautiful land where no one ate prunes, where the gravy was never
+greasy and the potatoes never burned. It was a land of flowers and
+birds and lovely people--a land of wealth and health and many
+smiles.
+
+Her imagination made use of it all. She knew how men were reclaiming
+the desert of Idaho, of the tremendous undeveloped wealth of what
+had been an almost undiscovered State. She thrilled to the poetry of
+irrigation. Often when hot and tired and dusty her fancy would follow
+the little mountain stream from its birth way up in the clouds, her
+imagination rushing with it through sweetening forest and tumbling
+with it down cooling rocks until finally strong, bold, wise men guided
+it to the desert which had yearned for it through all the years, and
+the grateful desert smiled rich smiles of grain and flowers. She could
+make it more like a story than any story in any book. And she could
+always breathe better in thinking of the pine forests of Oregon. There
+was something liberating--expanding--in just the thought of them. She
+dreamed cooling dreams about them, dreams of their reaching farther
+than one's fancy could reach, big widening dreams of their standing
+there serene in the consciousness of their own immensity. They stood
+to her for a beautiful idea: the idea of space, of room--room for
+everybody, and then much more room! Even one's understanding grew
+big as one turned to them.
+
+And she loved to listen for the Pacific Ocean, coming from
+incomprehensible distances and unknowable countries, now rushing
+with passion to the wild coast of Oregon, again stealing into the
+Washington harbours. She loved to address the letters to Portland,
+Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma--all those pulsing, vivid cities of a
+country of big chances and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle,
+a city builded upon many hills--how wonderful that a city should be
+builded upon hills!--in Chicago there was nothing that could
+possibly be thought of as a hill. And she loved to shut her eyes and
+let the great mountain peak grow in the distance, as one could see
+it from Portland--how noble a thing to see a mountain peak from a
+city! Sometimes she trembled before that consciousness of a
+mountain. Often when so tired she scarcely knew what she was doing
+she found she was saying her prayers to a mountain. Indeed, Out
+There seemed the place to send one's prayers--for was it not a place
+where prayers were answered?
+
+During that summer when the West was overrun with tourists who
+grumbled about everything from the crowded trains to the way in
+which sea-foods were served, this little girl sat in one of the hot
+office buildings of Chicago and across the stretch of miles drew to
+herself the spirit of that country of coming days. Thousands rode in
+Pullman cars along the banks of the Columbia--saw, and felt not; she
+sat before her typewriter in a close, noisy room and heard the
+cooling rush of waters and got the freeing message of the pines. In
+some rare moments when she rose from the things about her to the
+things of which she dreamed she possessed the whole great land, and
+as the sultry days sapped of her meagre strength, and the bending
+over the typewriter cramped an already too cramped chest she clung
+with a more and more passionate tenacity to the bigness and the
+beauty and rightness of things Out There. And it was so kind to
+her--that land of deep breaths and restoring breezes. It never shut
+her out. It always kept itself bigger and more wonderful than one
+could ever hope to fancy it.
+
+And the night she found the picture she knew that it was all really
+so. That was why it was so momentous a night. The picture was a
+dream visualised--a dreamer vindicated. They had pictures in the
+office, of course--some pictures trying to tell of that very kind of
+a place. But those were just pictures; this _proved_ it, told
+what it meant. It told that she had been right, and there was joy in
+knowing that she had known. She clung to the picture as one would to
+that which proves as real all one has long held dear, loved it as
+the dreamer loves that which secures him in his dreaming.
+
+She came to think of it as her own abiding place. Often when too
+tired for long wings of fancy she would just sink down in the deep,
+cool shadows of the pines, beside the little river which one knew so
+well was the gift of distant snows. It rested her most of all; it
+quieted her.
+
+She smiled sometimes to think how no one in the office knew about
+it, wondered what they would think if they knew. Often she would
+find someone in the office looking at her strangely. She used to
+wonder about it a little.
+
+And then one day Mr. Osborne sent for her to come into his office.
+He acted so queerly. As she came in and sat down near his desk he
+swung his chair around and sat there with his back to her. After
+that he got up and walked to the window.
+
+The head stenographer had complained of her cough. She said she did
+not think it right either to the girl or to the rest of them for her
+to be there. She said she hated to speak of it, but could not stand
+it any longer. That had been the week before, and ever since he had
+been putting it off. But now he could put it off no longer; the head
+stenographer was valuable, and besides he knew that she was right.
+
+And so he told her--this was all he could think of just then--that
+they were contemplating some changes in the office, and for a time
+would have less desk room. If he sent her machine to her home, would
+she be willing to do her work there for a while? Hers was the kind
+of work that could be done at home.
+
+She was sorry, for she wondered if she could find a place in her
+room for the typewriter, and it did not seem there would be air
+enough there to last her all day long. And she had grown fond of the
+office, with its "literature" and pictures and maps and the men who
+had just come from Out There coming in every once in a while. It was
+a bond--a place to touch realities. But of course there was nothing
+for her to do but comply, and she made no comment on the
+arrangement.
+
+She pushed her chair back and rose to go. "Are you alone in the
+world?" he asked abruptly then,
+
+"Yes; I--oh yes."
+
+It was too much for him. "How would you like," he asked recklessly,
+"to have me get you transportation out West?"
+
+She sank back in her chair. Every particle of colour had left her
+face. Her deep eyes had grown almost wild. "Oh," she gasped--"you
+can't mean--you don't think--"
+
+"You wouldn't want to go?"
+
+"I mean"--it was but a whisper--"it would be--too wonderful."
+
+"You would like it then?"
+
+She only nodded; but her lips were parted, her eyes glowing. He
+wondered why he had never seen before how different looking
+and--yes, beautiful, in a strange kind of way--she was.
+
+"I see you have a cold," he said, "and I think you would get along
+better out there. I'll see if I can fix up the transportation, and
+get something with our people in one of the towns that would be good
+for you."
+
+She leaned back in her chair and sat there smiling at him. Something
+in the smile made him say, abruptly: "That's all; you may go now,
+and I'll send a boy with your machine."
+
+She walked through the streets as one who had already found another
+country. More than one turned to look at her. She reached her room
+at last and pulling her one little chair up to the window sat
+staring out across the alley at the brick wall across from her. But
+she was not seeing a narrow alley and a high brick wall. She was
+seeing rushing rivers and mighty forests and towering peaks. She
+leaned back in her chair--an indulgence less luxurious than it
+sounds, as the chair only reached the middle of her back--and looked
+out at the high brick wall and saw a snow-clad range of hills. But
+she was tired; this tremendous idea was too much for her; the very
+wonder of it was exhausting. She lay down on her bed--radiant, but
+languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters. At first it was only
+someone filling the bath-tub, but after a while it was the little
+stream which flowed through her forest. And then she was not lying
+on a lumpy bed; she was sinking down under pine trees--all so sweet
+and still and cool. But an awful thing was happening!--the forest
+was on fire--it was choking and burning her! She awoke to find smoke
+from the building opposite pouring into her room; flies were buzzing
+about, and her face and hands were hot.
+
+She did little work in the next few days. It was hard to go on with
+the same work when waiting for a thing which was to make over one's
+whole life. The stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great
+languor to come over her. And her chair was not right for her
+typewriter, and the smoke came in all the time. Strangely enough Out
+There seemed farther away. Sometimes she could not go there at all;
+she supposed it was because she was really going.
+
+At the close of the week she went to the office with her work. She
+was weak with excitement as she stepped into the elevator. Would Mr.
+Osborne have the transportation for her? Would he tell her when she
+was to go?
+
+But she did not see Mr. Osborne at all. When she asked for him the
+clerk just replied carelessly that he was not there. She was going
+to ask if he had left any message for her, but the telephone rang
+then and the man to whom she was talking turned away. Someone was
+sitting at her old desk, and they did not seem to be making the
+changes they had contemplated; everyone in the office seemed very
+busy and uncaring, and because she knew her chin was trembling she
+turned away.
+
+She had a strange feeling as she left the office: as if standing on
+ground which quivered, an impulse to reach out her hand and tell
+someone that something must be done right away, a dreadful fear that
+she was going to cry out that she could not wait much longer.
+
+All at once she found that she was crossing the street, and saw
+ahead the little art store with the wonderful picture which proved
+it was all really so. In the same old way, her step quickened. It
+would show her again that it was all just as she had thought it was,
+and if that were true, then it must be true also that Mr. Osborne
+was going to get her the transportation. It would prove that
+everything was all right.
+
+But a cruel thing happened. It failed her. It was just as
+beautiful--but something a long way off, impossible to reach. Try as
+she would, she could not get _into_ it, as she used to. It was
+only a picture; a beautiful picture of some pine trees. And they
+were very far away, and they had nothing at all to do with her.
+
+Through the window, at the back of the store, she saw the old man
+standing with his back to her. She thought of going in and asking to
+sit down--she wanted to sit down--but perhaps he would say something
+cross to her--he was such a queer looking old man--and she knew she
+would cry if anything cross was said to her. That he had watched for
+her each night, that he had tried and tried to think of a way of
+finding her, that he would have been more glad to see her than to
+see anyone in the world, would have been kinder to her than anyone
+on earth would have been--those were the things she did not know.
+And so--more lonely than she had ever been before--she turned away.
+
+On Monday she felt she could wait no longer. It did not seem that it
+would be _safe_. She got ready to go to see Mr. Osborne, but
+the getting ready tired her so that she sat a long time resting,
+looking out at the high brick wall beyond which there was nothing at
+all. She was counting the blocks, thinking of how many times she
+would have to cross the street. But just then it occurred to her
+that she could telephone.
+
+When she came back upstairs she crept up on the bed and lay there
+very still. The boy had said that Mr. Osborne was away and would be
+gone two weeks. No one in the office had heard him say anything
+about her transportation.
+
+All through the day she lay there, and what she saw before her was a
+narrow alley and a high brick wall. She had lost her mountains and
+her forests and her rivers and her lakes. She tried to go out to
+them in the same old way--but she could not get beyond the high
+brick wall. She was shut in. She tried to draw them to her, but they
+could not come across the wall. It shut them out. She tried to pray
+to the great mountain which one could see from Portland. But even
+prayers could get no farther than the wall.
+
+Late that afternoon, because she was so shut in that she was
+choking, because she was consumed with the idea that she must claim
+her country now or lose it forever, she got up and started for the
+picture. It was a long, long way to go, and dreadful things were in
+between--people who would bump against her, hot, uneven streets,
+horses that might run over her--but she must make the journey. She
+must make it because the things that she lived on were slipping from
+her--and she was choking--sinking down--and all alone.
+
+Step by step, never knowing just how her foot was going to make the
+next step, sick with the fear that people were going to run into
+her--the streets going up and down, the buildings round and round,
+she did go; holding to the window casings for the last few
+steps--each step a terrible chasm which she was never sure she was
+going to be able to cross--she was there at last. And in the window
+as she stood there, swayingly, was a dark, blurred thing which might
+have been anything at all. She tried to remember why she had come.
+What _was_ it--? And then she was sinking down into an abyss.
+
+That the hemorrhage came then, that the old man came out and found
+her and tenderly took her in, that he had her taken where she should
+have been taken long before, that the doctors said it was too late,
+and that soon their verdict was confirmed--those are the facts which
+would seem to tell the rest of the story. But deep down beneath
+facts rests truth, and the truth is that this is a story with the
+happiest kind of a happy ending. What facts would call the breeze
+from an electric fan was in truth the gracious breath of the pines.
+And when the nurse said "She's going," she was indeed going, but to
+a land of great spaces and benign breezes, a land of deep shadows
+and rushing waters. For a most wondrous thing had happened. She had
+called to the mountain, and the mountain had heard her voice; and
+because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew her to itself,
+across high brick walls and past millions of hurrying, noisy
+people--oh, a most triumphant flight! And the mountain said--"I give
+you this whole great land. It is yours because you have loved it so
+well. Hills and valleys and rivers and forests and lakes--it is all
+for you." Yes, the nurse was quite right; she was going: going for a
+long sweet sleep beneath trees of many shadows, beside clear waters
+which had come from distant snows--really going "Out There."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE PREPOSTEROUS MOTIVE
+
+
+The Governor was sitting alone in his private office with an open
+letter in his hand. He was devoutly and gloomily wishing that some
+other man was just then in his shoes. The Governor had not devoted a
+large portion of his life to nursing a desire of that nature, for he
+was a man in whose soul the flame of self-satisfaction glowed
+cheeringly; but just now there were reasons, and he deemed them
+ample, for deploring that he had been made chief executive of his
+native State.
+
+Had he chosen to take you into his confidence--a thing the Governor
+would assuredly choose not to do--he would have told you there were
+greater things in the world than the governorship of that State. He
+might have suggested a seat in the Senate of the United States as
+one of those things. It was of the United States Senate his
+Excellency was thinking as he sat there alone moodily deploring the
+gubernatorial shoes.
+
+The senior Senator was going to die. He differed therein from his
+fellows in that he was going to die soon, almost immediately. He had
+reached the tottering years even at the time of his reelection, and
+it had never been supposed that his life would outstretch his term.
+He had been sent back, not for another six years of service, but to
+hold out the leader of the Boxers, as they called themselves--the
+younger and unorthodox element of the party in the State, an element
+growing to dangerous proportions. It was only by returning the aged
+Senator, whom they held it would be brutal to turn down after a life
+of service to the party, that the "machine" won the memorable fight
+of the previous winter.
+
+From the viewpoint of the machine, the Governor was the senior
+Senator's logical successor. Had it not been for the heavy inroads
+of the Boxers, his Excellency would even then have been sitting in
+the Senate Chamber at Washington. It had not been considered safe to
+nominate the Governor. Had his supporters conceded that the time was
+at hand for a change, there would have been a general clamour for
+the leader of the Boxers--Huntington, undeniably the popular man of
+the State. And so they concocted a beautiful sentiment about
+"rounding out the veteran's career," and letting him "die with his
+boots on"; and through the omnipotence of sentiment, they won.
+
+Down in his heart the venerable Senator was not seeking to die with
+his boots on. He would have preferred sitting in a large chair
+before the fire and reading quietly of what other men were doing in
+the Senate of the United States. But they told him he must sacrifice
+that wish, for if he retired he would be succeeded by a dangerous
+man. And the old man, believing them, had gone dutifully back into
+the arena.
+
+Now it seemed that a power outside man's control was declaring
+against the well-laid plans of the machine. As the machine saw
+things, the time was not ripe for the senior Senator to die. He had
+just entered upon his new term, and the Governor himself had but
+lately stepped into a second term. They had assumed that the Senator
+would live on for at least two years, but now they heard that he was
+likely to die almost at once. His Excellency could not very well
+name himself for the vacancy, and it seemed dangerous just then to
+risk a call of the Assembly. They dared not let the Governor appoint
+a weaker man, even if he would consent to do so, for they would need
+the best they had to put up against the leader of the Boxers. With
+the Governor, they believed they could win, but the question of
+appointing him had suddenly become a knotty one.
+
+The Governor himself was bowed with chagrin. He saw now that he had
+erred in taking a second term, and he was not the man to enjoy
+reviewing his mistakes. As he sat there reading and rereading the
+letter which told him that the work of the senior Senator was almost
+done, he said to himself that it was easy enough to wrestle with
+men, but a harder thing to try one's mettle with fate. He spent a
+gloomy and unprofitable day.
+
+Late in the afternoon a telegram reached the executive office.
+Styles was coming to town that night, and wanted to see the Governor
+at the hotel. Things always cleared when Styles came to town; and
+so, though still unable to foresee the outcome, he brightened at
+once.
+
+Styles was a railroad man, and rich. People to whom certain things
+were a sealed book said that it was nice of Mr. Styles to take an
+interest in politics when he had so many other things on his mind,
+and that he must be a very public-spirited man. That he took an
+interest in politics, no one familiar with the affairs of the State
+would deny. The orthodox papers painted him as a public benefactor,
+but the Boxers arrayed him with hoofs and horns.
+
+The Governor and Mr. Styles were warm friends. It was said that
+their friendship dated from mere boyhood, and that the way the two
+men had held together through all the vicissitudes of life was
+touching and beautiful--at least, so some people observed. There
+were others whose eyebrows went up when the Governor and Mr. Styles
+were mentioned in their Damon and Pythias capacity.
+
+That night, in the public benefactor's room at the hotel, the
+Governor and his old friend had a long talk. When twelve o'clock
+came they were still talking; more than that, the Governor was
+excitedly pacing the floor.
+
+"I tell you, Styles," he expostulated, "I don't like it! It doesn't
+put me in a good light. It's too apparent, and I'll suffer for it,
+sure as fate. Mark my words, we'll all suffer for it!"
+
+Mr. Styles was sitting in an easy attitude before the table. The
+public benefactor never paced the floor; it did not seem necessary.
+He smoked in silence for a minute; then raised himself a little in
+his chair.
+
+"Well, have you anything better to offer?"
+
+"No, I haven't," replied the Governor, tartly; "but it seems to me
+you ought to have."
+
+Styles sank back in his chair and for several minutes more devoted
+himself to the art of smoking. There were times when this
+philanthropic dabbler in politics was irritating.
+
+"I think," he began presently, "that you exaggerate the unpleasant
+features of the situation. It will cause talk, of course; but isn't
+it worth it? You say it's unheard of; maybe, but so is the
+situation, and wasn't there something in the copy-books about
+meeting new situations with new methods? If you have anything better
+to offer, produce it; if not, we've got to go ahead with this. And
+really, I don't see that it's so bad. You have to go South to look
+after your cotton plantation; you find now that it's going to take
+more time than you feel you should take from the State; you can't
+afford to give it up; consequently, you withdraw in favor of the
+Lieutenant-Governor. We all protest, but you say Berriman is a good
+man, and the State won't suffer, and you simply can't afford to go
+on. Well, we can keep the Senator's condition pretty quiet here; and
+after all, he's sturdy, and may live on to the close of the year.
+After due deliberation Berriman appoints you. A little talk?--Yes.
+But it's worth a little talk. It seems to me the thing works out
+very smoothly."
+
+When Tom Styles leaned back in his chair and declared a thing worked
+out very smoothly, that thing was quite likely to go. In three days
+the Governor went South. When he returned, the newspaper men were
+startled by the announcement that business considerations which he
+could not afford to overlook demanded his withdrawal from office.
+Previous to this time the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Styles
+had met and the result of their meeting was not made a matter
+of public record.
+
+As the Governor had anticipated, many things were said. Inquiries
+were made into the venerable Senator's condition--which, the
+orthodox papers declared, was but another example of the indecency
+of the Boxer journals. The Governor went to his cotton plantation.
+The Lieutenant-Governor went into office, and was pronounced a
+worthy successor to a good executive. The venerable Senator
+continued to live. As Mr. Styles had predicted, the gossip soon
+quieted into a friendly hope that the Governor would realise large
+sums with his cotton.
+
+It was late in the fall when the senior Senator finally succumbed.
+The day the papers printed the story of his death, they printed
+speculative editorials on his probable successor. When the bereaved
+family commented with bitterness on this ill-concealed haste, they
+were told that it was politics--enterprise--life.
+
+The old man's remains lay in state in the rotunda of the State
+Capitol, and the building was draped in mourning. Many came and
+looked upon the quiet face; but far more numerous than those who
+gathered at his bier to weep were those who assembled in secluded
+corners to speculate on the wearing of his toga. It was
+politics--enterprise--life.
+
+Mr. Styles told the Lieutenant-Governor to be deliberate. There was
+no need of an immediate appointment, he said. And so for a time
+things went on about the State-house much as usual, save that the
+absorbing topic was the senatorial situation, and that every one was
+watching the new chief executive. The retired Governor now spent
+part of his time in the South, and part at home. The cotton
+plantation was not demanding all his attention, after all.
+
+It could not be claimed that John Berriman had ever done any great
+thing. He was not on record as having ever risen grandly to an
+occasion; but there may have been something in the fact that an
+occasion admitting of a grand rising had never presented itself.
+Before he became Lieutenant-Governor, he had served inoffensively in
+the State Senate for two terms. No one had ever worked very hard for
+Senator Berriman's vote. He had been put in by the machine, and it
+had always been assumed that he was machine property.
+
+Berriman himself had never given the matter of his place in the
+human drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him
+to vote with his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a
+tool, he would have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the
+infallibility of the party.
+
+The Boxers did not approach him now concerning the appointment of
+Huntington. That, of course, was a fixed matter, and they were not
+young and foolish enough to attempt to change it.
+
+One day the Governor received a telegram from Styles suggesting that
+he "adjust that matter" immediately. He thought of announcing the
+appointment that very night, but the newspaper men had all left the
+building, and as he had promised that they should know of it as soon
+as it was made, he concluded to wait until the next morning.
+
+Governor Berriman had a brother in town that week, attending a
+meeting of the State Agricultural Society. Hiram Berriman had a
+large farm in the southern part of the State. He knew but little of
+political methods, and had primitive ideas about honesty. There had
+always been a strong tie between the brothers, despite the fact that
+Hiram was fifteen years the Governor's senior. They talked of many
+things that night, and the hour was growing late. They were about to
+retire when the Governor remarked, a little sleepily:
+
+"Well, to-morrow morning I announce the senatorial appointment."
+
+"You do, eh?" returned the farmer.
+
+"Yes, there's no need of waiting any longer, and it's getting on to
+the time the State wants two senators in Washington."
+
+"Well, I suppose, John," Hiram said, turning a serious face to his
+brother, "that you've thought the matter all over, and are sure you
+are right?"
+
+The Governor threw back his head with a scoffing laugh.
+
+"I guess it didn't require much thought on my part," he answered
+carelessly.
+
+"I don't see how you figure that out," contended Hiram warmly.
+"You're Governor of the State, and your own boss, ain't you?"
+
+It was the first time in all his life that anyone had squarely
+confronted John Berriman with the question whether or not he was his
+own boss, and for some reason it went deep into his soul, and
+rankled there.
+
+"Now see here, Hiram," he said at length, "there's no use of your
+putting on airs and pretending you don't understand this thing. You
+know well enough it was all fixed before I went in." The other man
+looked at him in bewilderment, and the Governor continued brusquely:
+"The party knew the Senator was going to die, and so the Governor
+pulled out and I went in just so the thing could be done decently
+when the time came."
+
+The old farmer was scratching his head.
+
+"That's it, eh? They got wind the Senator was goin' to die, and so
+the Governor told that lie about having to go South just so he could
+step into the dead man's shoes, eh?"
+
+"That's the situation--if you want to put it that way."
+
+"And now you're going to appoint the Governor?"
+
+"Of course I am; I couldn't do anything else if I wanted to."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, look here, Hiram, haven't you any idea of political
+obligation? It's expected of me."
+
+"Oh, it is, eh? Did you promise to appoint the Governor?"
+
+"Why, I don't know that I exactly made any promises, but that
+doesn't make a particle of difference. The understanding was that
+the Governor was to pull out and I was to go in and appoint him.
+It's a matter of honour;" and Governor Berriman drew himself up with
+pride.
+
+The farmer turned a troubled face to the fire.
+
+"I suppose, then," he said finally, "that you all think the Governor
+is the best man we have for the United States Senate. I take it that
+in appointing him, John, you feel sure he will guard the interests
+of the people before everything else, and that the people--I mean
+the working people of this State--will always be safe in his hands;
+do you?"
+
+"Oh, Lord, no, Hiram!" exclaimed the Governor irritably. "I don't
+think that at all!"
+
+Hiram Berriman's brown face warmed to a dull red.
+
+"You don't?" he cried. "You mean to sit there, John Berriman, and
+tell me that you don't think the man you're going to put in the
+United States Senate will be an honest man? What do you mean by
+saying you're going to put a dishonest man in there to make laws for
+the people, to watch over them and protect them? If you don't think
+he's a good man, if you don't think he's the best man the State
+has"--the old farmer was pounding the table heavily with his huge
+fist--"if you don't think that, in God's name, _why do you appoint
+him_?"
+
+"I wish I could make you understand, Hiram," said the Governor in an
+injured voice, "that it's not for me to say."
+
+"Why ain't it for you to say? Why ain't it, I want to know? Who's
+running you, your own conscience or some gang of men that's trying
+to steal from the State? Good God, I wish I had never lived to see
+the day a brother of mine put a thief in the United States Senate to
+bamboozle the honest, hard-working people of this State!"
+
+"Hold on, please--that's a little too strong!" flamed the Governor.
+
+"It ain't too strong. If a Senator ain't an honest man, he's a
+thief; and if he ain't lookin' after the welfare of the people, he's
+bamboozlin' them, and that's all there is about it. I don't know
+much about politics, but I ain't lived my life without learning a
+little about right and wrong, and it's a sorry day we've come to,
+John Berriman, if right and wrong don't enter into the makin' of a
+Senator!"
+
+The Governor could think of no fitting response, so he held his
+peace. This seemed to quiet the irate farmer, and he surveyed his
+brother intently, and not unkindly.
+
+"You're in a position now, John," he said, and there was a kind of
+homely eloquence in his serious voice, "to be a friend to the
+people. It ain't many of us ever get the chance of doin' a great
+thing. We work along, and we do the best we can with what comes our
+way, but most of us don't get the chance to do a thing that's goin'
+to help thousands of people, and that the whole country's goin' to
+say was a move for the right. You want to think of that, and when
+you're thinkin' so much about honour, you don't want to clean forget
+about honesty. Don't you stick to any foolish notions about bein'
+faithful to the party; it ain't the party that needs helpin'. No
+matter how you got where you are, you're Governor of the State right
+now, John, and your first duty is to the people of this State, not
+to Tom Styles or anybody else. Just you remember that when you're
+namin' your Senator in the morning."
+
+It was long before the Governor retired. He sat there by the
+fireplace until after the fire had died down, and he was too
+absorbed to grow cold. He thought of many things. Like the man who
+had preceded him in office, he wished that some one else was just
+then encumbered with the gubernatorial shoes.
+
+The next morning there was a heavy feeling in his head which he
+thought a walk in the bracing air might dispel, so he started on
+foot for the Statehouse. A light snow was on the ground, and there
+was something reassuring in the crispness of the morning. It would
+make a slave feel like a free man to drink in such air, he was
+thinking. Snatches of his brother's outburst of the night before
+kept breaking into his consciousness but curiously enough they did
+not greatly disturb him. He concluded that it was wonderful what a
+walk in the bracing air could do. From the foot of the hill he
+looked up at the State-house, for the first time in his experience
+seeing and thinking about it--not simply taking it for granted.
+There seemed a nobility about it--in the building itself, and back
+of that in what it stood for.
+
+As he walked through the corridor to his office he was greeted with
+cheerful, respectful salutations. His mood let him give the
+greetings a value they did not have and from that rose a sense of
+having the trust and goodwill of his fellows.
+
+But upon reaching his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It
+was imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and
+satisfaction went from his bearing. He walked to the window and
+stood there looking down at the city, and, as it had been in looking
+ahead at the State-house, he now looked out over the city really
+seeing and understanding it, not merely taking it for granted. He
+found himself wondering if many of the people in that city--in that
+State--looked to their Governor with the old-fashioned trust his
+brother had shown. His eyes dimmed; he was thinking of the
+satisfaction it would afford his children, if--long after he had
+gone--they could tell how a great chance had once come into their
+father's life, and how he had proved himself a man.
+
+"Will you sign these now, Governor?" asked a voice behind him.
+
+It was his secretary, a man who knew the affairs of the State well,
+and whom every one seemed to respect.
+
+"Mr. Haines," he said abruptly, "who do you think is the best man we
+have for the United States Senate?"
+
+The secretary stepped back, dumfounded; amazed that the question
+should be put to him, startled at that strange way of putting it.
+Then he told himself he must be discreet. Like many of the people at
+the State-house, in his heart Haines was a Boxer.
+
+"Why, I presume," he ventured, "that the Governor is looked upon as
+the logical candidate, isn't he?"
+
+"I'm not talking about logical candidates. I want to know who you
+think is the man who would most conscientiously and creditably
+represent this State in the Senate of the United States."
+
+It was so simply spoken that the secretary found himself answering
+it as simply. "If you put it that way, Governor, Mr. Huntington is
+the man, of course."
+
+"You think most of the people feel that way?"
+
+"I know they do."
+
+"You believe if it were a matter of popular vote, Huntington would
+be the new Senator?"
+
+"There can be no doubt of that, Governor. I think they all have to
+admit that. Huntington is the man the people want."
+
+"That's all, Mr. Haines. I merely wondered what you thought about
+it."
+
+Soon after that Governor Berriman rang for a messenger boy and sent
+a telegram. Then he settled quietly down to routine work. It was
+about eleven when one of the newspaper men came in.
+
+"Good-morning, Governor," he said briskly "how's everything to-day?"
+
+"All right, Mr. Markham. I have nothing to tell you to-day, except
+that I've made the senatorial appointment."
+
+"Oh," laughed the reporter excitedly, "that's all, is it?"
+
+"Yes," replied the Governor, smiling too; "that's all!"
+
+The reporter looked at the clock. "I'll just catch the noon
+edition," he said, "if I telephone right away."
+
+He was moving to the other room when the Governor called to him.
+
+"See here, it seems to me you're a strange newspaper man!"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, I tell you I've made a senatorial appointment--a matter of
+some slight importance--and you rush off never asking whom I've
+appointed."
+
+The reporter gave a forced laugh. He wished the Governor would not
+detain him with a joke now when every second counted.
+
+"That's right," he said, with strained pleasantness. "Well, who's
+the man?"
+
+The Governor raised his head. "Huntington," he said quietly, and
+resumed his work.
+
+"What?" gasped the reporter. "What?"
+
+Then he stopped in embarrassment, as if ashamed of being so easily
+taken in. "Guess you're trying to jolly me a little, aren't you,
+Governor?"
+
+"Jolly you, Mr. Markham? I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper
+reporters. Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you
+are still sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so
+impossible. Don't you consider Mr. Huntington a fit man for the
+place?"
+
+But for the minute the reporter seemed unable to speak. "May I ask,"
+he fumbled at last, "why you did it?"
+
+"I had but one motive, Mr. Markham. I thought the matter over and it
+seemed to me the people should have the man they wanted. I am with
+them in believing Huntington the best man for the place." He said it
+simply, and went quietly back to his work.
+
+For many a long day politicians and papers continued the search for
+"the motive." Styles and his crowd saw it as a simple matter of
+selling out; they knew, of course, that it could be nothing else.
+After their first rage had subsided, and they saw there was nothing
+they could do, they wondered, sneeringly, why he did not "fix up a
+better story." That was a little _too_ simple-minded. Did he
+think people were fools? And even the men who profited by the
+situation puzzled their brains for weeks trying to understand it.
+There was something behind it, of course.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+HIS AMERICA
+
+
+He hated to see the reporter go. With the closing of that door it
+seemed certain that there was no putting it off any longer.
+
+But even when the man's footsteps were at last sounding on the
+stairway, he still clung to him.
+
+"Father," he asked, fretfully, "why do you always talk to those
+fellows?"
+
+Herman Beckman turned in his chair and stared at his son. Then he
+laughed. "Now, that's a fine question to come from the honour man of
+a law school! I hope, Fritz, that your oration to-night is going to
+have a little more sense in it than that."
+
+The calling up of his oration made him reach out another clutching
+hand to the vanished reporter. "But it's farcical, father, to be
+always interviewed by a paper nobody reads."
+
+"Nobody--_reads_?"
+
+"Why, nobody cares anything about the _Leader_. It's dead."
+
+Herman Beckman looked at his son sharply; something about him seemed
+strange. He decided that he was nervous about the commencement
+programme. Fritz had the one oration.
+
+The boy had opened the drawer of his study table and was fingering
+some papers he had taken out.
+
+"Sure you know it?" the man asked with affectionate parental
+anxiety.
+
+"Oh, I know it all right," Fred answered grimly, and again the
+father decided that he was nervous about the thing. He wasn't just
+like himself.
+
+The man walked to the window and stood looking across at the
+university buildings. Colleges had always meant much to Herman
+Beckman. The very day Fritz was born he determined that the boy was
+to go to college. It was good to witness the fulfilment of his
+dreams. He turned his glance to the comfortable room.
+
+"Pretty decent comfortable sort of place, isn't it, father?" Fred
+asked, following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair
+to the student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays
+seem an inevitable part of the acquirement of learning.
+
+It made his father laugh. "Yes, my boy, I should call it decent--and
+comfortable." He grew thoughtful after that.
+
+"Pretty different from the place you had, father?"
+
+"Oh--me? My place to study was any place I could find. Sometimes on
+top of a load of hay, lots of times by the light of the logs. I've
+studied in some funny places, Fritz."
+
+"Well, you _got_ there, father!" the boy burst out with
+feeling. "By Jove, there aren't many of them _know_ the things
+you know!"
+
+"I know enough to know what I don't know," said the old man, a
+little sadly. "I know enough to know what I missed. I wanted to go
+to college. No one will ever know how I wanted to! I began to think
+I'd never feel right about it. But I have a notion that when I sit
+there to-night listening to you, Fritz, knowing that you're speaking
+for two hundred boys, half of whose fathers did go to college, I
+think I'm going to feel better about it then."
+
+The boy turned away. Something in the kindly words seemed as the cut
+of a whip across his face.
+
+"Well, Fritz," his father continued, getting into his coat, "I'll be
+going downtown. Leave you to put on an extra flourish or two." He
+laughed in proud parental fashion. "Anyway, I have some things to
+see about."
+
+The boy stood up. "Father, I have something to tell you." He said it
+shortly and sharply.
+
+The father stood there, puzzled.
+
+"You won't like my oration to-night, father."
+
+And still the man did not speak. The words would not have bothered
+him much--it was the boy's manner.
+
+"In fact, father, you're going to be desperately disappointed in
+it."
+
+The dull red was creeping into the man's cheeks. He was one to have
+little patience with that thing of not doing one's work. "Why am I
+going to be disappointed? This is no time to shirk! You should--"
+
+"Oh, you'll not complain of the time and thought I've put on it,"
+the boy broke in with a short, hard laugh. "But, you see,
+father--you see"--his armour had slipped from him--"it doesn't
+express--your views."
+
+"Did I ever say I wanted you to express 'my views'? Did I bring you
+up to be a mouthpiece of mine? Haven't I told you to _think_?"
+But with a long, sharp glance at his boy anger gave way. "Come,
+boy"--going over and patting him on the back--"brace up now. You're
+acting like a seven-year-old girl afraid to speak her first piece,"
+and his big laugh rang out, eager to reassure.
+
+"You won't see it! You won't believe it! I don't suppose you'll
+believe it when you hear it!" He turned away, overwhelmed by a
+sudden realisation of just how difficult was the thing that lay
+before him.
+
+The man started toward his son, but instead he walked over and sat
+down at the opposite side of the table, waiting. He was beginning to
+see that there was something in this which he did not understand.
+
+At last the boy turned to him, fighting back some things, taking on
+other things. He gazed at the care-worn, rugged face--face of a
+worker and a dreamer, reading in those lines the story of that life,
+seeing more clearly than he had ever seen before the beauty and
+futility of it. Here was the idealist, the man who would give his
+whole lifetime to a dream he had dreamed. He loved his father very
+tenderly as he looked at him, read him, then.
+
+"Father," he asked quietly, "are you satisfied with your life?"
+
+The man simply stared--waiting, seeking his bearings.
+
+"You came to this country when you were nineteen years old--didn't
+you, father?" The man nodded. "And now you're--it's sixty-one, isn't
+it?"
+
+Again he nodded.
+
+"You've been in America, then, forty-two years. Father, do you think
+as much of it now as you did forty-two years ago?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," the man said, searching his son's
+quiet, passionate face. "I can't make you out, Fritz."
+
+"My favourite story as a kid," the boy went on, "was to hear you
+tell of how you felt when your boat came sailing into New York
+Harbour, and you saw the first outlines of a country you had dreamed
+about all through your boyhood, which you had saved pennies for,
+worked nights for, ever since you were old enough to know the
+meaning of America. I mean," he corrected, significantly, "the
+meaning of what you thought was America.
+
+"It's a bully story, father," he continued, with a smile at once
+tender and hard; "the simple German boy, born a dreamer, standing
+there looking out at the dim shores of that land he had idealised.
+If ever a man came to America bringing it rich gifts, that man was
+you!"
+
+"Fritz," his father's voice was rendered harsh by mystification and
+foreboding, "tell me what you're talking about. Come to the point.
+Clear this up."
+
+"I'm talking about American politics--your party--having ruined your
+life! I'm talking about working like a slave all your days and
+having nothing but a mortgaged farm at sixty-one! I'm talking about
+playing a losing game! I'm saying, _What's the use?_ Father,
+I'm telling you that _I'm_ going to join the other party and
+make some money!"
+
+The man just sat there, staring.
+
+"Well," the boy took it up defiantly, "why not?"
+
+And then he moved, laid a not quite steady hand out upon the table.
+"My boy, you're not well. You've studied too hard. Now brace
+yourself up for to-night, and then we'll go down home and fix you
+up. What you need, Fritz," he said, trying to laugh, "is the
+hayfield."
+
+"You're not _seeing_ it!" The boy pushed back his chair and
+began moving about the room. "The only way I can brace myself up for
+to-night is to get so mad--father, usually you see things so easily!
+Don't you understand? It was my chance, my one moment, my time to
+strike. It will be years before I get such a hearing again. You see,
+father, the thing will be printed, and the men I want to have hear
+it, the men who _own this State_, will be there. One of them is
+to preside. And the story of it, the worth of it, to them, is that
+I'm your son. You see, after all," he seized at this wildly, "I'm
+getting my start on the fact that I'm your son."
+
+"Go on," said the man; the brown of his wind-beaten face had yielded
+to a tinge of grey. "Just what is it you are going to say?"
+
+"I call it 'The New America,' a lot of this talk about doing things,
+the glory of industrial America, the true Americans the men of
+constructive genius, the patriotism of railroad and factory
+building, a eulogy of railroad officials and corporation
+presidents," he rushed on with a laugh. "Singing the song of
+Capital. Father, can't you see _why?_"
+
+The old man had risen. "Tell me this," he said. "None of it matters
+much, if you just tell me this: You _believe_ these things?
+You've thought it all out for yourself--and you _feel_ that
+way? You're honest, aren't you, Fritz?" He put that last in a
+whisper.
+
+The boy made no reply; after a minute the man sank back to his
+chair. The years seemed coming to him with the minutes.
+
+Fred was leaning against the wall. "Father," he said at last, "I
+hope you'll let me be a little roundabout. It's only fair to me to
+let me ramble on a little. I've got to put it all right before you
+or--or--You know, dad,"--he came back to his place by the table,
+"the first thing I remember very clearly is those men, your party
+managers, coming down to the farm one time and asking you to run for
+Governor. How many times is it you've run for Governor, father?" He
+put the question slowly.
+
+"Five," said the man heavily.
+
+"I don't know which time this was; but you didn't want to. You were
+sorry when you saw them coming. I heard some of the talk. You talked
+about your farm, what you wanted to do that summer, how you couldn't
+afford the time or the money. They argued that you owed it to the
+party--they always got you there; how no other man could hold down
+majorities as you could--a man like you giving the best years of his
+life to holding down majorities! They said you were the one man
+against whom no personal attack could be made. And when there was so
+much to fight, anyway--oh, I know that speech by heart! They've made
+great capital of your honesty and your clean life. In fact, they've
+held that up as a curtain behind which a great many things could go
+on. Oh, _you_ didn't know about them; you were out in front of
+the curtain, but I haven't lived in this town without finding out
+that they needed your integrity and your clean record pretty bad!
+
+"That was out on the side porch. Mother had brought out some
+buttermilk, and they drank it while they talked. You put up a good
+fight. Your time was money to you at that time of year; a man
+shouldn't neglect his farm--but you never yet could hold out against
+that 'needing-you' kind of talk. They knew there was no chance for
+your election. You knew it. But it takes a man of just your grit to
+put any snap into a hopeless campaign.
+
+"Mother cried when you went to drive them back to town. You see, I
+remember all those things. She told about how hard you would work,
+and how it would do no good--that the State belonged to the other
+party. She talked about the farm, too, and the addition she had
+wanted for the house, and how now she wouldn't have it. Mother felt
+pretty bad that night. She's gone through a lot of those times."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"You were away a lot that summer, and all fall. You looked pretty
+well used up when you came home, but you said that you had held down
+majorities splendidly."
+
+Again there was silence. It was the silences that seemed to be
+saying the most.
+
+"You had one term in Congress--that's the only thing you ever had.
+Then you did so much that they concentrated in your district and saw
+to it that you never got back. Julius Caesar couldn't have been
+elected again," he laughed harshly.
+
+"Father," the boy went on, after a pause, "you asked me if I were
+honest. There are two kinds of honesty. The primitive kind--like
+yours--and then the kind you develop for yourself. Do I believe the
+things I'm going to say to-night? No--not now. But I'll believe them
+more after I've heard the applause I'm sure to get. I'll believe
+them still more after I've had my first case thrown to me by our
+railroad friends who own this State. More and more after I've said
+them over in campaigning next fall, and pretty soon I'll be so sure
+I believe them that I really will believe them--and that," he
+concluded, flippantly, "is the new brand of American honesty. Why,
+any smart man can persuade himself he's not a hypocrite!"
+
+"My _God!_" it wrenched from the man. "_This?_ If you'd
+stolen money--killed a man--but hypocrisy, cant--the very thing I've
+fought hardest, hated most! You lived all your life with me to learn
+_this?_"
+
+"I lived all my life with you to learn what pays, and what doesn't.
+I lived all my life with you to learn from failure the value of
+success."
+
+"I never was sure I was a failure until this hour."
+
+"Father! Can't you see--"
+
+"Oh, don't _talk_ to me!" cried the old man, rising, reaching
+out his fist as though he would strike him. "Son of mine sitting
+there telling me he is fixing up a brand of honesty for himself!"
+
+The boy grew quieter as self-restraint left his father. "I mean
+that--just that," he said at last. "Let a man either give or get. If
+he gives, let it be to the real thing. There are two Americas. The
+America of you dreamers--and then the real America. Yours is an
+idea--an idea quite as much as an ideal. I don't think you have the
+slightest comprehension of how far apart it is from the real
+America. The people who dream of it over in Europe are a great deal
+nearer it than you people who work for it here. Father, the spirit
+of this country flows in a strong, swift, resistless current. You
+never got into it at all. Your kind of idealists influence it about
+as much--about as much as red lights burned on the banks of the
+great river would influence the current of that river. You're not
+_of_ it. You came here, throbbing with the love for America;
+and with your ideal America you've fought the real, and you've
+worked and you've believed and you've sacrificed. Father, _what's
+the use?_ In this State, anyway, it's hopeless. It has been so
+through your lifetime; it will be through mine."
+
+The man sat looking at him. He felt that he should say something,
+but the words did not come--held back, perhaps, by a sense of their
+uselessness. It was not so much what Fred said as it was the look in
+his eyes as he said it. There was nothing impetuous or youthful
+about that look, nothing to be laughed at or argued away. He had
+always felt that Fred had a mind which saw things straight, saw them
+in their right relations, and at that moment he had no words to
+plead for what Fred called the America of the dreamers.
+
+"I'm of the second generation, dad," the boy went on, at length,
+"and the second generation has an ideal of its own, and that ideal
+is Success. It took us these forty years to come to understand the
+spirit of America. You were a dreamer who loved America. I'm an
+American. We've translated democracy and brotherhood and equality
+into enterprise and opportunity and success--and that's getting
+Americanised. Now, father," he sought refuge in the tone of
+every-day things, "you'll get used to it--won't you? I don't expect
+you to feel very good about it, but you aren't going to be broken up
+about it--are you? After all, father," laughing and moving about as
+if to break the seriousness of things, "there's nothing criminal
+about being one of the other fellows--is there? Just remember that
+there _are_ folks who even think it's respectable!" The father
+had risen and picked up his hat. "No, Fred," he said, with a sadness
+in which there was great dignity, "there is nothing criminal in it
+if a man's conviction sends him that way. But to me there is
+something--something too sad for words in a man's selling his own
+soul."
+
+"Father! How extravagant! _Why_ is it selling one's soul to sit
+down and figure out what's the best thing to do?" He hesitated,
+hating to add hurt to hurt, not wanting to say that his father's
+fight should have been with the revolutionists, that his life was
+ineffective because, seeing his dream from within a dream, his
+thinking had been muddled. He only said: "As I say, father, it's a
+question of giving or getting. I couldn't even give in your way. And
+I've seen enough of giving to want a taste of getting. I want to
+make things go--and I see my chance. Why father," he laughed, trying
+to turn it, "there's nothing so American as wanting to make things
+_go_."
+
+He looked at him for a long minute. "My boy," he said, "I fear you
+are becoming so American that I am losing you."
+
+"Father," the boy pleaded, affectionately, "now don't--"
+
+The old man held up his hand. "You've tried to make me understand
+it," he said, "and succeeded. You can't complain of the way you've
+succeeded. I don't know why I don't argue with you--plead; there are
+things I could say--should say, perhaps--but something assures me it
+would be useless. I feel a good many years older than I did when I
+came into this room, but the reason for it is not that you're
+joining the other party. You know what I think of the men who
+control this State, the men with whom you desire to cast your lot,
+but I trust the years I've spent fighting them haven't made a bigot
+of me. It's not joining their party--it's _using_ it--makes
+this the hardest thing I've been called upon to meet."
+
+"Father, don't look like that! How do you think I am going to get up
+and speak tonight with _that_ face before me?"
+
+"You didn't think, did you," the man laughed bitterly, "that I would
+inspire you to your effort?"
+
+The boy stood looking at his father, a strange new fire in his eyes.
+
+"Yes," he said, quietly, tenderly, "you will inspire me. When I get
+up before those men tonight I'm going to see the picture of that boy
+straining for his first glimpse of New York Harbour. I'm going to
+think for just a minute of the things that boy brought with
+him--things he has never lost. And then I'll see you as you stand
+here now---it will be enough. What I need to do is to get mad. If I
+falter I'll just think of some of those times when you came home
+from your campaigns--how you looked--what you said. It will bring
+the inspiration. Father, I figure it out like this. We're going to
+get it back. We're going to get what's coming to us. There's another
+America than the America of you dreamers. To yours you have given;
+from mine I will get. And the irony of it--don't think I don't see
+the irony of it--is that I will be called the real American. Do you
+know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make the railroads of this
+State--oh, it sounds like schoolboy talk, but just give me a little
+time--I'm going to make the railroads of this State pay off every
+cent of that mortgage on your farm! Father," he finished,
+impetuously, in a last appeal, "you're broken up now, disappointed,
+but would you honestly want me to travel the road you've traveled?"
+
+"My boy," answered the old man, and the tears came with it, "I
+wanted you to travel the road of an honest man."
+
+Herman Beckman did not go to the commencement exercises that night.
+There was no train home until morning, so he had the night to spend
+in town. He was alone, for his friends assumed that he would be out
+at the university. But he preferred being alone.
+
+He sat in his room at the hotel, reading. And he could read. Years
+of discipline stood him in good stead now. His life had taught him
+to read anywhere, at any time. He had never permitted himself the
+luxury of not being "in the mood." It was only the men who had gone
+to college who could do that. He _had_ to read. He always
+carried some little book with him, for how did a man know that he
+might not have to wait an hour for a train somewhere? The man had a
+simple-minded veneration for knowledge. He wanted to know about
+things. And he had never learned to pretend that he didn't want to
+know. He quite lacked the modern art of flippancy. He believed in
+great books.
+
+And so on the night that his son was being graduated from college he
+sat in his room at the hotel--cheap room in a mediocre hotel; he had
+never learned to feel at home in the rich ones--reading Marcus
+Aurelius. But his hand as he turned the pages trembled as the hand
+of a very old man. At midnight some reporters came in to ask him
+what he thought of his son's oration. They wanted a statement from
+him.
+
+He told them that he had never believed the sins of a parent should
+be visited on a child, and that it was even so with the thought. He
+had always contended that a man should do his own thinking. The
+contention applied to his son.
+
+"Gamey old brute!" was what one of the reporters said in the
+elevator.
+
+He could not read Marcus Aurelius after that. He went to bed, but he
+did not sleep. Many things passed before him. His anticipations, his
+dreams for Fritz, had brought the warmest pleasure of his stern,
+unrelaxing life. There was a great emptiness tonight. What was a man
+to turn to, think about, when he seemed stripped, not only of the
+future, but of the past? He seemed called upon to readjust the whole
+of his life, giving up that which he had held dearest. What was
+left? Daylight found him turning it over and over.
+
+In the morning he went home. He got away without seeing any of his
+friends.
+
+He did not try to read this morning; somehow it seemed there was no
+use in trying to read any more. He watched the country through which
+they were passing, thinking of the hundreds of times he had ridden
+over it in campaigning. He wondered, vaguely, just how much money he
+had spent on railroad fare--he had never accepted mileage. Fred's
+"What's the use?" kept ringing in his ears. There was something
+about that phrase which made one feel very tired and old. It even
+seemed there was no use looking out to see how the crops were
+getting on. _What's the use? What's the use?_ Was that a phrase
+one learned in college?
+
+There had been two things to tell "mother" that night. The first was
+that he had stopped in town and told Claus Hansen he could have that
+south hundred and sixty he had been wanting for two years.
+
+It was not easy to tell the woman who had worked shoulder to
+shoulder with him for thirty years, the woman who during those years
+had risen with him in the early morning and worked with him until
+darkness rescued the weary bodies, that in their old age they must
+surrender the fruit of their toil. They would have left just what
+they had started with. They had just held their own.
+
+Coming down on the train he had made up his mind that if Hansen were
+in town he would tell him that he could have the land. He felt so
+very tired and old, so bowed down with Fred's "What's the use?" that
+he saw that he himself would never get the mortgage paid off. And
+Fred had said something about making the railroads pay it. He did
+not know just how the boy figured that out--indeed, he was getting a
+little dazed about the whole thing--but if Fritz had any idea of
+having the railroads pay off the mortgage on _his_ farm--he
+couldn't forget how the boy looked when he said it, face white, eyes
+burning--he would see to it right now that there was no chance of
+that.
+
+He tried not to look at the land as he drove past it on the way
+home. He wondered just how much campaign literature it had paid for.
+He wondered if he would ever get used to seeing Claus Hansen putting
+up his hay over there in that field.
+
+He had felt so badly about telling mother that he told it very
+bluntly. And because he felt so sorry for her he said not one kind
+word, but just sat quiet, looking the other way.
+
+She was clearing off the table. He heard her scraping out the potato
+dish with great care. Then she was coming over to him. She came
+awkwardly, hesitatingly--her life had not schooled her in meeting
+emotional moments beautifully--but she laid her hand upon him,
+patted him on the shoulder as one would a child. "Never mind,
+papa--never you mind. It will make it easier for us. There's enough
+left--and it will make it easier. We're getting on--we're--" There
+she broke off abruptly into a vigorous scolding of the dog, who was
+lifting covetous nostrils to a piece of meat.
+
+That was all. And there was no woman in the country had worked
+harder. And Martha was ambitious; she liked land, and she did not
+like Claus Hansen's wife.
+
+Yes, he had had a good wife.
+
+Then there was that other thing to tell her--about Fritz. That was
+harder.
+
+Mother had not gone up to the city to hear Fritz "speak" because her
+feet were bothering her, and she could not wear her shoes. He had
+had a vague idea of how disappointed she was, though she had said
+very little about it. Martha never had been one to say much about
+things. When he came back, of course she had wanted to know all
+about it, and he had put her off. Now he had to tell her.
+
+It was much harder; and in the telling of it he broke down.
+
+This time she did not come over and pat his shoulder. Perhaps Martha
+knew--likely she had never heard the word intuition, but, anyway,
+she knew--that it was beyond that.
+
+It seemed difficult for her to comprehend. She was bewildered to
+find that Fritz could change parties all in a minute. She seemed to
+grasp, first of all, that it was disrespectful to his father. Some
+boys at school had been putting notions into his head.
+
+But gradually she began to see it. Fritz wanted to make money. Fritz
+wanted to have it easier. And the other people did "have it easier."
+
+It divided her feeling: sorry and indignant for the father, secretly
+glad and relieved for the boy. "He will have it easier than we had
+it, papa," she said at the last. "But it was not right of Fritz,"
+she concluded, vaguely but severely.
+
+As she washed the dishes Martha was thinking that likely Fritz's
+wife would have a hired girl.
+
+Then Martha went up to bed. He said that he would come in a few
+minutes, but many minutes went by while he sat out on the side porch
+trying to think it out.
+
+The moon was shining brightly down on that hundred and sixty which
+Claus Hansen was to have. And the moon, too, seemed to be saying:
+"What's the use?"
+
+Well, what _was_ the use? Perhaps, after all, the boy was
+right. What had it all amounted to? What was there left? What had he
+done?
+
+Two Americas, Fred had said, and his but the America of the
+dreamers. He had always thought that he was fighting for the real.
+And now Fred said that he had never become an American at all.
+
+From the time he was twelve years old he had wanted to be an
+American. A queer old man back in the German village--an old man, he
+recalled strangely now, who had never been in America--told him
+about it. He told how all men were brothers in America, how the poor
+and the rich loved each other--indeed, how there were no poor and
+rich at all, but the same chance for every man who would work. He
+told about the marvellous resources of that distant America--gold in
+the earth, which men were free to go and get, hundreds upon hundreds
+of miles of untouched forests and great rivers--all for men to use,
+great cities no older than the men who were in them, which men at
+that present moment were _making_--every man his equal chance.
+He told of rich land which a man could have for nothing, which would
+be _his_, if he would but go and work upon it. In the heart of
+the little German boy there was kindled then a fire which the years
+had never put out. His cheeks grew red, his eyes bright and very
+deep as he listened to the story. He went home that night and
+dreamed of going to America. And through the years of his boyhood,
+penny by penny, he saved his money for America. It was his dream. It
+was the passion of his life. More plainly than the events of
+yesterday, he remembered his first glimpse of those wonderful
+shores--the lump in his throat, the passionate excitement, the
+uplift. Leaning over the railing of his boat, staring, searching,
+penetrating, worshipping, he lifted up his heart and sent out his
+pledge of allegiance to the new land. How he would love America,
+work for it, be true to it!
+
+He had three dollars and sixty cents in his pocket when he stepped
+upon American soil. He wondered if any man had ever felt richer. For
+had he not reached the land where there was an equal chance for
+every man who would work, where men loved each other as brothers,
+and where the earth itself was so rich and so gracious in its
+offerings?
+
+The old man crossed one leg over the other--slowly, stiffly. It made
+him tired and stiff now just to think of the work he had done
+between that day and this.
+
+But there was something which he had always had--that something was
+_his_ America. That had never wavered, though he soon learned
+that between it and realities were many things which were wrong and
+unfortunate. With the whole force and passion of his nature, with
+all his single mindedness--would some call it simple mindedness?--he
+threw himself into the fight against those things which were
+blurring men's vision of his America. No work, no sacrifice was too
+great, for America had enemies who called themselves friends, men
+who were striking heavy blows at that equal chance for every man.
+When he failed, it was because he did not know enough; he must work,
+he must study, he must think, in order to make more real to other
+men the America which was in his heart. He must fight for it because
+it was his.
+
+And now it seemed that the end had come; he was old, he was tired,
+he was not sure. Claus Hansen would have his land and his son would
+join hands with the things which he had spent his life in fighting.
+And far deeper and sadder and more bitter than that, he had not
+transmitted the America of his heart even to his own son. He was not
+leaving someone to fight for it in his stead, to win where he had
+failed. Fred saw in it but a place for gain. "I lived all my life
+with you to learn from failure the value of success." That was what
+he had given to his boy. Yes, that was what he had bequeathed to
+America. Could the failure, the futility of his life be more clearly
+revealed?
+
+Twice Martha had called to him, but still he sat, smoking, thinking.
+There was much to think about to-night.
+
+Finally, it was not thought, but visions. Too tired for conscious
+thinking, he gave himself up to what came--Fred's America, his
+America, the America of the dreamers--and the things which stood
+between. The America of the future---what would that America be?
+
+At the last, taking form from many things which came and went,
+shaping itself slowly, form giving place to new form, he seemed to
+see it grow. Out beyond that land Claus Hansen was to have, a long
+way off, there rose the vision of the America of the future--an
+America of realities, and yet an America of dreams; for the dreamers
+had become the realists---or was it that the realists had become
+dreamers? In the manifold forms taken on and cast aside destroying
+dualism had made way for the strength and the dignity and harmony of
+unity. He watched it as breathlessly, as yearningly, as the
+nineteen-year-old boy had watched the other America taking shape in
+the distance some forty years before. "How did you come?" he
+whispered. "What are you?"
+
+And the voice of that real America seemed to answer: "I came because
+for a long-enough time there were enough men who held me in their
+hearts. I came because there were men who never gave me up. I was
+won by men who believed that they had failed."
+
+Again there was a lump in his throat--once more an exultation
+flooded all his being. For to the old man--tired, stiff, smitten
+though he had been, there came again that same uplift which long
+before had come to the boy. Was there not here an answer to "What's
+the use?" For he would leave America as he came to it--loving it,
+believing in it. What were the work and the failure of a lifetime
+when there was something in his heart which was his? Should he say
+that he had fought in vain when he had kept it for himself? It was
+as real, as wonderful--yes as inevitable, as it had been forty years
+before. Realities had taken his land, his career, his hopes for the
+boy. But realities had not stripped him of his dream. The futility
+of the years could not harm the things which were in his heart. Even
+in America he had not lost His America.
+
+"Perhaps it is then that it is like that," he murmured, his vision
+carrying him back to the days of his broken English. "Perhaps it is
+that every man's America is in the inside of his own heart. Perhaps
+it is that it will come when it has grown big--big and very
+strong--in the hearts."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE ANARCHIST: HIS DOG
+
+
+Stubby had a route, and that was how he happened to get a dog. For the
+benefit of those who have never carried papers it should be thrown
+in that having a route means getting up just when there is really
+some fun in sleeping, lining up at the _Leader_ office--maybe
+having a scrap with the fellow who says you took his place in the
+line--getting your papers all damp from the press and starting for
+the outskirts of the city. Then you double up the paper in the
+way that will cause all possible difficulty in undoubling and hurl
+it with what force you have against the front door. It is good to
+have a route, for you at least earn your salt, so your father can't
+say _that_ any more. If he does, you know it isn't so.
+
+When you have a route, you whistle. All the fellows whistle. They
+may not feel like it, but it is the custom--as could be sworn to by
+many sleepy citizens. And as time goes on you succeed in acquiring
+the easy manner of a brigand.
+
+Stubby was little and everything about him seemed sawed off just a
+second too soon,--his nose, his fingers, and most of all, his hair.
+His head was a faithful replica of a chestnut burr. His hair did not
+lie down and take things easy. It stood up--and out!--gentle ladies
+couldn't possibly have let their hands sink into it--as we are told
+they do--for the hands just wouldn't sink. They'd have to float.
+
+And alas, gentle ladies didn't particularly want their hands to sink
+into it. There was not that about Stubby's short person to cause the
+hands of gentle ladies to move instinctively to his head. Stubby
+bristled. That is, he appeared to bristle. Inwardly, Stubby yearned,
+though he would have swung into his very best brigand manner on the
+spot were you to suggest so offensive a thing. Just to look at
+Stubby you'd never in a thousand years guess what a funny feeling he
+had sometimes when he got to the top of the hill where his route
+began and could see a long way down the river and the town curled in
+on the other side. Sometimes when the morning sun was shining
+through a mist--making things awful queer--some of the mist got into
+Stubby's squinty little eyes. After the mist behaved that way he
+always whistled so rakishly and threw his papers with such
+abandonment that people turned over in their beds and muttered
+things about having that little heathen of a paper boy shot.
+
+All along the route are dogs. Indeed, routes are distinguished by
+their dogs. Mean routes are those that have terraces and mean dogs;
+good routes--where the houses are close together and the dogs run
+out and wag their tails. Though Stubby's greater difficulty came
+through the wagging tails; he carried in a collie neighbourhood, and
+all collies seemed consumed with mighty ambitions to have routes. If
+you spoke to them--and how could you _help_ speaking to a
+collie when he came bounding out to you that way?--you had an awful
+time chasing him back, and when he got lost--and it seemed collies
+spent most of their time getting lost--the woman would put her head
+out next morning and want to know if you had coaxed her dog away.
+
+Some of the fellows had dogs that went with them on their routes.
+One day one of them asked Stubby why he didn't have a dog and he
+replied in surly fashion that he didn't have one 'cause he didn't
+want one. If he wanted one, he guessed he'd have one.
+
+And there was no one within ear-shot old enough or wise enough--or
+tender enough?--to know from the meanness of Stubby's tone, and by
+his evil scowl, that his heart was just breaking to own a dog.
+
+One day a new dog appeared along the route. He was yellow and looked
+like a cheap edition of a bull-dog. He was that kind of dog most
+accurately described by saying it is hard to describe him, the kind
+you say is just dog--and everybody knows.
+
+He tried to follow Stubby; not in the trusting, bounding manner of
+the collies--not happily, but hopingly. Stubby, true to the ethics
+of his profession, chased him back where he had come from. That
+there might be nothing whatever on his conscience, he even threw a
+stone after him. Stubby was an expert in throwing things at dogs. He
+could seem to just miss them and yet never hit them.
+
+The next day it happened again; but just as he had a clod poised for
+throwing, a window went up and a woman called: "For pity
+_sake_, little boy, don't chase him back _here_."
+
+"Why--why, ain't he yours?" called Stubby.
+
+"Mercy, _no_. We can't chase him away."
+
+"Who's is he?" demanded Stubby.
+
+"Why, he's nobody's! He just hangs around. I wish you'd coax him
+away."
+
+Well, that was a _new_ one! And then all in a heap it rushed
+over Stubby that this dog who was nobody's dog could, if he coaxed
+him away--and the woman _wanted_ him coaxed away--be his dog.
+
+And because that idea had such a strange effect on him he sang out,
+in off-hand fashion: "Oh, all right, I'll take him away and drown
+him for you!
+
+"Oh, little _boy_," called the woman, "why, don't _drown_
+him!"
+
+"Oh, all right, I'll shoot him then!" called obliging Stubby,
+whistling for the dog--while all morning long the woman grieved over
+having sent a helpless little dog away with that perfectly
+_brutal_ paper boy!
+
+Stubby's mother was washing. She looked up from her tubs on the back
+porch to say, "Wish you'd take that bucket--" then seeing what was
+slinking behind her son, straightway assumed the role of destiny
+with, "Git out o' here!"
+
+Stubby snapped his fingers behind his back as much as to say, "Wait
+a minute."
+
+"A woman gave him to me," he said to his mother.
+
+"_Gave_ him to you?" she scoffed. "I sh' think she would!"
+
+Then something happened that had not happened many times in Stubby's
+short lifetime. He acknowledged his feelings.
+
+"I'd like to keep him. I'd like to have a dog."
+
+His mother shook her hands and the flying suds seemed expressing her
+scorn. "Huh! _That_ ugly good-for-nothing thing?"
+
+The dog had edged in between Stubby's feet and crouched there. "He
+could go with me on my route," said Stubby. "He'd kind of be company
+for me."
+
+And when he had said that he knew all at once just how lonesome he
+had been sometimes on his route, how he had wanted something to
+"kind of be company" for him.
+
+His face twitched as he stooped down to pat the dog. Mrs. Lynch
+looked at her son--youngest of her five. Not the hardness of her
+heart but the hardness of her life had made her unpractised in
+moments of tenderness. Something in the way Stubby was patting the
+dog suggested to her that Stubby was a "queer one." He _was_
+kind of little to be carrying papers all by himself.
+
+Stubby looked up. "He could eat what's thrown away."
+
+That was an error in diplomacy. The woman's face hardened. "Mighty
+little'll be thrown away _this_ winter," she muttered.
+
+But just then Mrs. Johnson appeared on the other side of the fence
+and began hanging up her clothes and with that Mrs. Lynch saw her
+way to justify herself in indulging her son. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs.
+Lynch had "had words." "You just let him stay around, Stubby," she
+called, and you would have supposed from her tone it was Stubby who
+was on the other side of the fence, "maybe he'll keep the
+neighbour's chickens out! Them that ain't got chickens o' their own
+don't want to be bothered with the neighbours'!"
+
+That was how it happened that he stayed; and no one but Stubby
+knew--and possibly Stubby didn't either--how it happened that he was
+named Hero. It would seem that Hero should be a noble St. Bernard,
+or a particularly mean-looking bulldog, not a stocky, shapeless,
+squint-eyed yellow dog with one ear bitten half off and one leg
+built on an entirely different plan from its fellow legs. Possibly
+Stubby's own spiritual experiences had suggested to him that you
+weren't necessarily the way you looked.
+
+The chickens were pretty well kept out, though no one ever saw Hero
+doing any of it. Perhaps Hero had been too long associated with
+chasing to desire any part in it--even with roles reversed. If
+Stubby could help it, no one really saw Stubby doing the chasing
+either; he became skilled in chasing when he did not appear to be
+chasing; then he would get Hero to barking and turn to his mother
+with, "Guess you don't see so many chickens round nowadays."
+
+The fellows in the line jeered at Hero at first, but they soon tired
+of it when Stubby said he didn't want the cur but his mother made
+him stay around to keep the chickens out. He was a fine chicken dog,
+Stubby grudgingly admitted. He couldn't keep him from following,
+said Stubby, so he just let him come. Sometimes when they were
+waiting in line Stubby made ferocious threats at Hero. He was going
+to break his back and wring his head off and do other heartless
+things which for some reason he never started in right then and
+there to accomplish.
+
+It was different when they were alone--and they were alone a good
+deal. Stubby's route wasn't nearly so long after he had Hero to go
+with him. When winter came and five o'clock was dark and cold for
+starting out it was pretty good to have Hero trotting at his heels.
+And Hero always wanted to go; it was never so rainy nor so cold that
+that yellow dog seemed to think he would rather stay home by the
+fire. Then Hero was always waiting for him when he came home from
+school. Stubby would sing out, "Hello, cur!" and the tone was such
+that Hero did not grasp that he was being insulted. Sometimes when
+there was nobody about, Stubby picked Hero up in his arms and
+squeezed him--Stubby had not had a large experience with squeezing.
+At those times Hero would lick Stubby's face and whimper a little
+love whimper and such were the workings of Stubby's heart and mind
+that that made him of quite as much account as if he really had
+chased the chickens. Stubby, who had seen the way dogs can look at
+you out of their eyes, was not one to say of a dog, "What good is
+he?"
+
+But it seemed there were such people. There were even people who
+thought you oughtn't to have a dog to love and to love you if you
+weren't one of those rich people who could pay two dollars and a
+half a year for the luxury.
+
+Stubby first heard of those people one night in June. The father of
+the Lynch family was sitting in the back yard reading the paper when
+Hero and Stubby came running in from the alley. It was one of those
+moments when Hero, forgetting the bleakness of his youth, abandoned
+himself to the joy of living. He was tearing round and round Stubby,
+barking, when Stubby's father called out: "Here!--shut up there, you
+cur. You better lie low. You're going to be shot the first of
+August."
+
+Stubby, and as regards the joy of living Hero had done as much for
+Stubby as Stubby for Hero, came to a halt. The fun and frolic just
+died right out of him and he stood there staring at his father, who
+had turned the page and was settling himself to a new horror. At
+last Stubby spoke. "Why's he going to be shot on the first of
+August?" he asked in a tight little voice.
+
+His father looked up. "Why's he going to be shot? You got any two
+dollars and a half to pay for him?"
+
+He laughed as though that were a joke. Well, it was something of a
+joke. Stubby got ten cents a week out of his paper money. The rest
+he "turned in."
+
+Then he went back to his paper. There was another long pause before
+Stubby asked, in that tight queer little voice: "What'd I have to
+pay two dollars and a half for? Nobody owns him."
+
+His parent stirred scornfully. "Suppose you never heard of a dog
+tax, did you? S'pose they don't learn you nothing like that at
+school?"
+
+Yes, Stubby did know that dogs had to have checks, but he hadn't
+thought anything about that in connection with Hero. He ventured
+another question. "You have to have 'em for all dogs, even if you
+just picked 'em up on the street and took care of 'em when nobody
+else would?"
+
+"You bet you do," his parent assured him genially. "You pay your dog
+tax or the policeman comes on the first of August and shoots your
+dog."
+
+With that he dismissed it for good, burying himself in his paper.
+For a minute the boy stood there in silence. Then he walked slowly
+round the house and sat down where his father couldn't see him. Hero
+followed--it was a way Hero had. The dog sat down beside the boy and
+after a couple of minutes the boy's arm stole furtively around him
+and they sat there very still for a long time.
+
+As nobody but Hero paid much attention to him, nobody save Hero
+noticed how quiet and queer Stubby was for the next three days. Hero
+must have noticed it, for he was quiet and queer too. He followed
+wherever Stubby would let him, and every time he got a chance he
+would nestle up to him and look into his face--that way even cur
+dogs have of doing when they fear something is wrong.
+
+At the end of three days Stubby, his little freckled face set and
+grim, took his stand in front of his father and came right out with:
+"I want to keep one week's paper money to pay Hero's tax."
+
+His father's chair had been tilted back against a tree. Now it came
+down with a thud. "Oh, you _do_, do you?"
+
+"I can earn the other fifty cents at little jobs."
+
+"You _can_, can you? Now ain't you smart!"
+
+The tone brought the blood to Stubby's face. "I think I got a right
+to," he said, his voice low.
+
+The man's face, which had been taunting, grew ugly. "Look a-here,
+young man, none o' your lip!"
+
+The tears rushed to Stubby's eyes but he stumbled on: "I guess
+Hero's got a right to some of my paper money when he goes with me
+every day on my route."
+
+At that his father stared for a minute and then burst into a loud
+laugh. Blinded with tears, the boy turned to the house.
+
+After she had gone to bed that night Stubby's mother heard a sound
+from the alcove at the head of the stairs where her youngest child
+slept. As the sound kept on she got out of her bed and went to
+Stubby's cot.
+
+"Look here," she said, awkwardly but not unkindly, "this won't do.
+We're poor folks, Freddie" (it was only once in a while she called
+him that), "all we can do to live these times--we can't pay no dog
+tax."
+
+As Stubby did not speak she added: "I know you've taken to the dog,
+but just the same you ain't to feel hard to your pa. He can't help
+it--and neither can I. Things is as they is--and nobody can help
+it."
+
+As, despite this bit of philosophy Stubby was still gulping back
+sobs, she added what she thought a master stroke in consolation.
+"Now you just go right to sleep, and if they come to take this dog
+away maybe you can pick up another one in the fall."
+
+The sobs suddenly stopped and Stubby stared at her. And what he said
+after a long stare was: "I guess there ain't no use in you and me
+talking about it."
+
+"That's right," said she, relieved; "now you go right off to sleep."
+And she left him, never dreaming why Stubby had seen there was no
+use talking about it.
+
+Nor did he talk about it; but a change came over Stubby's funny
+little person in the next few days. The change was particularly
+concerned with his jaw, though there was something different, too,
+in the light in his eyes as he looked straight ahead, and something
+different in his voice when he said: "Come on, Hero."
+
+He got so he could walk into a store and demand, in a hard little
+voice: "Want a boy to do anything for you?" and when they said, "Got
+more boys than we know what to do with, sonny," Stubby would say,
+"All right," and stalk sturdily out again. Sometimes they laughed
+and said: "What could _you_ do?" and then Stubby would stalk
+out, but possibly a little less sturdily.
+
+Vacation came the next week, and still he had found nothing. His
+father, however, had been more successful. He found a place where
+they wanted a boy to work in a yard a couple of hours in the
+morning. For that Stubby was to get a dollar and a half a week. But
+that was to be turned in for his "keep." There were lots of mouths
+to feed--as Stubby's mother was always calling to her neighbour
+across the alley.
+
+But the yard gave Stubby an idea, and he earned some dimes and one
+quarter in the next week. Most folks thought he was too little--one
+kind lady told him he ought to be playing, not working--but there
+were people who would let him take a big shears and cut grass around
+flower beds, and things like that. This he had to do afternoons,
+when he was supposed to be off playing, and when he came home his
+mother sometimes said some folks had it easy--playing around all
+day.
+
+It was now the first week in July and Stubby had a dollar and twenty
+cents. It was getting to the point where he would wake in the night
+and find himself sitting up in bed, hands clenched. He dreamed
+dreams about how folks would let him live if he had ninety-nine
+cents but how he only had ninety-seven and a half, so they were
+going to shoot him.
+
+Then one day he found Mr. Stuart. He was passing the house after
+having asked three people if they wanted a boy, and they didn't, and
+seemed so surprised at the idea of their wanting him that Stubby's
+throat was all tight, when Mr. Stuart sang out: "Say, boy, want a
+little job?"
+
+It seemed at first it must be a joke--or a dream--anybody asking him
+if he _wanted_ one, but the man was beckoning to him, so he
+pulled himself together and ran up the steps.
+
+"Now here's a little package"--he took something out of the mail
+box. "It doesn't belong here. It's to go to three-hundred-two
+Pleasant street. You take it for a dime?"
+
+Stubby nodded.
+
+As he was going down the steps the man called: "Say, boy, how'd you
+like a steady job?"
+
+For the first minute it seemed pretty mean--making fun of a fellow
+that way!
+
+"This will be here every day. Suppose you come each day, about this
+time, and take it over there--not mentioning it to anybody."
+
+Stubby felt weak. "Why, all right," he managed to say.
+
+"I'll give you fifty cents a week. That fair?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Stubby, doing some quick calculation.
+
+"Then here goes for the first week"--and he handed him the other
+forty cents.
+
+It was funny how fast the world could change! Stubby wanted to
+run--he hadn't been doing much running of late. He wanted to go home
+and get Hero to go with him to Pleasant street, but didn't. No,
+_sir_, when you had a job you had to 'tend to things!
+
+Well, a person could do things, if he had to, thought Stubby. No use
+saying you couldn't, you _could_, if you had to. He was back in
+tune with life. He whistled; he turned up his collar in the old
+rakish way; he threw a stick at a cat. Back home he jumped over the
+fence instead of going in the gate--lately he had actually been
+using the gate. And he cried, "Get out of my sight, you cur!" in
+tones which, as Hero understood things, meant anything but getting
+out of his sight.
+
+He was a little boy again. He slept at night as little boys sleep.
+He played with Hero along the route--taught him some new tricks. His
+jaw relaxed from its grown-upishness.
+
+It was funny about those Stuarts. Sometimes he saw Mr. Stuart, but
+never anybody else; the place seemed shut up. But each day the
+little package was there, and every day he took it to Pleasant
+street and left it at the door there--that place seemed shut up,
+too.
+
+When it was well into the second week Stubby ventured to say
+something about the next fifty cents.
+
+The man fumbled in his pockets. Something in his face was familiar
+to experienced Stubby. It suggested a having to have two dollars and
+a half by August first and only having a dollar and a quarter state
+of mind.
+
+"I haven't got the change. Pay you at the end of next week for the
+whole business. That all right?"
+
+Stubby considered. "I've got to have it before the first of August,"
+he said.
+
+At that the man laughed--funny kind of laugh, it was, and muttered
+something. But he told Stubby he would have it before the first.
+
+It bothered Stubby. He wished the man had given it to him
+_then_. He would rather get it each week and keep it himself. A
+little of the grown-up look stole back.
+
+After that he didn't see Mr. Stuart, and one day, a week or so
+later, the package was not in the box and a man who wore the kind of
+clothes Stubby's father wore came around the house and asked him
+what he was doing.
+
+Stubby was wary. "Oh, I've got a little job I do for Mr. Stuart."
+
+The man laughed. "I had a little job I did for Mr. Stuart, too. You
+paid in advance?"
+
+Stubby pricked up his ears.
+
+"'Cause if you ain't, I'd advise you to look out for a little job
+some'eres else."
+
+Then it came out. Mr. Stuart was broke; more than that, he was "off
+his nut." Lots of people were doing little jobs for him--there was
+no sense in any of them, and now he had suddenly been called out of
+town!
+
+There was a trembly feeling through Stubby's insides, but outwardly
+he was bristling just like his hair bristled as he demanded: "Where
+am I to get what's coming to me?"
+
+"'Fraid you won't get it, sonny. We're all in the same boat." He
+looked Stubby up and down and then added: "Kind of little for that
+boat."
+
+"I _got_ to have it!" cried Stubby. "I tell you, I _got_
+to!"
+
+The man shook his head. "_That_ cuts no ice. Hard luck, sonny,
+but we've got to take our medicine in this world. 'Taint no medicine
+for kids, though," he muttered.
+
+Stubby's face just then was too much for him. He put his hand in his
+pocket and drew out a dime, saying: "There now. You run along and
+get you a soda and forget your troubles. It ain't always like this.
+You'll have better luck next time."
+
+But Stubby did not get the soda. He put the dime in his pocket and
+turned toward home. Something was the matter with his legs--they
+acted funny about carrying him. He tried to whistle, but something
+was the matter with his lips, too.
+
+Counting this dime, he now had a dollar and eighty cents, and it was
+the twenty-eighth day of July. "Thirty days has September--April,
+June and November--" he was saying to himself. Then July was one of
+the long ones. Well, _that_ was a good thing! Been a great deal
+worse if July was a short one. Again he tried to whistle, and that
+time did manage to pipe out a few shrill little notes.
+
+When Hero came running up the hill to meet him he slapped him on the
+back and cried, "Hello, Hero!" in tones fairly swaggering with
+bravado.
+
+That night he engaged his father in conversation--the phrase is well
+adapted to the way Stubby went about it. "How is it about--'bout
+things like taxes"--Stubby crossed his knees and swung one foot to
+show his indifference--"if you have _almost_ enough--do they
+sometimes let you off?"--the detachment was a shade less perfect on
+that last.
+
+His father laughed scoffingly. "Well, I guess _not!_"
+
+"I thought maybe," said Stubby, "if a person had _tried_ awful
+hard--and had _most_ enough--"
+
+Something inside him was all shaky, so he didn't go on. His father
+said that _trying_ didn't have anything to do with it.
+
+It was hard for Stubby not to sob out that he thought trying
+_ought_ to have something to do with it, but he only made a
+hissing noise between his teeth that took the place of the whistle
+that wouldn't come.
+
+"Kind of seems," he resumed, "if a person would have had enough if
+they hadn't been beat out of it, maybe--if he done the best he
+could--"
+
+His father snorted derisively and informed him that doing the best
+you could made no difference to the government; hard luck stories
+didn't go when it came to the laws of the land.
+
+Thereupon Stubby took a little walk out to the alley and spent a
+considerable time in contemplation of the neighbour's chicken-yard.
+When he came back he walked right up to his father and standing
+there, feet planted, shoulders squared, wanted to know, in a
+desperate little voice: "If some one else was to give--say a dollar
+and eighty cents for Hero, could I take the other seventy out of my
+paper money?"
+
+The man turned upon him roughly. "Uh-_huh_! _That's_ it,
+is it? _That's_ why you're getting so smart all of a sudden
+about government! Look a-here. Just l'me tell you something. You're
+lucky if you git enough to _eat_ this winter. Do you know
+there's talk of the factory shuttin' down? _Dog_ tax! Why
+you're lucky if you git _shoes_."
+
+Stubby had turned away and was standing with his back to his father,
+hands in his pockets.
+
+"And l'me tell you some'en else, young man. If you got any dollar
+and eighty cents, you give it to your mother!"
+
+As Stubby was turning the corner of the house he called after him:
+"How'd you like to have me get you an automobile?"
+
+He went doggedly from house to house the next afternoon, but nobody
+had any jobs. When Hero came running out to him that night he patted
+him, but didn't speak.
+
+That evening as they were sitting in the back yard--Stubby and Hero
+a little apart from the others--his father was discoursing with his
+brother about anarchists. They were getting commoner, his father
+thought. There were a good many of them at the shop. They didn't
+call themselves that, but that was what they were.
+
+"Well, what is an anarchist, anyhow?" Stubby's mother wanted to
+know.
+
+"Why, an anarchist," her lord informed her, "is one that's against
+the government. He don't believe in the law and order. The real bad
+anarchists shoot them that tries to enforce the laws of the land.
+Guess if you'd read the papers these days you'd know."
+
+Stubby's brain had been going round and round and these words caught
+in it as it whirled. The government--the laws of the land--why, it
+was the government and the laws of the land that were going to shoot
+Hero! It was the government--the laws of the land--that didn't care
+how hard you had _tried_--didn't care whether you had been
+cheated--didn't care how you _felt_--didn't care about anything
+except getting the money! His brain got hotter. Well, _he_
+didn't believe in the government, either. He was one of those
+people--those anarchists--that were against the laws of the land.
+
+He'd done the very best he could and now the government was going
+to take Hero away from him just because he couldn't get--_couldn't_
+get--that other seventy cents.
+
+Stubby's mother didn't hear her son crying that night. That was
+because Stubby was successful in holding the pillow over his head.
+
+The next morning he looked in one of the papers he was carrying to
+see what it said about anarchists. Sure enough, some place way off
+somewhere, the anarchists had shot somebody that was trying to
+enforce the laws of the land. The laws of the land--that didn't
+_care_.
+
+That afternoon as Stubby tramped around looking for jobs he saw a
+good many boys playing with dogs. None of them seemed to be worrying
+about whether their dogs had checks. To Stubby's hot little brain
+and sore little heart came the thought that they didn't love their
+dogs any more than he loved Hero, either. But the government didn't
+care whether he loved Hero or not! Pooh!--what was that to the
+government? All it cared about was getting the money. He stood for a
+long time watching a boy giving his dog a bath. The dog was trying
+to get away and the boy and another boy were having lots of fun
+about it. All of a sudden Stubby turned and ran away--ran down an
+alley, ran through a number of alleys, just kept on running, blinded
+by the tears.
+
+And that night, in the middle of the night, that something in his
+head going round and round, getting hotter and hotter, he decided
+that the only thing for him to do was to shoot the policeman who
+came to take Hero away on the morning of August first--that would be
+day after to-morrow.
+
+All night long policemen with revolvers stood around his bed. When
+his mother called him at half-past four he was shaking so he could
+scarcely get into his clothes.
+
+On his way home from his route Stubby had to pass a police-station.
+He went on the other side of the street and stood there looking
+across. One of the policemen was playing with a dog!
+
+Suddenly he wanted to rush over and throw himself down at that
+policeman's feet--sob out the story--ask him to please,
+_please_ wait till he could get that other seventy cents.
+
+But just then the policeman got up and went in the station, and
+Stubby was afraid to go in the police-station.
+
+That policeman complicated things for Stubby. Before that it had
+been quite simple. The policeman would come to enforce the law of
+the land; but he did not believe in the law of the land, so he would
+just kill the policeman. But it seemed a policeman wasn't just a
+person who enforced the laws of the land. He was also a person who
+played with a dog.
+
+After a whole day of walking around thinking about it--his eyes
+burning, his heart pounding--he decided that the thing to do was to
+warn the policeman by writing a letter. He did not know whether real
+anarchists warned them or not, but Stubby couldn't get reconciled to
+the idea of killing a person without telling him you were going to
+do it. It seemed that even a policeman should be told--especially a
+policeman who played with a dog.
+
+The following letter was pencilled by a shaking hand, late that
+afternoon. It was written upon a barrel in the Lynch wood-shed, on a
+piece of wrapping paper, a bristly little head bending over it:
+
+To the Policeman who comes to take my dog 'cause I ain't got the two
+fifty--'cause I tried but could only get one eighty--'cause a man
+was off his nut and didn't pay me what I earned--
+
+This is to tell you I am an anarchist and do not believe in the
+government or the law and the order and will shoot you when you
+come. I wouldn't a been an anarchist if I could a got the money and
+I tried to get it but I couldn't get it--not enough. I don't think
+the government had ought to take things you like like I like Hero so
+I am against the government.
+
+Thought I would tell you first.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+F. LYNCH.
+
+I don't see how I can shoot you 'cause where would I get the
+revolver. So I will have to do it with the butcher knife. Folks are
+sometimes killed that way 'cause my father read it in the paper.
+
+If you wanted to take the one eighty and leave Hero till I can get
+the seventy I will not do anything to you and would be very much
+obliged.
+
+1113 Willow street.
+
+The letter was properly addressed and sealed--not for nothing had
+Stubby's teacher given those instructions in the art of letter
+writing. The stamp he paid for out of the dime the man gave him to
+get a soda with--and forget his troubles.
+
+Now Bill O'Brien was on the desk at the police-station and Miss
+Murphy of the Herald stood in with Bill. That was how it came about
+that the next morning a fat policeman, an eager-looking girl and a
+young fellow with a kodak descended into the hollow to 1113 Willow
+street.
+
+A little boy peeped around the corner of the house--such a
+wild-looking little boy--hair all standing up and eyes glittering. A
+yellow dog ran out and barked. The boy darted out and grabbed the
+dog in his arms and in that moment the girl called to the man with
+the black box: "Right now! Quick! Get him!"
+
+They were getting ready to shoot Hero! That box was the way the
+police did it! He must--oh, he _must--must_ ... Boy and dog
+sank to the ground--but just the same the boy was shielding the dog!
+
+When Stubby had pulled himself together the policeman was holding
+Hero. He said that Hero was certainly a fine dog--he had a dog a
+good deal like him at home. And Miss Murphy--she was choking back
+sobs herself--knew how he could earn the seventy cents that
+afternoon.
+
+In such wise do a good anarchist and a good story go down under the
+same blow. Some of those sobs Miss Murphy choked back got into what
+she wrote about Stubby and his yellow dog and the next day citizens
+with no sense of the dramatic sent money enough to check Hero
+through life.
+
+At first Stubby's father said he had a good mind to lick him. But
+something in the quality of Miss Murphy's journalism left a hazy
+feeling of there being something remarkable about his son. He
+confided to his good wife that it wouldn't surprise him much if
+Stubby was some day President. Somebody had to be President, said
+he, and he had noticed it was generally those who in their youthful
+days did things that made lively reading in the newspapers.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+AT TWILIGHT
+
+
+A breeze from the May world without blew through the class-room, and
+as it lifted his papers he had a curious sense of freshness and
+mustiness meeting. He looked at the group of students before him,
+half smiling at the way the breath of spring was teasing the hair of
+the girls sitting by the window. Anna Lawrence was trying to pin
+hers back again, but May would have none of such decorum, and only
+waited long enough for her to finish her work before joyously
+undoing it. She caught the laughing, admiring eyes of a boy sitting
+across from her and sought to conceal her pleasure in her
+unmanageable wealth of hair by a wry little face, and then the eyes
+of both strayed out to the trees that had scented that breeze for
+them, looking with frank longing at the campus which stretched
+before them in all its May glory that sunny afternoon. He remembered
+having met this boy and girl strolling in the twilight the evening
+before, and as a buoyant breeze that instant swept his own face he
+had a sudden, irrelevant consciousness of being seventy-three years
+old.
+
+Other eyes were straying to the trees and birds and lilacs of that
+world from which the class-room was for the hour shutting them out.
+He was used to it--that straying of young eyes in the spring. For
+more than forty years he had sat at that desk and talked to young
+men and women about philosophy, and in those forty years there had
+always been straying eyes in May. The children of some of those boys
+and girls had in time come to him, and now there were other children
+who, before many years went by, might be sitting upon those benches,
+listening to lectures upon what men had thought about life, while
+their eyes strayed out where life called. So it went on--May,
+perhaps, the philosopher triumphant.
+
+As, with a considerable effort--for the languor of spring, or some
+other languor, was upon him too--he brought himself back to the
+papers they had handed in, he found himself thinking of those first
+boys and girls, now men and women, and parents of other boys and
+girls. He hoped that philosophy had, after all, done something more
+than shut them out from May. He had always tried, not so much to
+instruct them in what men had thought, as to teach them to think,
+and perhaps now, when May had become a time for them to watch the
+straying of other eyes, they were the less desolate because of the
+habits he had helped them to form. He wanted to think that he had
+done something more than hold them prisoners.
+
+There was a sadness to-day in his sympathy. He was tired. It was
+hard to go back to what he had been saying about the different
+things the world's philosophers had believed about the immortality
+of the soul. So, as often when his feeling for his thought dragged,
+he turned to Gretta Loring. She seldom failed to bring a revival of
+interest--a freshening. She was his favourite student. He did not
+believe that in all the years there had been any student who had not
+only pleased, but helped him as she did.
+
+He had taught her father and mother. And now there was Gretta,
+clear-eyed and steady of gaze, asking more of life than either of
+them had asked; asking, not only May, but what May meant. For Gretta
+there need be no duality. She was one of those rare ones for whom
+the meaning of life opened new springs to the joy of life, for whom
+life intensified with the understanding of it. He never said a thing
+that gratified him as reaching toward the things not easy to say but
+that he would find Gretta's face illumined--and always that eager
+little leaning ahead for more.
+
+She had that look of waiting now, but to-day it seemed less an
+expectant than a troubled look. She wanted him to go on with what he
+had been saying about the immortality of the soul. But it was not so
+much a demand upon him--he had come to rely upon those demands, as
+it was--he had an odd, altogether absurd sense of its being a fear
+for him. She looked uncomfortable, fretted; and suddenly he was
+startled to see her searching eyes blurred by something that must be
+tears.
+
+She turned away, and for just a minute it seemed to leave him alone
+and helpless. He rubbed his forehead with his hand. It felt hot. It
+got that way sometimes lately when he was tired. And the close of
+that hour often found him tired.
+
+He believed he knew what she wanted. She would have him declare his
+own belief. In the youthful flush of her modernism she was impatient
+with that fumbling around with what other men had thought. Despising
+the muddled thinking of some of her classmates, she would have him
+put it right to them with "As for yourself--"
+
+He tried to formulate what he would care to say. But, perhaps just
+because he was too tired to say it right, the life the robin in the
+nearest tree was that moment celebrating in song seemed more
+important than anything he had to say about his own feeling toward
+the things men had thought about the human soul.
+
+It was ten minutes before closing time, but suddenly he turned to
+his class with: "Go out-of-doors and think about it. This is no day
+to sit within and talk of philosophy. What men have thought about
+life in the past is less important than what you feel about it
+to-day." He paused, then added, he could not have said why, "And
+don't let the shadow of either belief or unbelief fall across the
+days that are here for you now." Again he stopped, then surprised
+himself by ending, "Philosophy should quicken life, not deaden it."
+
+They were not slow in going, their astonishment in his wanting them
+to go quickly engulfed in their pleasure in doing so. It was only
+Gretta who lingered a moment, seeming too held by his manner in
+sending her out into the sunshine to care about going there. He
+thought she was going to come to the desk and speak to him. He was
+sure she wanted to. But at the last she went hastily, and he
+thought, just before she turned her face away, that it was a tear he
+saw on her lashes.
+
+Strange! Was she unhappy, she through whom life surged so richly?
+And yet was it not true, that where it gave much it exacted much?
+Feeling much, and understanding what she felt, and feeling for what
+she understood--must she also suffer much? Must one always pay?
+
+He sighed, and began gathering together his papers. Thoughts about
+life tired him to-day.
+
+On the steps he paused, unreasonably enough a little saddened as he
+watched some of them beginning a tennis game. Certainly they were
+losing no time--eager to let go thoughts about life for its
+pleasures, very few of them awake to that rich life he had tried to
+make them ready for. He drooped still more wearily at the thought
+that perhaps the most real gift he had for them was that unexpected
+ten minutes.
+
+Remembering a book he must have from the library, he turned back. He
+went to the alcove where the works on philosophy were to be found,
+and was reaching up for the volume he wanted, when a sentence from a
+lowly murmured conversation in the next aisle came to him across the
+stack of books.
+
+"That's all very well; we know, of course, that he doesn't believe,
+but what will he do when it comes to _himself?_"
+
+It arrested him, coming as it did from one of the girls who had just
+left his class-room. He stood there motionless, his hand still
+reaching up for the book.
+
+"Do? Why, face it, of course. Face it as squarely as he's faced
+every other fact of life."
+
+That was Gretta, and though, mindful of the library mandate for
+silence, her tone was low, it was vibrant with a fine scorn.
+
+"Well," said the first speaker, "I guess he'll have to face it
+before very long."
+
+That was not answered; there was a movement on the other side of the
+barricade of books--it might have been that Gretta had turned away.
+His hand dropped down from the high shelf. He was leaning against
+the books.
+
+"Haven't you noticed, Gretta, how he's losing his grip?"
+
+At that his head went up sharply; he stood altogether tense as he
+waited for Gretta to set the other girl right--Gretta, so
+sure-seeing, so much wiser and truer than the rest of them. Gretta
+would _laugh!_
+
+But she did not laugh. And what his strained ear caught at last
+was--not her scornful denial, but a little gasp of breath suggesting
+a sob.
+
+"_Noticed_ it? Why it breaks my heart!"
+
+He stared at the books through which her low, passionate voice had
+carried. Then he sank to the chair that fortunately was beside him.
+Power for standing had gone from him.
+
+"Father says--father's on the board, you know" (it was the first
+girl who spoke)--"that they don't know what to do about it. It's not
+justice to the school to let him begin another year. These things
+are arranged with less embarrassment in the big schools, where a man
+begins emeritus at a certain time. Though of course they'll pension
+him--he's done a lot for the school."
+
+He thanked Gretta for her little laugh of disdain. The memory of it
+was more comforting--more satisfying--than any attempt to put it
+into words could have been.
+
+He heard them move away, their skirts brushing the book-stacks in
+passing. A little later he saw them out in the sunshine on the
+campus. Gretta joined one of the boys for a game of tennis.
+Motionless, he sat looking out at her. She looked so very young as
+she played.
+
+For an hour he remained at the table in the alcove where he had
+overheard what his students had to say of him. And when the hour had
+gone by he took up the pen which was there upon the study table and
+wrote his resignation to the secretary of the board of trustees. It
+was very brief--simply that he felt the time had come when a younger
+man could do more for the school than he, and that he should like
+his resignation to take effect at the close of the present school
+year. He had an envelope, and sealed and stamped the letter--ready
+to drop in the box in front of the building as he left. He had
+always served the school as best he could; he lost no time now, once
+convinced, in rendering to it the last service he could offer
+it--that of making way for the younger man.
+
+Looking things squarely in the face, and it was the habit of a
+lifetime to look things squarely in the face, he had not been long
+in seeing that they were right. Things tired him now as they had not
+once tired him. He had less zest at the beginning of the hour, more
+relief at the close of it. He seemed stupid in not having seen it
+for himself, but possibly many people were a little stupid in seeing
+that their own time was over. Of course he had thought, in a vague
+way, that his working time couldn't be much longer, but it seemed
+part of the way human beings managed with themselves that things in
+even the very near future kept the remoteness of future things.
+
+Now he understood Gretta's troubled look and her tears. He knew how
+those fine nerves of hers must have suffered, how her own mind had
+wanted to leap to the aid of his, how her own strength must have
+tormented her in not being able to reach his flagging powers. It
+seemed part of the whole hardness of life that she who would care
+the most would be the one to see it most understandingly.
+
+What he was trying to do was to see it all very simply, in
+matter-of-fact fashion, that there might be no bitterness and the
+least of tragedy. It was nothing unique in human history he was
+facing. One did one's work; then, when through, one stopped. He
+tried to feel that it was as simple as it sounded, but he wondered
+if back of many of those brief letters of resignation that came at
+quitting-time there was the hurt, the desolation, that there was no
+use denying to himself was back of his.
+
+He hoped that most men had more to turn to. Most men of
+seventy-three had grandchildren. That would help, surrounding one
+with a feeling of the naturalness of it all. But that school had
+been his only child. And he had loved it with the tenderness one
+gives a child. That in him which would have gone to the child had
+gone to the school.
+
+The woman whom he loved had not loved him; he had never married. His
+life had been called lonely; but lonely though it undeniably had
+been, the life he won from books and work and thinking had kept the
+chill from his heart. He had the gift of drawing life from all
+contact with life. Working with youth, he kept that feeling for
+youth that does for the life within what sunshine and fresh air do
+for the room in which one dwells.
+
+It was now that the loneliness that blights seemed waiting for
+him.... Life _used_ one--and that in the ugly, not the noble sense
+of being used. Stripped of the fine fancies men wove around it, what
+was it beyond just a matter of being sucked dry and then thrown
+aside? Why not admit that, and then face it? And the abundance with
+which one might have given--the joy in the giving--had no bearing
+upon the fact that it came at last to that question of getting one
+out of the way. It was no one's unkindness; it was just that life
+was like that. Indeed, the bitterness festered around the thought
+that it _was_ life itself--the way of life--not the brutality
+of any particular people. "They'll pension him--he's done a lot for
+the school." Even the grateful memory of Gretta's tremulous,
+scoffing little laugh for the way it fell short could not follow to
+the deep place that had been hurt.
+
+Getting himself in hand again, and trying to face this as simply and
+honestly as he had sought to face the other, he knew that it was
+true he had done a great deal for the school. He did not believe it
+too much to say he had done more for it than any other man.
+Certainly more than any other man he had given it what place it had
+with men who thought. He had come to it in his early manhood, and at
+a time when the school was in its infancy--just a crude, struggling
+little Western college. Gretta Loring's grandfather had been one of
+its founders--founding it in revolt against the cramping
+sectarianism of another college. He had gloried in the spirit which
+gave it birth, and it was he who, through the encroachings of
+problems of administration and the ensnarements and entanglements of
+practicality, had fought to keep unattached and unfettered that
+spirit of freedom in the service of truth.
+
+His own voice had been heard and recognised, and a number of times
+during the years calls had come from more important institutions,
+but he had not cared to go. For year by year there deepened that
+personal love for the little college to which he had given the
+youthful ardour of his own intellectual passion. All his life's
+habits were one with it. His days seemed beaten into the path that
+cut across the campus. The vines that season after season went a
+little higher on the wall out there indicated his strivings by their
+own, and the generation that had worn down even the stones of those
+front steps had furrowed his forehead and stooped his shoulders. He
+had grown old along with it! His days were twined around it. It was
+the place of his efforts and satisfactions (joys perhaps he should
+not call them), of his falterings and his hopes. He loved it because
+he had given himself to it; loved it because he had helped to bring
+it up. On the shelves all around him were books which it had been
+his pleasure--because during some of those hard years they were to
+be had in no other way--to order himself and pay for from his own
+almost ludicrously meagre salary. He remembered the excitement there
+always was in getting them fresh from the publisher and bringing
+them over there in his arms; the satisfaction in coming in next day
+and finding them on the shelves. Such had been his dissipations, his
+indulgences of self. Many things came back to him as he sat there
+going back over busy years, the works on philosophy looking down
+upon him, the shadows of that spring afternoon gathering around him.
+He looked like a very old man indeed as he at last reached out for
+the letter he had written to the trustees, relieving them of their
+embarrassment.
+
+Twilight had come on. On the front steps he paused and looked around
+the campus. It was growing dark in that lingering way it has in the
+spring--daylight creeping away under protest, night coming gently,
+as if it knew that the world having been so pleasant, day would be
+loath to go. The boys and girls were going back and forth upon the
+campus and the streets. They could not bear to go within. For more
+than forty years it had been like that. It would be like that for
+many times forty years--indeed, until the end of the world, for it
+would be the end of the world when it was not like that. He was glad
+that they were out in the twilight, not indoors trying to gain from
+books something of the meaning of life. That course had its
+satisfactions along the way, but it was surely no port of peace to
+which it bore one at the last.
+
+He shrunk from going home. There were so many readjustments he must
+make, once home. So, lingering, he saw that off among the trees a
+girl was sitting alone. She threw back her head in a certain way
+just then, and he knew by the gesture that it was Gretta Loring. He
+wondered what she was thinking about. What did one who thought think
+about--over there on the other side of life? Youth and age looked at
+life from opposite sides. Then they could not see it alike, for what
+one saw in life seemed to depend so entirely upon how the light was
+falling from where one stood.
+
+He could not have said just what it was made him cross the campus
+toward her. Part of it was the desire for human sympathy--one thing,
+at least, which age did not deaden. But that was not the whole of
+it, nor the deepest thing in it. It was an urge of the spirit to
+find and keep for itself a place where the light was falling
+backward upon life.
+
+She was quiet in her greeting, and gentle. Her cheeks were still
+flushed, her hair tumbled from her game, but her eyes were
+thoughtful and, he thought, sad. He felt that the sadness was
+because of him; of him and the things of which he made her think. He
+knew of her affection for him, the warmth there was in her
+admiration of the things for which he had fought. He had discovered
+that it hurt her now that others should be seeing and not he, pained
+her to watch so sorry a thing as his falling below himself, wounded
+both pride and heart that men whom she would doubtless say had never
+appreciated him were whispering among themselves about how to get
+rid of him. Why, the poor child might even be tormenting herself
+with the idea she ought to tell him!
+
+That was why he told her. He pointed to the address on the envelope,
+saying: "That carries my resignation, Gretta."
+
+Her start and the tears which rushed to her eyes told him he was
+right about her feeling. She did not seem able to say anything. Her
+chin was trembling.
+
+"I see that the time has come," he said, "when a younger man can do
+more for the school than I can hope to do for it."
+
+Still she said nothing at all, but her eyes were deepening and she
+had that very steadfast, almost inspired look that had so many times
+quickened him in the class-room.
+
+She was not going to deny it! She was not going to pretend!
+
+After the first feeling of not having got something needed he rose
+to her high ground--ground she had taken it for granted he would
+take.
+
+"And will you believe it, Gretta," he said, rising to that ground
+and there asking, not for the sympathy that bends down, but for a
+hand in passing, "there comes a hard hour when first one feels the
+time has come to step aside and be replaced by that younger man?"
+
+She nodded. "It must be," she said, simply; "it must be very much
+harder than any of us can know till we come to it."
+
+She brought him a sense of his advantage in experience--his riches.
+To be sure, there was that.
+
+And he was oddly comforted by the honesty in her which could not
+stoop to dishonest comforting. In what superficially might seem her
+failure there was a very real victory for them both. And there was
+nothing of coldness in her reserve! There was the fulness of
+understanding, and of valuing the moments too highly for anything
+there was to be said about it. There was a great spiritual dignity,
+a nobility, in the way she was looking at him. It called upon the
+whole of his own spiritual dignity. It was her old demand upon him,
+but this time the tears through which her eyes shone were tears of
+pride in fulfilment, not of sorrowing for failure.
+
+Suddenly he felt that his life had not been spent in vain, that the
+lives of all those men of his day who had fought the good fight for
+intellectual honesty--spiritual dignity--had not been spent in vain
+if they were leaving upon the earth even a few who were like the
+girl beside them.
+
+It turned him from himself to her. She was what counted--for she was
+what remained. And he remained in just the measure that he remained
+through her; counted in so far as he counted for her. It was as if
+he had been facing in the wrong direction and now a kindly hand had
+turned him around. It was not in looking back there he would find
+himself. He was not back there to be found. Only so much of him
+lived as had been able to wing itself ahead--on in the direction she
+was moving.
+
+It did not particularly surprise him that when she at last spoke it
+was to voice a shade of that same feeling. "I was thinking," she
+began, "of that younger man. Of what he must mean to the man who
+gives way to him."
+
+She was feeling her way as she went--groping among the many dim
+things that were there. He had always liked to watch her face when
+she was thinking her way step by step.
+
+"I think you used a word wrongly a minute ago," she said, with a
+smile. "You spoke of being replaced. But that isn't it. A man like
+you isn't replaced; he's"--she got it after a minute and came forth
+with it triumphantly--"fulfilled!"
+
+Her face was shining as she turned to him after that. "Don't you
+see? He's there waiting to take your place because you got him
+ready. Why, you made that younger man! Your whole life has been a
+getting ready for him. He can do his work be cause you first did
+yours. Of course he can go farther than you can! Wouldn't it be a
+sorry commentary on you if he couldn't?"
+
+Her voice throbbed warmly upon that last, and during the pause the
+light it had brought still played upon her face. "We were talking in
+class about immortality," she went on, more slowly. "There's one
+form of immortality I like to think about. It's that all those who
+from the very first have given anything to the world are living in
+the world to-day." There was a rush of tears to her eyes and of
+affection to her voice as she finished, very low: "You'll never die.
+You've deepened the consciousness of life too much for that."
+
+They sat there as twilight drew near to night, the old man and the
+young girl, silent. The laughter of boys and girls and the
+good-night calls of the birds were all around them. The fragrance of
+life was around them. It was one of those silences to which come
+impressions, faiths, longings, not yet born as thoughts.
+
+Something in the quality of that silence brought the rescuing sense
+of its having been good to have lived and done one's part--that
+sense which, from places of desolation and over ways rough and steep
+and dark, can find its way to the meadows of serenity.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lifted Masks, by Susan Glaspell
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