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| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-05-19 22:29:34 -0700 |
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| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-05-19 22:29:34 -0700 |
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diff --git a/78711-h/78711-h.htm b/78711-h/78711-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..afac811 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/78711-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6346 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + Where the young child was and other Christmas stories | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +td {padding-left: 0.5em;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} + +p.drop-cap { + text-indent: -0.35em; +} +p.drop-cap2 { + text-indent: -0.75em; +} +p.drop-cap:first-letter, p.drop-cap2:first-letter +{ + float: left; + margin: 0em 0.15em 0em 0em; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.85em; + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap, .x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap2 { + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap:first-letter, .x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap2:first-letter +{ + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .blockquot { + margin-left: 7.5%; + margin-right: 7.5%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} +.ph3 {text-align: center; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;} + +div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} +div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} + +.xxlarge {font-size: 175%;} +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; text-align: center;} + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry .indent {text-indent: 1.5em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: 2.5em;} +.poetry .first {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } +.x-ebookmaker .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} + +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; + padding: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + +.x-ebookmaker .transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; + padding: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78711 ***</div> + + +<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>WHERE THE YOUNG CHILD WAS<br> +AND OTHER CHRISTMAS STORIES</h1> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_0"></span> +<figure class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> + <img src="images/i_frontis.jpg" width="450" height="720" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p class="caption">“Don’t you remember that this is Christmas Eve?”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="title page"></div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="titlepage"> +<p><span class="xxlarge">WHERE THE<br> + YOUNG CHILD WAS</span></p> + +<p>AND ALSO<br> + THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUSE, THE YOUNGEST<br> + OFFICER, LINDEN GOES HOME, THE LITTLE<br> + BROWN HOUSE, THAT MAKES<br> + THE WORLD GO ROUND</p> + +<p>BY<br> +<span class="large">MARIE CONWAY OEMLER</span><br> +<small>Author of “Slippy McGee,” “A Woman Named<br> + Smith,” “The Purple Heights,” etc</small>.</p> + +<p>ILLUSTRATED BY<br> +<span class="large">GEORGE AVISON</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt="publisher's logo"></div> + +<p><span class="large">NEW YORK<br> + THE CENTURY CO.<br> + 1921</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> Copyright, 1921, by<br> + <br> + <span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<p>Copyright, 1912, 1916, by Curtis Publishing Company<br> + Copyright, 1912, 1914, by Crowell Publishing Company<br> + Copyright, 1910, by Street & Smith Corporation<br> + Copyright, 1915, by International Magazine Company</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">PRINTED IN U. S. A.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> + WITH BEST WISHES<br> + FROM THE WRITER TO THE READER</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak">ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h2> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<p class="center">For permission to reprint the stories comprising this volume thanks + are due to the following:</p> + +<p>“The Ladies Home Journal,” for “Where the Young +Child Was,” and “The Youngest Officer.”</p> + +<p>“Harper’s Bazar,” for “The Spirit of the House.”</p> + +<p>“Ainslie’s Magazine,” for “Linden Goes Home.”</p> + +<p>“Woman’s Home Companion,” for “The Little Brown +House,” and “That Makes the World Go Round.”</p> +</div></div></div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table> +<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><span class="allsmcap">PAGE</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">Where the Young Child Was</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3"> 3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Spirit of the House</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_45"> 45</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Youngest Officer</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75"> 75</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Linden Goes Home</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_123"> 123</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Little Brown House</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_171"> 171</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>“<span class="smcap">That Makes the World Go ’Round</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_209"> 209</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</div> + +<table> +<tr><td>“Don’t you remember that this is Christmas Eve?”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_0"> <i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><span class="allsmcap">FACING<br>PAGE  </span></td></tr> + +<tr><td>“What are you doing out here? Trying to freeze?”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_30"> 30</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>“I think it must have been just here that Anthony Trescott kissed Lydia King”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70"> 70</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>He tried to hold on</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_106"> 106</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>The bundle of rags on the threshold waited no further invitation</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_150"> 150</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Why, it was just such a little house as she had dreamed of</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_174"> 174</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>“Such scenes shall not be repeated”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_230"> 230</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">“WHERE THE YOUNG CHILD WAS” </h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap2">“AIN’T some folks lucky?” Mahany +spoke to Captain Austin Hoban, tramping +up and down the desolate junction platform, +and waved a huge mittened paw toward +the private car glowing with warm +light through the snowy dusk. “Look at +them! Nothin’ on earth to trouble ’em. +<i>They</i> ain’t jackrabbited from pillar to Post +for heaven knows why,” grumbled the grizzled +old sergeant bitterly. “<i>They</i> ain’t got +to dry-nurse a lot of kid rookies that ought +to be home hangin’ up stockin’s for their +poppas an’ mommas to fill on the sly, ’stead +of bein’ took out on a Christmas Eve for to +be makin’ soldiers of, which I misdoubt +heaven ever meant the likes of such <i>for</i>.”</p> + +<p>He was taking an offensively raw and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>youthful draft out to a Northwest Post; Hoban, +returning to that same Post after leave +of absence, had fallen in with him at this +transfer point. They were waiting with +such patience as they possessed for the made-up +train—engine, box-car, coach of foreign +miners, extra car for the soldiers, and now +this superfine private car, “Andrassah”—to +start. Still grumbling, for it was piercingly +cold, Mahany went back to his charges.</p> + +<p>Two furry shapes came out of the private +car. Hoban paused idly, and the arc-light +shone full upon him. Whereupon one of the +shapes, bounding upon the platform, hurled +himself into the captain’s arms.</p> + +<p>“Hoban! What a bully surprise! +What are you doing here—coming or +going? Come over and see Sally; we’re +going to spend Christmas with Buckleigh at +the Two Bar B,” shouted Lieutenant Darrell +Compton; and, laying forcible hands upon +his old friend, he dragged him forward.</p> + +<p>Hoban, who would have fled from such a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>meeting as from the wrath to come, found +himself being presented to Buckleigh, who, +for reasons of his own, most greatly desired +to find favor in the eyes of Lieutenant +Compton just then. A few questions, and +he took the situation in hand; hardly knowing +whether to shrug or to swear, Hoban +found himself, despite protests, literally captured +bag and baggage.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later Buckleigh was presenting +his chance guest to the other members of +his party—Trenton, the Pittsburgh man, he +who makes money ruthlessly and builds +great hospitals; McLachlin, the New York +magnate; Dr. Edgar Bristow, the specialist, +and his wife, a woman as beautiful as an idol +and, one suspected, costing quite as much to +keep properly panoplied; and Sally Compton, +for whom alone Hoban really had eyes +and ears. She had been the toast of every +post since she wore pigtails and a sunbonnet +and raced around the compound on her own +calico pony. It is a favorite army tradition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>that she winked at the doctor when she was +one hour old; and that, ere she had reached +the riper age of two years, the chaplain, the +surgeon, two fat majors, and a bald-headed +general had proposed to her. For Sally +Compton is, of all heart-snatchers, the most +alluringly, adorably, distractingly pretty.</p> + +<p>Inwardly disturbed and raging, outwardly +starry-eyed and sparkling, Sally gave him her +hand coolly enough; but the irony of the +situation was not lost upon her; the color +deepened vividly in her cheeks. Fate, she +thought wrathfully, was certainly playing +her a scurvy trick!</p> + +<p>Sally knew only too well that this trip in +the gorgeous “Andrassah” to the Two Bar B +Ranch, that most bepraised and advertised +of all big money-making places, was really +only the last of the calculated moves of +Buckleigh’s game: a game by which, mesh +after mesh, his net had been closing upon her. +Consummately had Buckleigh played it—with +lavish attentions, motors, yacht, private +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>car, great ranch, casual-deliberate hints betraying +his ownership of this railroad, that +mine, a bank or so; ever impressing upon the +army girl’s consciousness the sheer enormous +power of money—his money. Even the +guests here to-night were part of that scheme—millionaire, +magnate, great specialist, famous +beauty, all summoned before her by a +wave of Buckleigh’s magic hand.</p> + +<p>Stout, baldish, suave, a hint of tigerishness +underlying his slow smile and lurking +in his heavy-lidded eyes, Buckleigh bargained +for youth and beauty and charm. A man +who left nothing to chance, she surmised that +he had planned even to the last detail just +when and where and how the final scene in +this pleasant comedy should be staged; she +meant to say “Yes.”</p> + +<p>And now, just when she was beginning to +think she might school a rebellious heart into +a sensible mind’s acceptance of a thing so +altogether desirable as this great match, here +had fate thrust upon her the one man in all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>the world who made that decision taste of the +bitterness of death; dragged him in whom of +all men she wished not to see just then.</p> + +<p>The car wheels presently began to grind +out a diabolical rhythm: “<i>Buckleigh’s +buying Sally Compton! Buckleigh’s buying +Sally Compton!</i>”</p> + +<p>Out of the corner of her eye she glanced +at Hoban’s handsome profile, bent toward +Adele Bristow. No, she reflected drearily, +he had never cared; that had been left for +her. Darrell was lamenting that he must +part from Hoban in the morning, when +Buckleigh’s car was to be picked up by the +regular express at a station farther on. +Buckleigh, too, was suavely sorry Captain +Hoban couldn’t stop over at the ranch for +Christmas: he had planned a few festivities, +he added.</p> + +<p>Glancing at the over-magnificence of his +car, Hoban had a pretty accurate idea of +what Buckleigh would make that Christmas +at the Two Bar B. “He’ll jolly well cram +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>the earth into a gilt-paper cornucopia and +hand it over to Sally, with a sprig of holly +and a fat smile,” thought the soldier, who +hadn’t anything but his name, his sword, +and his heart to offer her. “She’ll take it, of +course. Who wouldn’t? It’s too big a +temptation for any mortal woman to withstand, +I suppose.” He knew that Buckleigh +was “the millionaire Sally Compton’s dangling +around these days,” as a too-faithful +friend had written. He wished that he +could honestly find it in his heart to like the +man; but he couldn’t.</p> + +<p>Then the car wheels began to grind out a +soothing tune for Hoban, too, car wheels +being the most totally depraved of all inanimate +objects when given half a chance to +show what they can do: “<i>Sally’s going to +marry Buckleigh! Sally’s going to marry +Buckleigh!</i>”</p> + +<p>And all the while the night lowered and +lowered, and the storm outside gathered and +gathered. All day it had been snowing—more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>heavily when they had left the junction +and plunged into the Wyoming hills; now +the storehouse of the snows opened doors +and windows, and poured out its garnered +hoards.</p> + +<p>In the rattling day-coach a Slovak miner +was singing an endless melancholy song, +which rose and fell with the monotony of +gray waves on a desert shore. In the other +coach the soldiers amused themselves as best +they might. But in the “Andrassah,” having +concluded a veritable triumph of a +Christmas Eve dinner, they were somnolently +content. Better the stalled ox than the dinner +of herbs; if you doubt it, ask the ox.</p> + +<p>“I remember,” said McLachlin, stretching +himself lazily, “somebody—seems to me it +was Pliny, but I wouldn’t swear to it—saying +something about being able to enjoy +a tempest on the sea more when one happened +to be on land. I’ve muddled it of +course,” he added good-humoredly; “but if +you’ll look at that snow against those windows +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>you’ll gather my meaning.” For +some time the train had been moving more +and more slowly; now, with a long scrunching +of brakes, it stopped.</p> + +<p>A worried conductor appeared. “Stalled +freight ahead. Snow. Wired for help. +Have to wait a bit, gentlemen.”</p> + +<p>“How long?” A frown darkened on +Buckleigh’s forehead.</p> + +<p>“Depends on how soon the plow gets +here,” said the conductor.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say,” exploded Buckleigh, +“that <i>I’m</i> to be held up indefinitely +for a dashed freight?”</p> + +<p>“We can wire for a plow and have the +freight pulled out, Mr. Buckleigh,” said the +conductor, dryly; “but even <i>you</i> can’t give +orders to the Almighty to quit snowin’ when +He feels like snowin’, and have your orders +obeyed.” He went out, grimly smiling.</p> + +<p>“Quite so, Buckleigh, quite so!” said the +Pittsburgh man, briskly. “Job, thirty-eight, +verse twenty-two.” He was a religious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>man, and outside of business hours greatly +respected the power of Providence.</p> + +<p>“I do not seem, at any rate,” said Buckleigh, +“to lack Job’s comforters.” One +might have thought he snarled.</p> + +<p>Sally Compton laughed in his face. +“Why, I thought you were too wise,” she +mocked him gently, “to kick against the +pricks of the inevitable, Mr. Buckleigh. Besides, +we’re deliciously ‘comfy,’ and there’s +no immediate danger of our starving or freezing, +is there?”</p> + +<p>She felt that she had been given a respite, +and that the inevitable had been, at least for +a little while, deferred. Her spirits rose +soaringly. But Buckleigh was displeased. +He hated to have his plans upset, and every +detail of to-morrow had been prearranged, +even as scenes in a well-set play. Now, as +things were, he doubted if they reached the +ranch before to-morrow night, even if then.</p> + +<p>They were preparing to retire when the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>conductor came in hurriedly. “Say, ain’t +one of you gentlemen a doctor?”</p> + +<p>“I am a physician,” said Bristow, suddenly +alert.</p> + +<p>The conductor whispered into the doctor’s +ear. Bristow started, whistled, scrambled +into his fur coat, jammed his cap down over +his eyes, and the two hurried out.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later Bristow was back. +Big, commanding, forceful, to the finger-tips +the able physician at work, he gave crisp orders. +“Hot water,” he directed Buckleigh; +“gallons of hot water. Get busy, please. +Blankets, and two or three pillows. Adele, +I shall need you. There’s a girl out in that +box-car—and her hour is upon her.”</p> + +<p>Adele stared. “Why, Edgar, you know +very well I’m without my maid; she <i>would</i> +go home—just as we were starting, too. +Horribly provoking, and I’m what you +might call helpless. If she were here you’d +be welcome to her services, of course.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>“I said I needed you,” said Bristow, +curtly.</p> + +<p>“Edgar! Good heavens, you must be +mad! In a box-car? A strange woman? +No! I won’t! I can’t.”</p> + +<p>“You will. You can. You’ve got to,” +said he. “You’ll be useful for once, +whether you like it or not. I need you; and +you’ll do what I say this night, or I’ll know +why.” He towered above her, eyes gleaming, +jaws set; almost his streaked gray mane +bristled. He looked magnificent; like, say, +a thoroughly roused old lion.</p> + +<p>His wife stared, and a most curious light +flickered into her astonished eyes. She rose, +gracefully ignoring the shocked and startled +faces. “I’ll save you the trouble of taking +me by the hair, Edgar,” she said lightly. +“You look quite capable of it. Just tell me +what I’m to do.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly what I tell you. Remember: If +you scream I’ll box your ears, and if you +faint I’ll chuck you neck and crop into the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>snow. Get your wraps. Where’s my +black case, you, Jim, or whatever your +name is? A bundle of towels, Miss Compton, +please. Buckleigh, look after that hot +water. Captain Hoban, you and Mr. +Compton get those fellows in the cars ahead +quiet, and keep ’em quiet. That girl’s in a +bad way.”</p> + +<p>Sally helped Mrs. Bristow on with cloak +and hood. Porters, loaded with blankets +and pillows, followed them. Hoban and +Compton had already gone through the cars +ahead and the shouts and singing had suddenly +ceased.</p> + +<p>Trenton, with a very sober face, came over +and sat down by Sally. “Oh, my, my, my!” +said he, nervously. “Poor thing, poor +thing! Natural of course; but—in a box-car—dreadful, +dreadful!”</p> + +<p>“All by herself!” Sally added.</p> + +<p>Trenton drew a little closer.</p> + +<p>“It—sort of comes upon me—unaware,” +he whispered. “My wife died—like that. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>Very young, poor thing! I was too. Not +rich then. Poor—very; but, my heaven, +how happy! She was so pretty, my wife!” +he added wistfully. “I loved her a great +deal, Miss Compton. But—she died, and +the baby with her. And that’s why,” he +finished mildly, “I—build hospitals.”</p> + +<p>The little, cold, dry, moneyed man took on +a new aspect. The girl reached over impulsively +and squeezed his bony hand, a swift, +warm, reassuring human pressure. “To +thank you,” she whispered, “for the women +and the children your hospitals have helped +and saved, because of one sweet woman, Mr. +Trenton.”</p> + +<p>“I—loved her,” said he, simply. “And +when all’s said and done, my dear, that’s +the biggest, greatest, most glorious thing in +the world!” A musing and remembering +smile crept into his tired old eyes.</p> + +<p>“From what I gathered from our sententious +friend, the conductor,” McLachlin was +saying a little later, “the girl’s the wife of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>one of your foreign miners, Buckleigh, going +out to the Big Bend. He had to come for a +job, poor chap! and he couldn’t leave her +behind; she has no people in this country at +all. So the railroad men, seeing how things +were with her, made her as comfortable as +they could in the box-car—and dashed decent +of them, too, say I! They thought +she’d be able to reach the mine safely. The +thing worries me; upon my word it does! I +can’t help thinking of the night my daughter’s +little girl was born, and how I sat in +the library and hung on to my wife like a +scared kid. I got ten years older in that one +night.” He got up abruptly and began to +tramp up and down, his hands under his coat +tails. “I wish she were over it!” he muttered.</p> + +<p>Buckleigh watched him with cold scorn. +He was disgusted and furiously angry. It +was bad enough, he considered, to be stalled +here on the edge of nowhere, with all his prearranged +plans going awry. But that an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>unknown and poverty-stricken woman +should actually disrupt his party, render distracted +his exclusive guests, making them +forget their own exalted station, and behave +as if they were of her common clay, struck +him as savoring of stark anarchy. Bristow, +whose fees were enormous, who was consulted +by foreign royalty, had rushed out into +the night like the veriest country doctor, +dragging, too, his wife with him; Buckleigh +hoped Adele would divorce him for it. +Moreover, Bristow had, without so much as +a by-your-leave, coolly confiscated especially +woven blankets, down pillows, monogrammed +linen, as if the woman’s need had +made them hers by simple right! He, +Buckleigh himself, had been suddenly +pushed aside as one of no consequence, +merely because the most ordinary of human +events was occurring to the most ordinary of +human beings.</p> + +<p>Porters, bearing buckets of boiling water +swathed in blankets to preserve the heat, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>came and went. Sally Compton refused +either to entertain or be entertained; she sat +silent; at times a slight tremor passed over +her; for Sally felt that the angels of life and +death walked abroad almost visibly that +night.</p> + +<p>Later Hoban came in, his shoulders +thickly powdered. “Bristow says she’s +doing as well as can be expected,” he told +them. “But—she’s nothing but a slip of a +girl, I understand. I was helping one of the +porters up with a bucket of hot water—and +I heard—” He shook his head.</p> + +<p>McLachlin nodded sympathetically. “I +know. I remember when—my girl—” +He blew his nose violently.</p> + +<p>Buckleigh grunted.</p> + +<p>“My wife,” said Trenton, wistfully, “was +a slip of a girl, too, and—so pretty! Poor +thing, poor thing!”</p> + +<p>Buckleigh stared coldly.</p> + +<p>Sally looked from one man to the other +curiously. It struck her that, stripped of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>sudden of convention, each appeared as he +was, with a sort of elemental clarity and simplicity.</p> + +<p>“You’ve no idea,” said Hoban, “the effect +on those foreigners in the front car. One of +the Italians that can speak a little English +told me it was ‘like the Holy Night.’ Do +you know what those chaps are doing? +They’re praying!”</p> + +<p>McLachlin nodded; Trenton smiled understandingly; +Buckleigh sneered.</p> + +<p>Hoban’s face twisted oddly; he grinned +and his eyes twinkled. “And the sergeant,” +he said, “has sent every man jack of his boys +to bed without undressing, and is sitting +there with a pistol in each hand to make sure +they keep quiet.”</p> + +<p>The hours crawled. An immense and +waiting silence hung, it seemed to Sally, over +the whole snow-wrapped universe, knowing +that something very wonderful was about to +occur. Buckleigh alone sat cold, impassive, +unmoved; so far as she could see he had not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>shown one slightest touch of human sympathy. +She watched him stealthily, with a +growing fear. She meant to marry Buckleigh +of course; and one couldn’t expect +everything; but—</p> + +<p>Released, at Hoban’s request, from the +sergeant’s too-strict surveillance, the soldiers +had cleared a space under the trees outside +and, utilizing what they could find of dead +timber, had built a fire, which sputtered and +hissed as the snow from the branches above +melted and ran down into it. Weirdly the +flames lit up the towering hillsides, the trees +bent under their weight of snow, the half-buried +trains and the little frozen river beside +which the track ran.</p> + +<p>Sally, gazing out at the window, could distinguish +Darrell, and then Hoban’s taller figure. +The very sight of Hoban gave her an +odd sensation of strength and comfort.</p> + +<p>A cold gray light was beginning to grow +when Bristow appeared in the box-car door, +collarless and with bared arms. He put up +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>a great forearm and rubbed it across his forehead. +“As fine a little rascal,” said he, “as +I’ve ever seen.”</p> + +<p>“Boy?” asked Hoban.</p> + +<p>“Sure. Ten pounds. Lungs like a blacksmith’s +bellows; ribs like a dray, and a fist +like a prizefighter’s! Some boy, believe +me!” He sighed with relief. “I had to +haul his fool father away by the scruff or +he’d be crying over the girl’s feet yet. +What!” he said, abruptly, to the pale, boyish +husband who approached him supplicatingly, +“are you here again? No, you can<i>not</i> come +blubbering over that girl just now! She’s +all right, I tell you, but I can’t have you disturbing +her. Go away! Well, you can +come back in half an hour, then. Take him +away, somebody.” He looked after the +handsome fellow, whom the sergeant dutifully +led away as one under tentative arrest, +and his eyes twinkled; but his smile was +kind.</p> + +<p>Later Sally begged, and was allowed, to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>visit the new arrival. In a cleared space at +one end of the car, lighted by an oil lamp +and warmed by a bucket brazier, on a cot +covered with straw which showed under the +blankets and pillows, lay a Madonna-like +Italian girl. Her beautiful black hair, +meekly parted on a pale brow, fell in two +long braids over her shoulders. She was +pearly white, and her childish mouth sagged +somewhat. But out of the pale and weary +face shone a pair of eyes so sweet, so pure, so +starlike, that Sally’s heart gave an upward +bound at sight of them.</p> + +<p>The girl made a little, fluttering, welcoming +motion of the hands, smiling ever so +faintly. They looked at each other steadily, +the girl who was going to marry Buckleigh, +and the girl who was the wife of one of +Buckleigh’s miners. The sweet, shining eyes +were telling Sally something—that same +something Trenton had told her while they +waited: that love is, after all, the greatest +thing in the world. The girl turned her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>head and spoke in a soft whisper. “She +wants you to hold the baby,” said Adele +Bristow.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bristow’s Parisian gown, which she +hadn’t had time to change, was rumpled, +and her magnificent red hair hung heavily +down. There were dark circles under her +eyes, and she, too, was very pale. But, as +one who holds a hard-won treasure, she +clasped the newly born against the laces at +her breast, smiling upon the downy black +head. Even as she smiled the baby nuzzled +and whimpered. Bristow, over her shoulder, +laughed.</p> + +<p>His wife, thrusting the baby hurriedly +into Sally’s arms, turned upon him like one +at bay. A fiery color leaped into her cheeks, +then faded, leaving her paler than before. +“Oh! You—you big, blind, blundering +brute!” she gasped. And she began to weep +uncontrollably.</p> + +<p>Sally thrust the baby into his mother’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>waiting arms and stared at the scene before +her.</p> + +<p>Adele had sunk to the floor, but Bristow, +despite her struggles, had lifted her and was +holding her in his mighty grip. “There, +there, honey!” He tried to soothe her. “I +guess I was pretty awful to you at first, +wasn’t I? But you stood by me like a +brick, Adele, and I’m proud of you. +You’ll get your new limousine for last +night’s work, my girl. I tell you, I’m +proud of you; you can be a real woman—when +you like.”</p> + +<p>“If you had ever really loved me,” she +said stormily, “you’d know I always wanted +to be real.”</p> + +<p>He looked down at her, his brows wrinkling +in pained astonishment. “Ever really +loved you? Woman, I’m crazy over you!” +he said fiercely. “Haven’t I shown it +plainly enough? Love you? Adele, I have +loved you so greatly that I haven’t even +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>asked or expected you to love me in return.”</p> + +<p>“But that’s just the trouble!” she wailed. +“For I do! You think I care only for other +things; and I have let you think so. But +when the child—turned to me—like that—and +you—and you—oh, Edgar, Edgar!”</p> + +<p>“I am twenty years older than you,” he +reminded her. “I look like a bear and—act +like one sometimes, I’m afraid, Adele.”</p> + +<p>His voice was so humble that Adele +laughed and cried together. “All that,” she +agreed, “is quite true. Those are some of +the reasons why I—why I—fell in love with +you; why I’m—why I’m—still in love with +you—Edgar—” for at that the big man +had swung her clear off her feet. “N-no, I +don’t think you’re a bit too rough.—All +right, you can buy me another frock if you +want to.—N-no, it’s not; your beard’s +perfectly beautiful, Edgar!”</p> + +<p>The door slid open noiselessly and a black +curly head looked in. Seeing the coast clear, +a lithe body followed; then the boyish husband +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>was on his knees beside the cot. Such +a look as passed between the two young +creatures over their baby’s fuzzy poll!</p> + +<p>Sally’s eyes stung with sudden uncontrollable +tears. Love was, indeed, the +greatest thing in the world, only—she hadn’t +got it. She was to have, instead, all that +the terrible power of money can summon up +for such as have the key of gold—splendid +things, perfectly palpable things, such as one +can put one’s hands on. As if she had +weighed and tasted them, and found them +wanting—dust and ashes—her living spirit +rose up within her at that moment and rejected +them, crying aloud for its larger and +diviner heritage. She knew that Buckleigh +had no part in that heritage; the thought of +him affected her like a nightmare; sheer panic +terror came upon her.</p> + +<p>“No! I can’t! I can’t! Not for the +whole world!” she thought. “Oh, what’s +happening to me, what’s the matter with +me? I’m—I’m being pushed outside of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>everything. I can’t take the money—and I +can’t get the love!”</p> + +<p>For the first time in her pleasant life there +had come to her a moment wherein the spirit +experienced its aloneness in the universe—saw +all the petty barriers it had built against +that solitude crumble, because they had not +been fashioned of the one imperishable stuff.</p> + +<p>Bristow and his wife had forgotten her +presence, forgotten everything save that they +had found each other. The young Italian +had eyes only for his own; the little mother +thought only of the sweet miracle which exalted +her above the earth. No, there was no +place here for Sally. She crept away.</p> + +<p>The thought of meeting Buckleigh’s eyes +just then was unbearable. She couldn’t go +back to the car. Everybody seemed to have +retired. It was very still. Down the track +she could see the flare of the deserted fire, +and to this she made her way, grateful for +the warmth and solitude.</p> + +<p>Over in the east the cold, gray light grew +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>slowly. Indescribable desolation weighed +upon her. Oh, where was that Sally Compton +who had found life so pleasant such a little +while ago, a girl whom every one had +seemed to care for? Gone, and all her gay +careless surface brightness gone with her! +She huddled down on a log dragged into +the radius of the fire, pulled her furs farther +up about her face, and wept heartbrokenly.</p> + +<p>“Sally Compton!” exclaimed a horrified +voice. “What are you doing out here? +Trying to freeze? Who’s looking after you +anyhow?” Hoban glared at her indignantly.</p> + +<p>“Nin-nobody,” gulped Sally, summoning +her pride to her rescue and trying not to sniff +too audibly. “I’m qui-quite capable of ta-taking +care of myself, thank you!”</p> + +<p>“You look like it!” said he scornfully. +“Darrell’s just turned in—thought you were +in bed of course. Where’s Buckleigh? +Why isn’t <i>he</i> looking after you, I’d like to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>know?” Jealousy lent his pleasant voice an +acrid note new to it.</p> + +<p>Sally looked up at him listlessly. “If +you’re going to be disagreeable,” she suggested, +“you can go away.”</p> + +<p>Hoban hesitated. “Look here!” said he +painfully, “I’d like you to understand that +my being here isn’t exactly my own fault. +Darrell didn’t know you’d be annoyed—and +I couldn’t tell him, could I? And then +again, I couldn’t very well refuse to come +without appearing churlish and running the +risk of hurting his feelings.”</p> + +<p>“No,” agreed Sally lifelessly, “I don’t +suppose you could.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> + <img src="images/i_fp030.jpg" width="450" height="712" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p class="caption">“What are you doing out here? Trying to freeze?”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Sally,” said he, flushing, “you have never +given me a chance to ask you why you seemed +to suddenly dislike me—after we’d been—well, +say, friends. But I’ve wondered at +times if you might have thought I was chump +enough to think you cared for me, when you +didn’t. I never blamed you for not caring; +how could I? But what hurt was that you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>should use such methods to prove it to me. +I do not believe you ever acted like that to +any human being save only myself; why? +For I am sure that a sincere and honest affection, +such as mine has always been for you, +could never be considered an insult. Yet +you seemed to think so.” He looked at her +steadily, and there was that in his fine face +which carried conviction of truth. “I did +believe for a time that you might care. I +hoped it with all my heart, because I cared so +much myself. I do not think that belief and +that hope dishonored either you or myself,” +he ended with simple and manly dignity.</p> + +<p>Something of her dumb and stricken misery +came to him. His eyes grew troubled. +He drew a little nearer.</p> + +<p>“Sally,” said he earnestly, “my love for +you gives me the right to say what I’m going +to say: If you aren’t quite sure of the step +before you, hold back. Don’t imperil your +happiness. I don’t say this because I have +any hope for myself, for I haven’t. But +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>because I want more than anything on earth +to see you happy. And you needn’t be sorry +for me, when you come to think of it, Sally. +I’m proud of loving you. I shall be the +better man for it.”</p> + +<p>Sally sat bolt upright. His words went +whirling through her head. Because of idle +rumors to which her own jealous fancy lent +weight, she had let him go. She had misjudged +and misunderstood. He a flirt with +a waiting list! He vain and light! He +sure that every girl he chose to beckon to +would come at his nod! Terrified that she +might be only one of many, she had indeed +spared no pains to make him understand she +wished none of him; that had been the only +solace to a smarting pride, a wounded love. +Hurt and indignant, he had gone.... And +then Buckleigh had come. She remembered +Buckleigh’s cold, hard face, his eyes of granite, +when all others had been touched to a +tender and human emotion.</p> + +<p>Far, far away, from over the intervening +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>hills, came a long faint screech. The relief +was coming. In a few hours, parting company +at the station farther on, Buckleigh’s car +would be flying farther and farther from Hoban, +and nearer and inevitably nearer to the +Two Bar B ranch and those Christmas festivities +so cleverly arranged for her benefit. +The two stared at each other.</p> + +<p>“I hate to go away, never expecting to see +you again, and not part friends, Sally. It’s +just a little hard on me, isn’t it? Won’t +you be friends at least?” pleaded the soldier.</p> + +<p>Then Sally Compton spoke: “What I most +wonder at,” said she severely, “is the vast, +immeasurable, terrifying, monumental stupidity +of men!”</p> + +<p>Hoban stared, as well as he might.</p> + +<p>“The sheer, unbelievable, incredible stupidity,” +Sally repeated firmly, “of men. +They just take things for granted—and they +go away—and leave things like that—and +they haven’t even sense enough to come back +and find out if there isn’t some mistake—on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>their own part of course. Under such circumstances +and in the face of such stupidity,” +she demanded tragically, “what is a +poor, bewildered girl to do?”</p> + +<p>“Huh! I shouldn’t waste my good sympathy,” +said Hoban dryly, “on the poor, bewildered +girl, if I were you. The poor, bewildered +girl, as you call her—” he fixed her +with a stern, accusing eye—“usually sends +the man to Coventry—she and heaven alone +know why; and when she’s got him there safe +and fast, why, she—marries a millionaire! +Sensible, isn’t she?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Does she though? <i>Only</i> when +she’s perfectly sure and certain that the right +man—I mean the other man—went to Coventry +on his own hook, Captain Austin Hoban, +and stays there because he chooses to +stay there. Because he never cared. Sensible, +wasn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“A fat lot she knows about it,” said he derisively, +“if <i>that’s</i> all she knows! I hate to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>think any girl could be so downright dyed-in-the-wool +silly.”</p> + +<p>“Do you?” said she tartly. “Well, she’s +dyed-in-the-wool silly—to match him, if you +like!” Her temper was rising.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what’s the difference, if only +they’re happy fools together?” said he +wearily. “Sally,” his eyes pleaded for him, +“I haven’t the ghost of a right to ask you, +of course, but—are you really going to marry +that fellow Buckleigh?” He couldn’t keep +some of his pain from creeping into his voice.</p> + +<p>“You have no right in this world to ask +me, of course,” she said with asperity; “but, +as you have asked me, why—I don’t mind +telling you that I haven’t been asked—yet.”</p> + +<p>He considered that soothing “yet.” +“Are you going to marry him?” he demanded +bluntly.</p> + +<p>Sally’s temper flared. “I wonder,” said +she spiritedly, “how you’d like a little gentle +cross-examination yourself? Let’s see: Are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>you going to marry Colonel Arkwright’s +daughter, Captain Hoban, or are you only +flirting? Aren’t you generally—flirting? +People have told me so. And you did flirt +with me, you know!”</p> + +<p>“Whoever told you that,” said he hotly, +“told you a thumping lie! And I was not +flirting with you! You’ve had experience +enough, I should think, to be able to tell the +false from the real. But that’s neither here +nor there. You haven’t answered my question: +Are you going to marry Buckleigh?”</p> + +<p>“I told you he hadn’t asked me.”</p> + +<p>“Are you going to marry Buckleigh?”</p> + +<p>“How can I unless—”</p> + +<p>“Are you going to marry Buckleigh?” inexorably.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, <i>no</i>, if you will know!”</p> + +<p>“Are you sure?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Yes!</i> There!” furiously.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, are you going to marry me?”</p> + +<p>“Why,” said she, scandalized, “you +haven’t asked me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>“If I do ask you, will you?”</p> + +<p>“But you <i>haven’t</i> asked me!”</p> + +<p>“Well, I do now,” said he with vast patience. +“Sally, I have always loved you; I +shall always love you. I thought once—and +now something bids me hope again—that +you might care for me. Sally, if that +hope is true, will you marry me?”</p> + +<p>“This,” murmured Sally wickedly, “is so +sudden!” She glanced up at him ensnaringly. +“You must give me time to—”</p> + +<p>“—waste on some other old bald-headed +duffer of a millionaire while I’m on tenterhooks?” +said he grimly. “Nothing doing! +Guess again!”</p> + +<p>“I reckon,” said Sally meditatively, “that +I’d better guess of course, hadn’t I?”</p> + +<p>“You mean you will?” His tone was incredulous.</p> + +<p>“I mean,” said Sally bravely, “that I’d +never, never be happy in this world, or +maybe in the next one either—if I +couldn’t!” And then: “Austin! For +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>heaven’s sake, Austin! Somebody’ll see!”</p> + +<p>“Let ’em!”</p> + +<p>“Austin,” said she, against his cheek—“Austin, +you mustn’t think too much of me, +really. I did believe all sorts of things +against you; I did behave abominably to +you; I did intend to—to take what +Mr. Buckleigh offered. I thought you +didn’t care and that I might as well take +all I could get—for myself. But—I heard +Adele Bristow—say some things to the doctor +a while ago, and I saw that dear little +Italian girl looking at her husband over the +baby’s head, and—I knew right then I +couldn’t. No, I just couldn’t. You understand?”</p> + +<p>He held her closer. “We’ll have a +Christmas party for that blessed baby after +a while, but just at present you’re going to +be sent to bed.” Then he bundled her up +and carried her back to the car; and in the +shadow of the platform he kissed her +again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>The porter, knocking at her door, awoke +her some hours later. She found everybody +finishing a very late breakfast. A subdued +joyousness radiated from every face except +Buckleigh’s.</p> + +<p>“Everybody visits the Christmas baby!” +said the doctor, buttoning his greatcoat. +“My wife’s already christened him ‘Noel,’ +and his mother’s made it ‘Noello.’ And, +say, every man jack on the trams has chipped +in on his Christmas present. You three wise +men from the east United States want to +chip in too?”</p> + +<p>Buckleigh wrote a check perfunctorily. +“To be saved up against the time they’ll be +striking in the mine,” said he cynically.</p> + +<p>“The hair of the dog,” Bristow minded +him, “is good for the bite. You other Magi +in on this?”</p> + +<p>They were—so boyishly, so whole-heartedly +that Sally’s heart was lifted. +After all, she reflected happily, it’s a good +place, this world, and people, when they forget +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>things and remember they’re all just +folks together, come near being what God +wants them to be.</p> + +<p>“I owe that baby a good-sized bill, myself,” +said the doctor, smiling at his wife, +who smiled back and slipped her hand in +the crook of his big arm.</p> + +<p>Miners, soldiers, railroad men, fell into +line behind the doctor and his party. They +massed around the sliding-doors, which the +doctor pushed aside.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>And when they were come ... they saw the +young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, +and worshipped him: and when they had opened +their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, +and frankincense, and myrrh.</p> +</div> + +<p>One saw in the lamplighted interior, as in +a cave’s mouth, outlined by the glittering +whiteness without, the straw-covered cot; beside +it a handsome, foreign, shepherd-looking +man; on it a pale, pretty girl, holding to her +bosom a baby. At sight of all those eyes she +flinched a little, but, seeing them all so good +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>and friendly and reverent, she smiled, Madonna-wise, +and spoke to her man.</p> + +<p>Awkwardly, but with tender carefulness, +he lifted the rosy child. “Noel!” said the +Italian softly, and held him high for all to +see.</p> + +<p>“Noel! Noel! Noel!” echoed the men outside, +uncovered in the snow.</p> + +<p>Bristow, blinking suspiciously, gave the +Christmas offering, to which all had contributed; +and the little mother, with sweet wisdom, +took again her baby and laid his small +hand upon the gift; then she held up the wee +fist, and the tiny fingers of a sudden outspread +wide; one might think they blessed. +At that, in spite of the doctor, they cheered +him heartily.</p> + +<p>Pushed forward by his mates, an Italian +with a sweet and ringing barytone began to +sing for him the old, old, lovely Christmas +hymn:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“<i>Adeste, Fideles,</i></div> +<div class="verse"><i>Laeti, triumphantes!</i></div> +<div class="verse"><i>Venite, venite</i>, in Bethlehem!”</div> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>Adele crept closer to the big doctor’s side, +to be encircled in his arm. McLachlin, +beaming, patted a soldier on the shoulder +brotherly. The Pittsburgh millionaire, with +uplifted head, smiled dreamily, being for a +happy moment back again with the little lost +wife of his youth. And Sally Compton, her +eyes full of exquisitely happy tears, put her +hand openly into Hoban’s, careless of who +saw. How had she ever, ever thought she +could so trust it to any other?</p> + +<p>“You see?” she whispered, looking up at +him adoringly.</p> + +<p>“I see,” he whispered back, and closed his +hand upon her fingers loverlike.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Up and up and up, cleaving the dark +skies, soaring, like the lark at heaven’s gate:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="indent"><i>Gloria! Gloria! In excelsis Deo!</i></div> +<div class="verse"><i>Venite, adoremus! Venite, adoremus! Venite, adoremus,</i></div> +<div class="indent"><i>Dominum!</i></div> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUSE</h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> +<p class="ph3">THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUSE</p> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">TRESCOTT had planned a Christmas +in Munich, an Easter in Rome. The +war changed that. Europe gone back to +barbarism filled him with a horror bordering +upon physical nausea; he felt that he +never wanted to see Europe again.</p> + +<p>He decided, instead, to go South. The +Trescotts sprang from Carolina stock, and +there were certain old records, family traditions, +which he had long desired to trace to +their fountainhead.</p> + +<p>Famous at thirty-five, Trescott had yet remained +a curiously aloof and rather austere +figure. Some far-off Irish foremother had +lent his dark face its delicate imprint of expectancy +and dowered him with that strain +which gave to all his work, along with a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>dewy and delightful freshness, a flavor of +rose-scented and unforgotten yesterdays.</p> + +<p>To this undercurrent of melancholy the +Carolina landscape powerfully appealed. +This land of lonesome wide marsh margins, +of dim desolate forsaken fields, of broodings +and moss-hung woods, appeared to him as +might a half-hidden face which has haunted +one’s dreams. He wandered over the coast +country with an ever increasing delight.</p> + +<p>The day before Christmas caught him +upon one of these solitary and endless +tramps, glad enough to escape what he considered +wearisome festivities. It was past +noon when he reached his destination—one +of those deserted old Carolina churches in +whose grass-grown yards the proudly named +dead sleep forgotten. In a far corner he had +paused before a name which struck his keen +eye pleasantly—<i>Lydia King</i>. For this, he +realized at once, was the very name the girl +in his next book must bear!</p> + +<p>Even while he pictured what she should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>be, brown-haired, brown-eyed, slim and gracious, +the creative power came upon him. +Furiously, working at frenzied pressure, he +got such as he could into his note-book, +dreading to lose the thread and praying for +the failing light to hold.</p> + +<p>The still gray afternoon rushed suddenly +into dusk, as happens in that land of little +twilight, and with the dusk began a disconsolate +drizzle. Before him stretched strange +roads, bordered by abandoned rice-fields, +eerily empty in the deepening dark. Where +two weedy by-paths crossed he stopped perforce; +and as he hesitated, a little faint light +twinkled at the far end of the expanse upon +his right.</p> + +<p>Trescott sighed with relief; in Carolina +one has only to stop at the first house, generally, +to be sure of a shelter for the night. +For what seemed an interminable distance +the little byway led him, to stop abruptly +at a pair of iron gates, wide open between +tall brick pillars. A thick belt of cedars, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>swaying somberly in a rising wind, lay between +him and the great black bulk of the +house beyond. Like the garden gate, the +house door stood open. The light which had +led him came from a room to the right of an +enormous hall.</p> + +<p>His hand was upon the iron knocker when +a girl came out of the lighted room, her +trailing dress undulating about her slim +body. As she neared him her face grew out +of the dark, oval-shaped, cream-colored as a +magnolia. With a gracious and welcoming +gesture she beckoned him inside.</p> + +<p>The great room, lighted only by unshaded +wax candles in tall silver sticks upon the +high mantel, had the shadow as of a Rembrandt, +suggestive of rich depths. Out of it +flickered the red glow of copper, the brighter +gleam of brass, a hint of the deep blue of +old Delft; outlines of old portraits appeared +on the paneled walls; one divined the satiny +sheen, the majestic mahogany of old carved +furniture.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>Ruefully aware of his muddy shoes, his +stained garments, so out of keeping with this +stately orderliness, he wished to explain, to +apologize, and looked up to meet glance to +glance her intense and luminous regard. All +in brown she was, save for a lace-edged scarf, +and a white flower at her throat. The +deep wilful dimple which marked her chin +matched her child’s mouth, rosy, arch, and +virginal; but in the shining eyes under the +fine brow one glimpsed the spirit, proud, +flame-pure, indomitable.</p> + +<p>She leaned toward him: “It took you such +a long, long time to come!” she sighed, and +her clear eyes reproached him. Bewildered, +stung with a swift inexplicable pain, yet +conscious of a mounting exaltation, sweet +and heady, he stammered:</p> + +<p>“But I didn’t know you were here! +Don’t you see? I couldn’t know?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but you did!” she insisted, with soft +triumph. “That is why you are here! I +remembered—and you saw the light!” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>With a slim finger against her lip, she looked +up at him with smiling and mischievous eyes.</p> + +<p>Gesture and glance stirred Trescott curiously; +his mind went groping after remembrance +of both. Then, as in a lightning +flash, he knew. She who was the true spirit +of all his effort, that Somebody who had so +long eluded him, was face to face with him +at last! He knew, and, meeting her steady +and waiting glance he realized, with a great +upward surge of heart, that she also knew.</p> + +<p>Full of a joyous wonder, he stammered:</p> + +<p>“It is you! Why—why—it is you!” +Then panic seized him and he trembled:</p> + +<p>“And I might have missed that light!” he +gasped. “Why—I saw it by the merest accident!”</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “No, you couldn’t. +Don’t you remember, Anthony, that this is +Christmas Eve? Beautiful things happen +at Christmas-time, Anthony!”</p> + +<p>Uplifted above wonder, that she should +know and call him by name did not in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>very least surprise him; beautiful things, of +course, have to happen at Christmas-time!</p> + +<p>“I knew,” said he, rapt and elate, “that +you simply had to be somewhere, Heart’s Delight! +I knew that when my great hour +struck, I should find you. And oh, I have +found you! I have found you!”</p> + +<p>“The wonder of it!” Her voice was flute-like. +“Oh, the great, beautiful wonder of +it, Anthony! How was it I ever, ever +doubted? I shall never, never doubt +again!”</p> + +<p>“I am not dreaming,” whispered Trescott, +pale with emotion. “No, nothing else ever +has been, ever could be real for me save this, +that you are you. I have been looking for +you, I have been loving you, all my life. +For you know, of course, that I must love +you?”</p> + +<p>“I knew it this long time since—while +poor you went a-hunting it,” said she, airily. +“But say it again, Anthony; say, ‘Lydia, I +love you!’”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>He laughed whole-heartedly. “You +Christmas miracle! What need to tell you, +when you know?” said he, fervently. “Lydia, +Lydia, indeed I love you!”</p> + +<p>“If I had even for one moment doubted +that,” she said gravely, “I should not be +listening to you to-night; perhaps you might +not know yourself!” Her eyes, shadowed, +grew very old and wise. “But there have +been times when I—despaired, Anthony. +Oh, the days, the nights, the slow, slow +empty years! And poor I so alone!” An +immense weariness enveloped her, sitting +grotesquely upon her young sweetness. She +shivered; before his eyes her face grew +pinched and sharp, and upon the smooth +brow came a pucker of pain. She drew +away; and in an instant an impassable barrier, +delicate as moonlight, strong as adamant, +seemed to arise between them. He +had the prescience as of a thing inevitable.</p> + +<p>“Anthony!” said she, “I—I can’t explain +even to myself just how I am here to-night, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>no, nor how you came to me. But I do +know it had to happen. You will not forget?”</p> + +<p>“How in God’s name could I?” he wondered. +“Nor is there need of explanation. +Why, we love each other! How could I +forget what I’ve been trying to remember +ever since I was born?”</p> + +<p>“You will remember—always, Anthony? +Oh, my dearest dear, be sure!”</p> + +<p>“I am sure.”</p> + +<p>“Then—never doubt—about to-night, Anthony—and +me,” she said.</p> + +<p>Shaken out of himself, he got to his feet +and held out his arms.</p> + +<p>“Who talks of doubt and of forgetting?” +he cried. “We two <i>belong</i>. Ah, don’t you +see how great my need of you is? I want +you, I love you! Lydia, come; come now!” +His outstretched arms pleaded for him.</p> + +<p>“Do not touch me!” her gesture was almost +repellent.</p> + +<p>“Lydia!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>“I—I cannot!” she gasped again. Her +voice trailed into a sobbing whisper. “I remember—I +had to find you—and that you +had to come. But beyond that—I never +thought.”</p> + +<p>“Well, think beyond that now, my child,” +he insisted, conquering his pained amazement. +He added, with a gleam of playfulness, +“Finding’s keeping, Lydia.”</p> + +<p>“Finding’s keeping—when one makes it +so,” she said, still out of his reach. “But +now that you have found me, you must go. +I cannot stay longer. See, the rain has +ceased, the moon is out.”</p> + +<p>“Now? I am to leave you here—alone?”</p> + +<p>“You are to leave me here—alone.”</p> + +<p>“There is no word for me, no—no surety? +What am I to think?”</p> + +<p>“You must come,” she said, “here to King +House, to-morrow, and take what you find. +See, where I put my finger in the heart of +this middle rose in the wreath just over the +mantel? Come to-morrow and touch that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>spot, Anthony, and take my gift. And—stand +so, for one last minute, Anthony, so +that I may see your eyes and your lips and +your black hair. Then tell me good night +and good-by.”</p> + +<p>With a noble patience, without further +question, he obeyed. In his heart he knew +he should never lose her: and was he not +coming back, to-morrow, for a gift from +her?</p> + +<p>Outside, in the wan light of a watery +moon, the gaunt house among the black +cedars showed with tragic bleakness. The +girl stood a slim glimmering shape, in the +dark doorway.</p> + +<p>“Good-by!” she whispered, and it seemed +to him he felt her touch him once, lightly, +before the darkness swallowed her. When +he reached the gate the light flickered out.</p> + +<p>But unshaken and serene, as if he trod +upon air, he walked through the withered +wet grasses, his forehead bare to the salt +wind. The night deepened; wider and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>wider grew the clear spaces in the sky, and +light upon shining light the cohorts of the +stars swung into their ordered and eternal +places. Over in the east one glowed with a +softer, larger luster. Trescott smiled up at +it.</p> + +<p>“I know you now!” he said, “you’re the +Star of Beautiful Things that happen at +Christmas!”</p> + +<p>It had been to him rather a fable, hitherto, +that old story of the star; but to-night something +of its hidden, tender meaning was clear +to him: along with the shepherds who had +seen it shining upon Judean fields, along with +the Wise Men who had sought it, bearing in +their hands gifts of gold and myrrh and +frankincense, the writer of books felt himself +following it, and knew himself nearer +the Everlasting; for that had come to +him which made him understand, that which +alone is real, and permanent, and abiding, +beyond doubt, above fear, stronger +than death: Love.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon +thine arm: for love is strong as death.... Many +waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods +drown it....</p> +</div> + +<p>Oh, surely when the morning stars sing together +it is thus they sing before His face!</p> + +<p>Odorous of wet woods, dappled with sunlight, +the Christmas morning broke, and +Trescott, looking out at his window, saw a +new heaven and a new earth. An earth, too, +which held a Christmas gift from her! So +he went forth to claim it.</p> + +<p>The gate was still open; rusting upon +broken hinges it hung upon the ruined wall. +He pushed his way through withered fennel, +waist-high grasses, thorny smilax, till King +House lay before him. With the tides of his +blood freezing about his heart, Trescott +opened the door and tremblingly made his +way to the mantel and groped for the carved +rose upon which—no, he had seen it with his +eyes, he had not dreamed it—a girl’s slim +fingers had pressed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>In the heart of the rose a tiny knob moved, +a little panel slid back and within the small +recess thus revealed lay a package in a velvet +case whose moldering string broke at his +touch.</p> + +<p>He found himself, presently, leaning +weakly against one of the great porch pillars. +He was trembling violently; his mind +whirled drunkenly; but mechanically he +clutched his Christmas present. When +he could command his senses again, he examined +his gift—a small leather-covered +book, upon whose yellowed pages appeared +delicate and tendrillar writing. In the +Christmas sunlight he sat down to read it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><i>18th Decembr., 1775</i>—You being a Birthday +Present, and I eighteen this day, and so much of +joyous Import crowding upon me, I do make you +my most sweet Intimate secret, little Book; and +what I may tell none else I shall set down within +you. Haply some day I shall show you to <i>Him</i>, +saying, “Such and such you did and said, Sir, on +such and such a Day, when we two were young and +first you knew you loved me! See, herein I did +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>set the record for you that be nearer to me than +mine own heart’s beating is!”</p> + +<p>These be grievous & troublous Times, like as, +my Grandfather saith, were prophesied of old by +Jeremy the Jew. In despite of which I cannot but +be happy, for that <i>Anthony loves me</i>! O God, +how good Thou art, that lettest Anthony love me!</p> + +<p>Yestreen I met with him in the green lane behind +our House. I wore my brown stuff, for I +bethought me he had said he ever liked russet +upon a white-skinned maid. And the heels of my +new silken shoon are red, and I thanked God I +had had patience to crisp my hair.</p> + +<p>He was wondrous smart, in claret colour, being +indeed but newly returned from London. God +never made a likelier man, nor one so proper +shaped. When in Holy Writ I read how that +Jesse’s lad was ruddy and of a beautiful countenance, +how that Saul was comelier and by the +head and shoulders above all Israel, then thought I, +these be like Anthony!</p> + +<p>He dismounted and walk’d beside me, leading +of his horse; and before we turned out of the lane +he had told me. Now what he said is printed upon +my heart. Nor could I set it elsewhere, not even +to your pages, little Book. I greatly Wish’d but +Fear’d to say that ever had I lov’d him, yea, even +when I was but a child in pinafores. That will +keep.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>Beside our Gate he kiss’d me, and this will I +remember even when I am old to heaven. Never +shall I forget, not even if I be grown familiar +with the glory before the face of our God.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>24th Decmbr.</i>—Christmas Eve, and we Crowd’d +to the Rafters, & much merrymaking. Anthony +supp’d with us, and afterward drew my dear Father +aside and spoke with him of me. My Father +cry’d ’twas but yesterday I was a child a-learning +of her horn-book at his knee; we might be betroth’d; +but must e’en bide a while before wedding, +for that the times are evil and War upon us. +Then gather’d all the company about us & much +kissing of me, and teasing, but my dear mother +weeping.</p> + +<p>The men talk ever of War & how the land must +be swept with a besom ere ever Freedom come. +But I bethink me how God is above all War; and +that Anthony loves me!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>5th Jany., 1776</i>—To Aunt Chatty’s to sup. +No tea, but elegant plumb-cake. I greatly fear +Eliza is a <i>Jealous Thing</i>, for she sniff’d most +odious and catty & hop’d my fine gentleman, fresh +from Lunnon, trifl’d not “with thy young affections, +child.” I recall now that never did I love +Eliza. An her husband—though I much doubt she +comes by one—ever beats her soundly, I shall die +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>in the firm faith she deserved it. Back in the tilbury +with Anthony. Sure ’tis a beautiful world, +in spite of some Elizas in it.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>3rd Febry.</i>—He is gone, he & my Father. War +has taken them. I saw him ride away from me +and all my hope go with him; sure my soul itself +did follow him a-whimpering. He waved his hat +for a last farewell, and the sunlight was upon his +beautiful countenance and his black hair.</p> + +<p>I wish my father had allowed us to wed. O +God, I am afraid! I am afraid!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>1st March, 1777</i>—No word this many, many +weeks.</p> + +<p>O God, remember me because of these nights! +Weigh me in the balance with these black hours +and see if all the errours of a thousand years +could weigh equal with this, my misery!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>17th Octbr.</i>—They have fallen. Both together. +Marion hath sent a letter full of kind words and +praise. To my poor mother came my lov’d and +honour’d father’s last words, but for me only mine +own little likeness taken from Anthony’s breast. +I know not if he had time to send one last thought +to meward.</p> + +<p>It has rain’d and rain’d and rain’d. And ever +before me I see him lying and the cold rain +drenching his hair.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>Oh, what is left to me, what? My gentle +Mother shames me with her meek patience: <i>she</i> +saw her children cradled in my father’s arms. +But I—what of me?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>Midsummer, 1780</i>—They ever bid me remember, +Anthony, that I am still young and that many +find me fair. They tell me ’tis not seemly for +Youth to cherish Grief so fondly, that I must e’en +look up and see in other eyes what once I saw in +yours. They know me not, O my love!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>Mayday, 1782</i>—To-day have I sat up for the +first time, after my long, long illness. Black +Matty brought me at my bidding my litle mirrour, +blubbering, poor wench! For indeed I am greatly +changed.</p> + +<p>It pains me, I being so sadly altered, to look +upon those pictured faces that are so smiling and +so young. I am minded to lay those pretty semblances +of what once we were in the little recess +above the mantel, in that room which saw us Betroth’d. +There shall they lie, with this little Book +I was minded once to show you, in coming years! +Alas, my heart!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>Octbr., 1782</i>—My own sweet love, in what I do +know now to be these my last few days, a something +grows within me of presage and of peace. I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>know that I shall find you, “For Love is strong as +Death.... Many Waters cannot quench Love, +neither can the floods drown it.” I do hold fast to +that as to an anchor, and I am comforted. For +still shall I be I, and you, you. So O my own +love, so greatly lov’d, for a little space, good-bye!</p> +</div> + +<p>There was no further entry. Trescott laid +aside the yellowed pages, and opened the +other half of the package. The girl herself +smiled up at him, brown-haired, brown-eyed, +rose-lipped, a wilful cleft marking her little +chin. One saw on the blackened gold true +lover’s knot, which formed the loop of the +picture, her initials—<i>L. K.</i> From the other +frame, most gallantly attired, young, clear-eyed, +very grave and beautiful, another Anthony +Trescott looked hopefully.</p> + +<p>The hush that fell upon Trescott seemed +to communicate itself to the day itself. The +very wind seemed to stand still in the cedars. +Time itself passed. Then, out of the heart +of the holy silence, a girl stepped, a girl all +in brown, a motor bonnet swinging on her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>arm and the sunlight full upon her shining +hair. At sight of him sitting there so sunk +in revery, she stopped short.</p> + +<p>“Anthony Trescott!” she breathed. And +he looked up of a sudden and met, glance to +glance, her intense and luminous regard.</p> + +<p>“Lydia—Why—Lydia!” he mumbled. +Blackness swooped upon him as his overwrought +nerves snapped.</p> + +<p>He came to, to find his head upon the girl’s +supporting arm. She was fanning him with +a brown motor bonnet—a perfectly enchanting, +expensive, ultra-modern motor bonnet. +But Trescott had no eyes for anything save +the rose-lipped face. He stared at her unblinkingly.</p> + +<p>“Lydia,” said he, gravely. “I found it, +dear, your Christmas present.”</p> + +<p>“I wish to gracious I’d brought Aunt’s +smelling salts!” said she, anxiously, and fell +to fanning him more vigorously.</p> + +<p>“I thought,” said Trescott, sitting up, +“that your message was all I could expect. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>Lydia, I didn’t even dare to dream you would +come. Oh, you were right—beautiful things +do happen at Christmas-time. For you are +here! Lydia, the wonder of it!”</p> + +<p>“But the wonderful thing isn’t that I’m +here, but that I should really and truly find +you here, Mr. Trescott!” said she, puzzled. +“I’m awfully sorry I startled you so; you +wouldn’t hear me coming, of course, with all +this dead grass about, and I was right upon +you before you saw me or I saw you, either. +Then you called my name, almost as if you’d +expected me, Mr. Trescott!” she finished +shyly.</p> + +<p>“How have you come, and why have you +come, here of all places under heaven, and +to-day of all days in the year?” he wondered.</p> + +<p>A dimple danced into her cheek, and her +eyes danced with it.</p> + +<p>“Why—I came, really and truly I came—on +your account, Mr. Anthony Trescott!” +she said gaily. “Why do you look at me so +strangely? It’s very simple. Don’t you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>remember how in your own ‘The House of +Their Fathers’ you made <i>Regina</i> visit, on a +holy day, the house of her ancestors, just to +let the poor old faithful place know that she +cherished it? I thought it such a perfectly +beautiful thing for Regina to do, and I made +up my mind I’d pay just such a visit to King +House one of these days. I’m one of the +blood, you see: I was named for a girl who +used to live here.</p> + +<p>“It just happened that my aunt decided to +motor over in her new car for a Christmas +dinner with her favorite nephew and his wife +and their brand-new baby that we haven’t +seen yet. She made me promise to come +along. Poor dear, she has such a horror of +motor cars I wonder she ever trusts herself in +one. We stop ever so often, because she has +nerves if a chicken runs across the road, or +there’s a curve; or anything. She insisted +we must stop for lunch at the very hotel +you’re putting up at. They boasted of it, +of course. You’ve no idea how I felt! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>Why, I’d been thinking for days and days +and days of visiting this old place; I dreamed +of it last night, and I woke up thinking of it +this morning. But I never dreamed I’d be +lucky enough to run across you! It’s really +wonderful to find you here, now, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Trescott, readily, “it is really +wonderful, when one comes to think about +it.”</p> + +<p>“I knew you at sight, of course,” she said, +thrilled and kindling. “You see, I’ve read +every sin-gle sol-i-ta-ry thing you’ve ev-er +written! And I’ve got a full dozen or more +of your pictures, all cut out of magazines and +newspapers. Of course I know you! But +oh, however did you happen to be here, right +now? It—it seems like a lovely, happy +miracle!”</p> + +<p>“Miracles,” Trescott informed her oracularly, +“happen at Christmas-time, which is +exactly when they should happen. I may +say truthfully I came expecting to find you +here too. And—here you are, you see! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>And now will you please look at me directly +and tell me, in all truth, just exactly how +Anthony Trescott appears to the eyes of Lydia +King?”</p> + +<p>The rose in her cheek deepened vividly. +Flame leaped into her glance. “Why, Mr. +Trescott, I think you are marvelous—quite +the most wonderful person in the whole +world!” she blurted out naïvely, then +blushed more deeply because of her own +words. Nevertheless she kept his eyes +bravely.</p> + +<p>“I remember,” she said, “the first day I +ever read one of your books and how it was +like a voice I knew talking to me. And I +remember the first time I saw your picture. +It—it jumped out of the page, and I shut my +eyes and counted ten before I could look at +it again. Somehow I’d known you were +going to be like that, Mr. Trescott. Wasn’t +it curious? And I eat and drink your books +and live with them, and dream with them. +I don’t very well see, then, how I could help +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>thinking you’re the most wonderful person +alive—everybody else thinks so too—or they +should think so!”</p> + +<p>Praise, fulsome and flattering, praise critical, +had been showered upon Trescott in his +time, but this clean glowing living understanding +was as deep calling unto deep.</p> + +<p>“We will dismiss ‘everybody else,’” he decided, +“and consider only you and me. Now +sit down here beside me, for I have something +to show you,” and he laid the little +book in her hand.</p> + +<p>She read, and the radiance died from her; +the eyes she lifted to his were too old and sad +and wise for her young mouth, her child’s +dimple.</p> + +<p>“I can hardly bear it!” she said in a stifled +voice.</p> + +<p>Trescott smiled consolingly. “All over +and done with, Lydia. For you are here—and +I also,” he reminded her, and put the two +pictures, so fresh and smiling, in her palm.</p> + +<p>She turned pearly white. “Why,—<i>they’re +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>us</i>!” she gasped. They looked at +each other mutely. Then, in a low voice, +he told her.</p> + +<p>“We seem to have been caring and waiting +and hoping a long, long time, don’t we, +Lydia?”</p> + +<p>She sat very, very still, staring straight in +front of her. And again the wind ceased to +move in the cedars, and over all the shining +day hung a waiting hush. Then, timidly, +she put out her hand, and the man’s closed +upon it.</p> + +<p>“Anthony!” her voice broke a little. +“Anthony, are you—quite sure?”</p> + +<p>“And you?”</p> + +<p>“I want you,” she said, “to take back my +picture. And to give me yours once more. +That’s how sure I am!” She turned to him +a face sweet with trust, bright with faith.</p> + +<p>After a while, she roused herself from the +dream into which, side by side, both had +fallen.</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t we better go?” she ventured.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> + <img src="images/i_fp070.jpg" width="450" height="766" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p class="caption">“I think it must have been just here that Anthony + Trescott kissed Lydia King”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>“My aunt is getting ready for another fit of +nerves, right now, I know it! Come on, the +car’s waiting down the road, and we can +make the hotel in half an hour.”</p> + +<p>They walked slowly, hand in hand; at the +broken gate they stopped for a moment.</p> + +<p>“I think it must have been just here,” he +said, “that—that Anthony Trescott—kissed +Lydia King.” And he looked down at her.</p> + +<p>For a moment she hesitated; then youth, +sheer dazzling joyous beautiful youth, +flashed into fire within her and swept her +free of every vestige of grief; a rosy finger +flew to her lip and her eyes full of innocent +mischief smiled at him enchantingly. And, +as his arms closed upon her, “It’s—it’s a +long, long time between kisses!” said Lydia +King.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">THE YOUNGEST OFFICER</h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> +<p class="ph3">THE YOUNGEST OFFICER</p> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">JUNIOR’S consciousness of himself as an +individual seems to have begun upon the +day when the major’s wife came out of his +mother’s room, and, finding him sitting lonesomely +upon the stairs, sat down beside him +and gathered him into a tight embrace.</p> + +<p>“Kindy,” said he, kindly but insistently +pressing a fat forefinger against her cheek, +“you’re k’yin’. What you k’yin’ ’bout, +Kindy?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, precious little man!” murmured Mrs. +Kennedy gulpingly. “And she so young—and +so beautiful—and so loved—and with +you and the captain—”</p> + +<p>The three-year-old wriggled his sturdy little +body out of her embrace and got on his +feet. His small shoulders straightened, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>trick he had from his father. His clear and +questioning eyes refused to be evaded. +“Vey said,” he whispered, “’at she was goin’ +’way, Kindy. Is she goin’ ’way?”</p> + +<p>“Junior,” began the major’s wife miserably, +“Junior—”</p> + +<p>“Is she goin’ ’way, Kindy?”</p> + +<p>The major’s wife began to weep then because +she couldn’t help it. And somehow +Junior understood. His gaze widened. +“Is she ’fwaid to go, Kindy?” he wondered.</p> + +<p>“She—she—We haven’t told her, Junior,” +quavered Mrs. Kennedy. She beat +her hands together softly, palm to palm. +“We—we can’t tell her! She—oh, my +God!”</p> + +<p>Junior pondered. It was characteristic of +him that he usually knew what to do—and +did it. Before Mrs. Kennedy could seize +upon him again he had reached his mother’s +room, where his father stood with clenched +hands and a face stony with agony. The +colonel’s wife, a stout old lady, sat in a chair, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>all in a pale heap. A doctor, compassionately +professional, conferred in a low voice +with a nurse who held a hypodermic syringe. +The chaplain, with his face in his cupped +hands, prayed in a trembling whisper.</p> + +<p>Junior paid no attention to these, but +trotted up to the bed and took his young +mother’s limp hand in his own warm moist +fingers. “Poo’ Muzzer,” he cooed. “Darlin’ +Muzzer, ’peak to Duny.”</p> + +<p>The great tragic eyes opened. Wanly +she tried to smile.</p> + +<p>Junior’s warm pressure tightened comfortingly. +“Mustn’t be ’fwaid,” he told her +sweetly, while the helpless grown-ups +watched him. “Booful Muzzer, mustn’t be +’fwaid to go ’way.”</p> + +<p>“Am I—going away?” she murmured.</p> + +<p>Junior kept his steady baby glance on hers +and nodded.</p> + +<p>For a moment a spasm quivered across her +face, and her eyes sought help piteously; for +she was very, very young. Then her eyes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>came back to Junior’s, and, as if they had +found what they sought, stayed there.</p> + +<p>“Nothin’ to be ’fwaid of, sweetie Muzzer. +Nothin’ to be ’fwaid of,” said he, repeating +in her hour of stress the lessons her simple +faith had taught him. “Dust teep tight +hol’ on my han’ an’ go sleepy. It’ll be all +light then.”</p> + +<p>She smiled again, more faintly but without +a trace of fear. And so, clinging to her +baby’s hand, she went to sleep. It was “all +light then.”</p> + +<p>The major’s wife took the little hand +gently away from Junior’s. To his mind his +mother had simply gone to the “lovely country”; +she had told him so herself. So she +stayed in his memory, becoming in time shadowy +but very real and vital. And she left +him, as a legacy, her love for his father.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The post mothered Junior, from the +woman who washed his rompers to the colonel’s +wife, who did her best to spoil him. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>And every man in the regiment was his +sworn blood brother, whom he knew from the +soul to the shoe straps. He, as it were, embodied +in his gallant little person the esprit +de corps of the army.</p> + +<p>An education like Junior’s affects one very +materially. When you know that your +great-grandfather fell at Malvern Hill and +your grandfather at El Caney, that your +own, ownest daddy bears scars from San +Juan—and all in the service, in the same old +regiment—why, you get a sense of personal +responsibility. The service looms very +largely upon your perspective. You learn +to carry your head up, your eyes level, your +chin out, your back straight; to fight fair and +to hit hard, and to look every man in the eye. +And you must never, never, never forget that +always and in all circumstances you’re an +officer and a gentleman. You’ve got to live +up to yourself and the service.</p> + +<p>Life was immensely interesting and livable. +Junior didn’t know that the word +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>“unhappiness” existed until orders came for +the regiment to go into exile. In construing +the word “unhappiness,” however, one learns +to estimate the value of its twin-sister word +“duty.”</p> + +<p>“Orders,” said the captain, looking very +hard at Junior, “are to be obeyed, without +whimpering.”</p> + +<p>Junior brought his hand to his forehead, +sat stiffly erect, and used all his endeavor to +keep his chin from quivering. He did wink +and he did gulp a little, but on the whole his +behavior was a credit to the regimental system +of instruction for a small boy who is +going to be a soldier himself some day—and +he knew it. This helped further to stiffen +his backbone.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” he agreed gravely.</p> + +<p>“My orders,” said the captain, “mean that +I must leave you, Junior. Your orders are +to stay at home and be a credit to us. +You’re the youngest officer, you know, and +you’ve got to represent us older fellows. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>That’s a man-sized job; but I think you can +hold it down, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>Junior considered. “I can try mighty +hard to, sir,” said he, still more erect.</p> + +<p>The big captain reached out a long arm +and caught up the little son. He spoke with +his face against the soft light hair: “You see, +I’d have to be sending you away from me +pretty soon anyhow, Junior. You shouldn’t +be tagging around from post to post, half +the time thick as thieves with rookies. The +women—God bless ’em!—have been so good +that you haven’t fared badly. But you +ought to have a regular home. I know it. +Only—since your mother left us—I couldn’t +bear to part with you. I couldn’t bear to +make you do without me, either. We’re all +we’ve got, you know, old chap.”</p> + +<p>The little boy’s arm tightened about his +father’s neck.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to send you to my old school, to +put you in training for the Point. But I +can’t do it yet, son. That’ll come later. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>Just now I’d rather you’d be at home with +somebody that’s kin to you. So I’ve written +your Great-Aunt Lydia, and she’ll come +for you. I think she’ll be glad to have you. +I think she’s going to love you a lot as +soon as she knows you. You’re pretty decent, +Youngest Officer,—thank God! Anybody’d +love you, let alone my good old aunt. +And now—I’m going to give you something, +little son.”</p> + +<p>He took from his breast pocket a light, fine +gold chain from which swung a little flat +locket. When you pressed a spring it was +as if a tiny golden door opened to reveal an +angel—so lovely, so pure, so tender the face +within. The captain kissed it with reverence, +then he pulled back Junior’s collar and +clasped the little chain about his neck.</p> + +<p>“You’re to wear this locket and chain,” +said his father, “day and night. It’s your +talisman. You’re to remember that she’s +with you; proud and happy when you win +out, Junior, sad and sorry when you fail. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>Why, boy, you’re her son! You’ve got to +live up to her and the regiment. Don’t you +ever forget that, my son. And—just hold +on to me tight for a while, old chap, won’t +you?”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the days that followed it seemed to +Junior that his pleasant world was disintegrating. +Faces that were as his landmarks +vanished. Always sad and tired, his father’s +eyes were now heavy with the pain of parting. +Somehow as he clung silently to the +big brown hand the little boy’s mind went +straight back to that day when another hand—a +small cold hand—had been taken from +his clinging fingers. But he hadn’t been +trained militarily for nothing. He kept his +chin up and he didn’t cry—at least not until +after lights were out.</p> + +<p>A tall, thin, stately old woman came presently. +Daddy called her “Aunt Lydia” and +kissed her withered cheek with real affection +and respect. He, too, had lived at her house +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>when he was a little boy. She held Junior +firmly by the hand when the train pulled +out and took the Youngest Officer away +from his regiment and his captain.</p> + +<p>Now when you’ve been raised on a gun +barrel, as it were, and your rising up and +your lying down have been at the bugle’s +call, and everybody from your colonel down +calls you “Son” and loves you like one, why, +it’s rather like pulling you up by the roots—without +water—to plump you of a sudden in +a calm, still, old New England town with a +calm, still, old New England lady who +hasn’t been used to a little boy for perfect +ages, and the nearest soldiers those in the +grass-grown cemetery.</p> + +<p>Aunt Lydia was painfully just and kind. +You saw her see her duty and do it. She +had a way of fixing her eyes upon you and +drawing her lips together and saying in a missionary-to-the-heathen +voice: “Good Heavens! +This child’s been allowed to run perfectly +wild! Those awful men! Oh, this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>must be seen to at once!” And it was.</p> + +<p>Junior learned to close doors with terrifying +gentleness, because it seemed to Aunt Lydia +a heinous thing to have them shut with +the slightest healthy slam. No; properly +raised children open and shut doors gingerly, +as if, say, the doorknobs were loaded and +might go off; and they enter a room with becoming +meekness of demeanor. Junior also +learned never, never to rush into the house. +He wasn’t really inclined to rush into the +house, anyhow. When he had done so it +was only half-heartedly, just to pretend that +there was something to rush to. He learned +to slide punctually into his place at table at +one minute to six, dinner being served on the +stroke, and to sit through the meal silently, +being as silently served. This at first +brought poignant comparisons of gay riots +with Mrs. Lieutenant’s frolicsome four, and +allowance of dessert with Mr. Lieutenant—sometimes +with the chaplain, sometimes with +the fat, jolly major, always with Daddy. In +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>time, however, one becomes accustomed to +everything, even to silence at table. Aunt +Lydia wrote to Daddy, cautiously admitting +that the boy was well-behaved, truthful, and +hardly any trouble at all. Which is praise +indeed from a maiden lady.</p> + +<p>Next to his father’s letters Junior’s greatest +solace, friend, and help was old McAndrews, +who lived in two fascinating rooms +over the stable and managed Miss Lydia’s +comfortable estate—and Miss Lydia. There +existed between these two a curious friendship. +McAndrews, Junior thought, was the +oldest person alive. When Miss Lydia’s +bedtime chapter had been fifth Genesis Junior +had glanced rather uneasily at McAndrews, +who seemed to him actually to visualize +those long-lived gentlemen whose many +years Aunt Lydia was sonorously enumerating.</p> + +<p>All of a ripe eighty, with a hale, ruddy +face framed in a New England snow of +beard, McAndrews had known every Palmer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>born for three quarters of a century. What +tales of them he told Junior! Some of them +sailors, some of them soldiers, all of them +men of action. Junior’s Daddy was in his +memory as a little boy, a youngster fresh +from West Point, a big brown fellow home +from Cuba. And oh, more wonderful than +all, he had known Junior’s mamma, for she +had lived within a few miles of this self-same +little town! She was, he said, the +most beautiful girl in the world. Even yet +his voice broke a little when he talked about +her.</p> + +<p>He used to take Junior by the hand and go +trudging over the country-side in heavenliest +rambles. Every house called for a history +in detail, until once they passed a fine old +place set back from the road, embowered +among many elms, and McAndrews, pausing, +glowered at it silently. He hadn’t intended +to take Junior by the Holcomb house, and he +was angry with himself.</p> + +<p>“What a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>place!” said Junior, attracted by the old +mansion and its magnificent trees.</p> + +<p>“Aye!” snarled McAndrews.</p> + +<p>“I wish,” said Junior, “that I could climb +up in those trees, McAndrews, or roll in the +grass beneath them. I like how this place +looks. Whose house is it?”</p> + +<p>“That,” said the old man after a pause, +“is the Holcomb house. And,” he added, +shaking his stick at it, “if it hadn’t belonged +to an old devil it might have sheltered a +young angel. That door’s closed to you +and your father, boy; it was closed against +your mother.”</p> + +<p>McAndrews trudged along in grim silence +for a while, and Junior, too, had no words. +His heart was beating fast. His mother had +lived there in that place! But why had +those doors been closed against her and him +and Daddy? Junior couldn’t understand. +Nobody at the post had ever told him anything +about her, save that she was very +young and very, very lovely. But of a sudden, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>as if he thought the little boy should +know, McAndrews began to tell him more.</p> + +<p>She had been a great heiress, McAndrews +said—that is, very, very rich. Her papa +and mamma had been very vain and proud +of her, and they had planned that she was to +make what is called a great marriage: that is, +they wanted her to marry a man they knew +who wished to marry her—a man who had +millions of dollars. But she had laughed +and shaken her head.</p> + +<p>Then came the Captain from El Caney, +with a wounded leg and a great grief upon +him because of the gallant old father he had +left behind. Everybody had been nice to +him and had been proud of the handsome +young man; but the nicest and proudest of +all had been the most beautiful girl in the +world.</p> + +<p>“Because,” said McAndrews, “those two +just were made to love each other. They +couldn’t help it.”</p> + +<p>But when the captain went to Aaron Holcomb +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>to ask for the most beautiful girl there +had been a terrible to-do. They said he +shouldn’t have her; they said he wasn’t anything +but a poor soldier with nothing but his +pay; they said she’d have to choose between +nothing but a soldier and them; and that she +would have to marry another man, anyhow. +Then she had put her hand in the captain’s +and chosen him. Neither her father nor her +mother had ever looked upon her face again, +nor named her name, nor given any sign +when she wrote to tell them about the little +boy that presently came to live with her and +the captain. They hadn’t even given a sign +when they were told that she had left the little +boy and the soldier. So the little boy +really hadn’t any grandparents, you understand. +In the place that should have been +his they had put a little great-grand-niece, +who was to get all that was theirs.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said McAndrews angrily, “how +could anybody think of casting out an angel, +and a soldier, and a little chap that was an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>honor to their blood?” Moved out of himself, +he dove into his pocket and gave Junior +his own treasured clasp-knife—for keeps!</p> + +<p>That night when Junior opened the little +locket he kissed with a deeper tenderness her +girlish face. And somehow, as if she had +gently whispered it into his soul, he began to +be sorry for that sad, bad old man and +woman who had turned away from her and +couldn’t ever call her back again.</p> + +<p>Junior couldn’t say that he was actually +unhappy at Miss Lydia’s; she was too really +just and kind to make anybody truly unhappy. +But he was horribly lonely at times. +He missed, as little boys do so acutely, just +lovingness. He couldn’t actually put it +into words, you know; but he wanted people +to do things for him because they loved him +and wanted to, not because it was their duty.</p> + +<p>There were many lessons and much studying +to catch up, for Miss Lydia said the +child’s education had been, to say the least, +peculiar and irregular. Miss Lydia only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>knew some of the things Junior didn’t know; +she couldn’t guess the many fine and tender +and beautiful lessons the regiment had +taught him, because she was a reticent old +lady and Junior a shy little boy.</p> + +<p>With the first snows and the red sled McAndrews +had bought for him things picked +up. He was getting along fairly well in the +mazes of modern learning. He hadn’t done +anything that the regiment would blush for. +He had had, too, a few good gallant fights, +in which he had borne himself like a man of +his hands, thereby winning the enthusiastic +friendship of those whom he had “licked.” +Also just outside of the small town was a +particular hill high enough and breakneck +enough to satisfy even the most ardent little +boy’s desire for thrills, and a pond big +enough to hold a whole townful of skaters. +Junior began to think that life, even outside +of the post, may be pleasant enough—in +spots.</p> + +<p>It was on the rather lonesome road leading +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>to the pond that Junior fell in with the Fairy +at the close of a particularly freezing day. +The Fairy was obviously out of her element, +but was just as obviously delighted with the +fact. Floundering waist-deep in drifts had +draggled her line furbelows; for she was +most gorgeously “got up,” as a fairy should +be. One mitten had gone, leaving bare a +little hand turned purple from the cold. +Under her furred cap her eyes were dancingly, +gaily blue,—almost as bravely, steadily +blue as Junior’s. Escaped in many an +ensnaring curl, her hair was of an indescribably +bright gold. At sight of Junior and his +sled she gave a squeak of delight, holding out +both hands.</p> + +<p>Her name, she said, was Ga’sie. His? +Oh, just Junior. Junior was really hungry +to have somebody call him that again. Aunt +Lydia wouldn’t. She disapproved of it. +She said it wasn’t a name, it was a sort of +appellation. But Junior thought it brought +the post and the colonel and the major and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>the rookies and Daddy a little nearer. +Somehow it made him feel as if it were not +himself, but some other little boy, when people +addressed him as “Bruce Palmer.” The +Fairy, however, accepted “Junior” beamingly. +Only, as he himself had once done, +she called it “Duny.” Duny began to adore +her right then.</p> + +<p>He knew that the proper thing was to put +her on his sled and haul her home; but this +she brought to naught by not knowing where +home might be. Junior at her bidding put +her on his sled and hauled her about the +pond, wrapping her bare little hand in his +own larger mitten. They had a beautiful +time, for never was a fairy more graciously +delightful to a little boy hungry for +one.</p> + +<p>Junior was sorry when a giant in livery +dashed, panting, out of the growing gloom +and swooped upon the Fairy with exclamations +of joy and reproach. Not a word of +gratitude was bestowed upon Junior; nothing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>but a growling threat against bad boys +that helped runaways.</p> + +<p>“Duny finded me, nas’y man!” shrieked +the Fairy, kicking with all the force of her +short legs. “I tummin’ ’den, Duny! Doo’-by! +Doo’-by!”</p> + +<p>Junior went home rather unwillingly. +There wasn’t anybody there to play with +nor to snuggle against. Under the bleak +gray sky, in the fading light, Miss Lydia’s +square brick house looked squarer and brickier +than ever; it didn’t look a bit warm and +welcoming, but rather as if it thrust out +angular elbows to push one away. And the +Fairy had been so like Mrs. Lieutenant’s +youngest that it made Junior’s eyes smart. +If crying weren’t “cowardy custardy” he +could have cried copiously; but the regiment +discourages sniffling.</p> + +<p>As it was he was a full seven minutes late +for dinner, which waited coldly for him, +Miss Lydia rigidly resigned in her high-backed +chair. She didn’t say one word; she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>just looked at the clock and then at Junior. +And the clock spoke up for her: “Sev-en min-utes +late for din-ner! Sev-en min-utes late +for din-ner!” The little boy’s ears burned.</p> + +<p>He didn’t mention the Fairy. He had +never even mentioned the pond itself. Miss +Lydia had a fashion of worriedly wrinkling +her brows, pursing her lips, and asking +aloud: “Should that child be allowed to run +about so much by himself? Is that pond”—or +that hill, or that road, or that anything +else—“perfectly safe? Perhaps, Bruce, you +would better stay within calling distance of +the house to-day.”</p> + +<p>Within calling distance of the house was +out of calling distance of any reasonable diversion. +Junior didn’t want to stay away +from the pond. She hadn’t said he couldn’t +go, but then she might, after the unaccountable +fashion of grown-ups. Junior wisely +held his peace.</p> + +<p>For instance, he had been forbidden by +McAndrews to go down the big road curving +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>by the Holcomb house. So although he desired +above all things to see the place where +his mother had played as a little girl, he +didn’t go.</p> + +<p>He had, too, an almost fearful curiosity +to see those two who had lost her. In his +short experience everybody had been kind, so +he couldn’t believe that unkind and naughty +folks can look just like ordinary people. +No, indeed. You can always tell the witch +by her long nose and her curved chin and her +fierce eyes; and the ogre usually has sharp +and bloody teeth, hasn’t he?</p> + +<p>His mother became to his mind like one +of those beautiful and charming princesses +who are detained by a wicked king and +queen, but who escape and ride away on the +crupper of the prince’s big black steed. And, +despite his fear of the old king and queen +whom she had left, Junior wanted to see that +house in which she had grown up.</p> + +<p>The place, he learned later, was open. +The old king and queen were staying there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>that winter, after an absence of years. Distant +cousins, nephews, nieces, and their wives +and husbands and children filled up the +many big rooms, for they were to spend +Christmas there. Preparations for that +great event were already under way on a +huge scale. Sleighs full of noisy, laughing +folks dashed by Miss Lydia’s house; wagons +loaded with crates and bales and bundles +went to and fro. But the little boy who +was the lost princess’s son flattened his small +nose against Miss Lydia’s diamond-paned +windows, watched them wistfully and had +no place in their thoughts, their merrymakings +or their hearts. His very existence was +quite as effectually ignored as it had always +been. But, somehow, keeping faith with his +mother’s sweetness, Junior didn’t feel ill +treated or resentful; he only felt sorry.</p> + +<p>“Poor things!” he said to her at night, +“they haven’t got you any more; and Daddy +and I have.”</p> + +<p>Because of a slight cold he had been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>strictly kept indoors of late, and it palled +upon him who was by nature free. If there +had been any small folks to keep him company +he wouldn’t have minded so much, but +there wasn’t anybody. And oh, how he +wanted to go out and find that fairy again!</p> + +<p>Aunt Lydia, as she said herself, wasn’t +much of a hand for visiting. She sent you +fine clear jellies and flaky bread and cake +and spicy pickles and steaming broths by +way of neighborliness, but she never seemed +to give you herself. So she wasn’t what +you’d call really sociable. People didn’t +drop in to see Aunt Lydia and bring the children +and stay for tea. Good gracious, no! +When they called they sat stately on the +horsehair parlor sofa, and pretended to be +thawed out by the frosty fire which had just +been kindled, and talked about church work, +district visitin’ and the Woman’s Auxiliary. +Junior thought at first that this latter was +something to wear; later he decided that it +was something akin to the rheumatism which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>stiffened Aunt Lydia’s fingers, or the everlasting +cold which made Mrs. Pepper’s voice +like a crow’s. It was uninteresting, however, +anyway you looked at it. Junior +usually managed by polite degrees to slide +out of the room. Once when he had closed +the door gently upon half an hour of Auxiliary +he had met the cat in the hall and +promptly kicked her. This was one act for +which Junior afterward blushed. The cat +got sleek on tidbits covertly fed to her by +way of expiation.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Just before Christmas, the weather being +then mild, Aunt Lydia pronounced Junior’s +cold cured and set him free. She was very +busy with Christmas cakes herself just then.</p> + +<p>Junior made straight for the pond. Because +of the thaw, the ice, although not actually +dangerous, was pretty thin in spots, +and Junior avoided these spots carefully. +He knew that recklessness isn’t bravery. +When it comes down to risking your life—for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>other people’s safety—why, you’ve just +got to take it in your ten fingers and risk it, +that’s all. That’s the code. Otherwise +you keep yourself in trust and you are careful.</p> + +<p>Over on the farther shore, under the +shadow of the trees, the ice was still thick +and firm, and Junior flew up and down this +shore until his blood tingled joyously. The +rapid flight made him almost forget for a +few minutes how horribly he wanted his +Daddy, to hear him speak, to hold his hand. +Christmas had always been so gay at the +post; this year he was away from the regiment, +and it came bitterly hard.</p> + +<p>After a while he sat down, and, chin in +hand, wondered about his captain ’way over +in the Philippines. Oh, wasn’t he missing +Junior, just as Junior was aching for him? +And wasn’t he, too, feeling “all by himself”? +A big, big lump grew and grew and +grew in the little boy’s throat. You do miss +people terribly just about Christmas-time, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>you know. Despite pride and the regiment’s +scorn of a cry-baby a full half-dozen +extra-sized tears ran bitingly down his cold +cheeks.</p> + +<p>And just then there fell upon his shoulder +a small, light, friendly hand.</p> + +<p>“What you k’yin’ ’bout, Duny?” demanded +the Fairy, thrusting the little hand +comfortingly into his. “Darlin’ Duny, +don’t you k’y!” Of her own accord she put +up her rosy mouth and kissed him roundly. +Junior didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. +But he put his arms about her warm little +body and snuggled her. She felt like a plaster +upon his sore heart.</p> + +<p>“Wanted to see you, Duny,” she said +placidly, stroking his cheek. “Ga’sie love +Duny. ’Nen I yunned and yunned and +yunned. Dot nas’y Fräulein!” And she +fetched a great sigh as if from a deeply afflicted +bosom; but her expression was so impish +that Junior laughed aloud and hugged +her again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>A stout young woman broke through the +screen of bushes behind them, panting and +indignant.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ach</i>, thou naughty one! <i>Himmel</i>, but I +have this day run!” she gurgled. “Leave +the boy and come away instantly.”</p> + +<p>The Fairy turned into the Fury. Down +came the small foot, stamping; the mittened +hands doubled, the face grew raging.</p> + +<p>“I tummed to fin’ Duny. I want Duny. +Duny take me home. You go ’way!”</p> + +<p>But the Fräulein advanced, stretching out +a determined hand.</p> + +<p>“Shall thy mother and thy rich uncle ask +for thee, naughty one, and I answer that I +left thee in the forest with a strange wild one +of these parts?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>The Fairy backed off warily. In a second +she was in full flight, flying toward those +danger signals in the center of the pond—signals +which meant nothing to her. And +Junior, with an eagle swoop, flew after her; +but the Fairy was like one of her own elfin +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>race and evaded his clutching fingers, ignored +his warning cries.</p> + +<p>Just beyond the second pole she slipped, +slid forward a few feet, the thin ice crackling +under her. Then the ice tipped and her +bright head disappeared. Junior found +himself staring horror-stricken into the black +hole which had swallowed her. He waited +for her to reappear, but there wasn’t even a +ripple on the surface of the black water +which hid her.</p> + +<p>Sheer panic came upon him and by the +very newness and terror of the sensation he +realized that for the first time in his life +he was scared, just plain scared. He was +but nine. He wasn’t a particularly good +swimmer; even if he had been, one can’t +swim under ice. There wasn’t a rope nor +any help near save the German woman +screeching to Heaven in her own tongue.</p> + +<p>And then Junior remembered the regiment. +Why, he held the honor of the old +regiment in the hollow of his hand! It was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>just as if he’d heard his captain’s voice: +“... the Youngest Officer ... representing +us older fellows....” And the +face in his locket! His heart fell to beating +naturally. Off came skates, cap, shoes, +jacket. Junior, with his eyes wide open, disappeared +after the Fairy.</p> + +<p>One wouldn’t think that water could be +so cold—so alive, as it were. It seemed to +Junior as he went under, groping for the +child, that the water had gripping fingers +that caught at him, trying to hold him down.</p> + +<p>There wasn’t much trouble in getting the +Fairy, who had stayed down. The only +trouble was to get her back to the opening—and +the ice was so thin just there—and the +water was above his head—</p> + +<p>A million years marched over Junior’s +head before he got it above water, dragging +the limp child up with him. With one +hand he held her, chin just above the surface; +with the other he tried to hold on to +the edge of the ice. His choking cry was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>answered by a longer, louder, shriller scream +from the governess, a piercing cry that +brought a flying sleigh to a standstill a hundred +yards down the road and sent its two +men occupants running toward the sound.</p> + +<p>The Fairy was unconscious then, and +heavier than lead in Junior’s numbing grip. +He barely managed to hold on. He doesn’t +remember how they pulled him out of those +icy fingers which seemed to hold him. He +heard shouts; saw, as it were, a flash of fire +before his eyes; felt himself go, and then +darkness came upon him.</p> + +<p>Along with the Fairy he was bundled into +the sleigh and rushed to a house, whither doctors +were wildly summoned, and a great hush +fell upon joyous Christmas preparations.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> + <img src="images/i_fp106.jpg" width="450" height="645" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p class="caption">He tried to hold on</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Not a soul in his mother’s house knew him +who should have been best known and loved +of all. They only knew that this strange +child had at the risk of his life saved little +Grace’s, and a sense of gratitude sent Mrs. +Holcomb herself to the room where he had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>been brought. She helped to remove his +soaked and icy garments. She noticed then +the locket at his sturdy throat, and later, +while the others were working upon him, she +took off the locket to see if by chance it might +inform her who he was.</p> + +<p>Just as she smiled at Junior nightly, when +he kissed her before he went to sleep, so the +little lost Princess smiled now, tenderly, exquisitely, +in her mother’s face.</p> + +<p>The woman staggered; but she was a +proud old woman, so she didn’t scream +aloud. Only, in a bound she was back by +the bed, and all pale and trembling looked +down at her child’s child, and wondered why +she hadn’t known him at once. Oh, great +and terrible link of Love, that Time and +Death might weaken but could not break! +She knew him for blood of her blood; she +wanted to snatch up his beautiful unconscious +body in her arms, as if through him +she might touch once more that other one. +It was as if God had drawn back a curtain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>and let her see the result of her own pride +and folly; as if his lost mother’s shadowy +shape stood beside him and looked at her and +reproached her for what had befallen him.</p> + +<p>She gave a great cry at that and ran out +of the room, with Junior’s “talisman” in her +hand. With a stirred and pale face she +came up to her husband, who, seated in the +hall, waited for news of little Grace.</p> + +<p>“Is Grace—” he began, alarmed at sight +of her pallor. But she shook her head impatiently. +Grace was—Grace—dear and +beloved of course, but the other child was +<i>hers</i>.</p> + +<p>“The little boy!” she gasped. “Aaron, +Aaron—the little boy! Come, come at +once!” And she dragged him to his feet.</p> + +<p>Wondering if her mind were shaken he +followed.</p> + +<p>Junior was just giving faint signs of life +under the doctor’s hand. His thick light +hair fluffed about his forehead in the curls +he hated, and his black lashes showed the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>marble of his cheek. But the brave little +face was one which a whole fighting regiment +adored.</p> + +<p>“Coming around now. But he’s had a +tussle for it, the brave little chap! Must +have the grit of a man to hold out as long as +he did,” mumbled the doctor.</p> + +<p>But the old lady paid no attention to the +doctor. She just dropped on her knees by +the bed and took Junior’s hand in hers and +kissed it. She had ten years’ tears to shed, +and they burst over the child in a terrible +flood.</p> + +<p>The old man sank into a chair, his knees +giving way beneath him. He didn’t need +to look into the locket thrust into his hand; +he knew too well whose unforgotten face +looked out of its small gold door. So he +looked instead at the face on the pillow, a +face to make any father glad and proud. +Presently the slow and awful tears of an old +man who has done wrong, and suffers for it, +crawled into his eyes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>He and his wife were still with Junior +when McAndrews, stern and bitter, and Miss +Lydia, in tears, came to demand the captain’s +son. Even the grief and remorse that met +him couldn’t quite soften McAndrews.</p> + +<p>“Give us the boy and let us go,” said +McAndrews.</p> + +<p>But the old lady kneeling beside Junior +tightened her clasp. “Take him away from +us? Now?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“And why not now when he’s naught to +you?” asked McAndrews. For he was +touched to the heart about the lad, and angry +and sore against these people. “This +roof,” he said stoutly, “is no place for the +captain’s son to bide under. He’s needin’ +no care from them that never had aught to +give him, not even Christian kindness. Sir +and Ma’am, keep you your gold and your +pride, and her you’ve put in his place and +that he’s given back to you. You’re welcome +to them all. Miss Lydia and I, that +love him, will take and keep our little lad.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>The old man sitting sorrowfully beside the +bed lifted his face and met Miss Lydia’s +gaze. All the pride and hardness had gone, +leaving him what he was in reality—a sad +and sorry old man, lonely in his age and his +gray hairs.</p> + +<p>“I am glad—that you have at least seen +him; that he has been able to render you so +great a service,” said Miss Lydia, proudly. +“Oh, such a good, brave, gallant little soldier! +It may ease your burden to know him +as he is—a credit to his father’s name—and +to his mother’s memory.”</p> + +<p>McAndrews blew his nose fiercely then to +conceal his feelings, and said grumpily: “Let +us take the child and go.”</p> + +<p>But the doctor wouldn’t have it. He +said McAndrews was a crazy old man who +talked as if he wanted to kill the child outright, +after all the trouble they’d had to +pull him through.</p> + +<p>When Junior woke up a brand-new, sun-bright, +glittering day was getting the earth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>ready for Christmas. But never in his life +had Junior felt so weak and tired as he did +that morning. If it hadn’t been that a +strange new room caught his attention at +once—and he a most curious and observant +little boy, bound to investigate everything +new—he’d have snuggled under the covers +and gone right back to sleep.</p> + +<p>Miss Lydia, however, had seen his eyes +open and she spoke to him. Her face wore +a brand-new, sun-bright look too—a sort of +unlocked, doors-open look. She kissed him +as if she’d been waiting to do it a long time +and was glad to have the chance, and she +called him “Junior” in a tone that widened +his eyes.</p> + +<p>Over Miss Lydia’s shoulder came two +other faces: both old, both gray, both sad +and loving and entreating; both begging +with their eyes for Junior to look at them +and be friends. They seemed nice old people, +he thought. The old man now—there +was something in that old man’s hungry, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>grim, stern, loving face that called to +something just like it ’way down deep in +Junior.</p> + +<p>“Why, he’s better, thank God! He’s all +right! He’s all right!” said the old man, +and his eyes went right on claiming Junior.</p> + +<p>But Junior was just then remembering +things. Then came his first words—the +words of a youngest officer. “Is—is the +Fairy all right?” he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” said the old man, smiling, +“that you mean our little Gracie. Oh, yes, +she’s all right this morning, thanks to you.”</p> + +<p>Junior’s hand went right up to the locket +that had been replaced about his throat. He +gave a sigh of satisfaction; he knew that +she’d understand and be pleased.</p> + +<p>“Oh, darling child!” said the old lady. +“You have been so brave.”</p> + +<p>Junior blushed a little, remembering that +he had been frightened.</p> + +<p>“Why, you have to,” he said simply. +“You’re scared, you know; but you mustn’t +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>stop for that. <i>She’d</i> feel pretty bad; and—there’s +the regiment.”</p> + +<p>“The regiment?” The old man’s brows +bunched, but he looked at the little man with +a great and growing pride; the pride, say, of +an old lion for a particularly promising +cub.</p> + +<p>“Ours,” explained the youngest officer and +gentleman in it. “My grandfather’s, who +died at El Caney; my father’s and mine.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said the old man, thoughtfully. +“I’d like, sir,” he added respectfully, “to +shake hands with you. For the regiment, +you know.”</p> + +<p>Junior got it the other way about. His +mother’s own sunshiny smile broke over his +face and he put out a frank hand. But he +couldn’t understand why this old man +should hold his hand so long and so tight, +nor why Aunt Lydia and the other old lady +should turn aside their heads, nor why tears +should run down the old man’s cheeks. +Also he wished they’d tell him where he was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>and how he got there, and who they were +that seemed to claim him.</p> + +<p>“My head,” he explained, “got sort of +twirly and I can’t remember just how I came +here. Would you mind telling me, sir?”</p> + +<p>“This,” said the old man, and his eyes +seemed to bore right through Junior, “is the +Holcomb house. My name is Aaron Holcomb, +and that lady there is my wife.” +And he drew her forward to stand beside +him.</p> + +<p>Astonishment and open disbelief struggled +in Junior’s face. Why, this was a <i>nice</i> old +man; and one might very, very easily love +this old lady. It simply couldn’t be these +people who had driven “her” away!</p> + +<p>“Aren’t there,” he wanted to know hopefully, +“two Aaron Holcombs? Isn’t there +another one—not like you?”</p> + +<p>The old man winced, for he couldn’t help +reading in the child’s face the meaning of +that question. “No,” said he gravely, +“there is just one—myself.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>“Oh, no!” protested Junior. “Not you! +You—you don’t look like <i>that</i>!—either of +you!”</p> + +<p>So they stared at each other. And presently +the child nodded, reaching right down +to the secretest bottom of that proud old +heart. “I think,” he said sweetly, “that you +must have been awfully sorry and sad and +ashamed after you’d let her go. Because, +you know, you couldn’t get her back ever +any more.”</p> + +<p>Aaron Holcomb flung out his hands with +a groaning cry. “I was!” he whispered. +“I am! I am!” But his old wife came +and took his arm.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think,” she said to Junior, +“that you’d like to stay with us, little +grandson? We want you so much; and +maybe—after a while, dear—you’d even +grow to love us.”</p> + +<p>Junior considered. He liked these two +old people already; they weren’t in the least +ogreish, but on the contrary very, very pleasant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>to look at. He wanted to stay in his +mother’s old home; he rather thought she’d +like him to stay there. But if he left Miss +Lydia and McAndrews, who had been so +kind to him, wouldn’t the regiment think +he’d flunked? Would the regiment approve?</p> + +<p>Miss Lydia herself settled the matter out +of hand. “I have a piece of Christmas news +for you, Junior,” she said, with a very tender +smile. “Your father’s coming home on +leave of absence—soon. And until he comes +I think you’d better stay right here and get +acquainted with your grandparents. Then +you can <i>both</i> stay with me.”</p> + +<p>“All right!” said Junior, rather sleepily.</p> + +<p>“He’s going to stay, Aaron. We can +have him!” said his grandmother, and she +bestowed upon Miss Lydia a look full of +gratitude.</p> + +<p>“And play with the Fairy. I love the +Fairy,” said Junior, more drowsily. His +eyelids couldn’t stay open; he went to sleep.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>With immense pride and tenderness his +grandfather bent over him. Delicately he +moved the fair head on the pillow and +touched the ruffled hair. Then he laid his +hand on his wife’s shoulder and kissed her +as he hadn’t kissed her since the Princess +went away.</p> + +<p>“Bone of our bone, Jenny, flesh of our +flesh,” he said. “My grandson—my little +grandson!” He bent over and kissed Junior, +and his wife and Miss Lydia knew he +was kissing Junior’s mother then too.</p> + +<p>Even McAndrews, who had come to see +his lad, hadn’t a word to say.</p> + +<p>“Give me his father’s address, Miss Lydia,” +the grandfather said presently. “I’m +going to cable my son to come home to us. +And now you women clear out. Jenny, +you’re to fix—<i>her</i> room for my grandson. +Miss Lydia, won’t you please help us to get +his Christmas tree ready? Sit down in the +library and write out a list of the things +you think he might like—you help her, McAndrews, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>please. We’re to have the big-best +Christmas ever, Miss Lydia. Why, I +want the whole town to come here Christmas +night and welcome my boy home.” He +sat down and waved his stick at them to +leave him.</p> + +<p>As they went out McAndrews grudgingly +held forth his hand. “<i>I</i> loved him before +<i>you</i> ever clapped an eye upon him,” he said, +surlily.</p> + +<p>But Aaron Holcomb only shook his head. +“That’s why I have to sit here and get acquainted +with him,” he said. “You see, he +was born nine years old to me. Besides, he +might wake up and want something, and I’ve +got to pray, McAndrews, that that something’ll +be me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">LINDEN GOES HOME</h2> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> +<p class="ph3">LINDEN GOES HOME</p> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">OVER the entire region, through which +distracted beings wandered like lost +souls, there hung by day a column of smoke +and by night a pillar of fire. A calamity +that one named Sherman—a vast, awful +blue thundercloud edged with crooked, +bright gleams of bayonets—spread from Atlanta +to the sea.</p> + +<p>Everybody was running; one’s destination +did not seem to make much difference, +so long as it happened to be somewhere else. +Then when one reached somewhere else, +folks were flying from there, too; so that +women and young children and old men and +scared negro servants milled around in a +horrid circle of fear.</p> + +<p>When her fleeing friends besought the little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>lady in black—not alone for her own +sake—to leave lone “Linden,” just off the +Hardeeville Road, she shook her head with +the obstinacy of the meek. Wherefore they +went their ways and left her.</p> + +<p>“I feel,” she remarked presently to old +Cindy, “I feel as if I were the only person +left in the big, empty, lost world the day +after the Day of Judgment. Everything’s +happened that could happen; everything’s +finished and done with.”</p> + +<p>What she really meant was that <i>he</i> had +fallen. Understanding this, Cindy reached +over and soothingly patted her hand.</p> + +<p>Only the master and mistress had never +been afraid of Cindy; they had always been +kind to the gruesomely ugly old African. +Cindy remembered; and now that the other +negroes had gone like chaff before the wind, +and the little desolate lady needed immediate +help, Cindy marched unasked up to the +Big House and took capable charge.</p> + +<p>So long as Cindy stayed in the Big House, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>no negro would willingly cross its threshold. +<i>Cindy was obi.</i> Dowered with evil power, +in the dark she dug baleful roots, and with +these and the fearsome “swamp-puppy,” cast +spells and talked with h’ants. Her very +appearance inspired terror. She was nearly +six feet tall, though age had somewhat +stooped her broad shoulders, and under her +black turban her head was quite bald. Her +little red eyes were so deep-set that one felt +rather than saw their snake-bright glitter. +From her blue gums (<i>blue-gummed negroes +are poison; if one should bite you, you +would die</i>) projected canine teeth of incredible +length. When Cindy drew back her +withered lips, and her face, with its wrinkled +forehead, and enormous nostrils, twitched in +silent laughter, one wished to run away. +Only the gentle eyes of the little mistress had +ever looked with affection and trust upon +that grotesque mask.</p> + +<p>When the disturbing rumor spread that +they were coming toward Linden, Cindy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>instantly decided to remove her mistress, +willy-nilly, to some place less lonely. +There was in Columbia a favorite kinswoman, +Mrs. DeSaussure. They would go +to her. Linden was left to its fate.</p> + +<p>At Hardeeville an old man who had loved +the master of Linden managed to find a +place in the overcrowded train for his widow, +and big Cindy crouched at her feet. At +every station were dolorous crowds; and +long lines of vehicles, all piled with household +effects, came and went, moving endlessly, +aimlessly, in a horrible confusion, as +in a nightmare. Always, in a cleared space +upon the platforms, were narrow, long pine +boxes—waiting. Sometimes the old negroes +who had come to receive these boxes broke +into lamentable cries and wailings. But the +white men and women took them away silently, +being as silently watched by the rows +of sad faces in the train windows. The little +lady in black, looking upon them, gripped +her hands together in her lap; she also had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>received such a six-foot box from the front.</p> + +<p>They reached Columbia at night; and +here, too, was the nightmare of people and +things moving aimlessly, always, always +moving, moving.</p> + +<p>It was bitterly cold; there were no conveyances +to be had, and the little lady’s +knees were trembling. She was shudderingly +ill. An old priest, noting her pitiful +plight, came mercifully to Cindy’s aid. +Upon the threshold of the DeSaussure house, +the moaning creature collapsed.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid,” said the priest to Mrs. DeSaussure, +“that I can’t find you a doctor. +They’re pretty nearly all gone. But I’ll +try. God help us! God help us!” He +wrung his hands, and disappeared, running.</p> + +<p>No doctor came. But at dawn, in the +bare, stripped drawing-room whose hangings +and carpets had long since been made into +saddlebags, the little boy who was the last +of his race opened his huckleberry-blue eyes.</p> + +<p>“Poor—little—baby!” murmured his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>young mother faintly. “Poor—poor—little—fatherless—baby! +Never, never—to +know—<i>him</i>!” Two slow, cold tears crept +down her white cheeks.</p> + +<p>Aline DeSaussure bent over and kissed +the child compassionately. This frail old +woman, whose diseased heart had rendered +her hold upon life purely tentative for many +years, had yet, by the irony of fate, survived +her stalwart husband, her strong young sons. +Over the baby’s unconscious head, the two +unhappy women looked at each other piteously. +Cindy looked at both, and muttered +prayers not addressed to the white man’s +God. That God had come to Cindy along +with slavery. Now the opportunity had +come to let them both go; the old pagan felt +herself free to return to her own gods, the +old gods, the bush gods. It was a great relief, +as if one removed tormenting tight +shoes and stretched at ease one’s cramped and +aching feet.</p> + +<p>That day Columbia, stored with the treasures +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>of half a State, bursting with loot, was +invested. Ominous hours dragged by, leadenly, +oppressively, with a sense of inevitable +disaster overhanging and imminent. In the +middle of the night there arose of a sudden a +glare; and then upon all sides sounded the +crackle of flames. Bells clanged; dogs began +to howl dismally. Shouts arose, and +shrill and piercing screams. One heard the +frightened crying of children suddenly +aroused from sleep. As the flames spread, +the light of burning buildings showed unbelievable +things, things grotesque and heroic +and sometimes terrible.</p> + +<p>In the Catholic Church, the orphans, +hastily gathered, stood in a huddled group, +looking with frightened eyes at the pale, +praying sisters, and at the vestmented priest, +who addressed with passionate words and +gestures certain grim-faced men in alien blue +uniforms.</p> + +<p>One of these men rapped out an order; +the priest cried aloud; and then the children, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>at a word from the sisters, began to move. +They hurried out into the frightful din and +clamor of the streets, while behind them +church and convent began to burn. When +the door fell in, one glimpsed statues +wrapped and writhing in flame, as the +damned in the Florentine’s hell. Columbia +was a gigantic torch lighting up the black +night of war.</p> + +<p>When the house on the corner was ablaze +and thunderous knocks resounded on the DeSaussure +door, Cindy answered the summons.</p> + +<p>“Who’s here?” There were bayonets beyond +the voice, and Cindy looked upon the +group witheringly.</p> + +<p>“White women’s hyuh, white men!” +said she savagely. “Two uh dem—an’ a +new-come chile.”</p> + +<p>“Get ’em out!” was the sharp order. +“Get ’em out—or they’ll burn with the +house!”</p> + +<p>Already the intruders were trampling +through the rooms. They helped themselves, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>rather whimsically, one thought, to +whatever caught their fancy; the owner +looked on silently, with that disdainful and +desperate calmness with which intrepid souls +face fate.</p> + +<p>The baby and his mother were carried +out, on a cot hastily piled with such coverlets +as could be snatched up, and set down +in the nearest clear space, a small square +brilliantly lighted by the burning house on +the corner. The woman, who was extremely +weak, had lapsed into a merciful unconsciousness, +but the baby squirmed and cried. +Mrs. DeSaussure, bareheaded, and with a +worsted shawl about her thin shoulders, sank +down beside them. It was piercingly cold, +and in the grip of a bitter frost the torn and +trampled streets were like iron, over which +swept a cruel February wind.</p> + +<p>Toward dawn the woman on the cot +opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>“C-Cindy!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, missis. Yes, chile.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>“I’m—I’m going.” Her stiff blue lips +formed the words with difficulty, but her +eyes besought. “Promise—you’ll take the +baby—back home—to Linden. <i>Oh! God! +God!</i>”</p> + +<p>From a near-by street had come a hoarse +and confused murmur of many voices. +Men in soiled uniforms tramped into sight. +Capering negroes, shouting, laughing, clapping, +accompanied them. And of a sudden +the black people burst into an exultant and +measured singing:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“B-ab-y-lon’s a-fallin’! B-ab-y-lon’s a-fallin’!</div> +<div class="indent">An’ de dar-kies gwine ter oc-cu-py de lan’!”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Bitten through by the teeth of the fire, +the walls of the majestic old house on the +corner crashed down with a roar. Wild +chant and wilder figures swept by.</p> + +<p>The little lady was shaken, head to foot, +with a long, slow shudder. A deep, deep +sigh escaped from her bosom, and her head, +crowned with very heavy, bright hair, fell +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>forward. Mrs. DeSaussure presently drew +the sheet up over her face. Under Cindy’s +shawl, held close to her flat black breast for +greater warmth, the baby mewed with cat-like +plaintiveness.</p> + +<p>The DeSaussure house had been adding its +quota of illumination. As they crouched +upon the ground beside the cot, the two +watchers could see flames leap upward from +its roof. When the roof fell in, Aline DeSaussure +moaned. It had sheltered generations; +it had covered her young wifehood, her +lads’ childhood.</p> + +<p>Presently, detaching itself from a chaotic +background of smoke and flame, there came a +figure, clapping its hands, staring, screaming +with staccato laughter. Now she minced +and bowed, smiling horribly, with bitten lips. +A torn velvet robe hung about her, soiled and +disheveled. She flung up her hands, and, +catching the unbound black hair that +streamed about her, tore it, and laughed and +laughed and laughed. Vainly clutching at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>the flying, fantastic figure, which always +lightly eluded her, stumbled and panted a +fat black mammy, calling with endearing +and coaxing tenderness upon her stark nursling.</p> + +<p>Aline DeSaussure looked with wide and +anguished eyes upon the terrible and tragic +figure, but a little while since the honored, +the beloved, the beautiful; and it seemed to +her that Carolina herself, distraught, ruined +Carolina, went by in the wind of the mad-woman’s +passing. She uttered a lamentable +cry; her hands flew to her heart, rent by +a mortal pang; and, as if to shut from her +sight that poignant vision, her eyes closed.</p> + +<p>Cindy lifted her to the cot and drew the +sheet over both women, who were so slim +that they did not crowd each other on its one +pillow. The black woman stood looking +down upon them reflectively.</p> + +<p>“Ain’t scared uh dem white folkses’ God +no mo’. Not me!” she grumbled.</p> + +<p>An hour or so later, at a cabin in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>outside country, Cindy got some milk for +the well-nigh famished baby. Her evil +aspect, and the significant bag now openly +worn about her neck, commandeered respect—and +necessities. But she was warned that +not only season and weather, but ruin, starvation, +and soldiers, lay between herself and +Linden.</p> + +<p>Cindy smiled awesomely.</p> + +<p>“I done got powerful spell tuh lan’ dis +chile home,” she confided. “He natchelly +<i>’bleeged</i> tuh git home. Uh-huh! I done +call muh own ol’ big black god clean f’um +Afficky ’count uh dis hyuh same chile.” +She paused, and added, with dark impressiveness: +“Wouldn’t like ter be de pusson +tarrygatin’ <i>him-all</i>!”</p> + +<p>With the speck of humanity snuggled in +her shawl, Cindy set out.</p> + +<p>What was given willingly, she repaid with +charms; what was not, she took—when there +was anything to take. If milk was procurable, +Cindy nosed it out with a truffle-hound’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>flair. But far too often there was +no milk; then the child fed upon teas made +from simples gathered by the roadside, or for +days at a time he lived upon corn meal boiled +into a very thin gruel. By all the fancied +laws of hygiene he should have succumbed. +He grew.</p> + +<p>At night, in some lonely thicket under the +open sky, the witch woman would squat +upon her heels beside a small fire of crossed +sticks and with a palmful of earth and another +of water would mutter spells over his +bald, innocent head. If there were any +powers Cindy failed to call to his aid, it was +because she had never heard of them; and +Cindy was a witch doctor’s daughter.</p> + +<p>Once, indeed, she had dared to call Names +that filled even her rock-ribbed heart with +cold, awful fear. That, however, had happened +upon a most auspicious occasion, in the +full of the moon, and when she had captured +one of the last few cocks left in Carolina—a +black cock, young and perfect. For these +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>Names must never be uttered unless one has +a black cock’s blood to offer. They will +come then to eat the smell of the blood, +and also because of certain prayers and +words. Now if they are to be petitioned to +grant their favor and protection to, say, a +young child, that child must be laid mother +naked upon Mother Earth between Father +Fire and Sister Water. And his skin must +be pricked a certain number of times, until +drops of blood appear. Three times, then, +shall the Names be named, with the Word of +each for a sign. And then—if they are +pleased—they will put upon that child their +spell—and Earth and Fire and Water shall +never harm him—and all his life people must +love him and serve him. It is a very good +spell for any child to have put upon him.</p> + +<p>When one is burdened with a young and +lusty baby for whom food must be foraged +far and wide over a war-swept country-side, +one’s progress is necessarily slow, particularly +when one is past fourscore, and overdriven +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>old legs and lungs show signs of +wearing out. The indomitable old woman, +despite all obstacles, had made each week’s +end find her a little nearer to Linden. But +one evening at sundown she felt herself suddenly +fail, as an old horse fails in harness.</p> + +<p>It was long past dark when Cindy reached +the nearest shelter, a cabin set down at the +edge of a swamp. In the incredibly old, +wrinkled, and palsied man who opened the +door, the conjure woman recognized one of +her own calling, and sighed with relief. +<i>They</i> had not failed her yet; she had found +in her extremity the very help she stood most +in need of.</p> + +<p>Long, long into the night, while the baby +slept peacefully upon a bed of gunny-sacks, +Cindy and the old man communed. Presently +Sally, one of his two granddaughters, +was called in, and upon a tuft of the black +cock’s feathers, dipped in blood and tied with +a seven-knotted string, the scared girl was +made to swear that she would take the baby +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>home to Linden when Cindy was gone. Cindy, +in fact, had managed to stay only long +enough thus to settle her affairs to the best +of her ability. So the baby passed into the +slack hands of strange negroes.</p> + +<p>They were very kind to him; negroes are, +as a rule, kind to children. But in that +parlous time, with a cabinful of hungry children +and no men to help them, the women +had neither means nor time to send the child +forward, much as they would have liked to +obey their grumbling old grandfather’s repeated +urgings.</p> + +<p>In the meantime the child slept beside the +youngest black baby in an overcrowded +cabin; and presently he was learning to +walk, by the simple process of getting up +when he fell down and falling down when he +got up, with many an unnoticed bump and +bawl between. He grew fat and rosy on +corn-meal mush and bacon grease eaten from +a tin plate with a mouth-stretching iron +spoon. The many little negroes taught him +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>early to talk. He was not a year old when +he would lisp his name—Linden. Cindy +had so insistently mentioned Linden that +they named him thus; he had no other name. +On the whole, he fared, perhaps, as well as +most babies fared just then in war-worn +Carolina.</p> + +<p>Through the big teamster who just then +caught her fancy, Sally at last saw her +chance to keep her troublesome promise. +The teamster, in the employ of the Union +forces, had seen the unravaged and prosperous +North, and he wished Sally to go thither +with him. Colored Canaan did not lie in +the South. Zeke knew the men who were +coming home—in rags and tags, battered, +scattered, maimed and halt and in driblets—<i>but +who were coming home</i>. And he rather +thought he would prefer to be somewhere +else for a while. Sally was quite willing to +go; but first she must fulfil the promise +wrung from her by her baleful old grandfather +and the black witch with the red eyes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>and gorilla teeth. If she did not do what +they had made her swear to do—<i>and that +big, awful old woman came up out of the +swamp some night—with all those teeth</i>—</p> + +<p>Zeke hastily agreed that Sally had better +keep her word; it is very unsafe to meddle +with witches’ doings. When his job of +hauling timber for the Government was finished, +and the last money collected, they two +would take the child back to Linden and +then turn their faces northward.</p> + +<p>Linden, however, no longer belonged to +the baby; for, by one of those summary military +transfers common in conquered provinces, +it had been declared confiscated, and +so passed into the strong hands of John MacLean.</p> + +<p>Full of a fierce and fiery faith—and full +of Scotch-Irish prejudice and obstinacy as +well—John had seen in the South a field +ripe for a great spiritual harvest, and had +laid aside the gun to arm himself with the +gospel. Having valiantly helped to free enslaved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>bodies, he started in just as valiantly +and as stubbornly to free enslaved souls.</p> + +<p>In that country of wrecked plantations, of +ruined rice-fields and roofless houses, calm +Linden, fronting the bright May River, +pleased him. Save that it bore sad evidences +of marauders and that a great deal of the +fine furniture had been either broken or +stolen outright, the house was intact. Once +in secure possession, John settled down to +what he meant to make his life-work, and +called in the lighthearted, sensuous colored +people to drink deep of the cold well of +orthodox Calvinism. They were appreciative: +they wished to please the white man +who offered them, for the mere taking, +Thirty-nine unbreakable Articles; but they +found the well-water unpleasant to the +palate and—slyly made a sieve of the dipper.</p> + +<p>He opened for the colored children a +school, in the stately dining-room from +whose walls arrogant patricians looked +out of splendid frames; the room’s marble +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>mantel bore their carved escutcheon; beneath +which one read: “<i>Ad Astra</i>.” John +thought that such stars as these slave-holding +gentry had looked to were evil ones. He +smiled to see their painted semblances look +down helplessly upon the sons and daughters +of Ham learning their A B abs in the room +of their feastings; and his dour humor was +tickled at the contrast between the grinning +little negroes and the fine, gay, bare-bosomed +ladies, with slim, pointed fingers that had +never toiled and slim necks one might think +would break under the weight of heads +crammed with such damnable pride.</p> + +<p>He was very hopeful. When he saw his +dusky audience swaying like barley in the +breeze of his words of sound counsel, John +MacLean felt himself glimpsing the mountain +peaks of coming Canaan, rising, rosy-pink, +in the dawn. He was as yet unaware +of the neat holes bored in his gospel-gourd.</p> + +<p>When he did finally begin to be aware +of the nature and extent of the leakage, he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>was seized with stern, wrathful impatience. +It was very difficult for him to view the subject +in any clear perspective. He had been +at first too far off; and now, being too near, +he put his eye against the object he wished +to study and so blinded himself. One +could wish that all reformers should take a +preliminary course in optics.</p> + +<p>Why should a race be so childishly frivolous, +behave with such naked and unshamed +untruthfulness, at so great a turning-point in +its career? Perhaps, he reflected, it was because +they had not as yet been taught their +value as human beings,—free human beings, +with a part, and that no mean part, to play +in the world. Yes, that must be it. John +began to teach them their great value as human +beings, very persistently and insistently.</p> + +<p>But if black faces beamed approval, when +he went abroad among his new neighbors +white faces looked upon him with a cold and +hostile contempt. He had come in their +most evil hour, and he had been allied with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>those forces which had crushed the South. +Therefore they judged him even as they were +judged by him. They were engaged in the +most frightful struggle in which any people +can engage,—the struggle to preserve the integrity +and purity of a race in the midst of a +world turned topsy-turvy. They neither +asked nor desired outside help or counsel; +they insisted upon their inherent right to +manage their own affairs in their own way. +And it was in order to do this that they had +of late called into being a force born of +desperation and duty—the Klan—against +which John MacLean thundered without +fear, but not without fanged and ravening +reproach.</p> + +<p>John could no more understand that movement +than the men behind it could understand +<i>him</i>. With flashing eyes and compressed +lips he had listened to dark and wild +tales, to whispered, fearful confidences, to +terrified comments.</p> + +<p>Of the seed that burned bravely at market +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>crosses, fell singing fighting hymns on lonesome +moors, starved unwhimpering in forgotten +dungeons,—he was devoid of fear. +A man of his hands, his utmost Christianity +could not keep his blood from kindling joyously +to a rousing battle. He had no faintest +notion of counseling meekness. Bareheaded, +on the front steps of Linden, he +called the colored country-side around him +and advised them to get guns and to use +them. For himself, he said disdainfully, he +had no tinge of fear; and he asked them to +remember that for such a cause as this had +his old friend John Brown died at Charlestown.</p> + +<p>They left Linden glory-hallelujahing; +it was John MacLean’s gauntlet thrown +down openly for all members of the outlaw +Klan to see.</p> + +<p>The Klan watched silently. And presently +they decided that they had most grievous +ground of complaint against this cantankerous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>carpet-bagger; a fact perfectly +well known to Mr. MacLean, who, like a +particularly bad-tempered St. George in conflict +with a particularly devilish dragon, +honed up the tongue of denunciation accordingly.</p> + +<p>And, while the storm lowered over Linden, +and the cruel, bleak winter of direst +want and woe drew near to one of those sad, +sad Christmases after the war, Zeke and +Sally, with the little boy between them, were +journeying homeward by ox-cart express. +The baby was simply and chastely clad in a +parti-colored shift worn next to his grimy +skin, a man’s old coat with the sleeves rolled +up to allow his small arms free play, and a +battered and shapeless felt hat pulled down +over his ears in the effective fashion of an +extinguisher. Of shoes he had none. +Cindy’s bag, sewed up in a very dirty piece +of calico, was tied about his neck; and his +cheeks—such as one might glimpse of them +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>under the enshrouding headgear—bore upon +them etchings done in wet points of bread +and molasses.</p> + +<p>On Christmas Eve, in a chill and dreary +twilight, they left the ox-cart in a thicket +and entered the path that leads through the +pines to Linden. Wet, swaying pendants +of trailing moss, hanging from the huge oaks +that interspersed the pines, brushed against +them with a clammy and ghostly touch. +Zeke and Sally, both nervous and silent, were +filled with exaggerated fears. All along the +long road, terrible and wild stories had been +whispered, filling tellers and listeners alike +with apprehension.</p> + +<p>They breathed deep with relief when at +last Linden lay before them, dark, quiet +deserted, with closed doors and windows, and +light showing in one room only. Stepping +noiselessly upon the pillared porch, Zeke +swung the sleeping baby off his shoulder and +plumped him down with his back against the +closed door. Linden had come home.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>The baby was quite used to cold and darkness, +but not at all used to being left alone +and supperless. He called softly: “Thally! +Thally!” But “Thally” did not come back. +His lip trembled; tears filled his eyes; the +vague, formless fear of aloneness assailed +him, and lifting up his voice he cried +loudly.</p> + +<p>The door was hastily opened by a big, fair, +bearded man who held a candle in one hand +and shaded his keen blue eyes with the other. +The bundle of rags upon the threshold +waited no further invitation than the opened +door, but trotted into the hall, his small bare +feet pattering on the uncovered floor. A +sleeve of the coat unrolled and flapped beside +him emptily, grotesquely.</p> + +<p>Whether the outlandish waif were black +or white John could not for the moment tell; +in truth, it mattered little, all children being +dear to him. He ushered his small visitor +into a room warm with fire and candlelight, +and removed the evil odored coat, the shapeless +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>hat. Periwinkle eyes, white brow, gold +hair, revealed themselves.</p> + +<p>“And where will <i>you</i> be from?” John +wondered.</p> + +<p>“Thally gone. Thally leave Linden,” +said the baby gravely, shaking his head over +Thally’s defection.</p> + +<p>“And who’s Sally, now?”</p> + +<p>But the child had imparted all the information +at his command. Sally was Sally, +and Sally had gone and left him. He +patted the big man’s hand to make him understand.</p> + +<p>The big man was absurdly grateful for +that friendly, light touch. He had been +feeling most horribly alone; he had, in all +truth, felt that same vague honor of aloneness +which had made the child cry out at his +door. The house was quite deserted, save +for himself, the cook having gone into Bluffton +for the night, on Christmas business of +her own. But the emptiness that John recognized +was not so much in the house as in +himself, the inevitable result of social ostracism.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> + <img src="images/i_fp150.jpg" width="450" height="704" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p class="caption">The bundle of rags on the threshold waited no further + invitation</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>The Bible opened at random, which he +had been reading when the cry at his door +interrupted him, had given him for his pains +the lugubrious eighty-eighth:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from +me; thou hast made me an abomination unto +them....</p> + +<p>Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, +<i>and</i> mine acquaintance into darkness.</p> +</div> + +<p>The words stung him. For he was most +absolutely cut off from his kind, a thing +calamitous for a white man. The evil, +greedy carpet-baggers exploiting ignorant ex-slaves, +making of them political pawns upon +the bloody chess-board of the South, filled +him with a stern disgust and anger; and he +viewed the ex-slaves’ former owners very +much as, say, a biblical Jew might have +viewed Baal worshipers overthrown, hewed +hip and thigh by the sword of the Lord and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>of Gideon. He said, therefore, in substance:</p> + +<p>“Gentlemen, I am everybody’s enemy.”</p> + +<p>And they replied unanimously: “For this, +be anathema.”</p> + +<p>And already the light, volatile natures, the +easy, pilfering morality, the irresponsible, +gay inconsequence of the pupils and protégés +for whom he labored had begun to chafe and +fret his own honest and truthful nature. He +had no thought, however, of giving up a fight +just begun. But to keep him sweet he +needed communion with his equals.</p> + +<p>That the wee visitor, come mysteriously +out of the dusk of Christmas Eve, should be +a white child touched him curiously and tenderly. +Blood is thicker than water. He +did not love the black babies less but the +white baby more.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the white baby was looking at +him with starry eyes full of the sweetest trust +and friendliness. And John did so greatly +need trust and friendliness just then. One +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>may have very, very, very little, and still not +be without some inward and sure staff of +comfort and of hope; but, oh, to be alone and +hated, without love, without intelligent sympathy, +without friendliness—on Christmas +Eve!</p> + +<p>The childless man felt his heart melt in +his bosom, remembering old, tender stories of +that dear Baby of the Star, who at times delights +to reveal himself to sad men on pilgrimage; +and always in the guise of the beggar and +of the lowly whom he loved.</p> + +<p>On the table, beside the big Bible, stood +the remains of John’s supper. The child +pointed to it eagerly, for he was very hungry.</p> + +<p>“Linden wan’ thuppeh.”</p> + +<p>Linden! Why, the child’s name was Linden! +What a pleasant and curious coincidence!</p> + +<p>Having supped, the baby yawned, looking +about him for a good spot to curl up and go +to sleep, like a puppy with a full stomach. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>He decided upon the hearthrug. But John’s +bachelor neatness and cleanliness were scandalized +at the bare idea of any human creature +going to sleep anywhere in such a shocking +state of grime. He wished that Viny, +the cook, were there to help him; but she was +not, and John rolled up his sleeves and set +himself seriously to the task, fearsome to any +man, of getting a thoroughly dirty child +thoroughly clean. The one discolored garment +made him shudder, as he consigned it +to the fire. Cindy’s bag was laid upon the +table for later investigation, and he handled +it as gingerly as if he had seen the old +black woman mumbling her spells with its +aid.</p> + +<p>Linden enjoyed the warm water hugely. +He splashed and shouted and laughed, and +grabbed at the soap, and worried the wash-rag; +and he howled only when John, with +more zeal than deftness, soaped his eyes and +mouth. It was a drastic scouring, but there +presently emerged from it a sweet and rosy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>cherub, hard to be recognized as the dirty +little grub of an hour since.</p> + +<p>When he had been trussed in an undershirt +by way of a nighty, and the room decently +put to order again, Master Linden decided +that the nice big man should sing him +“nighty-night”; he stood on tiptoes to be +taken up and rocked.</p> + +<p>“Thing by-bye,” he urged, settling himself +comfortably in the crook of a big arm, +and the big arm that was all too empty +closed about him hungrily, instinctively, God +having made all big arms for the great purpose +of cuddling soft, snuggling little bodies. +An inexpressible, exquisite sense of fatherhood +welled up in John’s heart. He pressed +his face down against the damp curls. He +began to sing:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“God rest you, merry gentlemen! Let nothing you dismay.</div> +<div class="verse">For Jesus Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day.”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The baby, with half-closed eyes, crooned +a tuneless tune to the fire, his hand patting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>John’s arm. Then he went to sleep in the +arms of the man who had taken his inheritance, +and was held close and lovingly. Reluctantly +John laid him down upon the sofa +and covered him with a blanket brought from +his own bed.</p> + +<p>He had time then to examine the extremely +dirty little bag tied with knotted +string, and to marvel at the unchancy +plunder it contained. But he whistled +when, from the midst of the conjure stuff, +there came to light the rings Cindy had taken +from a dead hand. With them was a man’s +very handsome and heavy gold watch-fob, +stamped with a coat of arms—the same arms +blazoned upon the marble mantels and over +the great doors of Linden. John stared at +the jewel almost unbelievingly. Then he +stole over and looked long and earnestly +upon the sleeping baby, and saw how race +and breeding marked every lovely line of +him. John knew him now, bone of the bone +and blood of the blood of those proud patricians +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>whose portraits still hung upon the +walls of their despoiled home, men and +women allied to the lordliest names of England +and of France. Eh, but this was a +bonny baby! In his secretest heart the dour, +doughty Puritan adored his strength and +grace and comeliness.</p> + +<p>When he had taken over Linden for the +glory of the Lord, John had heard, of course, +of the little widow and her flight to Columbia; +also he knew that there had been an heir +expected. But the little widow was dead, +and no one had heard of any child surviving. +Yet—here he was!</p> + +<p>Who had brought him home, or why, or +how, John never knew; but he was quite, +quite sure Who had sent him, and he had no +thought of refusing the heavenly gift. He +would have thought such a refusal sacrilegious, +he who saw the hand of the Almighty +in all his affairs, shaping his destiny +and guiding his days. With all humility +and willingness and gratitude, he took over +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>his new stewardship and all that it implied. +He sat by the fire, and, full of a happy awe, +dreamed and planned. There was a far, +fair future in which he and this child, viewing +the great work they should do together, +might, too, say reverently: “What hath God +wrought!” He smiled; he was no longer +alone.</p> + +<p>His Christmas present presently stirred in +his sleep, woke, and sat up.</p> + +<p>“Wanterjinkerwater!” said he plaintively. +“Dimmyjinkerwater!”</p> + +<p>Vain of the delightful fact that he so readily +understood this angelic lingo, John got +the water, eager to wait fatherlily upon his +child. The little man drank slowly, with +long and deliberate pauses between little +sips. Then he stuck his fat fingers in the +glass, paddled them, laughed, and looked up +at John with bright, mischievous eyes.</p> + +<p>And even then sheeted figures were dismounting +from sheeted horses before the pillared +porch of Linden. They moved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>soundlessly, as might the phantoms they resembled, +and their appearance, in that lonely +place and hour, was such as froze the blood. +Under the tall leader’s hand the great hall +door swung open, for in his surprise at the +child’s entrance John had forgotten to draw +the bolts. Soundlessly they moved down +the wide hall toward the room from which +light issued. The leader opened this door, +too.</p> + +<p>Candles and firelight dancing on the walls; +upon the table nothing worse than bread and +milk and an open bible. And John himself, +kneeling, smiling fatherlily upon a rosy and +roguish elf who paddled in a glass of water +and laughed gleefully.</p> + +<p>The child saw them first, and gasped. At +that John looked up and knew his fate was +upon him. Rage shook him head to foot, +and he would have rushed upon them, unarmed +as he was, but—one could not endanger +a child’s life in such a mêlée of killing +as must ensue. He got to his feet and faced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>them, disdaining words, without a trace of +fear, but with eyes blazing with bitter contempt. +Twenty pairs of eyes cold with condemnation +looked back at him, the carpet-bagger, +the preaching fire-brand, the enemy. +The tall leader beckoned, an imperious and +menacing gesture. John shrugged his shoulders, +a grim, scornful smile curling his lips.</p> + +<p>“So much mummery for one lone man’s +murder!” said he, bitingly.</p> + +<p>Something in that tense, electric atmosphere +troubled the young child’s spirit. He +slipped off the sofa, and as the big undershirt +tripped him, and John, with a quick gesture, +stooped to raise him, the little man gripped +the big one with warm, moist fingers. He +frowned disapprovingly at the things in the +doorway.</p> + +<p>“Go ’way, boogermans!” he ordered, with +pretty imperiousness. “Go ’way!”</p> + +<p>When the boogermans failed to go, the +baby wished John to take him up in his arms. +But John shook his head regretfully. His +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>brows puckered then as the problem of the +child’s fate presented itself. He looked +about desperately, praying for an inspiration +for the child’s sake. Then, holding up his +hand impressively, he addressed the tall +leader, and told of the child’s coming, of +what Cindy’s bag contained.</p> + +<p>But the baby himself, after vainly twitching +his friend’s trouser leg, began to roar +dismally, with the fearless lack of restraint +that is a baby’s most potent weapon. John +and his visitors looked at one another, not +so much with hate as with perplexity. +There was a thing to be done; but, in the +doing, what of the baby?</p> + +<p>“And <i>you’re</i> of his kin and his race!” +spat John, with sudden exasperation. +“Christmas Eve—and an innocent roused +from his sleep to witness murder! Could +you find no fitter time for your devil’s +prankjankins than the birth-night of the +Lord?”</p> + +<p>Nobody answered. In sheer desperation, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>John went on his knees to comfort the wailing +child, and as the baby strangled his sobs +on the big man’s breast, they in the door +looked on through the slits of forty eyeholes.</p> + +<p>“If you can dare to handle innocence with +bloody hands—if there’s one among you +that’s a father—take the child home to some +woman to-night, for the love of God!” said +John. And gently he put the child aside. +“It goes sore against my grain to part with +you, my bonny man,” he said softly and regretfully. +“I looked to be a father to you. +But the will of God be done! Never yet did +John MacLean gainsay a decree of his +Maker. And in my Maker’s name I beseech +my murderers to deal fairly with you +after I am done away with, and to put you +into possession of what must be yours. +Stay!”</p> + +<p>He fished a stubby pencil from his pocket, +drew a chair to the table, seated himself +calmly, and on the fly-leaf of his Bible made +his brief will, leaving Linden to the child. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>When he had signed and dated it, he rose and +nodded.</p> + +<p>“That will make it surer,” said he, with +a satisfied smile.</p> + +<p>And all the while the baby, refusing to +be lightly put aside, clutched at his knees, +protesting against such neglectful treatment +with raised, tearful eyes and heartbroken +sobs.</p> + +<p>“And now,” said John to his gentlemen-in-waiting, +“there is but one thing more.” +He fished a handful of small change from his +pocket, bowed to them, and laid the money +on the table. “You will be so kind,” he said +politely, “as to buy with this some little +baubles to please him? It’s Christmas, remember—Christmas! +I think it would ease +me in my extremity to remember I had made +the wee thing happy on Christmas!” He +straightened his shoulders at that, and his +head went up. “And now I’m ready,” said +he calmly.</p> + +<p>Once more he had to put aside the clutching +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>little hands as he bent to kiss the child’s +fair head. With a firm and manly tread, he +walked toward the men, who were already +moving through the hall. The door shut +upon the baby’s wails.</p> + +<p>“God forefend he’ll set himself on fire!” +said John anxiously. “You might hurry,” +he suggested as they stepped upon the porch.</p> + +<p>Night hung over the dark earth, wet with +rain and sweet with woodsy odors. Above +the dim, slim pines clouds scurried about, +trying to clear a space in the sky for a few +timid Christmas stars. One caught, too, the +salty sweetness of the tide-water. John +drew a deep, deep breath, filling his lungs +with it.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the steps, ghostly horses +drifted up to meet ghostly riders. Their +movements were very deliberate.</p> + +<p>“And the child alone with fire!” snarled +John, and stamped his feet.</p> + +<p>The tall leader spoke in a slow, low voice, +and instantly the men mounted and began +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>to move off. From the house came a muffled +cry, and John sucked his teeth sympathetically. +Dear baby,—so bright and +brave and beautiful, so loving and loyal and +like the Holiest Baby of all—good night, +good night, and good-by!</p> + +<p>The masked horsemen, drifting into the +shadows of the pines, melted into the night. +Then the leader drew near and laid a firm +hand upon his captive’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Ah can’t spare any of my men to-night to +tend babies,—not even white babies,” he remarked +in a soft, pleasant voice. “Didn’t +reckon <i>you</i> ever had time to tend babies—white +babies—either.” He paused meditatively. +“Ah don’t believe,” he murmured, +“Ah don’t believe that God A’mighty was +just projeckin’ when He sent that little chap +hyuh to-night of all nights to you of all men. +No, suh, Ah don’t believe it! Aftuh you’ve +had him a spell—and learned to use yo’ +white man’s eyes, you everlastin’ fool, you—you’ll +understand it’s because of him and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>his mothuh and his sistuh—that the Klan’s +hyuh.”</p> + +<p>He walked down the steps and swung a +lithe leg over his mount.</p> + +<p>“If Ah were you, Ah’d go on back in the +house and keep that little chap from burstin’ +himself cryin’,” he said casually.</p> + +<p>Once in the saddle, he leaned forward and +waved a slim, capable hand—such a hand as +had gripped by the hair of its drowning head +the safety of a race and held it alive above +a black flood. A note of amused and tolerant +understanding, of a new respect and +kindness, crept into his soft, dangerous +voice.</p> + +<p>“<i>Merry Christmas!</i>” said he, genially, and +was off.</p> + +<p>John’s throat, which had not tightened at +the thought of a rope collar, felt of a sudden +a big, aching lump crowd into it. He swallowed +tolerance and understanding gulpingly; +the underlying kindness helped them +go down—and stay down.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>“M-merry Christmas!” he found himself +stammering.</p> + +<p>And as the flying horseman vanished, he +ran back to the warm and lighted room and +gathered the weeping spirit of Christmas into +fatherly and consoling arms.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">THE LITTLE BROWN HOUSE</h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> +<p class="ph3">THE LITTLE BROWN HOUSE</p> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE senator’s wife was returning from +the very smartest of afternoon affairs; +her white-haired and fresh-colored loveliness +had charmed and delighted the most famous +and fastidious of diplomats, and the Chinese +minister had expressed frank amaze at the +magical youthfulness of the American Grandmother; +as she stepped into her car the magically +youthful rose still blew in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>To avoid a crush, her chauffeur had made +a detour, swung down two or three residential +streets, slipped through the region of +fashionable boarding-houses, and turned into +a side street, quiet, tree-shaded, peaceful, as +if, like the birds, it were going to bed with +the sun. On a corner, with a hedge between +it and another small house next door, stood +the Little Brown House.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>The chauffeur wasn’t speeding then, so +the senator’s wife had a chance really to see +the place. It was quite as if the Little +Brown House had seen her first, and called +out friendlily, as one may to one’s own.</p> + +<p>She came out of her pleasant self-satisfaction +with a start; as usual she had been telling +herself that she hadn’t failed <i>him</i>; that +step by step she had kept the pace set by his +boundless ambition. An international figure +now, the West had hammered him out of +her giant forge—one of those wonderful +Americans about whom, some day in the far +future, not the Great American Novel alone, +but the greatest epic of the entire race is +going to be written. Not the least of his +successes was the fact that for forty years +he had retained the single love and adoration +of his wife; she was proud of him with an +almost terrible pride.</p> + +<p>There had been times when she had +wanted to pause, and catch breath, and rest; +but always he had been marching upward, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>and she had gone with him. Once she had +thought that afterward—when, say, the children +had grown up and settled—they two +might grow peacefully and gently old together, +in the evening of their day. But +that dream had been foregone; she had but +grown old youthfully, wonderfully, with a +ripening beauty. Now it was only at times, +when, disrobed and massaged, she was at last +alone, that she admitted she was—tired.</p> + +<p>Her social secretary—and <i>she</i> knew her social +centers like the palm of her hand—said +that the senator’s new house was the one perfect +house in all America, and those affairs +at which his wife presided the most delightful +outside of Vienna. She never knew that, +deep down in the other woman’s soul weariness, +a longing for simpler things, stung at +times like a nettle.</p> + +<p>But when her car rolled slowly by the Little +Brown House something broke in her +breast; something became alive and fluttered +as with wings. Why, it was just such a little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>house as she had dreamed of, always, in +her secretest dreams! It was a pity, she +thought, that a great “For Sale” sign was +nailed on the front porch, and that all the +windows were closed. Little brown houses +should never, never be spoiled by “For Sale” +signs, and their windows should always be +open.</p> + +<p>She was going to dine at the White House +that night, in a Paris gown, wearing the +pearls that the senator had lately given her. +And—she would come home weary. She +wished that for just one night out of these +gold-and-glory public nights they two might +linger over a small table whose simple meal +was lighted by the lamp of home. Oh, just +for once to be only a gray-haired man and +his gray-haired wife, in life’s calm closing +day, looking steadfastly out into the fading +sky, in whose deepening twilight would presently +shine, like a beacon, the evening star! +No light save that, and the bedtime candle; +no noise, no glitter; no great orchestra, only +the dear every-day music of the tea-kettle, +and the cricket, and the settling log.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> + <img src="images/i_fp174.jpg" width="450" height="639" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p class="caption">Why, it was just such a little house as she had + dreamed of!</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>The car swung around a corner; the Little +Brown House was left behind. She had left +behind so much, she thought. Old neighbors, +old faiths, old friends, old simplicities. +She had advanced, but to what? What, of +all the great essentials, had she gained? In +all this success, what was hers—to <i>keep</i>?</p> + +<p>At dinner she met her youngest daughter, +married to a title incidental to a big blond +Englishman of unimpeachable morals and a +goodly rent-roll. The other daughter, +Milly, had married the millions of Kilian +van Cuypt. Dick, the only son, had married +a virtually penniless Virginian, but +Dick’s wife brought connections. The children +had all done well: she was satisfied with +things as they were; but at dawn she admitted +again that she was tired, too tired to +sleep.</p> + +<p>The Little Brown House crept into her +mind soothingly. In the room shaded by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>that one great tree the lights would long since +have been out. That would be a very simple +room; the toilet articles wouldn’t be of +crystal and of hammered gold, for instance; +there would be no inlaid and priceless furniture: +it would be just dear and clean and +cozy; after a quiet day one might pass there +a quieter night.</p> + +<p>She wondered what it would be like, living +in a little brown house. Whimsically +she lay awake and furnished it, room by +room. At first she failed to note the significance +of her omissions, the curious sense +of rest and freedom which the mere thought +of eliminating a great retinue of servants +gave her. Little brown houses haven’t +room for retinues; one had perhaps a little +maid whom one really knew, and in whose +affairs one was interested. It occurred to +her that she knew just about as much of the +lives of <i>her</i> servants as she knew about the +man in the moon. But in little brown +houses one might come into pleasant human +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>contact with one’s few necessary helpers. +She surmised that this was the right way, the +good way, the Galilean Carpenter’s way.</p> + +<p><i>The Carpenter!</i></p> + +<p>Her thoughts drifted back to her girlhood’s +churchgoing, the churchgoing of people +in little homes, who have sometimes not +enough, sometimes just enough, but never, +oh never, too much. Of a sudden she remembered +her mother’s sweet untrained soprano, +her father’s stern bass:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;</div> +<div class="verse">The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>And her mother had had but one best cashmere; +her father a sacred suit, religiously laid +out on the bed of a Sunday morning!</p> + +<p>There had been Wednesday-night prayer-meetings; +she had gone, a little, little girl, +holding tight to the hired girl’s hard, kind +hand. She wondered, with a tightening of +the heart, what had become of Martha. +Perhaps she was some gray-haired grandmother +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>to-night; perhaps Martha too slept +under the stars and the night wind and the +grass, in a corner of that old cemetery +wherein, lying very close together, her own +father and mother rested.</p> + +<p>How calm and serene those two time-worn +faces had been! The simplicity of their +lives and their faith seemed to make a deeper +gulf between her and them than death or +years. As in a dream she remembered the +quavering voice of their oldest friend reading +over them:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, ... the +love of God, ... the fellowship of the Holy +Ghost....”</p> +</div> + +<p>Ah, but to them these things had been the +real and the essential—“the substance of +things hoped for, the evidence of things not +seen.” To her they had been for many a +year but empty echoes, to which one listened, +if one listened at all, with polite inattention +and unemotion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>And then she thought with astonishment, +“Why, perhaps <i>they</i> succeeded, who held +fast to things they were never to lose; perhaps +it is <i>we</i> who fail—we who have only +the things we can touch with our hands.” +In her carved and lace-hung bed, which had +cost more than all the furniture in her father’s +house, she began to weep softly; but +as if those tears had cleared her vision she +saw what she might do.</p> + +<p>The senator was more than scrupulous +about his wife’s more than liberal allowance; +if was a very easy matter for her to purchase +the Little Brown House. Never, she +thought, had the mere possession of any one +thing given her so much pure pleasure.</p> + +<p>It wasn’t, however, the sort of house you +can furnish by a wholesale order at the nearest +furniture store. No, indeed; you have to +hunt carefully for things to put into little +brown houses. Piece by piece the senator’s +wife found her belongings: here an old +dresser, there an old chair or an older table; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>all good and solid and beautiful, with the +beauty of being <i>lived with</i>.</p> + +<p>She was tired of the pitiless bright glare of +electricity; so on her dining-table stood a +softly shaded family lamp. The sort of +lamp <i>you</i> used to sit beside once, long ago, +while your brother and your sister studied +their lessons near by, and your mother, a +stocking of yours on her hand, looked up, +smiling, from time to time to answer your +many questions; and your father twinkled +over his glasses and his paper at all of you. +You remember now, don’t you? You +wouldn’t take anything life might offer, for +just that memory, would you? And isn’t it +strange that, looking back at them now that +they’ve gone, just these simplest memories +seem somehow the holiest?</p> + +<p>Upstairs the bedrooms, all in freshest +dimity, and smelling of lavender and rosemary, +begged you to come in and lie down +and rest a while. And you didn’t need to +look at the Unrevised Version on a stand by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>the bed to know that they were rooms you +could <i>pray</i> in. On the wall in the front +room hung, in a blackened frame, a sampler, +a nice moral sampler, with an edging of +painfully prim flowers, “Work’d by Anne +Alice Hardy, Aged 12 Yrs.” Anne Alice +was the senator’s wife’s mother; and the +sampler had lain for years at the bottom of +a trunk, because, among the notable pictures +on the walls of the great new house, there +wasn’t room for anything so crude.</p> + +<p>When with loving exactitude the Little +Brown House of dreams had been wrought +into reality the senator’s wife drew a long +breath of relief. She said with a smile and +a sigh:</p> + +<p>“Now I need flowers, and a cat, and a +canary, and a friend.”</p> + +<p>Getting flowers, and a cat, and a canary +do not present difficulties; getting a friend +does. The senator’s wife knew exactly what +she wanted; she knew that the Little Brown +House must spell happiness, and home, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>hope to any who were to dwell therein.</p> + +<p>Face after face flitted through her mind, +to be dismissed. The social secretary? <i>She</i> +despised little brown houses! The senator’s +wife began to wonder if, perhaps, people do +not build great houses more to please social +secretaries, and visitors, and butlers, and +footmen, and maids, than to live and be +happy in themselves!</p> + +<p>Apply to the pastor of her church? +But he too was one for whom the bigger +houses are built. Her friends? Fashionable +friends are—acquaintances. They +would smile to one another, with lifted eyebrows, +over their bridge-tables, if they knew.</p> + +<p>Her husband? Never, never, never he: +he was with all his heart and soul a man of +his times; never was he to know that the +high place he had coveted and won for her +wasn’t her ideal realized.</p> + +<p>The Little Brown House remained closed, +and dark at night when a friendly light +should have streamed through its windows. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>Every time she walked through its homy +rooms—rooms which seemed to be complaining +of not being allowed to be home—the +Little Brown House asked reproachfully:</p> + +<p>“You who have so much, haven’t you one, +just one real friend you can share my simple +secret with? Why, those you regard as utter +failures can call in friend and neighbor +to share their joys and sorrows! Do you +know why? Because Just-Enough, and +more often Not-Enough, draw folks together +brotherlily; but Too-Much cuts you +off from your kind.</p> + +<p>“Why do you come, senator’s wife, to me, +who am only a little brown house, and keep +me empty? You must share me—or leave +me!”</p> + +<p>Among her charities were several Homes +for women—women that haven’t any homes +of their own, and that nobody on earth wants +in theirs. Her name figured on their lists of +patronesses and on their many boards. And +while the social secretary attended to all the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>mere business details, and she had but to sign +the necessary checks, she made it a rule to +appear at each annual function, exquisitely +gowned, smiling, affable, a being from another +sphere almost.</p> + +<p>The price that one insensibly pays for +Too-Much is that one insensibly forgets one +is just folks; the whole great toiling wonderful +terrible race becomes to one—the common +people. Just as if all that has been +created in our common universe hadn’t been +made by our common God for His common +people!</p> + +<p>The senator’s wife, naturally enough, had +drifted into this common error. It wasn’t +that she didn’t feel kindly; why, she wished +to help—with checks. But she simply +couldn’t imagine that people who had nothing +at all could be just like herself. So she +had never looked at any one face among all +these faces to know it from its fellows: these +were just the faces of old women in Homes.</p> + +<p>It was only because the Little Brown +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>House was so insistent in its demands, making +her thoughtful, that she found herself +watching at one of these sad receptions the +strong, serene face of Anne O’Driscoll. +Moved by a sudden impulse, she approached +the middle-aged woman, who was looking +about her with the merry courage of Irish +eyes.</p> + +<p>“I hope,” she began, “that you’re happy +here?”</p> + +<p>Anne O’Driscoll’s voice hadn’t the usual +complacent sureness of the grateful reply.</p> + +<p>“My two eyes,” said she, after a pause, +“went back on me last winter, an’ I could +sew no more. I’m too old to find payin’ +work, though I’m too young, I’m thinkin’, +for <i>this</i>. But I’m grateful for the shelter, +ma’am, for I’d been alone and sick.”</p> + +<p>“Alone and sick!” The sheltered and beloved +woman shuddered slightly. “I’m +sorry, Mrs.—Mrs.—”</p> + +<p>“Thank you kindly, ma’am, but I’m used +to it—the being alone—for a good many +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>years. An’ I’m no Mrs., but just Anne +O’Driscoll.”</p> + +<p>“You aren’t unhappy here, at least?”</p> + +<p>“I’d be less so, ma’am, if I’d the hopes of +gettin’ work, an’ my cat Blinkie back. I +minded losin’ Blinkie most of all, I think. +Ah, he was a fine cat, an’ more knowin’ than +most folks, Blinkie was!”</p> + +<p>“And you couldn’t bring him here? +Why, the very idea, wanting and not being +able to keep—just a <i>cat</i>!”</p> + +<p>“Why, ma’am,” said Anne gently, “you +couldn’t expect the Home to take you an’ +your cat too. Just think now, if we’d all be +allowed to bring what we liked with us—this +one a cat, and t’other one a dog, and another +one a parrot, might be! Oh, no +ma’am, it wasn’t to be expected; so I let +Blinkie go to the grocer on the corner’s wife, +that’d always wanted him. If you’re to +keep things yourself you must have a home +that’s yours to keep them in.” There +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>wasn’t the faintest trace of bitterness in her +voice.</p> + +<p>An old woman, plain, unlettered; an old +cat that she couldn’t keep: could anything +be more <i>banal</i>? But Anne looked something +like her own old aunt, her father’s sister, +dead these many years.</p> + +<p>“May I,” said the senator’s wife, “call you +Anne?”</p> + +<p>“Why, of course, ma’am, if you like.” +Anne was neither flustered nor flattered by +the great lady’s notice, just simply and pleasantly +responsive.</p> + +<p>“Anne,” said the lady after a pause, +“Anne, don’t you think you’d like a really, +truly home, where you’d grow old gently +and in peace and surety, with enough work +to make things worth while, and not enough +money to spoil things, and a cushion in the +sun for Blinkie, and flowers in the windows—and—somebody +else to help, Anne?” +Her voice was a bit breathless.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>“There’s women,” said Anne softly, +“that’s born to ache for a home all their +days, an’ never do they find nor keep it. +I’m one of ’em.”</p> + +<p>The senator’s wife wondered a little at +herself. She had known Anne but a few +minutes; Anne was a plain woman, a woman +in a Home, and she knew that she was going +to tell Anne all about the Little Brown +House; and Anne would understand!</p> + +<p>“Will you come with me to-morrow, +Anne, to see a little brown house that needs +somebody—and I think that somebody’s +you—to take care of it?”</p> + +<p>Over Anne’s face fell an autumn fairness +of emotion. She lifted humid eyes.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow, then!” said the senator’s +wife, delicate finger on lip. “And remember, +it’s a secret, Anne.”</p> + +<p>She came for Anne in her big new car, and +together they went over the Little Brown +House. Anne fingered the table-cloths and +towels and bed-linen lingeringly, and laid her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>hand on the shining tables with a loving +touch.</p> + +<p>“You like it, then?” asked the senator’s +wife. Anne began to cry for answer. And +after the senator’s wife, seated beside her on +the chintz-hung sofa, had explained things, +Anne took the white hand in her brown one.</p> + +<p>“Dear heart! To think you were like that +all along, underneath, an’ me thinkin’ you +weren’t anything but just a fine lady!” she +wondered. “I’m thinkin’ it’s a grand +thing, now, to be a fine lady, because +women’s women; that’s all they be—thank +God!” She lifted her head, and the other +woman saw, not admiration nor flattery nor +envy, but love, real love, look at her out of +the eyes of a friend.</p> + +<p>As they shut the door of the Little Brown +House after them, they heard through the +open windows of the house next door the +painfully measured splashing of “Silvery +Waves” spilled over a piano by childish +fingers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>“Why, we’ve got neighbors!” said the +senator’s wife gaily. “I’d forgotten <i>that</i>. +And we’re neighbors too, aren’t we? Anne, +after a while you must send things over on +a tray, and we hope they’ll be neighborly +and just drop in when they can. Isn’t it +nice, Anne? And after they’ve called on +you, you must tell me all about them. I +hope they’ve got <i>little children</i>. We’ll +give their little girl a doll, and their boy a +train of cars, won’t we? My little grandson +dotes so on trains of cars!”</p> + +<p>When she could come, between whiles, +she found herself in the midst of a pleasant +neighborhood life; and all about her were +the soft noises and sights and smells of +home. Anne’s pride in the place was almost +piteous. How clean and sweet it was; how +everything was polished, and how it shone +and twinkled; but nothing was fussy and +not-to-be-used! The neighbors whom she +began to meet knew and accepted her as the +Lady Who Came to See Anne. They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>didn’t wonder she liked to come to see Anne: +they liked to come too.</p> + +<p>Next door was a mother of six. They +had all come over to see Anne, and Blinkie +had purred over the baby. Anne had given +all of them little cakes that bound them to +her forever. She was going to have the +whole noisy, hungry, beautiful brood of +them once a week to tea. Anne reveled in +their company.</p> + +<p>“You know,” she told the senator’s wife, +“I’d never much of a home at best, Miss +Barbara, me bein’ out all day, workin’. So +I’d no chance of knowin’ little children, except +I’d see them on the street, an’ have to +take out my love o’ them in passin’. Why, +I’ve known me to be happy for a whole long +day because a little thing in its carriage +waved its hand an’ gave me a smile, passin’ +by. Now, thanks be to God an’ you, I’ve +got a real home, an’ a chance to have them +about me a bit, though they’re none o’ my +own. I look forward all week to the time +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>they’ll come, an’ the noise they’ll make, an’ +the joy o’ them, an’ the way they’ll look, +an’ talk, an’ laugh. Miss Barbara, I’m +thinkin’ this is the kind of a house that <i>likes</i> +to have children under its roof; and there’ll +be more an’ more o’ them comin’ by an’ by. +An’—you wouldn’t be mindin’ if I called +in, one or two at a time, the old women that’s +got to stay on in the Home, Miss Barbara? +They’re tired, sometimes, of just havin’ to +keep alive, an’ a day here’d hearten them, +maybe. I’d like to share.”</p> + +<p>The senator’s wife looked about her. It +<i>was</i> the sort of house that likes to shelter the +young and call in the old and the poor for +warmth and kindliness.</p> + +<p>“Have them all, Anne. And tell me all +about it afterward. You dear, dear woman, +you!”</p> + +<p>“I’d most forgotten to tell you about the +Westerner, hadn’t I? The lady next door +brought him first, Miss Barbara, him bein’ a +great friend o’ the children’s. An’ he’s the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>clearest-eyed, softest-spoken, brownest-faced +man ever I clapped my two eyes on. Right +around the corner from us he is, him keepin’ +house by himself, except for the passel o’ +men that’s always comin’ to set with him. +I ain’t one for praisin’ up men-folks’ housekeepin’, +Miss Barbara; so one day I upped +an’ sent him a tray—a big heavy one at that, +jest to show him! He brought it back himself, +him havin’ no servant, an’ he was that +kind an’ sociable I took to him like the children +do. I like Westerners—they’re so +just <i>themselves</i>, ain’t they? He’s real glad +we’re neighbors, he says, an’ him an’ his +friends’ll be glad to be of any service to us. +I told him us bein’ women-folks an’ the best +cooks, they’d better come over an’ neighbor +with us holidays. The nicest man ever I +knew, Miss Barbara—it’s him fixed our +kitchen-window shelves.”</p> + +<p>The senator’s wife smiled appreciatively, +then went up-stairs for her usual half-hour +of quiet thought and rest by that shaded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>window. Outside the day was rather dark, +and the tree was bare now to the autumn +winds. She sat with her hands in her lap, +thoughtfully. The senator hadn’t been so +well of late. He looked, she thought, more +gray and old.</p> + +<p>“Why, it’s getting so we just see each +other going up and down stairs!” she +thought indignantly and sorrowfully. +“We’re getting old too, Hugh and I are. +Oh, it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair. We aren’t +even sharing any more—I <i>can’t</i> share his +work, and he <i>won’t</i> share my house!”</p> + +<p>That was perhaps the most strenuous +winter either of them had known. They +crossed each other’s orbits frenziedly. At +her affairs he showed his fine worn face for +a few dutiful minutes, then disappeared. +And when at times they did go out together, +the usual tactful hostess, following immemorial +custom, separated them.</p> + +<p>In the midst of this mad swirl Christmas +drew near. To the senator’s wife Christmas +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>had come to mean merely a long list of +gifts, dutifully checked over with her secretary: +you gave just as you received; you had +to. You knew that from the housekeeper +down every one in the house must be remembered; +the secretary saw to it that they were. +There was no planning; no hiding of things +half done when somebody came into the +room; no mysterious hints nor smiles; no air +of subdued eagerness; no tender sacrifices +that make gifts doubly precious.</p> + +<p>But at the Little Brown House things +were different. Anne had made with her +own skilful hands something for everybody: +for the little Maid Who Helped; for the +Mother of Six and her brood; for the old +women from the Home; for the Man around +the Corner, who was so glad to be neighborly; +and for the senator’s wife. Anne +even had a tree; and they were all to come +for a while on Christmas eve, except, perhaps, +Miss Barbara.</p> + +<p>“I wish,” said Anne, looking up from the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>cake she was whisking together, “that you’d +put on your plainest frock. Miss Barbara, +and come. It’d make Christmas more like +Christmas as it ought to be for me.” Her +eyes implored the senator’s wife with so much +of love and longing that the heart in her +warmed anew to Anne.</p> + +<p>“The senator and I have simply got to attend +our daughter’s Christmas Eve reception, +but I think, by close management, I <i>might</i> +get here—from half-past six until nearly +nine, say. And I could drive home and +dress, and nobody be the wiser for my pleasantest +Christmas secret!” She thought for +a moment, and laughed like a girl: “Anne, +I’m coming!”</p> + +<p>The senator was to accompany her to their +daughter’s. She knew that until then she +wouldn’t see him; she knew, too, that some +beautiful and costly gift, chosen with exquisite +care, would be lying by her plate on +Christmas morning. No, he wasn’t forgetful, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>nor neglectful, any more than she herself; +he was only—too busy.</p> + +<p>It was quite half-past seven when she +reached the Little Brown House on Christmas +Eve. When she opened the door she +knew that Christmas itself had arrived before +her; for the house was alive with young +children, as all self-respecting houses would +be if they had the chance. You heard +the children’s shouts, and their mothers’ +worried admonitions, and Anne’s cheerful, +“There, there, let ’em be! It’s Christmas +Eve, an’ Christmas Eve’s children’s eve. +Ay, my dearies, laugh, do! An’ when Miss +Barbara comes we’ll open that settin’-room +door; an’ then you’ll see what you’ll see—bless +you!”</p> + +<p>“Miss Barbara” came in to be swallowed +in a warm sea of joyous welcomings. She +wore what she considered a plain dress; but +the Mother of Six, and the women with her, +looked upon its lustrous folds almost with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>awe; only the baby disregarded it, and sat +upon it, and kicked his feet against it unconcernedly.</p> + +<p>The sitting-room door had been opened; +they were in the midst of gift-giving, and +receiving, and exclamations when the doorbell +rang.</p> + +<p>“That,” said Anne, pausing, with the +Baby’s jumping-jack in her hand, “will be +that Westerner from ’round the corner. I’ll +let him in, Miss Barbara; he’ll want to stay +with the children here for a while, I know.”</p> + +<p>The senator’s wife heard the front door +open and close, and men’s feet in the hall, +and the Westerner saying in his pleasant +out-of-doors voice full of the burr of R’s:</p> + +<p>“Here’s a bunch of real holly, and some +real mistletoe to hang up; and here’s my +oldest friend along with me—he’s an old +friend of those kids, too. We’ve brought +you a few things to add to the tree for ’em. +Say, now, it sure makes us two old chaps +feel right good and Christmassy to get in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>here with you women and kids to-night!”</p> + +<p>Anne and the Westerner came in together. +The other man followed more slowly, looking +about him with merry eyes. He was a +very, very big man, and he seemed to fill +the whole doorway in which he stood. Then +the children saw him, and shouted rapturous +welcomings; and he returned these with +somewhat of a tender wistfulness in his +smile.</p> + +<p>From her sofa the senator’s wife looked +up; their eyes met, incredulously. She rose +to her feet, putting down the baby.</p> + +<p>But Anne had advanced to him, holding +out a friendly hand.</p> + +<p>“I know you’re the Big Man That Plays +with the Children!” she said cordially. +“I’m sure glad to meet you at last, Neighbor; +welcome, an’ a Merry, Merry Christmas +to you!”</p> + +<p>He returned her greeting cordially; then +the senator’s wife came forward. Her eyes +were large.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>“You!” said she faintly. “You—neighbor—playing +with children. You here!”</p> + +<p>“You!” said the senator. “Here to-night—why, +Barbara, my dear!”</p> + +<p>“I come—when I can find time—Anne +keeps house—” she began.</p> + +<p>He nodded. “I go around to Jack’s—when +I can find time. One’s got to have +a few friends one can visit, don’t you +think?”</p> + +<p>The baby set up a great wail, because he +was a baby, and he had had enough of presents, +and play, and grown-ups; and he +wanted to go home and be put to bed. The +Mother of Six picked him up, and her +friends gathered the rest of the brood and +their belongings together and carried them +off, with many Christmas wishes tossed back +and forth.</p> + +<p>Anne beckoned the Westerner into the dining-room +and pointed to the table.</p> + +<p>“No real gentlemen,” said she, “will refuse +to fall to an’ help eat up a lady’s pie +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>that she’s made with her own hands for +Christmas.”</p> + +<p>“I am,” said the Westerner, “a long-fanged +wolf on pie. An’ if you’ll cut yours +in just halves, I’ll be everlasting grateful +to you, ma’am.” And he sat down, turning +his back upon the sitting-room door.</p> + +<p>The senator and his wife came to each +other slowly, he looking down upon her +whimsically, she looking up at him with eyes +of pure wonder.</p> + +<p>“Why, Barbie, is there ever any reading +a woman? I’d never guess that you’d come +visiting a little house like this—”</p> + +<p>“This little house,” said she, “is mine: I +bought it. I’ve wanted just this little +house all my life, and I wasn’t honest or +brave enough to tell you so.”</p> + +<p>“I thought,” said the senator, “that it was +the other sort of house you wanted, Barbie. +That’s why I built it—for you.”</p> + +<p>“I did want it and I do want it—for you,” +said his wife. “That’s why I let you build +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>it. But I want this for <i>me</i>—to get rested in, +to be folksy in.”</p> + +<p>A slow twinkle grew in the senator’s eyes.</p> + +<p>“Barbara,” he said, “you ought to see +Jack’s house, around the corner! A mighty +nice little house. I’ve been going there for +a long time. Didn’t you ever guess I might +like to be just folksy too, Barbie? There’s +no tiresome bunch of servants tagging at +your heels at Jack’s. You can sit down in +your shirt-sleeves and smoke a cuddy, if you +want to; you can wait on yourself without +shame and reproach—think of that! Do +you know what Jack had for supper to-night? +Fish-chowder, and pan-bread, and +coffee that’d make your hair curl! Gee, it +was good!</p> + +<p>“You see,” he went on thoughtfully, nodding +his head, “I like to go to Jack’s because +I get rested there—he’s a man. I can +quarrel with him, even! Now you know +I’ve loved you, and you alone, all my life, +Barbie; it’s for you I wanted—the top-notch. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>But I—get tired at times. I want +to loaf a little, and be folksy too. And +you, Barbie—you?”</p> + +<p>“I also,” said the senator’s wife with a +girl’s laugh. She put her arms about his +neck and clung to him. “Oh, Hugh, my +dear, don’t you see, we’ve come together +again! Hugh, we’ve come together, close! +It wasn’t the big house, nor the too-muchness: +it was that we didn’t know, Hugh, +and we couldn’t take time to find out! All +these years—and I didn’t know the real You +until to-night; all these years, and you had +to stumble by chance into the Little Brown +House, on Christmas Eve, and find the real +me.”</p> + +<p>He kissed her with a young delight that +shook his years from him, and straightened +his shoulders, and kindled his face; so, for +a while, they held each other.</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” he said presently—“Barbie, +I wonder if you or any other woman can keep +a secret?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>She waved her hand about the room by +way of reply.</p> + +<p>“Why, of course you can, all of you!” +said the senator. “There’s no end to the +wonder of women! Well, now, Barbie, +here’s the secret: I’m to take a two weeks’ +rest after New Year’s, and dodge everybody. +I’d thought of running out West—but, say, +let’s just cone right here to this little house +of yours, and get acquainted all over again, +Barbie. I feel as if I didn’t half know you, +anyhow. Will you come, dearest dear?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll come,” she said with shining eyes. +“Hugh, Hugh, I’m beginning to fall in love +with you all over again—and I fifty-seven +and a grandmother!”</p> + +<p>The senator took out his watch. “There’s +the girl’s reception, Barbie—we’ve got to +fly,” he said regretfully. “Is the car to come +for you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, let’s tell Anne to send it back, and +we’ll walk home,—as we used to—remember?—when +a callow fledgling of a country +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>lawyer courted and married a penniless district +school-teacher?”</p> + +<p>He nodded, wrapping her carefully in her +sables. Anne and the Westerner asked no +questions, expressed no surprise, made no +comments: they were just such friends as +that! They shook hands with a warm and +loving pressure, and wished a million Merry +Christmases with all their heart. And the +Little Brown House breathed after them a +message of peace and of understanding; and +overhead the sky was thick with stars—one, +larger and brighter than the others, dominating +a great clear space.</p> + +<p>They walked along together, hand in hand. +The great holiday crowd jostled them, and +they, being afoot, knew themselves a part +of it and caught its spirit, and were glad. +After a while the senator glanced up and +called her attention to the biggest star.</p> + +<p>“The same old star!” said he softly.</p> + +<p>“And we together under it!” she answered +happily.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>“Why come to think of it, so is everybody +else!” said the senator with a hint of reverence.</p> + +<p>“So is everybody else!” she repeated. +“And that,” she added, “is just what makes +Christmas <i>Christmas</i>!”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">“THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ’ROUND”</h2> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> +<p class="ph3">“THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ’ROUND”</p> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">IF I hadn’t loved Willy more than any +girl had ever loved any man before, I +should never, never, never have had the wild +courage to marry him, on account of my +mother; and if Willy hadn’t adored me to +distraction, he would never, never, never +have had the temerity to marry me, on account +of his father. Not that there was +anything in the least objectionable about +Willy’s father, or about my mother, who are +about as dear, delightful angels as one shall +find this side of Elysium. But—divided, +they stood; united, they simply fell upon +each other, tooth and claw!</p> + +<p>When Willy passed the little millinery +shop in West 127th Street, with the big +“Valleau et Cie.” above the door, and glancing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>in saw the “Cie.”—who was only little +me—sitting with head bent over the bunch of +red roses which was to adorn a stunning hat, +he stopped dead short and stared with all his +blue, honest, German eyes,—the very nicest +eyes that ever were. And I looked up and +stared back with my French black ones. +From that moment neither of us had the +faintest doubt but that the good God had +meant us for each other. It was just like +that! One minute before, and I had had no +thought but of making a fine hat, and Willy +had had no thought but of hurrying on to +his luncheon; and the next moment the +eternal, beautiful miracle had happened, +snatching us out of every-day ordinary 127th +Street and plumping us into Paradise, an +Adam and Eve who didn’t know each other’s +name.</p> + +<p>After that my days were divided into the +hours of waiting for a tall, fair young man +to pass and fix me with his fine eyes, and the +hours in which I reflected upon that glance. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>And then one day he marched in, very +straightforward and serious, and told Maman +and me who he was and all about himself, +in a direct and manly way that won her +respect at once. When we knew more of +him Maman agreed that he was a very +charming young man,—irreproachable, a desirable +<i>parti</i> for a dowerless demoiselle like +me. Only, in our dear, splendid America +one does not have to have a <i>dot</i> to make a +fine marriage.</p> + +<p>When we were betrothed Willy had at +once brought his father to see us. Willy +looks up to his father as one does to Providence. +He considers this old man with the +big bald head and the white beard and the +twinkling blue eyes quite perfect. When he +says “My father” it is with an air of pride +and affection that makes one’s heart glow. +One cannot but smile tenderly to see these +two looking upon each other with such +naïve delight, and to hear with what happiness +this father says “My son.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>The old Herr Roeder is organist and choirmaster +in the Lutheran Church, where Willy +himself plays the violin and sings in a pleasing +counter-tenor. Willy is a bank clerk, +and as good an American as one shall find +in a week’s march. But his father is what +Maman at once said was “effusively, emphatically, +offensively Teutonic.” Maman +said that if Willy’s father had been present +upon the day when le bon Dieu finished making +the heavens and the earth, he would have +stamped upon both “<i>Made in Germany</i>”—as +a guarantee of worth.</p> + +<p>You see, Maman’s father and grandfather +had been Lorraine soldiers in 1870. Indeed, +her grandfather had fallen fighting. And +when Lorraine had been taken away from +France, her father’s French heart couldn’t +beat happily under German rule. So presently +he picked up himself and his motherless +young daughter—who was Maman—and +came over to New York. He was a +mender and maker of clocks and watches,—a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>mild, amiable, fiery man with stooped +shoulders upon which his white hair fell. I +used to sit in his shop and hear his endless +stories of bloody and bitter fighting in the +streets and houses of Alsatian mountain +towns, and of sorties and surprises and reprisals +in the pleasant country of Lorraine. +The big clocks upon the wall would go +“tick, tick, tick,” solemnly; and Maman +would hold her sewing in her lap and murmur, +“<i>Une crime! Une crime!</i>” remembering +what her childish eyes had seen.</p> + +<p>My dear gay artist father died when I +was very little, and, like most artists, he left +us nothing but his cherished memory. So +Maman and I lived with my grandfather, +and were very happy until he, too, died. +Then Maman opened the millinery parlor in +the shop where the clocks and watches used +to tick. Although she is astonishingly clever +and our shop had “Imported French Hats” +on its sign, we didn’t make much more +than our living. But we were grateful and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>happy, putting our love of beauty and our +joy in life and work into folds of ribbon and +chiffon and clusters of flowers which were +to make other women look pretty.</p> + +<p>Maman is really more like a sister than a +mother, she is so gay and charming. Her +hair framing her rosy face is of that cottony, +shining whiteness which is so rare and lovely, +and her eyes are the brown, sparkling, animated +eyes of a girl. She stands about five +feet high in her shoes; and I am sure she +would be enchanting and ensnaring if she +lived to be a thousand, she has so much +sheer power of personality. But—she is +very temperamental. And she remembered +cruel things she had seen and heard, even +as Willy’s father remembered. Although +Willy’s lovableness had disarmed her, and +she loved him, Maman simply detested Germans +in general. And although Herr Roeder +had at once taken me into his big, warm, +kind heart, he loathed French people as a +rule. Maman shrugged her shoulders, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>Willy’s father wrinkled his nose. One +wouldn’t dream what immense and baleful +powers of insult lie in shoulder and nose, +until they had witnessed a performance by +Maman and Willy’s father. They disliked +and distrusted each other with a fire and fury +which threatened to consume our happiness. +I think Maman was jealous that I should +care so much for Willy’s father, too; and +Willy’s father disliked the thought that his +son should so greatly admire my charming +Maman.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the night Willy made +in their rooms a little feast in honor of our +betrothal. Maman was silent and depressed. +She would have been perfectly +horrified at the bare thought of my remaining +unmarried, but she was averse to having +me go out of her life just yet and into +Willy’s—and his father’s.</p> + +<p>Her eyes, roving critically about the stiff, +bare, clean dining-room, met of a sudden the +insulting stare of Prince Bismarck, looking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>forbiddingly out of a big oak frame,—grim, +military, formidable. She gave an involuntary +shudder of distaste and aversion. But +Willy’s father, with a proud and sweeping +gesture, and in a voice one might use to name +Deity, said reverently:</p> + +<p>“Bismarck!!”</p> + +<p>“Brute!” said Maman. “Despoiler of +France! Ah, mon Dieu! How I abhor +that ill-favored visage of adamant!”</p> + +<p>Herr Roeder stroked his beard tolerantly. +“Ach, well!” he admitted soothingly, “one +cannot blame you so greatly: he was one to +trounce you thoroughly, the great Chancellor!”</p> + +<p>I could almost see Maman’s hair rise, and +I trembled. Echoes of old songs, of old +tales, firelighted memories, floated through +my mind.</p> + +<p>“I forgive him,” said Maman, gently, “for +the evils he helped to inflict upon my stricken +country. Besides,” she added piously, “one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>should even be sorry for him, now that he is +undoubtedly in hell, thank God!”</p> + +<p>It was turn for Willy’s father’s hair to +rise, and I am sure that if he had had any it +would have stood on end. Only, he is bald. +His face grew purple, as if he were threatened +with apoplexy.</p> + +<p>“He is in the bosom of God!” he said with +violence. “In hell! A man like that!”</p> + +<p>“A man like that!” repeated Maman. +“<i>Hein!</i>” and she and Herr Roeder locked +eyes like horns.</p> + +<p>“Madame!” stammered Willy, imploringly. +“Dear Madame! Will you not—Madame, +I beg of you to take a slice of seed-cake! +Father, let me beg of you to offer our +honored guest a slice of seed-cake. Do! It +is such fine seed-cake!”</p> + +<p>“Do, dear Maman!” I besought. She +shrugged her shoulders, but a smile dimpled +her lips and her eyes danced.</p> + +<p>“Very well, my dears: I will have a slice +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>of this fine seed-cake,” she agreed. It was +really very good indeed, and she said so, +graciously.</p> + +<p>“It is good German cake,” said Willy’s +father, complacently. “For other peoples +the messy cooking, yes; but for the good, +plain, sensible, satisfying, body-building +cooking, always it is the German which is +the best. Ach! The gosling-stew of Germany! +With dumplings!” He looked up +at the ceiling ecstatically, as one who sees a +beatific vision.</p> + +<p>“Do not, I beseech you, forget the soup!” +said Maman, gravely. “The fine water, +with a thimble-ful of vegetable-parings floating +upon the surface. Ah! The soup of +Germany! Without seasoning!” She, too, +looked up at the ceiling, with a droll naughtiness +to make one giggle.</p> + +<p>Willy had never been separated from his +father, any more than I from Maman, and +to break that tender intimacy, which a lifetime’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>love and service had built up, seemed +to us intolerable. We could not bear the +thought of leaving them alone. We had, in +truth, so much love that it spread out and +embraced everything and everybody, and we +thought that our parents’ great affection for +us would in time make them more tolerant of +each other.</p> + +<p>And so Willy and I were married, in St. +Agatha’s parsonage, with Maman and Herr +Roeder looking on. Maman had made my +frock herself, not allowing any one else to +put a hand to it, and it was a dress to dream +over and put away and cherish. When Father +Bazin had read the service which united +us, Willy’s father put his arms around us +both: he kissed Willy. “For your mother, +my son, my dear, dear son!” said he, tenderly. +“Ach! If she were only here to welcome +our sweet new daughter! Always she +longed for a daughter! But I will love you +for myself and for her, too, my pretty Leontine!” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>He kissed me then, so fatherly that a +great wave of affection flowed over my heart +for him. But Maman only wept.</p> + +<p>We all settled down together in a new +bright apartment, up in the 120’s. Maman +had sublet the rooms over our shop, which +she still retained; and as our new home was +only a few blocks away from our old one, she +wasn’t much inconvenienced going to and +fro. It is true that the new rooms were +small, and that Father’s piano and music +racks and arm-chair took up most of the sitting-room, +just as Bismarck and Von Moltke +took up most of the wall space in the dining-room, +which they seemed to dominate. I +was so glad to make Willy’s father happy +that I’d have welcomed those pictures if +both had been twins. It was delightful to +me to see him at his piano, singing <i>lieder</i> +sentimentally, or roaring out a drinking +chorus at the top of his voice. He had, too, +a pipe some two or three feet long, with a +little ridiculous china bowl on the end of it, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>to which he was particularly devoted. Because +I kept his jar full of his pet tobacco, +and never meddled with his music, he praised +me as an angel, pulling my ears, rumpling my +hair, and kissing me smackingly on both my +cheeks, while Willy looked on, pleased and +happy.</p> + +<p>But the pipe gave Maman a headache; she +couldn’t, she said, abide the German fare I +was learning to make, from Willy’s mother’s +cherished recipe book, given me as a +treasure upon a state occasion. She hated +<i>lieder</i>. She said they were jellyfishy +squishysquashy things, all sentiment and +bereft of sense. She accepted the big pictures +in the dining-room with a bad grace. +She said their ungracious visages spoiled her +appetite and gave her indigestion. And +then she bought a fine new record of the +“<i>Marseillaise</i>” for her victrola, as an offset +to “<i>Die Wacht am Rhein</i>,” which Father +liked occasionally to sing in the evening, in +a lusty voice that carried a full block.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“<i>Lieb’ Vaterland, magst ruhig sein,</i></div> +<div class="verse"><i>Fest steht und treu die Wacht, die Wacht am Rhein!</i>”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>shouted Father.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="first">“<i>Aux armes, citoyens! formez vos bataillons!</i></div> +<div class="indent2"><i>Marchons, marchons!</i></div> +<div class="verse"><i>Qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!</i>”</div> +</div></div> + +<p>shrieked the victrola belligerently, upon the +heels of it.</p> + +<p>That was the real beginning of overt and +covert hostilities. Father felt himself affronted +upon his most vulnerable points—his +music and his affections. The most jovial +and kindly of men, he couldn’t forgive +that; he brought heavy artillery to bear upon +his nimble antagonist, who skirmished lightly +about and around him, attacking him upon +all sides at once, until he was forced to retreat +in raging disorder. Willy and I had +to stand by, distressed and helpless.</p> + +<p>“If only my mother would even try to appreciate +your father!” I wept upon Willy’s +shoulder.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>“If only my father would be his true +agreeable self to your mother!” Willy lamented +to me. We were both exquisitely +unhappy, because there lowered above the little +home a heavy storm-cloud, liable at any +moment to burst forth into thunders and +lightnings of wrathful remarks and exploding +retorts discourteous. If Willy had been +less angelic, he would have been horribly +cross; but he was strong and good enough to +be patient as Job and meek as Moses.</p> + +<p>“We will bear with them both,” I told +Willy. “It may be that some day you or I +may be alone, like them, in a child’s house, +and we shall need love and patience then, +too, my dearest. So let us now give both to +these two people who are so dear to us.”</p> + +<p>I am sure we tried to. But Maman complained +bitterly and with tears that I loved +“that ruffianly old German” better than I +loved her; and Father said Willy had forgotten +his own sainted mother and loved in her +stead a saucy French jade knee-high to a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>duck and with the temper to shame the +devil’s mother-in-law.</p> + +<p>Willy and I were caught between the upper +and the nether millstones. It wasn’t +that they didn’t love us; they did, passionately. +I am sure Father would have died +for me, a thousand times; I am sure Maman +loved Willy as her own son. She said his +mother had evidently been an angel, as, despite +his horrible old father, she had been +able to endow him with her perfect disposition. +And when I at first ventured to speak +up timidly in behalf of the hot-tempered, +kind-hearted old man, Maman made a thin +red line of her pretty mouth, shrugged her +shoulders up to her ears, flashed at me a +glance of flaming disdain, and marched off to +her own room, locking me out.</p> + +<p>“I have but one favor, one last favor, to +ask of you, my child,” she said, before shutting +the door upon me. “Let me be dead +before you give to me grandchildren that resemble +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>little dressed Christmas pigs—and +named Karl Johann. I could not support +that indignity.”</p> + +<p>I went back to the kitchen to look after the +pot-roast with herbs which simmered upon +the back of the range, and I reflected sorrowfully +that we should have all been so much +happier for only a little reasonable kindness! +I suppose I cried a little over the stove about +the Christmas pigs named Karl Johann. +Oh, Maman, how could you! I said not a +word to Willy, however; and when Maman +wouldn’t come to table, complaining that +she simply couldn’t endure the fumes of Father’s +pipe to-night, Willy himself carried +her in a tray, with a rose laid upon it which +he had brought home. She thanked him +somewhat shamefacedly.</p> + +<p>“Willy,” said she, “I’m very, very glad +my child had the good sense to love you and +the good fortune to marry you. And I’m +still gladder, Willy, that it is I, and not the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>good little Leontine who has the bad, bad, +bad temper.” She kissed him and gently +pushed him out of the room.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Willy to me, regretfully, +“such a kind heart, with so much love! If +only we could make her happy!” I am sure +my own heart crowded up into my eyes then +to look out at Willy; and I dropped the basting-spoon +and flung my arms around him in +a passion of gratitude. Willy held me for +a long minute.</p> + +<p>“So!” said Father, entering on tiptoes, and +putting his arms about us both. “So! Son! +Daughter. I—” His voice broke. He +kissed us quickly and ran out.</p> + +<p>I think they honestly tried to avoid +quarrels; but they possessed to an unusual +degree the power of arousing each other’s antagonism +and anger; and so they did little +else than quarrel. Maman’s merry chatter, +her lighthearted insouciance, left her. She +wore a dissatisfied face, and she took to staying +longer at the shop, coming home I hate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>to think how unwillingly. Father’s loud +laughter was a thing of the past; he looked +bewildered, as one who expects and dreads +rebuffs. He no longer roared out drinking-songs, +and the piano was too often +closed.</p> + +<p>I had taken a severe cold and had to remain +in bed, and so Maman left the shop in +charge of her assistant and remained at home +with me. I required very little attention; +and she took this opportunity to give our +apartment a particularly thorough cleaning, +which, indeed, it didn’t need. But Maman +had the French passion for dustlessness.</p> + +<p>She really doesn’t make the nerve-racking +uproar most superclean people raise when +they clean and polish and shine what is already +clean and polished and shining. Not +she! In cap and dust-apron she whisks from +one thing to another, giving everything an +extra touch; and the light sound of her little +feet is pleasant to hear, as a child’s footsteps +about one’s house. So I lay back in satisfied +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>half-consciousness, until she came to the dining-room. +When she was polishing Bismarck’s +picture she broke into irrepressible +speech:</p> + +<p>“<i>Ja! Ach! Ich! So! Gewiss!</i>” she mocked, +in an irresistibly funny imitation. “<i>Kolossal!</i>” +Then: “Iron-faced animal!” said +she, viciously. “Cruel, cold, arrogant Prussian! +It is your overbearing spirit which +animates this unhappy house and blights my +one child’s affection for me!” The cake of +scouring-soap came down with a resounding +crack, followed by a still more ominous +crack. Maman had brought more force to +bear than she intended, and the cake went +right through the glass and came down on +the Chancellor’s broad nose. Maman gave +a little scream, and just at that inopportune +moment Father stalked in.</p> + +<p>“Infamous!” he roared. “Miserable +Frenchwoman! You should be locked up +in jail for such an outrage!” He stamped +with his feet so violently that the broken +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>glass fell out of the frame with a loud shivering +crash. Maman jumped aside.</p> + +<p>“Assassin!” said she, passionately. “Do +you deliberately try to murder me? Ah! +You would like to, brute of a German!”</p> + +<p>“Little anarchist! To wreck my picture—my +fine, noble picture!” stormed Father. +“It is dastardly!”</p> + +<p>“I did not deliberately break it; it was an +accident—”</p> + +<p>“To drive her revengeful fist upon his +honored countenance!” gritted Father. +“Demoniac!”</p> + +<p>“Beast!” hissed Maman, quivering with +rage. “Is it not enough for you to steal +from me my only child’s affection but you +must also insult me with brutal doubts upon +my truthfulness, and then try to murder me +with broken glass?”</p> + +<p>“Horrible woman! You estrange from +me my son, my only son, prevent your daughter +from loving me, wreck my home and my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>peace of mind, and then smash my beautiful +picture!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! This German is insufferable!” exclaimed +Maman, in a suffocating voice. +“Frightful old man! It is you, you, who +blight this house!”</p> + +<p>“Madame! I love my children. You, +Madame, love nothing but your own way. +You have the devil’s own temper, Madame. +It is you, you, who make us all wretched.”</p> + +<p>I got out of bed then, and in my dressing-gown, +trembling, sick at heart, came and +stood between them.</p> + +<p>“Father! Maman! Allow me to love you +both without making you and Willy and myself +frightfully unhappy. Ah! You are killing +me!” I sank into a chair and wept uncontrollably. +They watched me in stricken +silence.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> + <img src="images/i_fp230.jpg" width="450" height="744" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p class="caption">“Such scenes shall not be repeated”</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Monsieur,” said Maman in a subdued +voice, after a long and painful pause, “it is +not you, not I alone, but both of us, who +make our beloved children weep. We must +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>remedy this.” She patted me on the shoulder +and then assisted me to rise. “Calm +yourself before Willy comes home and is +troubled, my child,” said she quietly, though +she was very pale. “There! Go back to bed. +Such scenes as this shall not be repeated, I +promise you.”</p> + +<p>I went over to Father, who had sunk dejectedly +into a chair, with his arms hanging +down lifelessly, and kissed him timidly upon +the cheek. He looked at me unhappily, but +said not a word. <i>Ah, le bon Dieu!</i> Why +do we make one another thus miserable, when +at the best and longest we have such a little, +little while to stay!</p> + +<p>That night, when Father had gone out, +Maman came into my room, where Willy +was sitting beside my bed.</p> + +<p>“My children, I have a thing to say to +you,” she said seriously. “I am going to +leave your house. No! Do not protest. +Do not do me or yourselves the injury to wish +me to remain. My mind is made up, irrevocably. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>You know the tenants of my flat +above the shop are leaving the city. I shall +at once move back into my own house, which +I should never have left. It was a grievous +thing for me to come to you, my dears, for +no one should be a useless fifth wheel upon +another’s domestic coach. You should have +your chance to be happy—alone. Forgive +me, forgive me, for having made you unhappy! +You see, Leontine is my only child, +and her father—” She turned her head aside +for a moment. But Willy leaned over and +took her hand, consolingly.</p> + +<p>“You are quite right, little Mother,” he +said, truthfully. “It would be as great a +wrong to you as to us to wish you to remain, +when you are not happy with us. But do +you realize why you are unhappy here, Mamanchen? +It is because you are too young +and too pretty to play second fiddle in anybody +else’s house, even Leontine’s.”</p> + +<p>Maman laughed through her tears. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>“Willy!” she cried, “you might have been +a Frenchman!”</p> + +<p>When Father was told, he nodded his +head. “I, too, go,” he said bluntly. “She +is right for once, that odious woman. For +there is no room in the new nest for the old +birds; they crowd the youngsters, and for +themselves they make starvation. Sing and +fly by yourselves, my children. That will +make me happy. Only—do not fly too far +away from thy old father, Willy!”</p> + +<p>So Maman went back to the rooms over the +shop and was too busy to allow herself to be +unhappy, even if she were inclined to be; and +Father took two pleasant rooms near us, and +went right on with his music lessons. Maman +was to come on Tuesdays and Fridays, +and Father on Mondays and Thursdays, with +an alternate Sunday for each; thus they +would escape the unpleasantness of meeting +each other in our house.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant to have such a darling +little place as Maman’s flat to visit. Now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>that she was alone she gave full rein to her +own individual taste, and never did any little +place look daintier, more homelike and simple +and charming than Maman’s rooms. +And Maman herself! Under our astonished +and delighted eyes Maman grew younger. +She arranged her thick white hair ravishingly, +with fleecy curls about the ears; she +manufactured for herself enchanting little +hats with hints of lilac in them, and she +evolved frocks of a chic to make one gasp. +She was witty as only a Frenchwoman can +be; she was pretty as only an American is. +Then she began to skip her evenings with +us; she began to visit us, not as a pleasure +only to herself, but as a pleasure and a privilege +to us.</p> + +<p>As for Father, the change in him was of +a longer growth, but it was none the less +certain and sure. He began to do without +us. He looked brushed and groomed and +well-fed and prosperous and jovial. He developed +a taste in ties that made us marvel. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>His ragged beard had been Vandyked into +a trimness which clipped ten years off his +age, and his clothes were modern and dignified.</p> + +<p>It was our turn now to suffer a little +wholesome neglect, for our parents <i>were</i> +neglecting us. They were seeking—and, +what is more, finding—other objects of absorbing +interest outside of our dear selves +that loved them so much; they were living +their own lives in their own fashion, without +so much as a by-your-leave from either of +us.</p> + +<p>When our dear adored baby was born they +behaved as distractedly as any well-brought-up +grandparents could, however. They +were extravagantly delighted. Never was +there so exquisite a baby! Maman said that +I had been an adorable baby myself, but +that I simply wasn’t to be compared with +<i>this</i> angel. Father remembered that Willy +had been a very nice baby, too, but not to +compare to our baby, who, judging from the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>magnificent formation of his head, would +undoubtedly grow up to be a statesman. +Poor, dear, red, wrinkled little statesman, +with no language at his command save a +squeal, and never a hair to his precious head!</p> + +<p>The baby had come to us at Thanksgiving—that +good, beautiful American holiday of +ours that I so greatly love—so it was almost +Christmas before I was able to take him out, +myself. Willy and I had decided that his +first visit should be to his grandmother; we +would take him to see her on Christmas Eve, +all snugly wrapped up. And we would then +go to Father on Christmas morning. It was +to be a beautiful surprise.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, for the last week or ten +days we had seen very little of Maman or +of Father, either. They were so busy with +their own affairs.</p> + +<p>We knew that Maman had intended to +dismiss her assistants early, close the shop, +and spend Christmas Eve at home; she +could afford to be so independent, for those +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>charming hats of hers were beginning to sell +for good prices. At dusk, then, we wrapped +our little baby up snugly and tucked him +among his carriage cushions, took our presents, +and started out. We were both in a +glow of pride and happiness when we reached +Maman’s. Her windows were lighted, so +we knew she was at home.</p> + +<p>She met us at the door with a cry of pleasure; +then she ushered us into her living-room, +calling in a gay, glad voice:</p> + +<p>“See who’s here! See who’s here!”</p> + +<p>A big man in a brand-new smoking-jacket +got up out of the new Morris chair in which +he had been making himself comfortable.</p> + +<p>“Ha! Our children!” said Willy’s father +gaily, and fell upon us.</p> + +<p>We could only gasp, and stare. The +room was lovely with Christmas greens, and +Maman herself was a vision in a red gown, +with red satin slippers on her little feet and +a vivid Poinsettia in her beautiful white +hair. On a new mahogany stand was a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>powerful bust of—who but the Chancellor +himself, a gay holly wreath adorning his +beetling brows!</p> + +<p>“Father!” gurgled Willy. “Maman!” I +echoed weakly, and almost fell into a chair.</p> + +<p>Willy’s father shifted his small grandson +very tenderly to his shoulder, and beckoned +to Maman, who came and stood beside him, +slipped her small hands about his big arm, +and laughed at our bewilderment.</p> + +<p>“My surprise for you, my children!” said +she.</p> + +<p>“It is like this,” said Father, gravely. “I +came one night to Madame, forced by loneliness +and repentance, to beg her pardon for +driving her out of her child’s home. I found +her sad and lonely, even as I was; but how +good the little home she had made for herself +looked to me, who had none! And we +consoled each other. She loved my son and +I adored her daughter, and thus we fell into +kind talk and discovered that each was better +than the other had thought. And how +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>heavenly a meal she set before me, seasoned +with such wit! It is true that there are no +cooks and no wits on earth like the French!</p> + +<p>“Afterward I came again—and yet again. +And we discovered that we were not so very +old—not too old to be young—and that there +was much, very much, in life, for both of us. +We decided to share, to help each other. I +taught her much of German, she explained +to me much of French, and the great immortal +ones of our countries healed us with +their divine art.”</p> + +<p>He paused to rub his cheek softly against +the baby’s bald head. “Ach! She is a wonderful +woman—wonderful!” he said, with +a vast pride. “Dear little child, if thou wilt +but take after thy wise, beautiful, witty, perfect, +ever-to-be-adored grandmother, thou +wilt be the greatest of men!” he told the +baby.</p> + +<p>Maman laughed like a girl. “What I +most admire about the best Germans,” she +said thoughtfully, “is their fine domestic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>sentiment. They have such tender hearts, +which they are at times wise enough to show. +Ah, Willy, how I rejoice, for my dear child’s +sake, that you so greatly resemble your good +father!”</p> + +<p>“And so,” continued Father, comfortably, +“our love for our children having made us +hate each other, their love for each other and +for us made us love each other. I found +I was unhappy away from Madame. +Madame discovered that she was happy only +in my company. Do you think the young +alone are capable of love? No, no! While +there is life there is love. So Madame and +I propose to make for ourselves a home, a +fireside, where we shall sit, loving each other +and our children, until our good Herr Gott +removes us to a better Home. Your mother, +Leontine,” he added to me, “is a remarkable +woman, a perfectly marvelous woman! +Wonderful, my child, wonderful! It is not +to be told how I adore this angel of a +woman!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>“You are going to be married?” Willy’s +voice was all but hysterical.</p> + +<p>“We were married,” said Maman calmly, +“three days ago. Your father,” she told +Willy, “is a very masterful man. He would +have it so, without fuss and without explanations; +and I was glad to please him.”</p> + +<p>Father pointed to the holly-wreathed bust.</p> + +<p>“My dear wife’s first Christmas present to +me!” he said happily.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maman, with unabashed +serenity, “Johann has labored to explain his +real character to me. Johann loves and respects +him, so there must be something to be +said for the man, although I of course deplore +the fact that he thought he had to be +harsh to my dear country. But we are both +good Americans. <i>This</i> is our country. Remembering +that, why should we waste our +time quarreling about foreign statesmen?”</p> + +<p>“Now you shall hear <i>my</i> little gift to my +dear wife,” said Father, proudly. Still +holding the baby, who seemed perfectly content +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>to snuggle on his shoulder, he marched +over to a magnificent graphanola and slipped +in a fine new record. Under the Chancellor’s +mighty nose rose the soul-stirring, martial +magic of the “Marseillaise.” We listened +with delight, until it ceased. Then +Maman, with a glance of affection and +gratitude at Father, put in another record. +Flooding the little Christmas-decked room +came a beautiful blending of men’s and +women’s and children’s voices, singing the +old, old, lovely, holy Christmas hymn.</p> + +<p class="center">“Oh, come ye, oh, come ye, to Bethlehem!”</p> + +<p>We all drew closer together, feeling our +hearts in unison; and remembering the Holiest +Baby of all, we looked down upon our +own little baby very tenderly.</p> + +<p>“My dearest children,” said Maman, with +her hands clasped around Father’s arm, “I +have to beg of you a favor, a great favor: +for my best Christmas gift, promise me to +name my little adored grandson Karl +Johann!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote"> +<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> + +<p>Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.</p> + +<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> + +<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> +</div></div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78711 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78711-h/images/cover.jpg b/78711-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff15af5 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/coversmall.jpg b/78711-h/images/coversmall.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6385044 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/coversmall.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_fp030.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_fp030.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4927746 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_fp030.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_fp070.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_fp070.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f33069 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_fp070.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_fp106.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_fp106.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fde7e91 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_fp106.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_fp150.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_fp150.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e705fb --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_fp150.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_fp174.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_fp174.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7b46a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_fp174.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_fp230.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_fp230.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ff7b72 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_fp230.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_frontis.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4972536 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_frontis.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_title.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..277b3f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_title.jpg diff --git a/78711-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg b/78711-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a7032d --- /dev/null +++ b/78711-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg |
