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+Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman From Indiana, by Booth Tarkington
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Gentleman From Indiana
+
+Author: Booth Tarkington
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9659]
+Posting Date: June 16, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA
+
+
+By Booth Tarkington
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I. THE YOUNG MAN WHO CAME TO STAY
+    II. THE STRANGE LADY
+   III. LONESOMENESS
+    IV. THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER
+     V. AT THE PASTURE BARS: ELDER-BUSHES MAY HAVE STINGS
+    VI. JUNE
+   VII. MORNING: "SOME IN RAGS AND SOME IN TAGS AND SOME IN VELVET GOWNS"
+  VIII. GLAD AFTERNOON: THE GIRL BY THE BLUE TENT POLE
+    IX. NIGHT: IT IS BAD LUCK TO SING BEFORE BREAKFAST
+     X. THE COURT-HOUSE BELL
+    XI. JOHN BROWN'S BODY
+   XII. JERRY THE TELLER
+  XIII. JAMES FISBEE
+   XIV. A RESCUE
+    XV. NETTLES
+   XVI. PRETTY MARQUISE
+  XVII. HELEN'S TOAST
+ XVIII. THE TREACHERY OF H. FISBEE
+   XIX. THE GREAT HARKLESS COMES HOME
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE YOUNG MAN WHO CAME TO STAY
+
+There is a fertile stretch of flat lands in Indiana where unagrarian
+Eastern travellers, glancing from car-windows, shudder and return their
+eyes to interior upholstery, preferring even the swaying caparisons of a
+Pullman to the monotony without. The landscape lies interminably level:
+bleak in winter, a desolate plain of mud and snow; hot and dusty in
+summer, in its flat lonesomeness, miles on miles with not one cool hill
+slope away from the sun. The persistent tourist who seeks for signs of
+man in this sad expanse perceives a reckless amount of rail fence; at
+intervals a large barn; and, here and there, man himself, incurious,
+patient, slow, looking up from the fields apathetically as the Limited
+flies by. Widely separated from each other are small frame railway
+stations--sometimes with no other building in sight, which indicates
+that somewhere behind the adjacent woods a few shanties and thin
+cottages are grouped about a couple of brick stores.
+
+On the station platforms there are always two or three wooden
+packing-boxes, apparently marked for travel, but they are sacred from
+disturbance and remain on the platform forever; possibly the right train
+never comes along. They serve to enthrone a few station loafers, who
+look out from under their hat-brims at the faces in the car-windows with
+the languid scorn a permanent fixture always has for a transient, and
+the pity an American feels for a fellow-being who does not live in his
+town. Now and then the train passes a town built scatteringly about
+a court-house, with a mill or two humming near the tracks. This is
+a county-seat, and the inhabitants and the local papers refer to it
+confidently as "our city." The heart of the flat lands is a central area
+called Carlow County, and the county-seat of Carlow is a town unhappily
+named in honor of its first settler, William Platt, who christened it
+with his blood. Natives of this place have sometimes remarked, easily,
+that their city had a population of from five to six thousand souls. It
+is easy to forgive them for such statements; civic pride is a virtue.
+
+The social and business energy of Plattville concentrates on the Square.
+Here, in summer-time, the gentlemen are wont to lounge from store
+to store in their shirt sleeves; and here stood the old, red-brick
+court-house, loosely fenced in a shady grove of maple and elm--"slipp'ry
+ellum"--called the "Court-House Yard." When the sun grew too hot for the
+dry-goods box whittlers in front of the stores around the Square and the
+occupants of the chairs in front of the Palace Hotel on the corner, they
+would go across and drape themselves over the court-house fence, under
+the trees, and leisurely carve there initials on the top board. The
+farmers hitched their teams to the fence, for there were usually loafers
+energetic enough to shout "Whoa!" if the flies worried the horses
+beyond patience. In the yard, amongst the weeds and tall, unkept grass,
+chickens foraged all day long; the fence was so low that the most
+matronly hen flew over with propriety; and there were gaps that
+accommodated the passage of itinerant pigs. Most of the latter, however,
+preferred the cool wallows of the less important street corners. Here
+and there a big dog lay asleep in the middle of the road, knowing well
+that the easy-going Samaritan, in his case, would pass by on the other
+side.
+
+Only one street attained to the dignity of a name--Main Street, which
+formed the north side of the Square. In Carlow County, descriptive
+location is usually accomplished by designating the adjacent, as, "Up at
+Bardlocks'," "Down by Schofields'," "Right where Hibbards live," "Acrost
+from Sol. Tibbs's," or, "Other side of Jones's field." In winter, Main
+Street was a series of frozen gorges land hummocks; in fall and spring,
+a river of mud; in summer, a continuing dust heap; it was the best
+street in Plattville.
+
+The people lived happily; and, while the world whirled on outside, they
+were content with their own. It would have moved their surprise as
+much as their indignation to hear themselves spoken of as a "secluded
+community"; for they sat up all night to hear the vote of New York,
+every campaign. Once when the President visited Rouen, seventy miles
+away, there were only few bankrupts (and not a baby amongst them) left
+in the deserted homes of Carlow County. Everybody had adventures; almost
+everybody saw the great man; and everybody was glad to get back home
+again. It was the longest journey some of them ever set upon, and these,
+elated as they were over their travels, determined to think twice ere
+they went that far from home another time.
+
+On Saturdays, the farmers enlivened the commercial atmosphere of
+Plattville; and Miss Tibbs, the postmaster's sister and clerk, used to
+make a point of walking up and down Main Street as often as possible,
+to get a thrill in the realization of some poetical expressions that
+haunted her pleasingly; phrases she had employed frequently in her poems
+for the "Carlow County Herald." When thirty or forty country people were
+scattered along the sidewalks in front of the stores on Main Street, she
+would walk at nicely calculated angles to the different groups so as to
+leave as few gaps as possible between the figures, making them appear
+as near a solid phalanx as she could. Then she would murmur to herself,
+with the accent of soulful revel, "The thronged city streets," and,
+"Within the thronged city," or, "Where the thronging crowds were
+swarming and the great cathedral rose." Although she had never been
+beyond Carlow and the bordering counties in her life, all her poems were
+of city streets and bustling multitudes. She was one of those who had
+been unable to join the excursion to Rouen when the President was there;
+but she had listened avidly to her friends' descriptions of the crowds.
+Before that time her muse had been sylvan, speaking of "Flow'rs of May,"
+and hinting at thoughts that overcame her when she roved the woodlands
+thro'; but now the inspiration was become decidedly municipal and
+urban, evidently reluctant to depart beyond the retail portions of a
+metropolis. Her verses beginning, "O, my native city, bride of Hibbard's
+winding stream,"--Hibbard's Creek runs west of Plattville, except in
+time of drought--"When thy myriad lights are shining, and thy faces,
+like a dream, Go flitting down thy sidewalks when their daily toil is
+done," were pronounced, at the time of their publication, the best poem
+that had ever appeared in the "Herald."
+
+This unlucky newspaper was a thorn in the side of every patriot of
+Carlow County. It was a poor paper; everybody knew it was a poor paper;
+it was so poor that everybody admitted it was a poor paper--worse, the
+neighboring county of Amo possessed a better paper, the "Amo Gazette."
+The "Carlow County Herald" was so everlastingly bad that Plattville
+people bent their heads bitterly and admitted even to citizens of Amo
+that the "Gazette" was the better paper. The "Herald" was a weekly,
+issued on Saturday; sometimes it hung fire over Sunday and appeared
+Monday evening. In their pride, the Carlow people supported the "Herald"
+loyally and long; but finally subscriptions began to fall off and the
+"Gazette" gained them. It came to pass that the "Herald" missed fire
+altogether for several weeks; then it came out feebly, two small
+advertisements occupying the whole of the fourth page. It was breathing
+its last. The editor was a clay-colored gentleman with a goatee, whose
+one surreptitious eye betokened both indolence of disposition and
+a certain furtive shrewdness. He collected all the outstanding
+subscriptions he could, on the morning of the issue just mentioned, and,
+thoughtfully neglecting several items on the other side of the ledger,
+departed from Plattville forever.
+
+The same afternoon a young man from the East alighted on the platform
+of the railway station, north of the town, and, entering the rickety
+omnibus that lingered there, seeking whom it might rattle to deafness,
+demanded to be driven to the Herald Building. It did not strike the
+driver that the newcomer was precisely a gay young man when he climbed
+into the omnibus; but, an hour later, as he stood in the doorway of the
+edifice he had indicated as his destination, depression seemed to have
+settled into the marrow of his bones. Plattville was instantly alert to
+the stranger's presence, and interesting conjectures were hazarded all
+day long at the back door of Martin's Dry-Goods Emporium, where all the
+clerks from the stores around the Square came to play checkers or look
+on at the game. (This was the club during the day; in the evening the
+club and the game removed to the drug, book, and wall-paper store on
+the corner.) At supper, the new arrival and his probable purposes were
+discussed over every table in the town. Upon inquiry, he had informed
+Judd Bennett, the driver of the omnibus, that he had come to stay.
+Naturally, such a declaration caused a sensation, as people did not come
+to Plattville to live, except through the inadvertency of being born
+there. In addition, the young man's appearance and attire were reported
+to be extraordinary. Many of the curious, among them most of the
+marriageable females of the place, took occasion to pass and repass the
+sign of the "Carlow County Herald" during the evening.
+
+Meanwhile, the stranger was seated in the dingy office upstairs with
+his head bowed low on his arms. Twilight stole through the dirty
+window-panes and faded into darkness. Night filled the room. He did not
+move. The young man from the East had bought the "Herald" from an
+agent; had bought it without ever having been within a hundred miles of
+Plattville. He had vastly overpaid for it. Moreover, the price he had
+paid for it was all the money he had in the world.
+
+The next morning he went bitterly to work. He hired a compositor from
+Rouen, a young man named Parker, who set type all night long and helped
+him pursue advertisements all day. The citizens shook their heads
+pessimistically. They had about given up the idea that the "Herald"
+could ever amount to anything, and they betrayed an innocent, but
+caustic, doubt of ability in any stranger.
+
+One day the new editor left a note on his door; "Will return in fifteen
+minutes."
+
+Mr. Rodney McCune, a politician from the neighboring county of Gaines,
+happening to be in Plattville on an errand to his henchmen, found the
+note, and wrote beneath the message the scathing inquiry, "Why?"
+
+When he discovered this addendum, the editor smiled for the first time
+since his advent, and reported the incident in his next issue, using the
+rubric, "Why Has the 'Herald' Returned to Life?" as a text for a rousing
+editorial on "honesty in politics," a subject of which he already knew
+something. The political district to which Carlow belonged was governed
+by a limited number of gentlemen whose wealth was ever on the increase;
+and "honesty in politics" was a startling conception to the minds of the
+passive and resigned voters, who discussed the editorial on the street
+corners and in the stores. The next week there was another editorial,
+personal and local in its application, and thereby it became evident
+that the new proprietor of the "Herald" was a theorist who believed, in
+general, that a politician's honor should not be merely of that
+middling healthy species known as "honor amongst politicians"; and, in
+particular, that Rodney McCune should not receive the nomination of his
+party for Congress. Now, Mr. McCune was the undoubted dictator of the
+district, and his followers laughed at the stranger's fantastic onset.
+
+But the editor was not content with the word of print; he hired a horse
+and rode about the country, and (to his own surprise) he proved to be
+an adaptable young man who enjoyed exercise with a pitchfork to the
+farmer's profit while the farmer talked. He talked little himself, but
+after listening an hour or so, he would drop a word from the saddle as
+he left; and then, by some surprising wizardry, the farmer, thinking
+over the interview, decided there was some sense in what that young
+fellow said, and grew curious to see what the young fellow had further
+to say in the "Herald."
+
+Politics is the one subject that goes to the vitals of every rural
+American; and a Hoosier will talk politics after he is dead.
+
+Everybody read the campaign editorials, and found them interesting,
+although there was no one who did not perceive the utter absurdity of a
+young stranger's dropping into Carlow and involving himself in a party
+fight against the boss of the district. It was entirely a party fight;
+for, by grace of the last gerrymander, the nomination carried with it
+the certainty of election. A week before the convention there came a
+provincial earthquake; the news passed from man to man in awe-struck
+whispers--McCune had withdrawn his name, making the hollowest of excuses
+to his cohorts. Nothing was known of the real reason for his disordered
+retreat, beyond the fact that he had been in Plattville on the morning
+before his withdrawal and had issued from a visit to the "Herald" office
+in a state of palsy. Mr. Parker, the Rouen printer, had been present at
+the close of the interview; but he held his peace at the command of his
+employer. He had been called into the sanctum, and had found McCune,
+white and shaking, leaning on the desk.
+
+"Parker," said the editor, exhibiting a bundle of papers he held in his
+hand, "I want you to witness a verbal contract between Mr. McCune and
+myself. These papers are an affidavit and copies of some records of a
+street-car company which obtained a charter while Mr McCune was in
+the State legislature. They were sent to me by a man I do not know, an
+anonymous friend of Mr. McCune's; in fact, a friend he seems to have
+lost. On consideration of our not printing these papers, Mr. McCune
+agrees to retire from politics for good. You understand, if he ever
+lifts his head again, politically, We publish them, and the courts will
+do the rest. Now, in case anything should happen to me----"
+
+"Something will happen to you, all right," broke out McCune. "You can
+bank on that, you black----"
+
+"Come," the editor interrupted, not unpleasantly "why should there be
+anything personal, in all this? I don't recognize you as my private
+enemy--not at all; and I think you are getting off rather easily; aren't
+you? You stay out of politics, and everything will be comfortable. You
+ought never to have been in it, you see. It's a mistake not to keep
+square, because in the long run somebody is sure to give you away--like
+the fellow who sent me these. You promise to hold to a strictly private
+life?"
+
+"You're a traitor to the party," groaned the other, "but you only
+wait----"
+
+The editor smiled sadly. "Wait nothing. Don't threaten, man. Go home to
+your wife. I'll give you three to one she'll be glad you are out of it."
+
+"I'll give you three to one," said McCune, "that the White Caps will
+get you if you stay in Carlow. You want to look out for yourself, I tell
+you, my smart boy!"
+
+"Good-day, Mr. McCune," was the answer. "Let me have your note of
+withdrawal before you leave town this afternoon." The young man paused
+a moment, then extended his hand, as he said: "Shake hands, won't you?
+I--I haven't meant to be too hard on you. I hope things will seem easier
+and gayer to you before long; and if--if anything should turn up that I
+can do for you in a private way, I'll be very glad, you know. Good-by."
+
+The sound of the "Herald's" victory went over the State. The paper came
+out regularly. The townsfolk bought it and the farmers drove in for it.
+Old subscribers came back. Old advertisers renewed. The "Herald" began
+to sell in Amo, and Gaines County people subscribed. Carlow folk held
+up their heads when journalism was mentioned. Presently the "Herald"
+announced a news connection with Rouen, and with that, and the aid of
+"patent insides," began an era of three issues a week, appearing on
+Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The Plattville Brass Band serenaded
+the editor.
+
+During the second month of the new regime of the "Herald," the working
+force of the paper received an addition. One night the editor found some
+barroom loafers tormenting a patriarchal old man who had a magnificent
+head and a grand white beard. He had been thrown out of a saloon, and he
+was drunk with the drunkenness of three weeks steady pouring. He propped
+himself against a wall and reproved his tormentors in Latin. "I'm
+walking your way, Mr. Fisbee," remarked the journalist, hooking his arm
+into the old man's. "Suppose we leave our friends here and go home?"
+
+Mr. Fisbee was the one inhabitant of the town who had an unknown past;
+no one knew more about him than that he had been connected with a
+university somewhere, and had travelled in unheard-of countries before
+he came to Plattville. A glamour of romance was thrown about him by the
+gossips, to whom he ever proved a fund of delightful speculation. There
+was a dark, portentous secret in his life, it was agreed; an opinion
+not too well confirmed by the old man's appearance. His fine eyes had a
+pathetic habit of wandering to the horizon in a questioning fashion that
+had a queer sort of hopelessness in it, as if his quest were one for the
+Holy Grail, perhaps; and his expression was mild, vague, and sad. He had
+a look of race and blood; and yet, at the first glance, one saw that he
+was lost in dreams, and one guessed that the dreams would never be
+of great practicability in their application. Some such impression of
+Fisbee was probably what caused the editor of the "Herald" to nickname
+him (in his own mind) "The White Knight," and to conceive a strong, if
+whimsical, fancy for him.
+
+Old Fisbee had come (from nobody knew where) to Plattville to teach,
+and had been principal of the High School for ten years, instructing
+his pupils after a peculiar fashion of his own, neglecting the ordinary
+courses of High School instruction to lecture on archaeology to the
+dumfounded scholars; growing year by year more forgetful and absent,
+lost in his few books and his own reflections, until, though undeniably
+a scholar, he had been discharged for incompetency. He was old; he had
+no money and no way to make money; he could find nothing to do. The blow
+had seemed to daze him for a time; then he began to drop in at the hotel
+bar, where Wilkerson, the professional drunkard, favored him with his
+society. The old man understood; he knew it was the beginning of the
+end. He sold his books in order to continue his credit at the Palace
+bar, and once or twice, unable to proceed to his own dwelling, spent
+the night in a lumber yard, piloted thither by the hardier veteran,
+Wilkerson.
+
+The morning after the editor took him home, Fisbee appeared at the
+"Herald" office in a new hat and a decent suit of black. He had received
+his salary in advance, his books had been repurchased, and he had become
+the reportorial staff of the "Carlow County Herald"; also, he was to
+write various treatises for the paper. For the first few evenings, when
+he started home from the office, his chief walked with him, chatting
+heartily, until they had passed the Palace bar. But Fisbee's redemption
+was complete.
+
+The old man had a daughter. When she came to Plattville, he told her
+what the editor of the "Herald" had done for him.
+
+The journalist kept steadily at his work; and, as time went on, the
+bitterness his predecessor's swindle had left him passed away. But his
+loneliness and a sense of defeat grew and deepened. When the vistas of
+the world had opened to his first youth, he had not thought to spend his
+life in such a place as Plattville; but he found himself doing it, and
+it was no great happiness to him that the congressional representative
+of the district, the gentleman whom the "Herald's" opposition to
+McCune had sent to Washington, came to depend on his influence for
+renomination; nor did the realization that the editor of the "Carlow
+County Herald" had come to be McCune's successor as political dictator
+produce a perceptibly enlivening effect on the young man. The years
+drifted very slowly, and to him it seemed they went by while he stood
+far aside and could not even see them move. He did not consider the life
+he led an exciting one; but the other citizens of Carlow did when he
+undertook a war against the "White Caps." The natives were much more
+afraid of the "White Caps" than he was; they knew more about them and
+understood them better than he did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE STRANGE LADY
+
+IT was June. From the patent inner columns of the "Carlow County Herald"
+might be gleaned the information (enlivened by cuts of duchesses) that
+the London season had reached a high point of gaiety; and that, although
+the weather had grown inauspiciously warm, there was sufficient gossip
+for the thoughtful. To the rapt mind of Miss Selina Tibbs came a
+delicious moment of comparison: precisely the same conditions prevailed
+in Plattville.
+
+Not unduly might Miss Selina lay this flattering unction to her soul,
+and well might the "Herald" declare that "Carlow events were crowding
+thick and fast." The congressional representative of the district was
+to deliver a lecture at the court-house; a circus was approaching the
+county-seat, and its glories would be exhibited "rain or shine"; the
+court had cleared up the docket by sitting to unseemly hours of the
+night, even until ten o'clock--one farmer witness had fallen asleep
+while deposing that he "had knowed this man Hender some eighteen
+year"--and, as excitements come indeed when they do come, and it seldom
+rains but it pours, the identical afternoon of the lecture a strange
+lady descended from the Rouen Accommodation and was greeted on the
+platform by the wealthiest citizen of the county. Judge Briscoe, and
+his daughter, Minnie, and (what stirred wonder to an itch almost beyond
+endurance) Mr. Fisbee! and they then drove through town on the way to
+the Briscoe mansion, all four, apparently, in a fluster of pleasure and
+exhilaration, the strange lady engaged in earnest conversation with Mr.
+Fisbee on the back seat.
+
+Judd Bennett had had the best stare at her, but, as he immediately fell
+into a dreamy and absent state, little satisfaction could be got from
+him, merely an exasperating statement that the stranger seemed to have
+a kind of new look to her. However, by means of Miss Mildy Upton, a
+domestic of the Briscoe household, the community was given something a
+little more definite. The lady's name was Sherwood; she lived in Rouen;
+and she had known Miss Briscoe at the eastern school the latter had
+attended (to the feverish agitation of Plattville) three years before;
+but Mildy confessed her inadequacy in the matter of Mr. Fisbee. He had
+driven up in the buckboard with the others and evidently expected to
+stay for supper Mr. Tibbs, the postmaster (it was to the postoffice
+that Miss Upton brought her information) suggested, as a possible
+explanation, that the lady was so learned that the Briscoes had invited
+Fisbee on the ground of his being the only person in Plattville they
+esteemed wise enough to converse with her; but Miss Tibbs wrecked her
+brother's theory by mentioning the name of Fisbee's chief.
+
+"You see, Solomon," she sagaciously observed, "if that were true, they
+would have invited him, instead of Mr. Fisbee, and I wish they had.
+He isn't troubled with malaria, and yet the longer he lives here the
+sallower-looking and sadder-looking he gets. I think the company of a
+lovely stranger might be of great cheer to his heart, and it will be
+interesting to witness the meeting between them. It may be," added the
+poetess, "that they _have_ already met, on his travels before he settled
+here. It may be that they are old friends--or even more."
+
+"Then what," returned her brother, "what is he doin' settin' up in his
+office all afternoon with ink on his forehead, while Fisbee goes out
+ridin' with her and stays for supper after_werds_?"
+
+Although the problem of Fisbee's attendance remained a mere maze of
+hopeless speculation, Mildy had been present at the opening of Miss
+Sherwood's trunk, and here was matter for the keen consideration of the
+ladies, at least. Thoughtful conversations in regard to hats and linings
+took place across fences and on corners of the Square that afternoon;
+and many gentlemen wondered (in wise silence) why their spouses were
+absent-minded and brooded during the evening meal.
+
+At half-past seven, the Hon. Kedge Halloway of Amo delivered himself
+of his lecture; "The Past and Present. What we may Glean from Them, and
+Their Influence on the Future." At seven the court-room was crowded, and
+Miss Tibbs, seated on the platform (reserved for prominent citizens),
+viewed the expectant throng with rapture. It is possible that she would
+have confessed to witnessing a sea of faces, but it is more probable
+that she viewed the expectant throng. The thermometer stood at
+eighty-seven degrees and there was a rustle of incessantly moving
+palm-leaf fans as, row by row, their yellow sides twinkled in the light
+of eight oil lamps. The stouter ladies wielded their fans with vigor.
+There were some very pretty faces in Mr. Halloway's audience, but it
+is a peculiarity of Plattville that most of those females who do not
+incline to stoutness incline far in the opposite direction, and the lean
+ladies naturally suffered less from the temperature than their sisters.
+The shorn lamb is cared for, but often there seems the intention to
+impart a moral in the refusal of Providence to temper warm weather to
+the full-bodied.
+
+Old Tom Martin expressed a strong consciousness of such intention when
+he observed to the shocked Miss Selina, as Mr. Bill Snoddy, the stoutest
+citizen of the county, waddled abnormally up the aisle: "The Almighty
+must be gittin" a heap of fun out of Bill Snoddy to-night."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Martin!" exclaimed Miss Tibbs, fluttering at his irreverence.
+
+"Why, you would yourself. Miss Seliny," returned old Tom. Mr. Martin
+always spoke in one key, never altering the pitch of his high, dry,
+unctuous drawl, though, when his purpose was more than ordinarily
+humorous, his voice assumed a shade of melancholy. Now and then he
+meditatively passed his fingers through his gray beard, which followed
+the line of his jaw, leaving his upper lip and most of his chin
+smooth-shaven. "Did you ever reason out why folks laugh so much at fat
+people?" he continued. "No, ma'am. Neither'd anybody else."
+
+"Why is it, Mr. Martin?" asked Miss Selina.
+
+"It's like the Creator's sayin', 'Let there be light.' He says,
+'Let ladies be lovely--'" (Miss Tibbs bowed)--"and 'Let men-folks be
+honest--sometimes;' and, 'Let fat people be held up to ridicule
+till they fall off.' You can't tell why it is; it was jest ordained
+that-a-way."
+
+The room was so crowded that the juvenile portion of the assemblage was
+ensconced in the windows. Strange to say, the youth of Plattville were
+not present under protest, as their fellows of a metropolis would have
+been, lectures being well understood by the young of great cities
+to have instructive tendencies. The boys came to-night because they
+insisted upon coming. It was an event. Some of them had made sacrifices
+to come, enduring even the agony (next to hair-cutting in suffering) of
+having their ears washed. Conscious of parental eyes, they fronted
+the public with boyhood's professional expressionlessness, though they
+communicated with each other aside in a cipher-language of their own,
+and each group was a hot-bed of furtive gossip and sarcastic comment.
+Seated in the windows, they kept out what small breath of air might
+otherwise have stolen in to comfort the audience.
+
+Their elders sat patiently dripping with perspiration, most of the
+gentlemen undergoing the unusual garniture of stiffly-starched collars,
+those who had not cultivated chin beards to obviate such arduous
+necessities of pomp and state, hardly bearing up under the added anxiety
+of cravats. However, they sat outwardly meek under the yoke; nearly all
+of them seeking a quiet solace of tobacco--not that they smoked; Heaven
+and the gallantry of Carlow County forbid--nor were there anywhere
+visible tokens of the comforting ministrations of nicotine to violate
+the eye of etiquette. It is an art of Plattville.
+
+Suddenly there was a hum and a stir and a buzz of whispering in the
+room. Two gray old men and two pretty young women passed up the aisle to
+the platform. One old man was stalwart and ruddy, with a cordial eye
+and a handsome, smooth-shaven, big face. The other was bent and trembled
+slightly; his face was very white; he had a fine high brow, deeply
+lined, the brow of a scholar, and a grandly flowing white beard that
+covered his chest, the beard of a patriarch. One of the young women
+was tall and had the rosy cheeks and pleasant eyes of her father, who
+preceded her. The other was the strange lady.
+
+A universal perturbation followed her progress up the aisle, if she had
+known it. She was small and fair, very daintily and beautifully made;
+a pretty Marquise whose head Greuze should have painted. Mrs. Columbus
+Landis, wife of the proprietor of the Palace Hotel, conferring with a
+lady in the next seat, applied an over-burdened adjective: "It ain't so
+much she's han'some, though she is, that--but don't you notice she's got
+a kind of smart look to her? Her bein' so teeny, kind of makes it more
+so, somehow, too." What stunned the gossips of the windows to awed
+admiration, however, was the unconcerned and stoical fashion in which
+she wore a long bodkin straight through her head. It seemed a large
+sacrifice merely to make sure one's hat remained in place.
+
+The party took seats a little to the left and rear of the lecturer's
+table, and faced the audience. The strange lady chatted gaily with the
+other three, apparently as unconscious of the multitude of eyes fixed
+upon her as the gazers were innocent of rude intent. There were pretty
+young women in Plattville; Minnie Briscoe was the prettiest, and, as the
+local glass of fashion reflected, "the stylishest"; but this girl
+was different, somehow, in a way the critics were puzzled to
+discover--different, from the sparkle of her eyes and the crown of her
+trim sailor hat, to the edge of her snowy duck skirt.
+
+Judd Bennett sighed a sigh that was heard in every corner of the room.
+As everybody immediately turned to look at him, he got up and went out.
+
+It had long been a jocose fiction of Mr. Martin, who was a widower of
+thirty years' standing, that he and the gifted authoress by his side
+were in a state of courtship. Now he bent his rugged head toward her
+to whisper: "I never thought to see the day you'd have a rival in my
+affections. Miss Seliny, but yonder looks like it. I reckon I'll have
+to go up to Ben Tinkle's and buy that fancy vest he's had in stock this
+last twelve year or more. Will you take me back when she's left the city
+again; Miss Seliny?" he drawled. "I expect, maybe, Miss Sherwood is
+one of these here summer girls. I've heard of 'em but I never see one
+before. You better take warning and watch me--Fisbee won't have no clear
+field from now on."
+
+The stranger leaned across to speak to Miss Briscoe and her sleeve
+touched the left shoulder of the old man with the patriarchal white
+beard. A moment later he put his right hand to that shoulder and gently
+moved it up and down with a caressing motion over the shabby black
+broadcloth her garment had touched.
+
+"Look at that old Fisbee!" exclaimed Mr. Martin, affecting indignation.
+"Never be 'n half as spruced up and wide awake in all his life. He's
+prob'ly got her to listen to him on the decorations of Nineveh--it's my
+belief he was there when it was destroyed. Well, if I can't cut him out
+we'll get our respected young friend of the 'Herald' to do it."
+
+"Sh!" returned Miss Tibbs. "Here he is."
+
+The seats upon the platform were all occupied, except the two foremost
+ones in the centre (one on each side of a little table with a lamp, a
+pitcher of ice-water, and a glass) reserved for the lecturer and the
+gentleman who was to introduce him. Steps were audible in the hall, and
+every one turned to watch the door, where the distinguished pair now
+made their appearance in a hush of expectation over which the beating
+of the fans alone prevailed. The Hon. Kedge Halloway was one of the
+gleaners of the flesh-pots, himself, and he marched into the room
+unostentatiously mopping his shining expanse of brow with a figured
+handkerchief. He was a person of solemn appearance; a fat gold
+watch-chain which curved across his ponderous front, adding mysteriously
+to his gravity. At his side strolled a very tall, thin, rather
+stooping--though broad-shouldered--rather shabby young man with a
+sallow, melancholy face and deep-set eyes that looked tired. When they
+were seated, the orator looked over his audience slowly and with an
+incomparable calm; then, as is always done, he and the melancholy young
+man exchanged whispers for a few moments. After this there was a pause,
+at the end of which the latter rose and announced that it was his
+pleasure and his privilege to introduce, that evening, a gentleman who
+needed no introduction to that assemblage. What citizen of Carlow needed
+an introduction, asked the speaker, to the orator they had applauded
+in the campaigns of the last twenty years, the statesman author of
+the Halloway Bill, the most honored citizen of the neighboring and
+flourishing county and city of Amo? And, the speaker would say, that if
+there were one thing the citizens of Carlow could be held to envy the
+citizens of Amo, it was the Honorable Kedge Halloway, the thinker,
+to whose widely-known paper they were about to have the pleasure and
+improvement of listening.
+
+The introduction was so vehemently applauded that, had there been
+present a person connected with the theatrical profession, he might have
+been nervous for fear the introducer had prepared no encore. "Kedge is
+too smart to take it all to himself," commented Mr. Martin. "He knows
+it's half account of the man that said it."
+
+He was not mistaken. Mr. Halloway had learned a certain perceptiveness
+on the stump. Resting one hand upon his unfolded notes upon the table,
+he turned toward the melancholy young man (who had subsided into the
+small of his back in his chair) and, after clearing his throat, observed
+with sudden vehemence that he must thank his gifted friend for his
+flattering remarks, but that when he said that Carlow envied Amo a
+Halloway, it must be replied that Amo grudged no glory to her sister
+county of Carlow, but, if Amo could find envy in her heart it would be
+because Carlow possessed a paper so sterling, so upright, so brilliant,
+so enterprising as the "Carlow County Herald," and a journalist so
+talented, so gifted, so energetic, so fearless, as its editor.
+
+The gentleman referred to showed very faint appreciation of these
+ringing compliments. There was a lamp on the table beside him, against
+which, to the view of Miss Sherwood of Rouen, his face was silhouetted,
+and very rarely had it been her lot to see a man look less enthusiastic
+under public and favorable comment of himself. She wondered if he,
+also, remembered the Muggleton cricket match and the subsequent dinner
+oratory.
+
+The lecture proceeded. The orator winged away to soary heights with
+gestures so vigorous as to cause admiration for his pluck in making use
+of them on such a night; the perspiration streamed down his face, his
+neck grew purple, and he dared the very face of apoplexy, binding his
+auditors with a double spell. It is true that long before the peroration
+the windows were empty and the boys were eating stolen, unripe fruit in
+the orchards of the listeners. The thieves were sure of an alibi.
+
+The Hon. Mr. Halloway reached a logical conclusion which convinced even
+the combative and unwilling that the present depends largely upon the
+past, while the future will be determined, for the most part, by the
+conditions of the present. "The future," he cried, leaning forward with
+an expression of solemn warning, "The future is in our own hands, ladies
+and gentlemen of the city of Plattville. Is it not so? We will find it
+so. Turn it over in your minds." He leaned backward and folded his hands
+benevolently on his stomach and said in a searching whisper; "Ponder
+it." He waited for them to ponder it, and little Mr. Swanter, the
+druggist and bookseller, who prided himself on his politeness and who
+was seated directly in front, scratched his head and knit his brows
+to show that he was pondering it. The stillness was intense; the fans
+ceased to beat; Mr. Snoddy could be heard breathing dangerously. Mr.
+Swanter was considering the advisability of drawing a pencil from his
+pocket and figuring on it upon his cuff, when suddenly, with the energy
+of a whirlwind, the lecturer threw out his arms to their fullest extent
+and roared: "It is a _fact_! It is carven on stone in the gloomy caverns
+of TIME. It is writ in FIRE on the imperishable walls of Fate!"
+
+After the outburst, his voice sank with startling rapidity to a tone of
+honeyed confidence, and he wagged an inviting forefinger at Mr.
+Snoddy, who opened his mouth. "Shall we take an example? Not from the
+marvellous, my friends; let us seek an illustration from the ordinary.
+Is that not better? One familiar to the humblest of us. One we can all
+comprehend. One from our every-day life. One which will interest even
+the young. Yes. The common house-fly. On a window-sill we place a bit
+of fly-paper, and contiguous to it, a flower upon which the happy
+insect likes to feed and rest. The little fly approaches. See, he hovers
+between the two. One is a fatal trap, an ambuscade, and the other a
+safe harbor and an innocuous haven. But mystery allures him. He poises,
+undecided. That is the present. That, my friends, is the Present! What
+will he do? WHAT will he do? What will he DO? Memories of the past
+are whispering to him: 'Choose the flower. Light on the posy.' Here we
+clearly see the influence of the past upon the present. But, to employ a
+figure of speech, the fly-paper beckons to the insect toothsomely, and,
+thinks he; 'Shall I give it a try? Shall I? Shall I give it a try?' The
+future is in his own hands to make or unmake. The past, the voice of
+Providence, has counselled him: 'Leave it alone, leave it alone, little
+fly. Go away from there.' Does he heed the warning? Does he heed it,
+ladies and gentlemen? Does he? Ah, no! He springs into the air, decides
+between the two attractions, one of them, so deadly to his interests
+and--_drops upon the fly-paper to perish miserably_! The future is in
+his hands no longer. We must lie upon the bed that we have made, nor can
+Providence change its unalterable decrees."
+
+After the tragedy, the orator took a swallow of water, mopped his brow
+with the figured handkerchief and announced that a new point herewith
+presented itself for consideration. The audience sank back with a gasp
+of release from the strain of attention. Minnie Briscoe, leaning back,
+breathless like the others, became conscious that a tremor agitated
+her visitor. Miss Sherwood had bent her head behind the shelter of the
+judge's broad shoulders; was shaking slightly and had covered her face
+with her hands.
+
+"What is it, Helen?" whispered Miss Briscoe, anxiously. "What is it? Is
+something the matter?"
+
+"Nothing. Nothing, dear." She dropped her hands from her face. Her
+cheeks were deep crimson, and she bit her lip with determination.
+
+"Oh, but there is! Why, you've tears in your eyes. Are you faint? What
+is it?"
+
+"It is only--only----" Miss Sherwood choked, then cast a swift glance at
+the profile of the melancholy young man. The perfectly dismal decorum of
+this gentleman seemed to inspire her to maintain her own gravity. "It
+is only that it seemed such a pity about that fly," she explained. From
+where they sat the journalistic silhouette was plainly visible, and both
+Fisbee and Miss Sherwood looked toward it often, the former with the
+wistful, apologetic fidelity one sees in the eyes of an old setter
+watching his master.
+
+When the lecture was over many of the audience pressed forward to shake
+the Hon. Mr. Halloway's hand. Tom Martin hooked his arm in that of the
+sallow gentleman and passed out with him.
+
+"Mighty humanizin' view Kedge took of that there insect," remarked Mr.
+Martin. "I don't recollect I ever heard of no mournfuller error
+than that'n. I noticed you spoke of Halloway as a 'thinker,' without
+mentioning what kind. I didn't know, before, that you were as cautious a
+man as that."
+
+"Does your satire find nothing sacred, Martin?" returned the other, "not
+even the Honorable Kedge Halloway?"
+
+"I wouldn't presume," replied old Tom, "to make light of the catastrophe
+that overtook the heedless fly. When Halloway went on to other subjects
+I was so busy picturin' the last moments of that closin' life, stuck
+there in the fly-paper, I couldn't listen to him. But there's no use
+dwellin' on a sorrow we can't help. Look at the moon; it's full enough
+to cheer us up." They had emerged from the court-house and paused on
+the street as the stream of townsfolk divided and passed by them to take
+different routes leading from the Square. Not far away, some people were
+getting into a buckboard. Fisbee and Miss Sherwood were already on the
+rear seat.
+
+"Who's with him, to-night, Mr. Fisbee?" asked Judge Briscoe in a low
+voice.
+
+"No one. He is going directly to the office. To-morrow is Thursday, one
+of our days of publication."
+
+"Oh, then it's all right. Climb in, Minnie, we're waiting for you." The
+judge offered his hand to his daughter.
+
+"In a moment, father," she answered. "I'm going to ask him to call," she
+said to the other girl.
+
+"But won't he--"
+
+Miss Briscoe laughed. "He never comes to see me!" She walked over
+to where Martin and the young man were looking up at the moon, and
+addressed the journalist.
+
+"I've been trying to get a chance to speak to you for a week," she said,
+offering him her hand; "I wanted to tell you I had a friend coming to
+visit me Won't you come to see us? She's here."
+
+The young man bowed. "Thank you," he answered. "Thank you, very much. I
+shall be very glad." His tone had the meaningless quality of perfunctory
+courtesy; Miss Briscoe detected only the courtesy; but the strange lady
+marked the lack of intention in his words.
+
+"Don't you include me, Minnie?" inquired Mr Martin, plaintively. "I'll
+try not to be too fascinatin', so as to give our young friend a show. It
+was love at first sight with me. I give Miss Seliny warning soon as your
+folks come in and I got a good look at the lady."
+
+As the buckboard drove away, Miss Sherwood, who had been gazing
+steadfastly at the two figures still standing in the street, the tall
+ungainly old one, and the taller, loosely-held young one (he had not
+turned to look at her) withdrew her eyes from them, bent them seriously
+upon Fisbee, and asked: "What did you mean when you said no one was with
+him to-night?"
+
+"That no one was watching him," he answered.
+
+"Watching him? I don't understand."
+
+"Yes; he has been shot at from the woods at night and----"
+
+The girl shivered. "But who watches him?"
+
+"The young men of the town. He has a habit of taking long walks after
+dark, and he is heedless of all remonstrance. He laughs at the idea
+of curtailing the limit of his strolls or keeping within the town when
+night has fallen; so the young men have organized a guard for him, and
+every evening one of them follows him until he goes to the office to
+work for the night. It is a different young man every evening, and the
+watcher follows at a distance so that he does not suspect."
+
+"But how many people know of this arrangement?"
+
+"Nearly every one in the county except the Cross-Roads people, though it
+is not improbable that they have discovered it."
+
+"And has no one told him"
+
+"No; it would annoy him; he would not allow it to continue. He will not
+even arm himself."
+
+"They follow and watch him night after night, and every one knows and no
+one tells him? Oh, I must say," cried the girl, "I think these are good
+people."
+
+The stalwart old man on the front seat shook out the reins and whined
+the whip over his roans' backs. "They are the people of your State and
+mine. Miss Sherwood," he said in his hearty voice, "the best people in
+God's world--and I'm not running for Congress, either!"
+
+"But how about the Six-Cross-Roads people, father?" asked Minnie.
+
+"We'll wipe them clean out some day," answered her father--"possibly
+judicially, possibly----"
+
+"Surely judiciously?" suggested Miss Sherwood.
+
+"If you care to see what a bad settlement looks like, we'll drive
+through there to-morrow--by daylight," said Briscoe. "Even the doctor
+doesn't insist on being in that neighborhood after dark. They are trying
+their best to get Harkless, and if they do----"
+
+"If they do!" repeated Miss Sherwood. She clasped Fisbee's hand gently.
+His eyes shone and he touched her fingers with a strange, shy reverence.
+
+"You will meet him to-morrow," he said.
+
+She laughed and pressed his hand. "I'm afraid not. He wasn't even
+interested enough to look at me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. LONESOMENESS
+
+When the rusty hands of the office clock marked half-past four, the
+editor-in-chief of the "Carlow County Herald" took his hand out of his
+hair, wiped his pen on his last notice from the White-Caps, put on his
+coat, swept out the close little entry, and left the sanctum for the
+bright June afternoon.
+
+He chose the way to the west, strolling thoughtfully out of town by the
+white, hot, deserted Main Street, and thence onward by the country
+road into which its proud half-mile of old brick store buildings,
+tumbled-down frame shops and thinly painted cottages degenerated. The
+sun was in his face, where the road ran between the summer fields, lying
+waveless, low, gracious in promise; but, coming to a wood of hickory and
+beech and walnut that stood beyond, he might turn his down-bent-hat-brim
+up and hold his head erect. Here the shade fell deep and cool on the
+green tangle of rag and iron weed and long grass in the corners of the
+snake fence, although the sun beat upon the road so dose beside. There
+was no movement in the crisp young leaves overhead; high in the boughs
+there was a quick flirt of crimson where two robins hopped noiselessly.
+No insect raised resentment of the lonesomeness: the late afternoon,
+when the air is quite still, had come; yet there rested--somewhere--on
+the quiet day, a faint, pleasant, woody smell. It came to the editor of
+the "Herald" as he climbed to the top rail of the fence for a seat,
+and he drew a long, deep breath to get the elusive odor more
+luxuriously--and then it was gone altogether.
+
+"A habit of delicacies," he said aloud, addressing the wide silence
+complainingly. He drew a faded tobacco-bag and a brier pipe from his
+coat pocket and filled and lit the pipe. "One taste--and they quit," he
+finished, gazing solemnly upon the shining little town down the road.
+He twirled the pouch mechanically about his finger, and then, suddenly
+regarding it, patted it caressingly. It had been a giddy little bag,
+long ago, satin, and gay with embroidery in the colors of the editor's
+university; and although now it was frayed to the verge of tatters, it
+still bore an air of pristine jauntiness, an air of which its owner in
+no wise partook. He looked from it over the fields toward the town in
+the clear distance and sighed softly as he put the pouch back in his
+pocket, and, resting his arm on his knee and his chin in his hand, sat
+blowing clouds of smoke out of the shade into the sunshine, absently
+watching the ghostly shadows dance on the white dust of the road.
+
+A little garter snake crept under the fence beneath him and disappeared
+in the underbrush; a rabbit progressing timidly on his travels by a
+series of brilliant dashes and terror-smitten halts, came within a few
+yards of him, sat up with quivering nose and eyes alight with fearful
+imaginings--vanished, a flash of fluffy brown and white. Shadows grew
+longer; the brier pipe sputtered feebly in depletion and was refilled. A
+cricket chirped and heard answer; there was a woodland stir of breezes;
+and the pair of robins left the branches overhead in eager flight,
+vacating before the arrival of a great flock of blackbirds hastening
+thither ere the eventide should be upon them. The blackbirds came,
+chattered, gossiped, quarrelled, and beat each other with their wings
+above the smoker sitting on the top fence rail.
+
+But he had remembered--it was Commencement. To-day, a thousand miles to
+the east, a company of grave young gentlemen sat in semi-circular rows
+before a central altar, while above them rose many tiers of mothers and
+sisters and sweethearts, listening to the final word. He could see it
+all very clearly: the lines of freshly shaven, boyish faces, the dainty
+gowns, the flowers and bright eyes above, and the light that filtered
+in through stained glass to fall softly over them all, with, here and
+there, a vivid splash of color, Gothic shaped. He could see the throngs
+of white-clad loungers under the elms without, under-classmen, bored by
+the Latin addresses and escaped to the sward and breeze of the campus;
+there were the troops of roistering graduates trotting about arm in arm,
+and singing; he heard the mandolins on the little balconies play an old
+refrain and the university cheering afterward; saw the old professor he
+had cared for most of all, with the thin white hair straggling over his
+silken hood, following the band in the sparse ranks of his class. And he
+saw his own Commencement Day--and the station at the junction where he
+stood the morning after, looking across the valley at the old towers
+for the last time; saw the broken groups of his class, standing upon the
+platform on the other side of the tracks, waiting for the south-bound
+train as he and others waited for the north-bound--and they all sang
+"Should auld acquaintance be forgot;" and, while they looked across at
+each other, singing, the shining rails between them wavered and blurred
+as the engine rushed in and separated them and their lives thenceforth.
+He filled his pipe again and spoke to the phantoms gliding over the
+dust--"Seven years!" He was occupied with the realization that there had
+been a man in his class whose ambition needed no restraint, his promise
+was so complete--in the strong belief of the university, a belief
+he could not help knowing--and that seven years to a day from his
+Commencement this man was sitting on a fence rail in Indiana.
+
+Down the road a buggy came creaking toward him, gray with dust, the top
+canted permanently to one side, old and frayed, like the fat, shaggy,
+gray mare that drew it; her unchecked, despondent head lowering before
+her, while her incongruous tail waved incessantly, like the banner of a
+storming party. The editor did not hear the flop of the mare's feet nor
+the sound of the wheels, so deep was his reverie, till the vehicle was
+nearly opposite him. The red-faced and perspiring driver drew rein, and
+the journalist looked up and waved a long white hand to him in greeting.
+
+"Howdy' do, Mr. Harkless?" called the man in the buggy. "Soakin' in the
+weather?" He spoke in shouts, though neither was hard of hearing.
+
+"Yes; just soaking," answered Harkless; "it's such a gypsy day. How is
+Mr. Bowlder?"
+
+"I'm givin' good satisfaction, thankye, and all at home. She's in town;
+goin' in after her now."
+
+"Give Mrs. Bowlder my regards," said the journalist, comprehending the
+symbolism. "How is Hartley?"
+
+The farmer's honest face shaded over, a second. "He's be'n steady ever
+sence the night you brought him out home; six weeks straight. I'm kind
+of bothered about to-morrow--It's show-day and he wants to come in town
+with us, and seems if I hadn't any call to say no. I reckon he'll have
+to take his chances--and us, too." He raised the reins and clucked to
+the gray mare; "Well, she'll be mad I ain't there long ago. Ride in with
+me?"
+
+"No, I thank you. I'll walk in for the sake of my appetite."
+
+"Wouldn't encourage it _too_ much--livin' at the Palace Hotel,'"
+observed Bowlder. "Sorry ye won't ride." He gathered the loose ends of
+the reins in his hands, leaned far over the dashboard and struck the
+mare a hearty thwack; the tattered banner of tail jerked indignantly,
+but she consented to move down the road. Bowlder thrust his big head
+through the sun-curtain behind him and continued the conversation: "See
+the White-Caps ain't got ye yet."
+
+"No, not yet." Harkless laughed.
+
+"Reckon the boys 'druther ye stayed in town after dark," the other
+called back; then, as the mare stumbled into a trot, "Well, come out and
+see us--if ye kin spare time from the jedge's." The latter clause seemed
+to be an afterthought intended with humor, for Bowlder accompanied it
+with the loud laughter of sylvan timidity, risking a joke. Harkless
+nodded without the least apprehension of his meaning, and waved farewell
+as Bowlder finally turned his attention to the mare. When the flop,
+flop of her hoofs had died out, the journalist realized that the day was
+silent no longer; it was verging into evening.
+
+He dropped from the fence and turned his face toward town and supper. He
+felt the light and life about him; heard the clatter of the blackbirds
+above him; heard the homing bees hum by, and saw the vista of white road
+and level landscape, framed on two sides by the branches of the grove,
+a vista of infinitely stretching fields of green, lined here and there
+with woodlands and flat to the horizon line, the village lying in their
+lap. No roll of meadow, no rise of pasture land, relieved their serenity
+nor shouldered up from them to be called a hill. A second great flock of
+blackbirds was settling down over the Plattville maples. As they hung
+in the fair dome of the sky below the few white clouds, it occurred to
+Harkless that some supping god had inadvertently peppered his custard,
+and now inverted and emptied his gigantic blue dish upon the earth,
+the innumerable little black dots seeming to poise for a moment, then
+floating slowly down from the heights.
+
+A farm-bell rang in the distance, a tinkling coming small and mellow
+from far away, and at the lonesomeness of that sound he heaved a long,
+mournful sigh. The next instant he broke into laughter, for another bell
+rang over the fields, the court-house bell in the Square. The first
+four strokes were given with mechanical regularity, the pride of
+the custodian who operated the bell being to produce the effect of a
+clock-work bell such as he had once heard in the court-house at Rouen;
+but the fifth and sixth strokes were halting achievements, as, after
+four o'clock, he often lost count on the strain of the effort for
+precise imitation. There was a pause after the sixth, then a dubious and
+reluctant stroke--seven--a longer pause, followed by a final ring with
+desperate decision--eight! Harkless looked at his watch; it was twenty
+minutes of six.
+
+As he crossed the court-house yard to the Palace Hotel, he stopped to
+exchange a word with the bell-ringer, who, seated on the steps, was
+mopping his brow with an air of hard-earned satisfaction.
+
+"Good-evening, Schofields'," he said. "You came in strong on the last
+stroke, to-night."
+
+"What we need here," responded the bell-ringer, "is more public-spirited
+men. I ain't kickin' on you, Mr. Harkless, no sir; but we want more men
+like they got in Rouen; we want men that'll git Main Street paved with
+block or asphalt; men that'll put in factories, men that'll act and not
+set round like that ole fool Martin and laugh and polly-woggle and make
+fun of public sperrit, day in and out. I reckon I do my best for the
+city."
+
+"Oh, nobody minds Tom Martin," answered Harkless. "It's only half the
+time he means anything by what he says."
+
+"That's jest what I hate about him," returned the bell-ringer in a tone
+of high complaint; "you can't never tell which half it is. Look at him
+now!" Over in front of the hotel Martin was standing, talking to the row
+of coatless loungers who sat with their chairs tilted back against the
+props of the wooden awning that projected over the sidewalk. Their faces
+were turned toward the court-house, and even those lost in meditative
+whittling had looked up to laugh. Martin, his hands in the pockets of
+his alpaca coat, his rusty silk hat tilted forward till the wide brim
+rested almost on the bridge of his nose, was addressing them in his
+one-keyed voice, the melancholy whine of which, though not the words,
+penetrated to the court-house steps.
+
+The bell-ringer, whose name was Henry Schofield, but who was known as
+Schofield's Henry (popularly abbreviated to Schofields') was moved to
+indignation. "Look at him," he cried. "Look at him! Everlastingly goin'
+on about my bell! Let him talk, jest let him talk." The supper gong
+boomed inside the hotel and Harkless bade the bell-ringer good-night. As
+he moved away the latter called after him: "He don't disturb nobody. Let
+him talk. Who pays any 'tention to him I'd like to know?" There was a
+burst of laughter from the whittlers. Schofields' sat in patient silence
+for a full minute, as one who knew that no official is too lofty to
+escape the anathemas of envy. Then he sprang to his feet and shook his
+fist at Martin, who was disappearing within the door of the hotel. "Go
+to Halifax!" he shouted.
+
+The dining-room of the Palace Hotel was a large, airy apartment,
+rustling with artistically perforated and slashed pink paper that hung
+everywhere, at this season of the year, to lend festal effect as well as
+to palliate the scourge of flies. There were six or seven large tables,
+all vacant except that at which Columbus Landis, the landlord, sat with
+his guests, while his wife and children ate in the kitchen by their own
+preference. Transient trade was light in Plattville; nobody ever came
+there, except occasional commercial travellers who got out of town the
+instant it was possible, and who said awful things if, by the exigencies
+of the railway time-table, they were left over night.
+
+Behind the host's chair stood a red-haired girl in a blue cotton gown;
+and in her hand she languidly waved a long instrument made of clustered
+strips of green and white and yellow tissue paper fastened to a wooden
+wand; with this she amiably amused the flies except at such times as the
+conversation proved too interesting, when she was apt to rest it on the
+shoulder of one of the guests. This happened each time the editor of
+the "Herald" joined in the talk. As the men seated themselves they all
+nodded to her and said, "G'd evening, Cynthy." Harkless always called
+her Charmion; no one knew why. When he came in she moved around the
+table to a chair directly opposite him, and held that station throughout
+the meal, with her eyes fixed on his face. Mr. Martin noted this
+manoeuvre--it occurred regularly twice a day--with a stealthy smile at
+the girl, and her light skin flushed while her lip curled shrewishly
+at the old gentleman. "Oh, all right, Cynthy," he whispered to her, and
+chuckled aloud at her angry toss of the head.
+
+"Schofields' seemed to be kind of put out with me this evening,"
+he remarked, addressing himself to the company. "He's the most
+ungratefullest cuss I ever come up with. I was only oratin' on how
+proud the city ought to be of him. He fairly keeps Plattville's sportin'
+spirit on the gog; 'die out, wasn't for him. There's be'n more money
+laid on him whether he'll strike over and above the hour, or under and
+below, or whether he'll strike fifteen minutes before time, or twenty
+after, than--well, sir, we'd all forgit the language if it wasn't for
+Schofields' bell to keep us talkin'; that's _my_ claim. Dull days, think
+of the talk he furnishes all over town. Think what he's done to promote
+conversation. Now, for instance, Anna Belle Bardlock's got a beau, they
+say"--here old Tom tilted back in his chair and turned an innocent eye
+upon a youth across the table, young William Todd, who was blushing over
+his griddle-cakes--"and I hear he's a good deal scared of Anna Belle and
+not just what you might call brash with her. They say every Sunday night
+he'll go up to Bardlocks' and call on Anna Belle from half-past six till
+nine, and when he's got into his chair he sets and looks at the floor
+and the crayon portraits till about seven; then he opens his tremblin'
+lips and says, 'Reckon Schofields' must be on his way to the court-house
+by this time.' And about an hour later, when Schofields' hits four
+or five, he'll speak up again, 'Say, I reckon he means eight.' 'Long
+towards nine o'clock, they say he skews around in his chair and says,
+'Wonder if he'll strike before time or after,' and Anna Belle answers
+out loud, 'I hope after,' for politeness; but in her soul she says, 'I
+pray before'; and then Schofields' hits her up for eighteen or twenty,
+and Anna Belle's company reaches for his hat. Three Sundays ago he
+turned around before he went out and said, 'Do you like apple-butter?'
+but never waited to find out. It's the same programme every Sunday
+evening, and Jim Bardlock says Anna Belle's so worn out you wouldn't
+hardly know her for the blithe creature she was last year--the
+excitement's be'n too much for her!"
+
+Poor William Todd bent his fiery face over the table and suffered the
+general snicker in helpless silence. Then there was quiet for a space,
+broken only by the click of knives against the heavy china and the
+indolent rustle of Cynthia's fly-brush.
+
+"Town so still," observed the landlord, finally, with a complacent
+glance at the dessert course of prunes to which his guests were helping
+themselves from a central reservoir, "Town so still, hardly seems like
+show-day's come round again. Yet there's be'n some shore signs lately:
+when my shavers come honeyin' up with, 'Say, pa, ain't they no urrands
+I can go for ye, pa? I like to run 'em for you, pa,'--'relse, 'Oh, pa,
+ain't they no water I can haul, or nothin', pa?'--'relse, as little
+Rosina T. says, this morning, 'Pa, I always pray fer _you_ pa,' and
+pa this and pa that-you can rely either Christmas or show-day's mighty
+close."
+
+William Todd, taking occasion to prove himself recovered from confusion,
+remarked casually that there was another token of the near approach of
+the circus, as ole Wilkerson was drunk again.
+
+"There's a man!" exclaimed Mr. Martin with enthusiasm. "There's
+the feller for _my_ money! He does his duty as a citizen more
+discriminatin'ly on public occasions than any man I ever see. There's
+Wilkerson's celebration when there's a funeral; look at the difference
+between it and on Fourth of July. Why, sir, it's as melancholy as a
+hearse-plume, and sympathy ain't the word for it when he looks at the
+remains, no sir; preacher nor undertaker, either, ain't _half_ as blue
+and respectful. Then take his circus spree. He come into the store this
+afternoon, head up, marchin' like a grenadier and shootin' his hand out
+before his face and drawin' it back again, and hollering out, 'Ta, ta,
+ta-ra-ta, ta, ta-ta-ra'--why, the dumbest man ever lived could see in
+a minute show's 'comin' to-morrow and Wilkerson's playin' the trombone.
+Then he'd snort and goggle like an elephant. Got the biggest sense of
+appropriateness of any man in the county, Wilkerson has. Folks don't
+half appreciate him."
+
+As each boarder finished his meal he raided the glass of wooden
+toothpicks and went away with no standing on the order of his going;
+but Martin waited for Harkless, who, not having attended to business so
+concisely as the others, was the last to leave the table, and they stood
+for a moment under the awning outside, lighting their cigars.
+
+"Call on the judge, to-night?" asked Martin.
+
+"No," said Harkless. "Why?"
+
+"Didn't you see the lady with Minnie and the judge at the lecture?"
+
+"I caught a glimpse of her. That's what Bowlder meant, then."
+
+"I don't know what Bowlder meant, but I guess you better go out there,
+young man. She might not stay here long."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER
+
+The Briscoe buckboard rattled along the elastic country-road, the roans
+setting a sharp pace as they turned eastward on the pike toward home and
+supper.
+
+"They'll make the eight miles in three-quarters of an hour," said the
+judge, proudly. He pointed ahead with his whip. "Just beyond that bend
+we pass through Six-Cross-Roads."
+
+Miss Sherwood leaned forward eagerly. "Can we see 'Mr. Wimby's' house
+from here?"
+
+"No, it's on the other side, nearer town; we pass it later. It's the
+only respectable-looking house in this township." They reached the turn
+of the road, and the judge touched up his colts to a sharper gait. "No
+need of dallying," he observed quietly. "It always makes me a little
+sick just to see the place. I'd hate to have a break-down here."
+
+They came in sight of a squalid settlement, built raggedly about a
+blacksmith's shop and a saloon. Half-a-dozen shanties clustered near the
+forge, a few roofs scattered through the shiftlessly cultivated fields,
+four or five barns propped by fence-rails, some sheds with gaping
+apertures through which the light glanced from side to side, a squad of
+thin, "razor-back" hogs--now and then worried by gaunt hounds--and
+some abused-looking hens, groping about disconsolately in the mire, a
+broken-topped buggy with a twisted wheel settling into the mud of the
+middle of the road (there was always abundant mud, here, in the dryest
+summer), a lowering face sneering from a broken window--Six-Cross-Roads
+was forbidding and forlorn enough by day. The thought of what
+might issue from it by night was unpleasant, and the legends of the
+Cross-Roads, together with an unshapen threat, easily fancied in the
+atmosphere of the place, made Miss Sherwood shiver as though a cold
+draught had crossed her.
+
+"It is so sinister!" she exclaimed. "And so unspeakably mean! This is
+where they live, the people who hate him, is it? The 'White-Caps'?"
+
+"They are just a lot of rowdies," replied Briscoe. "You have your rough
+corners in big cities, and I expect there are mighty few parts of any
+country that don't have their tough neighborhoods, only Six-Cross-Roads
+happens to be worse than most. They choose to call themselves
+'White-Caps,' but I guess it's just a name they like to give themselves.
+Usually White-Caps are a vigilance committee going after rascalities the
+law doesn't reach, or won't reach, but these fellows are not that kind.
+They got together to wipe out their grudges--and sometimes they didn't
+need any grudge and let loose their deviltries just for pure orneriness;
+setting haystacks afire and such like; or, where a farmer had offended
+them, they would put on their silly toggery and take him out at midnight
+and whip him and plunder his house and chase the horses and cattle into
+his corn, maybe. They say the women went with them on their raids."
+
+"And he was the first to try to stop them?"
+
+"Well, you see our folks are pretty long-suffering," Briscoe replied,
+apologetically. "We'd sort of got used to the meanness of the
+Cross-Roads. It took a stranger to stir things up--and he did. He sent
+eight of 'em to the penitentiary, some for twenty years."
+
+As they passed the saloon a man stepped into the doorway and looked at
+them. He was coatless and clad in garments worn to the color of dust;
+his bare head was curiously malformed, higher on one side than on the
+other, and though the buckboard passed rapidly, and at a distance, this
+singular lopsidedness was plainly visible to the occupants, lending an
+ugly significance to his meagre, yellow face. He was tall, lean, hard,
+powerfully built. He eyed the strangers with affected languor, and then,
+when they had gone by, broke into sudden, loud laughter.
+
+"That was Bob Skillett, the worst of the lot," said the judge. "Harkless
+sent his son and one brother to prison, and it nearly broke his heart
+that he couldn't swear to Bob."
+
+When they were beyond the village and in the open road again. Miss
+Sherwood took a deep breath. "I think I breathe more freely," she said.
+"That was a hideous laugh he sent after us. I had heard of places
+like this before--and I don't think I care to see many of them. As I
+understand it, Six-Cross-Roads is entirely vicious, isn't it; and bears
+the same relation to the country that the slums do to a city?'"
+
+"That's about it. They make their own whiskey. I presume; and they have
+their own fights amongst themselves, but they settle 'em themselves,
+too, and keep their own counsel and hush it up. Lige Willetts, Minnie's
+friend--I guess she's told you about Lige?--well, Lige Willetts will go
+anywhere when he's following a covey, though mostly the boys leave this
+part of the country alone when they're hunting; but Lige got into
+a thicket back of the forge one morning, and he came on a crowd of
+buzzards quarrelling over a heap on the ground, and he got out in a
+hurry. He said he was sure it was a dog; but he ran almost all the way
+to Plattville."
+
+"Father!" exclaimed his daughter, leaning from the back seat. "Don't
+tell such stories to Helen; she'll think we're horrible, and you'll
+frighten her, too."
+
+"Well, it isn't exactly a lady's story," said the judge. He glanced at
+his guest's face and chuckled. "I guess we won't frighten her much," he
+went on. "Young lady, I don't believe you'd be afraid of many things,
+would you? You don't look like it. Besides, the Cross-Roads isn't
+Plattville, and the White-Caps have been too scared to do anything much,
+except try to get even with the 'Herald,' for the last two years; ever
+since it went for them. They're laying for Harkless partly for revenge
+and partly because they daren't do anything until he's out of the way."
+
+The girl gave a low cry with a sharp intake of breath. "Ah! One grows
+tired of this everlasting American patience! Why don't the Plattville
+people do something before they----"
+
+"It's just as I say," Briscoe answered; "our folks are sort of used to
+them. I expect we do about all we can; the boys look after him nights,
+and the main trouble is that we can't make him understand he ought to
+be more afraid of them. If he'd lived here all his life he would be.
+You know there's an old-time feud between the Cross-Roads and our folks;
+goes way back into pioneer history and mighty few know anything of it.
+Old William Platt and the forefathers of the Bardlocks and Tibbses and
+Briscoes and Schofields moved up here from North Carolina a good
+deal just to get away from some bad neighbors, mostly Skilletts and
+Johnsons--one of the Skilletts had killed old William Platt's two sons.
+But the Skilletts and Johnsons followed all the way to Indiana to join
+in making the new settlement, and they shot Platt at his cabin door
+one night, right where the court-house stands to-day. Then the other
+settlers drove them out for good, and they went seven miles west and set
+up a still. A band of Indians, on the way to join the Shawnee Prophet at
+Tippecanoe, came down on the Cross-Roads, and the Cross-Roaders bought
+them off with bad whiskey and sent them over to Plattville. Nearly all
+the Plattville men were away, fighting under Harrison, and when they
+came back there were only a few half-crazy women and children left.
+They'd hid in the woods.
+
+"The men stopped just long enough to hear how it was, and started for
+the Cross-Roads; but the Cross-Roads people caught them in an ambush and
+not many of our folks got back.
+
+"We really never did get even with them, though all the early settlers
+lived and died still expecting to see the day when Plattville would go
+over and pay off the score. It's the same now as it was then, good stock
+with us, bad stock over here; and all the country riff-raff in creation
+come and live with 'em when other places get too hot to hold them. Only
+one or two of us old folks know what the original trouble was about; but
+you ask a Plattville man, to-day, what he thinks of the Cross-Roads and
+he'll be mighty apt to say, 'I guess we'll all have to go over there
+some time and wipe those hoodlums out.' It's been coming to that a long
+time. The work the 'Herald' did has come nearer bringing us even with
+Six-Cross-Roads than anything else ever has. Queer, too--a man that's
+only lived in Plattville a few years to be settling such an old score
+for us. They'll do their best to get him, and if they do there'll be
+trouble of an illegal nature. I think our people would go over there
+again, but I expect there wouldn't be any ambush this time; and the
+pioneers, might rest easier in--" He broke off suddenly and nodded to a
+little old man in a buckboard, who was turning off from the road into a
+farm lane which led up to a trim cottage with a honeysuckle vine by the
+door. "That's Mrs. Wimby's husband," said the judge in an undertone.
+
+Miss Sherwood observed that "Mrs. Wimby's husband" was remarkable for
+the exceeding plaintiveness of his expression. He was a weazened, blank,
+pale-eyed little man, with a thin, white mist of neck whisker; his coat
+was so large for him that the sleeves were rolled up from his wrists
+with several turns, and, as he climbed painfully to the ground to open
+the gate of the lane, it needed no perspicuous eye to perceive that his
+trousers had been made for a much larger man, for, as his uncertain foot
+left the step of his vehicle, one baggy leg of the garment fell down
+over his foot, completely concealing his boot and hanging some inches
+beneath. A faintly vexed expression crossed his face as he endeavored
+to arrange the disorder, but he looked up and returned Briscoe's bow,
+sadly, with an air of explaining that he was accustomed to trouble, and
+that the trousers had behaved no worse than he expected.
+
+No more inoffensive or harmless figure than this feeble little old man
+could be imagined; yet his was the distinction of having received a
+terrible visit from his neighbors of the Cross-Roads. Mrs. Wimby was a
+widow, who owned a comfortable farm, and she had refused every offer
+of the neighboring ill-eligible bachelors to share it. However, a
+vagabonding tinker won her heart, and after their marriage she continued
+to be known as "Mrs. Wimby"; for so complete was the bridegroom's
+insignificance that it extended to his name, which proved quite
+unrememberable, and he was usually called "Widder-Woman Wimby's
+Husband," or, more simply, "Mr. Wimby." The bride supplied the needs of
+his wardrobe with the garments of her former husband, and, alleging this
+proceeding as the cause of their anger, the Cross-Roads raiders, clad
+as "White-Caps," broke into the farmhouse one night, looted it, tore the
+old man from his bed, and compelling his wife, who was tenderly devoted
+to him, to watch, they lashed him with sapling shoots till he was near
+to death. A little yellow cur, that had followed his master on his
+wanderings, was found licking the old man's wounds, and they deluged the
+dog with kerosene and then threw the poor animal upon a bonfire they had
+made, and danced around it in heartiest enjoyment.
+
+The man recovered, but that was no palliation of the offense to the
+mind of a hot-eyed young man from the East, who was besieging the county
+authorities for redress and writing brimstone and saltpetre for
+his paper. The powers of the county proving either lackadaisical or
+timorous, he appealed to those of the State, and he went every night to
+sleep at a farmhouse, the owner of which had received a warning from
+the "White-Caps." And one night it befell that he was rewarded, for the
+raiders attempted an entrance. He and the farmer and the former's
+sons beat off the marauders and did a satisfactory amount of damage in
+return. Two of the "White-Caps" they captured and bound, and others they
+recognized. Then the State authorities hearkened to the voice of the
+"Herald" and its owner; there were arrests, and in the course of time
+there was a trial. Every prisoner proved an alibi, could have proved a
+dozen; but the editor of the "Herald," after virtually conducting the
+prosecution, went upon the stand and swore to man after man. Eight men
+went to the penitentiary on his evidence, five of them for twenty years.
+The Plattville Brass Band serenaded the editor of the "Herald" again.
+
+There were no more raids, and the Six-Cross-Roads men who were left kept
+to their hovels, appalled and shaken, but, as time went by and left them
+unmolested, they recovered a measure of their hardiness and began to
+think on what they should do to the man who had brought misfortune
+and terror upon them. For a long time he had been publishing their
+threatening letters and warnings in a column which he headed: "Humor of
+the Day."
+
+"Harkless don't understand the Cross-Roads," Briscoe said to Miss
+Sherwood as they left the Wimby farm behind; "and then he's like most
+of us; hardly any of us realizes that harm's ever going to come to _us_.
+Harkless was anxious enough about other people, but----"
+
+The young lady interrupted him, touching his arm. "Look!" she said,
+"Didn't you see a child, a little girl, ahead of us on the road?"
+
+"I noticed one a minute ago, but she's not there now," answered Briscoe.
+
+"There was a child walking along the road just ahead, but she turned and
+saw us coming, and she disappeared in the most curious way; she seemed
+to melt into the weeds at the roadside, across from the elder-bush
+yonder."
+
+The judge pulled in the horses by the elder-bush. "No child here, now,"
+he said, "but you're right; there certainly was one, just before
+you spoke." The young corn was low in the fields, and there was no
+hiding-place in sight.
+
+"I'm very superstitious; I am sure it was an imp," Miss Sherwood said.
+"An imp or a very large chameleon; she was exactly the color of the
+road."
+
+"A Cross-Roads imp," said the judge, lifting the reins, "and in that
+case we might as well give up. I never set up to be a match for those
+people, and the children are as mean as their fathers, and smarter."
+
+When the buckboard had rattled on a hundred yards or so, a little figure
+clad in a tattered cotton gown rose up from the weeds, not ten feet from
+where the judge had drawn rein, and continued its march down the road
+toward Plattville, capering in the dust and pursuing the buckboard with
+malignant gestures till the clatter of the horses was out of hearing,
+the vehicle out of sight.
+
+
+
+Something over two hours later, as Mr. Martin was putting things to
+rights in his domain, the Dry-Goods Emporium, previous to his departure
+for the evening's gossip and checkers at the drug-store, he stumbled
+over something soft, lying on the floor behind a counter. The thing
+rose, and would have evaded him, but he put out his hands and pinioned
+it and dragged it to the show-window where the light of the fading
+day defined his capture. The capture shrieked and squirmed and fought
+earnestly. Grasped by the shoulder he held a lean, fierce-eyed,
+undersized girl of fourteen, clad in one ragged cotton garment, unless
+the coat of dust she wore over all may be esteemed another. Her cheeks
+were sallow, and her brow was already shrewdly lined, and her eyes were
+as hypocritical as they were savage. She was very thin and little, but
+old Tom's brown face grew a shade nearer white when the light fell upon
+her.
+
+"You're no Plattville girl," he said sharply.
+
+"You lie!" cried the child. "You lie! I am! You leave me go, will you?
+I'm lookin' fer pap and you're a liar!"
+
+"You crawled in here to sleep, after your seven-mile walk, didn't you?"
+Martin went on.
+
+"You're a liar," she screamed again.
+
+"Look here," said Martin, slowly, "you go back to Six-Cross-Roads and
+tell your folks that if anything happens to a hair of Mr. Harkless's
+head every shanty in your town will burn, and your grandfather and
+your father and your uncles and your brothers and your cousins and your
+second-cousins and your third-cousins will never have the good luck to
+see the penitentiary. Reckon you can remember that message? But before
+I let you go to carry it, I guess you might as well hand out the paper
+they sent you over here with."
+
+His prisoner fell into a paroxysm of rage, and struck at him.
+
+"I'll git pap to kill ye," she shrieked. "I don' know nothin' 'bout yer
+Six-Cross-Roads, ner no papers, ner yer dam Mister Harkels neither, ner
+_you_, ye razor-backed ole devil! Pap'll kill ye; leave me go--leave
+me _go_!--Pap'll kill ye; I'll git him to _kill_ ye!" Suddenly her
+struggles ceased; her eyes closed; her tense little muscles relaxed and
+she drooped toward the floor; the old man shifted his grip to support
+her, and in an instant she twisted out of his hands and sprang out of
+reach, her eyes shining with triumph and venom.
+
+"Ya-hay, Mister Razor-back!" she shrilled. "How's that fer hi? Pap'll
+kill ye, Sunday. You'll be screechin' in hell in a week, an' we 'ull set
+up an' drink our apple-jack an' laff!" Martin pursued her lumberingly,
+but she was agile as a monkey, and ran dodging up and down the counters
+and mocked him, singing "Gran' mammy Tipsy-Toe," till at last she tired
+of the game and darted out of the door, flinging back a hoarse laugh at
+him as she went. He followed; but when he reached the street she was
+a mere shadow flitting under the courthouse trees. He looked after her
+forebodingly, then turned his eyes toward the Palace Hotel. The editor
+of the "Herald" was seated under the awning, with his chair tilted back
+against a post, gazing dreamily at the murky red afterglow in the west.
+
+"What's the use of tryin' to bother him with it?" old Tom asked himself.
+"He'd only laugh." He noted that young William Todd sat near the editor,
+whittling absently. Martin chuckled. "William's turn to-night," he
+muttered. "Well, the boys take mighty good care of him." He locked the
+doors of the Emporium, tried them, and dropped the keys in his pocket.
+
+As he crossed the Square to the drug-store, where his cronies awaited
+him, he turned again to look at the figure of the musing journalist. "I
+hope he'll go out to the judge's," he said, and shook his head, sadly.
+"I don't reckon Plattville's any too spry for that young man. Five years
+he's be'n here. Well, it's a good thing for us folks, but I guess it
+ain't exactly high-life for him." He kicked a stick out of his way
+impatiently. "Now, where'd that imp run to?" he grumbled.
+
+The imp was lying under the court-house steps. When the sound of
+Martin's footsteps had passed away, she crept cautiously from her
+hiding-place and stole through the ungroomed grass to the fence opposite
+the hotel. Here she stretched herself flat in the weeds and took from
+underneath the tangled masses of her hair, where it was tied with a
+string, a rolled-up, crumpled slip of greasy paper. With this in
+her fingers, she lay peering under the fence, her fierce eyes fixed
+unwinkingly on Harkless and the youth sitting near him.
+
+The street ran flat and gray in the slowly gathering dusk, straight
+to the western horizon where the sunset embers were strewn in long,
+dark-red streaks; the maple trees were clean-cut silhouettes against the
+pale rose and pearl tints of the sky above, and a tenderness seemed to
+tremble in the air. Harkless often vowed to himself he would watch no
+more sunsets in Plattville; he realized that their loveliness lent a
+too unhappy tone to the imaginings and introspections upon which he was
+thrown by the loneliness of the environment, and he considered that he
+had too much time in which to think about himself. For five years
+his introspections had monotonously hurled one word at him: "Failure;
+Failure! Failure!" He thought the sunsets were making him morbid. Could
+he have shared them, that would have been different.
+
+His long, melancholy face grew longer and more melancholy in the
+twilight, while William Todd patiently whittled near by. Plattville
+had often discussed the editor's habit of silence, and Mr. Martin had
+suggested that possibly the reason Mr. Harkless was such a quiet man was
+that there was nobody for him to talk to. His hearers did not agree, for
+the population of Carlow County was a thing of pride, being greater
+than that of several bordering counties. They did agree, however, that
+Harkless's quiet was not unkind, whatever its cause, and that when it
+was broken it was usually broken to conspicuous effect. Perhaps it was
+because he wrote so much that he hated to talk.
+
+A bent figure came slowly down the street, and William hailed it
+cheerfully: "Evening, Mr. Fisbee."
+
+"A good evening, Mr. Todd," answered the old man, pausing. "Ah, Mr.
+Harkless, I was looking for you." He had not seemed to be looking for
+anything beyond the boundaries of his own dreams, but he approached
+Harkless, tugging nervously at some papers in his pocket. "I have
+completed my notes for our Saturday edition. It was quite easy; there is
+much doing."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Fisbee," said Harkless, as he took the manuscript. "Have
+you finished your paper on the earlier Christian symbolism? I hope the
+'Herald' may have the honor of printing it." This was the form they
+used.
+
+"I shall be the recipient of honor, sir," returned Fisbee. "Your kind
+offer will speed my work; but I fear, Mr. Harkless, I very much fear,
+that your kindness alone prompts it, for, deeply as I desire it,
+I cannot truthfully say that my essays appear to increase our
+circulation." He made an odd, troubled gesture as he went on: "They do
+not seem to read them here, Mr. Harkless, although Mr. Martin assures me
+that he carefully peruses my article on Chaldean decoration whenever he
+rearranges his exhibition windows, and I bear in mind the clipping from
+a Rouen paper you showed me, commenting generously upon the scholarship
+of the 'Herald.' But for fifteen years I have tried to improve the art
+feeling in Plattville, and I may say that I have worked in the face
+of no small discouragement. In fact," (there was a slight quaver in
+Fisbee's voice), "I cannot remember that I ever received the slightest
+word or token of encouragement till you came, Mr. Harkless. Since then
+I have labored with refreshed energy; still, I cannot claim that our
+architecture shows a change for the better, and I fear the engravings
+upon the walls of our people exhibit no great progress in selection.
+And--I--I wish also to say, Mr. Harkless, if you find it necessary to
+make some alterations in the form of my reportorial items for Saturday's
+issue, I shall perfectly understand, remembering your explanation that
+journalism demands it. Good-evening, Mr. Harkless. Good-evening, Mr.
+Todd." He plodded on a few paces, then turned, irresolutely.
+
+"What is it, Fisbee?" asked Harkless.
+
+Fisbee stood for a moment, as though about to speak, then he smiled
+faintly, shook his head, and went his way. Harkless stared after him,
+surprised. It suddenly struck him, with a feeling of irritation, that
+if Fisbee had spoken it would have been to advise him to call at Judge
+Briscoe's. He laughed impatiently at the notion, and, drawing his pencil
+and a pad from his pocket, proceeded to injure his eyes in the waning
+twilight by the editorial perusal of the items his staff had just
+left in his hands. When published, the manuscript came under a flaring
+heading, bequeathed by Harkless's predecessor in the chair of the
+"Herald," and the alteration of which he felt Plattville would refuse to
+sanction: "Happenings of Our City." Below, was printed in smaller type:
+"Improvements in the World of Business," and, beneath that, came the
+rubric: "Also, the Cradle, the Altar, and the Tomb."
+
+The first of Fisbee's items was thus recorded: "It may be noted that
+the new sign-board of Mr. H. Miller has been put in place. We cannot but
+regret that Mr. Miller did not instruct the painter to confine himself
+to a simpler method of lettering."
+
+"Ah, Fisbee," murmured the editor, reproachfully, "that new sign-board
+is almost the only improvement in the World of Business Plattville has
+seen this year. I wonder how many times we have used it from the first,
+'It is rumored in business circles that Herve Miller contemplates'--to
+the exciting, 'Under Way,' and, 'Finishing Touches.' My poor White
+Knight, are five years of training wasted on you? Sometimes you make me
+fear it. Here is Plattville panting for our story of the hanging of
+the sign, and you throw away the climax like that!" He began to write
+rapidly, bending low over the pad in the half darkness. His narrative
+was an amplification of the interesting information (already possessed
+by every inhabitant) that Herve Miller had put up a new sign. After a
+paragraph of handsome description, "Herve is always enterprising," wrote
+the editor. "This is a move in the right direction. Herve, keep it up."
+
+He glanced over the other items meditatively, making alterations here
+and there. The last two Fisbee had written as follows:
+
+"There is noticeable in the new (and somewhat incongruous) portico
+erected by Solomon Tibbs at the residence of Mr. Henry Tibbs Willetts,
+an attempt at rococo decoration which cannot fail to sadden the
+passer-by."
+
+"Miss Sherwood of Rouen, whom Miss Briscoe knew at the Misses Jennings'
+finishing-school in New York, is a guest of Judge Briscoe's household."
+
+Fisbee's items were written in ink; and there was a blank space beneath
+the last. At the bottom of the page something had been scribbled in
+pencil. Harkless tried vainly to decipher it, but the twilight had
+fallen too deep, and the writing was too faint, so he struck a match
+and held it close to the paper. The action betokened only a languid
+interest, but when he caught sight of the first of the four subscribed
+lines he sat up straight in his chair with an ejaculation. At the bottom
+of Fisbee's page was written in a dainty, feminine hand, of a type he
+had not seen for years:
+
+          "'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
+             'To talk of many things:
+           Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
+             And cabbages--and kings--'"
+
+He put the paper in his pocket, and set off rapidly down the village
+street.
+
+At his departure William Todd looked up quickly; then he got upon his
+feet and quietly followed the editor. In the dusk a tattered little
+figure rose up from the weeds across the way, and stole noiselessly
+after William. He was in his shirt-sleeves, his waistcoat unbuttoned and
+loose. On the nearest corner Mr. Todd encountered a fellow-townsman,
+who had been pacing up and down in front of a cottage, crooning to a
+protestive baby held in his arms. He had paused in his vigil to stare
+after Harkless.
+
+"Whereas he bound for, William?" inquired the man with the baby.
+
+"Briscoes'," answered William, pursuing his way.
+
+"I reckoned he would be," commented the other, turning to his wife, who
+sat on the doorstep, "I reckoned so when I see that lady at the lecture
+last night."
+
+The woman rose to her feet. "Hi, Bill Todd!" she said. "What you got
+onto the back of your vest?" William paused, put his hand behind him and
+encountered a paper pinned to the dangling strap of his waistcoat. The
+woman ran to him and unpinned the paper. It bore a writing. They took it
+to where the yellow lamp-light shone through the open door, and read:
+
+           "der Sir
+              "FoLer harkls aL yo ples an gaRd him yoR
+ best venagesn is closteR, harkls not Got 3 das to liv
+                                  "We come in Wite."
+
+"What ye think, William?" asked the man with the baby, anxiously. But
+the woman gave the youth a sharp push with her hand. "They never dast to
+do it!" she cried. "Never in the world! You hurry, Bill Todd. Don't you
+leave him out of your sight one second."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. AT THE PASTURE BARS: ELDER-BUSHES MAY HAVE STINGS
+
+The street upon which the Palace Hotel fronted formed the south side of
+the Square and ran west to the edge of the town, where it turned to the
+south for a quarter of a mile or more, then bent to the west again. Some
+distance from this second turn, there stood, fronting close on the road,
+a large brick house, the most pretentious mansion in Carlow County.
+And yet it was a homelike place, with its red-brick walls embowered in
+masses of cool Virginia creeper, and a comfortable veranda crossing the
+broad front, while half a hundred stalwart sentinels of elm and beech
+and poplar stood guard around it. The front walk was bordered by
+geraniums and hollyhocks; and honeysuckle climbed the pillars of the
+porch. Behind the house there was a shady little orchard; and, back of
+the orchard, an old-fashioned, very fragrant rose-garden, divided by a
+long grape arbor, extended to the shallow waters of a wandering creek;
+and on the bank a rustic seat was placed, beneath the sycamores.
+
+From the first bend of the road, where it left the town and became
+(after some indecision) a country highway--called the pike--rather than
+a proud city boulevard, a pathway led through the fields to end at some
+pasture bars opposite the brick house.
+
+John Harkless was leaning on the pasture bars. The stars were wan, and
+the full moon shone over the fields. Meadows and woodlands lay quiet
+under the old, sweet marvel of a June night. In the wide monotony of
+the flat lands, there sometimes comes a feeling that the whole earth is
+stretched out before one. To-night it seemed to lie so, in the pathos of
+silent beauty, all passive and still; yet breathing an antique message,
+sad, mysterious, reassuring. But there had come a divine melody adrift
+on the air. Through the open windows it floated. Indoors some one struck
+a peal of silver chords, like a harp touched by a lover, and a woman's
+voice was lifted. John Harkless leaned on the pasture bars and listened
+with upraised head and parted lips.
+
+"To thy chamber window roving, love hath led my feet."
+
+The Lord sent manna to the children of Israel in the wilderness.
+Harkless had been five years in Plattville, and a woman's voice singing
+Schubert's serenade came to him at last as he stood by the pasture bars
+of Jones's field and listened and rested his dazzled eyes on the big,
+white face of the moon.
+
+How long had it been since he had heard a song, or any discourse of
+music other than that furnished by the Plattville Band--not that he had
+not taste for a brass band! But music that he loved always gave him an
+ache of delight and the twinge of reminiscences of old, gay days gone
+forever. To-night his memory leaped to the last day of a June gone seven
+years; to a morning when the little estuary waves twinkled in the bright
+sun about the boat in which he sat, the trim launch that brought a
+cheery party ashore from their schooner to the Casino landing at Winter
+Harbor, far up on the Maine coast.
+
+It was the happiest of those last irresponsible days before he struck
+into his work in the world and became a failure. To-night he saw the
+picture as plainly as if it were yesterday; no reminiscence had risen so
+keenly before his eyes for years: pretty Mrs. Van Skuyt sitting beside
+him--pretty Mrs. Van Skuyt and her roses! What had become of her? He
+saw the crowd of friends waiting on the pier for their arrival, and
+the dozen or so emblazoned classmates (it was in the time of brilliant
+flannels) who suddenly sent up a volley of college cheers in his
+honor--how plainly the dear, old, young faces rose up before him
+to-night, the men from whose lives he had slipped! Dearest and jolliest
+of the faces was that of Tom Meredith, clubmate, classmate, his closest
+friend, the thin, red-headed third baseman; he could see Tom's mouth
+opened at least a yard, it seemed, such was his frantic vociferousness.
+Again and again the cheers rang out, "Harkless! Harkless!" on the end of
+them. In those days everybody (particularly his classmates) thought he
+would be minister to England in a few years, and the orchestra on the
+Casino porch was playing "The Conquering Hero," in his honor, and at the
+behest of Tom Meredith, he knew.
+
+There were other pretty ladies besides Mrs. Van Skuyt in the launch-load
+from the yacht, but, as they touched the pier, pretty girls, or pretty
+women, or jovial gentlemen, all were overlooked in the wild scramble the
+college men made for their hero. They haled him forth, set him on high,
+bore him on their shoulders, shouting "Skal to the Viking!" and carried
+him up the wooded bluff to the Casino. He heard Mrs. Van Skuyt say,
+"Oh, we're used to it; we've put in at several other places where he
+had friends!" He struggled manfully to be set down, but his triumphal
+procession swept on. He heard bystanders telling each other, "It's that
+young Harkless, 'the Great Harkless,' they're all so mad about"; and
+while it pleased him a little to hear such things, they always made him
+laugh a great deal. He had never understood his popularity: he had
+been chief editor of the university daily, and he had done a little in
+athletics, and the rest of his distinction lay in college offices his
+mates had heaped upon him without his being able to comprehend why they
+did it. And yet, somehow, and in spite of himself, they had convinced
+him that the world was his oyster; that it would open for him at a
+touch. He could not help seeing how the Freshmen looked at him, how the
+Sophomores jumped off the narrow campus walks to let him pass; he could
+not help knowing that he was the great man of his time, so that "The
+Great Harkless" came to be one of the traditions of the university. He
+remembered the wild progress they made for him up the slope that morning
+at Winter Harbor, how the people baked on, and laughed, and clapped
+their hands. But at the veranda edge he had noticed a little form
+disappearing around a corner of the building; a young girl running away
+as fast as she could.
+
+"See there!" he said, as the tribe set him down, "You have frightened
+the populace." And Tom Meredith stopped shouting long enough to answer,
+"It's my little cousin, overcome with emotion. She's been counting the
+hours till you came--been hearing of you from me and others for a good
+while; and hasn't been able to talk or think of anything else. She's
+only fifteen, and the crucial moment is too much for her--the Great
+Harkless has arrived, and she has fled."
+
+He remembered other incidents of his greatness, of the glory that now
+struck him as rarely comical; he hoped he hadn't taken it too seriously
+then, in the flush of his youth. Maybe, after all, he had been a,
+big-headed boy, but he must have bottled up his conceit tightly enough,
+or the other boys would have detected it and abhorred him. He was
+inclined to believe that he had not been very much set up by the pomp
+they made for him. At all events, that day at Winter Harbor had been
+beautiful, full of the laughter of friends and music; for there was a
+musicale at the Casino in the afternoon.
+
+But the present hour grew on him as he leaned on the pasture bars, and
+suddenly his memories sped; and the voice that was singing Schubert's
+serenade across the way touched him with the urgent, personal appeal
+that a present beauty always had for him. It was a soprano; and without
+tremolo, yet came to his ear with a certain tremulous sweetness; it was
+soft and slender, but the listener knew it could be lifted with fullness
+and power if the singer would. It spoke only of the song, yet the
+listener thought of the singer. Under the moon thoughts run into dreams,
+and he dreamed that the owner of the voice, she who quoted "The Walrus
+and the Carpenter" on Fisbee's notes, was one to laugh with you and weep
+with you; yet her laughter would be tempered with sorrow, and her tears
+with laughter.
+
+When the song was ended, he struck the rail he leaned upon a sharp blow
+with his open hand. There swept over him a feeling that he had stood
+precisely where he stood now, on such a night, a thousand years ago, had
+heard that voice and that song, had listened and been moved by the song,
+and the night, just as he was moved now.
+
+He had long known himself for a sentimentalist; he had almost given up
+trying to cure himself. And he knew himself for a born lover; he had
+always been in love with some one. In his earlier youth his affections
+had been so constantly inconstant that he finally came to settle
+with his self-respect by recognizing in himself a fine constancy that
+worshipped one woman always--it was only the shifting image of her that
+changed! Somewhere (he dreamed, whimsically indulgent of the fancy; yet
+mocking himself for it) there was a girl whom he had never seen, who
+waited till he should come. She was Everything. Until he found her,
+he could not help adoring others who possessed little pieces and
+suggestions of her--her brilliancy, her courage, her short upper lip,
+"like a curled roseleaf," or her dear voice, or her pure profile. He had
+no recollection of any lady who had quite her eyes.
+
+He had never passed a lovely stranger on the street, in the old days,
+without a thrill of delight and warmth. If he never saw her again, and
+the vision only lasted the time it takes a lady to cross the sidewalk
+from a shop door to a carriage, he was always a little in love with her,
+because she bore about her, somewhere, as did every pretty girl he ever
+saw, a suggestion of the far-away divinity. One does not pass lovely
+strangers in the streets of Plattville. Miss Briscoe was pretty, but not
+at all in the way that Harkless dreamed. For five years the lover in
+him that had loved so often had been starved of all but dreams. Only at
+twilight and dusk in the summer, when, strolling, he caught sight of a
+woman's skirt, far up the village street--half-outlined in the
+darkness under the cathedral arch of meeting branches--this romancer
+of petticoats could sigh a true lover's sigh, and, if he kept enough
+distance between, fly a yearning fancy that his lady wandered there.
+
+Ever since his university days the image of her had been growing
+more and more distinct. He had completely settled his mind as to her
+appearance and her voice. She was tall, almost too tall, he was sure of
+that; and out of his consciousness there had grown a sweet and vivacious
+young face that he knew was hers. Her hair was light-brown with gold
+lustres (he reveled in the gold lustres, on the proper theory that when
+your fancy is painting a picture you may as well go in for the whole
+thing and make it sumptuous), and her eyes were gray. They were very
+earnest, and yet they sparkled and laughed to him companionably; and
+sometimes he had smiled back upon her. The Undine danced before him
+through the lonely years, on fair nights in his walks, and came to sit
+by his fire on winter evenings when he stared alone at the embers.
+
+And to-night, here in Plattville, he heard a voice he had waited for
+long, one that his fickle memory told him he had never heard before.
+But, listening, he knew better--he had heard it long ago, though when
+and how, he did not know, as rich and true, and ineffably tender as now.
+He threw a sop to his common sense. "Miss Sherwood is a little thing"
+(the image was so surely tall) "with a bumpy forehead and spectacles,"
+he said to himself, "or else a provincial young lady with big eyes
+to pose at you." Then he felt the ridiculousness of looking after his
+common sense on a moonlight night in June; also, he knew that he lied.
+
+The song had ceased, but the musician lingered, and the keys were
+touched to plaintive harmonies new to him. He had come to Plattville
+before "Cavalleria Rusticana" was sung at Rome, and now, entranced, he
+heard the "Intermezzo" for the first time. Listening to this, he feared
+to move lest he should wake from a summer-night's dream.
+
+A ragged little shadow flitted down the path behind him, and from a
+solitary apple-tree, standing like a lonely ghost in the middle of
+the field, came the _woo_ of a screech owl--twice. It was
+answered--twice--from a clump of elder-bushes that grew in a
+fence-corner fifty yards west of the pasture bars. Then the barrel of a
+squirrel rifle issued, lifted out of the white elder-blossoms, and
+lay along the fence. The music in the house across the way ceased, and
+Harkless saw two white dresses come out through the long parlor windows
+to the veranda.
+
+"It will be cooler out here," came the voice of the singer clearly
+through the quiet. "What a night!"
+
+John vaulted the bars and started to cross the road. They saw him from
+the veranda, and Miss Briscoe called to him in welcome. As his tall
+figure stood out plainly in the bright light against the white dust,
+a streak of fire leaped from the elder-blossoms and there rang out the
+sharp report of a rifle. There were two screams from the veranda. One
+white figure ran into the house. The other, a little one with a gauzy
+wrap streaming behind, came flying out into the moonlight--straight to
+Harkless. There was a second report; the rifle-shot was answered by
+a revolver. William Todd had risen up, apparently from nowhere, and,
+kneeling by the pasture bars, fired at the flash of the rifle.
+
+"Jump fer the shadder, Mr. Harkless," he shouted; "he's in them elders,"
+and then: "Fer God's sake, comeback!"
+
+Empty-handed as he was, the editor dashed for the treacherous elder-bush
+as fast as his long legs could carry him; but, before he had taken six
+strides, a hand clutched his sleeve, and a girl's voice quavered from
+close behind him:
+
+"Don't run like that, Mr. Harkless; I can't keep up!" He wheeled about,
+and confronted a vision, a dainty little figure about five feet high, a
+flushed and lovely face, hair and draperies disarranged and flying. He
+stamped his foot with rage. "Get back in the house!" he cried.
+
+"You mustn't go," she panted. "It's the only way to stop you."
+
+"Go back to the house!" he shouted, savagely.
+
+"Will you come?"
+
+"Fer God's sake," cried William Todd, "come back! Keep out of the road."
+He was emptying his revolver at the clump of elder, the uproar of his
+firing blasting the night. Some one screamed from the house:
+
+"Helen! Helen!"
+
+John seized the girl's wrists roughly; her gray eyes flashed into his
+defiantly. "Will you go?" he roared.
+
+"No!"
+
+He dropped her wrists, caught her up in his arms as if she had been a
+kitten, and leaped into the shadow of the trees that leaned over the
+road from the yard. The rifle rang out again, and the little ball
+whistled venomously overhead. Harkless ran along the fence and turned in
+at the gate.
+
+A loose strand of the girl's hair blew across his cheek, and in the moon
+her head shone with gold. She had light-brown hair and gray eyes and a
+short upper lip like a curled rose-leaf. He set her down on the veranda
+steps. Both of them laughed wildly.
+
+"But you came with me!" she gasped triumphantly.
+
+"I always thought you were tall," he answered; and there was afterward a
+time when he had to agree that this was a somewhat vague reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. JUNE
+
+Judge Briscoe smiled grimly and leaned on his shot-gun in the moonlight
+by the veranda. He and William Todd had been trampling down the
+elder-bushes, and returning to the house, found Minnie alone on the
+porch. "Safe?" he said to his daughter, who turned an anxious face upon
+him. "They'll be safe enough now, and in our garden."
+
+"Maybe I oughtn't to have let them go," she returned, nervously.
+
+"Pooh! They're all right; that scalawag's half-way to Six-Cross-Roads by
+this time, isn't he, William?"
+
+"He tuck up the fence like a scared rabbit," Mr. Todd responded, looking
+into his hat to avoid meeting the eyes of the lady. "I didn't have no
+call to toller, and he knowed how to run, I reckon. Time Mr. Harkless
+come out the yard again, he was near out o' sight, and we see him take
+across the road to the wedge-woods, near half-a-mile up. Somebody else
+with him then--looked like a kid. Must 'a' cut acrost the field to join
+him. They're fur enough towards home by this."
+
+"Did Miss Helen shake hands with you four or five times?" asked Briscoe,
+chuckling.
+
+"No. Why?"
+
+"Because Harkless did. My hand aches, and I guess William's does, too;
+he nearly shook our arms off when we told him he'd been a fool. Seemed
+to do him good. I told him he ought to hire somebody to take a shot at
+him every morning before breakfast--not that it's any joking matter,"
+the old gentleman finished, thoughtfully.
+
+"I should say not," said William, with a deep frown and a jerk of his
+head toward the rear of the house. "_He_ jokes about it enough. Wouldn't
+even promise to carry a gun after this. Said he wouldn't know how to use
+it. Never shot one off since he was a boy, on the Fourth of July. This
+is the third time he's be'n shot at this year, but he says the others
+was at a--a--what'd he call it?"
+
+"'A merely complimentary range,'" Briscoe supplied. He handed William a
+cigar and bit the end off another himself. "Minnie, you better go in the
+house and read, I expect--unless you want to go down the creek and join
+those folks."
+
+"_Me_!" she responded. "I know when to stay away, I guess. Do go and put
+that terrible gun up."
+
+"No," said Briscoe, lighting his cigar, deliberately. "It's all safe;
+there's no question of that; but maybe William and I better go out and
+take a smoke in the orchard as long as they stay down at the creek."
+
+In the garden, shafts of white light pierced the bordering trees and
+fell where June roses lifted their heads to breathe the mild night
+breeze, and here, through summer spells, the editor of the "Herald" and
+the lady who had run to him at the pasture bars strolled down a path
+trembling with shadows to where the shallow creek tinkled over the
+pebbles. They walked slowly, with an air of being well-accustomed
+friends and comrades, and for some reason it did not strike either of
+them as unnatural or extraordinary. They came to a bench on the bank,
+and he made a great fuss dusting the seat for her with his black slouch
+hat. Then he regretted the hat--it was a shabby old hat of a Carlow
+County fashion.
+
+It was a long bench, and he seated himself rather remotely toward the
+end opposite her, suddenly realizing that he had walked very close to
+her, coming down the narrow garden path. Neither knew that neither had
+spoken since they left the veranda; and it had taken them a long time to
+come through the little orchard and the garden. She rested her chin
+on her hand, leaning forward and looking steadily at the creek. Her
+laughter had quite gone; her attitude seemed a little wistful and a
+little sad. He noted that her hair curled over her brow in a way he had
+not pictured in the lady of his dreams; this was so much lovelier. He
+did not care for tall girls; he had not cared for them for almost
+half an hour. It was so much more beautiful to be dainty and small and
+piquant. He had no notion that he was sighing in a way that would have
+put a furnace to shame, but he turned his eyes from her because he
+feared that if he looked longer he might blurt out some speech about
+her beauty. His glance rested on the bank; but its diameter included
+the edge of her white skirt and the tip of a little, white, high-heeled
+slipper that peeped out beneath it; and he had to look away from that,
+too, to keep from telling her that he meant to advocate a law compelling
+all women to wear crisp, white gowns and white slippers on moonlight
+nights.
+
+She picked a long spear of grass from the turf before her, twisted it
+absently in her fingers, then turned to him slowly. Her lips parted
+as if to speak. Then she turned away again. The action was so odd, and
+somehow, as she did it, so adorable, and the preserved silence was such
+a bond between them, that for his life he could not have helped moving
+half-way up the bench toward her.
+
+"What is it?" he asked; and he spoke in a whisper he might have used at
+the bedside of a dying friend. He would not have laughed if he had known
+he did so. She twisted the spear of grass into a little ball and threw
+it at a stone in the water before she answered.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Harkless, you and I haven't 'met,' have we? Didn't we
+forget to be presented to each other?"
+
+"I beg your pardon. Miss Sherwood. In the perturbation of comedy I
+forgot."
+
+"It was melodrama, wasn't it?" she said. He laughed, but she shook her
+head.
+
+"Comedy," he answered, "except your part of it, which you shouldn't have
+done. It was not arranged in honor of 'visiting ladies.' But you
+mustn't think me a comedian. Truly, I didn't plan it. My friend from
+Six-Cross-Roads must be given the credit of devising the scene-though
+you divined it!"
+
+"It was a little too picturesque, I think. I know about Six-Cross-Roads.
+Please tell me what you mean to do."
+
+"Nothing. What should I?"
+
+"You mean that you will keep on letting them shoot at you, until
+they--until you--" She struck the bench angrily with her hand.
+
+"There's no summer theatre in Six-Cross-Roads; there's not even a
+church. Why shouldn't they?" he asked gravely. "During the long and
+tedious evenings it cheers the poor Cross-Reader's soul to drop over
+here and take a shot at me. It whiles away dull care for him, and he has
+the additional exercise of running all the way home."
+
+"Ah!" she cried indignantly, "they told me you always answered like
+this!"
+
+"Well, you see the Cross-Roads efforts have proved so purely hygienic
+for me. As a patriot I have sometimes felt extreme mortification that
+such bad marksmanship should exist in the county, but I console
+myself with the thought that their best shots are unhappily in the
+penitentiary."
+
+"There are many left. Can't you understand that they will organize again
+and come in a body, as they did before you broke them up? And then, if
+they come on a night when they know you are wandering out of town----"
+
+"You have not the advantage of an intimate study of the most exclusive
+people of the Cross-Roads, Miss Sherwood. There are about twenty
+gentlemen who remain in that neighborhood while their relatives sojourn
+under discipline. If you had the entree over there, you would understand
+that these twenty could not gather themselves into a company and march
+the seven miles without physical debate in the ranks. They are not
+precisely amiable people, even amongst themselves. They would quarrel
+and shoot each other to pieces long before they got here."
+
+"But they worked in a company once."
+
+"Never for seven miles. Four miles was their radius. Five would see them
+all dead."
+
+She struck the bench again. "Oh, you laugh at me! You make a joke of
+your own life and death, and laugh at everything! Have five years of
+Plattville taught you to do that?"
+
+"I laugh only at taking the poor Cross-Roaders too seriously. I don't
+laugh at your running into fire to help a fellow-mortal."
+
+"I knew there wasn't any risk. I knew he had to stop to load before he
+shot again."
+
+"He did shoot again. If I had known you before to-night--I--" His tone
+changed and he spoke gravely. "I am at your feet in worship of your
+philanthropy. It's so much finer to risk your life for a stranger than
+for a friend."
+
+"That is rather a man's point of view, isn't it?"
+
+"You risked yours for a man you had never seen before."
+
+"Oh, no! I saw you at the lecture; I heard you introduce the Honorable
+Mr. Halloway."
+
+"Then I don't understand your wishing to save me."
+
+She smiled unwillingly, and turned her gray eyes upon him with troubled
+sunniness, and, under the kindness of her regard, he set a watch upon
+his lips, though he knew it might not avail him. He had driveled along
+respectably so far, he thought, but he had the sentimental longings of
+years, starved of expression, culminating in his heart. She continued to
+look at him, wistfully, searchingly, gently. Then her eyes traveled over
+his big frame from his shoes (a patch of moonlight fell on them; they
+were dusty; he drew them under the bench with a shudder) to his broad
+shoulders (he shook the stoop out of them). She stretched her small
+hands toward him in contrast, and broke into the most delicious low
+laughter in the world. At this sound he knew the watch on his lips was
+worthless. It was a question of minutes till he should present himself
+to her eyes as a sentimental and susceptible imbecile. He knew it. He
+was in wild spirits.
+
+"Could you realize that one of your dangers might be a shaking?" she
+cried. "Is your seriousness a lost art?" Her laughter ceased suddenly.
+"Ah, no. I understand. Thiers said the French laugh always, in order not
+to weep. I haven't lived here five years. I should laugh too, if I were
+you."
+
+"Look at the moon," he responded. "We Plattvillains own that with the
+best of metropolitans, and, for my part, I see more of it here. You do
+not appreciate us. We have large landscapes in the heart of the city,
+and what other capital possesses advantages like that? Next winter the
+railway station is to have a new stove for the waiting-room. Heaven
+itself is one of our suburbs--it is so close that all one has to do is
+to die. You insist upon my being French, you see, and I know you
+are fond of nonsense. How did you happen to put 'The Walrus and the
+Carpenter' at the bottom of a page of Fisbee's notes?"
+
+"Was it? How were you sure it was I?"
+
+"In Carlow County!"
+
+"He might have written it himself."
+
+"Fisbee has never in his life read anything lighter than cuneiform
+inscriptions."
+
+"Miss Briscoe----"
+
+"She doesn't read Lewis Carroll; and it was not her hand. What made you
+write it on Fisbee's manuscript?"
+
+"He was with us this afternoon, and I teased him a little about your
+heading. 'Business and the Cradle, the Altar, and the Tomb,' isn't it?
+And he said it had always troubled him, but that you thought it good.
+So do I. He asked me if I could think of anything that you might like
+better, to put in place of it, and I wrote, 'The time has come,' because
+it was the only thing I could think of that was as appropriate and as
+fetching as your headlines. He was perfectly dear about it. He was so
+serious; he said he feared it wouldn't be acceptable. I didn't notice
+that the paper he handed me to write on was part of his notes, nor
+did he, I think. Afterward, he put it back in his pocket. It wasn't a
+message."
+
+"I'm not so sure he did not notice. He is very wise. Do you know,
+somehow, I have the impression that the old fellow wanted me to meet
+you."
+
+"How dear and good of him!" She spoke earnestly, and her face was
+suffused with a warm light. There was no doubt about her meaning what
+she said.
+
+"It was," John answered, unsteadily. "He knew how great was my need of a
+few moments' companionableness with--with----"
+
+"No," she interrupted. "I meant dear and good to me, because I think he
+was thinking of me, and it was for my sake he wanted us to meet."
+
+It would have been hard to convince a woman, if she had overheard this
+speech, that Miss Sherwood's humility was not the calculated affectation
+of a coquette. Sometimes a man's unsuspicion is wiser, and Harkless knew
+that she was not flirting with him. In addition, he was not a fatuous
+man; he did not extend the implication of her words nearly so far as she
+would have had him.
+
+"But I had met you," said he, "long ago."
+
+"What!" she cried, and her eyes danced. "You actually remember?"
+
+"Yes; do you?" he answered. "I stood in Jones's field and heard you
+singing, and I remembered. It was a long time since I had heard you
+sing:
+
+          "'I was a ruffler of Flanders,
+             And fought for a florin's hire.
+            You were the dame of my captain
+             And sang to my heart's desire.'
+
+"But that is the balladist's notion. The truth is that you were a lady
+at the Court of Clovis, and I was a heathen captive. I heard you sing a
+Christian hymn--and asked for baptism." By a great effort he managed to
+look as if he did not mean it.
+
+But she did not seem over-pleased with his fancy, for, the surprise
+fading from her face, "Oh, that was the way you remembered!" she said.
+
+"Perhaps it was not that way alone. You won't despise me for being
+mawkish to-night?" he asked. "I haven't had the chance for so long."
+
+The night air wrapped them warmly, and the balm of the little breezes
+that stirred the foliage around them was the smell of damask roses from
+the garden. The creek tinkled over the pebbles at their feet, and a
+drowsy bird, half-wakened by the moon, crooned languorously in the
+sycamores. The girl looked out at the flashing water through downcast
+lashes. "Is it because it is so transient that beauty is pathetic?" she
+said; "because we can never come back to it in quite the same way? I am
+a sentimental girl. If you are born so, it is never entirely teased
+out of you, is it? Besides, to-night is all a dream. It isn't real, you
+know. You couldn't be mawkish."
+
+Her tone was gentle as a caress, and it made him tingle to his
+finger-tips. "How do you know?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"I just know. Do you think I'm very 'bold and forward'?" she said,
+dreamily.
+
+"It was your song I wanted to be sentimental about. I am like one 'who
+through long days of toil'--only that doesn't quite apply--'and nights
+devoid of ease'--but I can't claim that one doesn't sleep well here; it
+is Plattville's specialty--like one who
+
+           "'Still heard in his soul the music
+             Of wonderful melodies.'"
+
+"Those blessed old lines!" she said. "Once a thing is music or poetry,
+all the hand-organs and elocutionists in the world cannot ruin it, can
+they? Yes; to live here, out of the world, giving up the world, doing
+good and working for others, working for a community as you do----"
+
+"I am not quite shameless," he interrupted, smilingly. "I was given a
+life sentence for incompetency, and I've served five years of it, which
+have been made much happier than my deserts."
+
+"No," she persisted, "that is your way of talking of yourself; I know
+you would always 'run yourself down,' if one paid any attention to it.
+But to give up the world, to drop out of it without regret, to come
+here and do what you have done, and to live the life that must be so
+desperately dry and dull for a man of your sort, and yet to have the
+kind of heart that makes wonderful melodies sing in itself--oh!" she
+cried, "I say that is fine!"
+
+"You do not understand," he returned, sadly, wishing, before her, to
+be unmercifully just to himself. "I came here because I couldn't make
+a living anywhere else. And the 'wonderful melodies'--I have known you
+only one evening--and the melodies--" He rose to his feet and took a few
+steps toward the garden. "Come," he said. "Let me take you back. Let us
+go before I--" he finished with a helpless laugh.
+
+She stood by the bench, one hand resting on it; she stood all in the
+tremulant shadow. She moved one step toward him, and a single, long
+sliver of light pierced the sycamores and fell upon her head. He gasped.
+
+"What was it about the melodies?" she said.
+
+"Nothing! I don't know how to thank you for this evening that you have
+given me. I--I suppose you are leaving to-morrow. No one ever stays
+here.--I----"
+
+"What about the melodies?"
+
+He gave it up. "The moon makes people insane!" he cried.
+
+"If that is true," she returned, "then you need not be more afraid than
+I, because 'people' is plural. What were you saying about----"
+
+"I _had_ heard them--in my heart. When I heard your voice to-night, I
+knew that it was you who sang them there--had been singing them for me
+always."
+
+"So!" she cried, gaily. "All that debate about a pretty speech!" Then,
+sinking before him in a deep courtesy, "I am beholden to you," she said.
+"Do you think that no man ever made a little flattery for me before
+to-night?"
+
+At the edge of the orchard, where they could keep an unseen watch on
+the garden and the bank of the creek. Judge Briscoe and Mr. Todd were
+ensconced under an apple-tree, the former still armed with his shot-gun.
+When the two young people got up from their bench, the two men rose
+hastily, and then sauntered slowly toward them. When they met, Harkless
+shook each of them cordially by the hand, without seeming to know it.
+
+"We were coming to look for you," explained the judge. "William was
+afraid to go home alone; thought some one might take him for Mr.
+Harkless and shoot him before he got into town. Can you come out with
+young Willetts in the morning, Harkless," he went on, "and go with the
+ladies to see the parade? And Minnie wants you to stay to dinner and go
+to the show with them in the afternoon."
+
+Harkless seized his hand and shook it fervently, and then laughed
+heartily, as he accepted the invitation.
+
+At the gate, Miss Sherwood extended her hand to him and said politely,
+and with some flavor of mockery: "Good-night, Mr. Harkless. I do not
+leave to-morrow. I am very glad to have met you."
+
+"We are going to keep her all summer if we can," said Minnie, weaving
+her arm about her friend's waist. "You'll come in the morning?"
+
+"Good-night, Miss Sherwood," he returned, hilariously. "It has been such
+a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for saving my life. It was
+very good of you indeed. Yes, in the morning. Good-night--good-night."
+He shook hands with them all again, including Mr. Todd, who was going
+with him.
+
+He laughed most of the way home, and Mr. Todd walked at his side in
+amazement. The Herald Building was a decrepit frame structure on Main
+Street; it had once been a small warehouse and was now sadly in need of
+paint. Closely adjoining it, in a large, blank-looking yard, stood a low
+brick cottage, over which the second story of the warehouse leaned in an
+effect of tipsy affection that had reminded Harkless, when he first saw
+it, of an old Sunday-school book wood-cut of an inebriated parent under
+convoy of a devoted child. The title to these two buildings and the
+blank yard had been included in the purchase of the "Herald"; and the
+cottage was Harkless's home.
+
+There was a light burning upstairs in the "Herald" office. From the
+street a broad, tumble-down stairway ran up on the outside of the
+building to the second floor, and at the stairway railing John turned
+and shook his companion warmly by the hand.
+
+"Good-night, William," he said. "It was plucky of you to join in that
+muss, to-night. I shan't forget it."
+
+"I jest happened to come along," replied the other, drowsily; then, with
+a portentous yawn, he asked: "Ain't ye goin' to bed?"
+
+"No; Parker wouldn't allow it."
+
+"Well," observed William, with another yawn, which bade fair to expose
+the veritable soul of him, "I d'know how ye stand it. It's closte on
+eleven o'clock. Good-night."
+
+John went up the steps, singing aloud:
+
+          "For to-night we'll merry, merry be,
+           For to-night we'll merry, merry be,"
+
+and stopped on the sagging platform at the top of the stairs and gave
+the moon good-night with a wave of the hand and friendly laughter. At
+that it suddenly struck him that he was twenty-nine years of age;
+that he had laughed a great deal that evening; that he had laughed and
+laughed over things not in the least humorous, like an excited schoolboy
+making his first formal call; that he had shaken hands with Miss Briscoe
+when he left her, as if he should never see her again; that he had taken
+Miss Sherwood's hand twice in one very temporary parting; that he had
+shaken the judge's hand five times, and William's four!
+
+"Idiot!" he cried. "What has happened to me?" Then he shook his fist at
+the moon and went in to work--he thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. MORNING: "SOME IN RAGS AND SOME IN TAGS AND SOME IN VELVET
+GOWNS"
+
+The bright sun of circus-day shone into Harkless's window, and he awoke
+to find himself smiling. For a little while he lay content, drowsily
+wondering why he smiled, only knowing that there was something new.
+It was thus, as a boy, he had wakened on his birthday mornings, or on
+Christmas, or on the Fourth of July, drifting happily out of pleasant
+dreams into the consciousness of long-awaited delights that had come
+true, yet lying only half-awake in a cheerful borderland, leaving
+happiness undefined.
+
+The morning breeze was fluttering at his window blind; a honeysuckle
+vine tapped lightly on the pane. Birds were trilling, warbling,
+whistling. From the street came the rumbling of wagons, merry cries of
+greeting, and the barking of dogs. What was it made him feel so young
+and strong and light-hearted? The breeze brought him the smell of
+June roses, fresh and sweet with dew, and then he knew why he had come
+smiling from his dreams. He would go a holiday-making. With that he
+leaped out of bed, and shouted loudly: "Zen! Hello, Xenophon!"
+
+In answer, an ancient, very black darky put his head in at the door, his
+warped and wrinkled visage showing under his grizzled hair like charred
+paper in a fall of pine ashes. He said: "Good-mawn', suh. Yessuh. Hit's
+done pump' full. Good-mawn', suh."
+
+A few moments later, the colored man, seated on the front steps of the
+cottage, heard a mighty splashing within, while the rafters rang with
+stentorian song:
+
+       "He promised to buy me a bunch o' blue ribbon,
+        He promised to buy me a bunch o' blue ribbon,
+        He promised to buy me a bunch o' blue ribbon,
+             To tie up my bonny brown hair
+
+       "Oh dear! What can the matter be?
+        Oh dear! What can the matter be?
+        Oh dear! What can the matter be?
+             Johnnie's so long at the Fair!"
+
+At the sound of this complaint, delivered in a manly voice, the
+listener's jaw dropped, and his mouth opened and stayed open. "_Him!_"
+he muttered, faintly. "_Singin'_!"
+
+    "Well, the old Triangle knew the music of our tread;
+     How the peaceful Seminole would tremble in his bed!"
+
+sang the editor. "I dunno huccome it," exclaimed the old man, "an' dat
+ain' hyer ner dar; but, bless Gawd! de young man' happy!" A thought
+struck him suddenly, and he scratched his head. "Maybe he goin' away,"
+he said, querulously. "What become o' ole Zen?" The splashing ceased,
+but not the voice, which struck into a noble marching chorus. "Oh, my
+Lawd," said the colored man, "I pray you listen at dat!"
+
+           "Soldiers marching up the street,
+             They keep the time;
+             They look sublime!
+            Hear them play Die Wacht am Rhein!
+             They call them Schneider's Band.
+               Tra la la la, la!"
+
+The length of Main Street and all the Square resounded with the rattle
+of vehicles of every kind. Since earliest dawn they had been pouring
+into the village, a long procession on every country road. There were
+great red and blue farm wagons, drawn by splendid Clydesdales; the
+elders of the family on the front seat and on boards laid from side to
+side in front, or on chairs placed close behind, while, in the deep beds
+back of these, children tumbled in the straw, or peeped over the sides,
+rosy-cheeked and laughing, eyes alight with blissful anticipations.
+There were more pretentious two-seated cut-unders and stout buckboards,
+loaded down with merrymakers, four on a seat meant for two; there were
+rattle-trap phaetons and comfortable carry-alls drawn by steady spans;
+and, now and then, mule teams bringing happy negroes, ready to squander
+all on the first Georgia watermelons and cider. Every vehicle contained
+heaping baskets of good things to eat (the previous night had been a
+woeful Bartholomew for Carlow chickens) and underneath, where the dogs
+paced faithfully, swung buckets and fodder for the horses, while colts
+innumerable trotted dose to the maternal flanks, viewing the world with
+their big, new eyes in frisky surprise.
+
+Here and there the trim side-bar buggy of some prosperous farmer's
+son, escorting his sweetheart, flashed along the road, the young mare
+stepping out in pride of blood to pass the line of wagons, the youth who
+held the reins, resplendent in Sunday best and even better, his scorched
+brown face glowing with a fine belief in the superiority of both his
+steed and his lady; the latter beaming out upon life and rejoicing in
+the light-blue ribbons on her hat, the light-blue ribbon around her
+waist, the light-blue, silk half-mittens on her hands, and the beautiful
+red coral necklace about her neck and the red coral buttons that
+fastened her gown in the back.
+
+The air was full of exhilaration; everybody was laughing and shouting
+and calling greetings; for Carlow County was turning out, and from far
+and near the country people came; nay, from over the county line, clouds
+of dust rising from every thoroughfare and highway, and sweeping into
+town to herald their coming.
+
+Dibb Zane, the "sprinkling contractor," had been at work with the town
+water-cart since the morning stars were bright, but he might as well
+have watered the streets with his tears, which, indeed, when the farmers
+began to come in, bringing their cyclones of dust, he drew nigh unto,
+after a spell of profanity as futile as his cart.
+
+           "Tief wie das Meer soll deine Liebe sein,"
+
+hummed the editor in the cottage. His song had taken on a reflective
+tone as that of one who cons a problem, or musically ponders which card
+to play. He was kneeling before an old trunk in his bedchamber. From
+one compartment he took a neatly folded pair of duck trousers and a
+light-gray tweed coat; from another, a straw hat with a ribbon of bright
+colors. They had lain in the trunk a long time undisturbed; and he
+examined them musingly. He shook the coat and brushed it; then he laid
+the garments upon his bed, and proceeded to shave himself carefully,
+after which he donned the white trousers, the gray coat, and, rummaging
+in the trunk again, found a gay pink cravat, which he fastened about his
+tall collar (also a resurrection from the trunk) with a pearl pin.
+After that he had a long, solemn time arranging his hair with a pair
+of brushes. When at last he was suited, and his dressing completed, he
+sallied forth to breakfast.
+
+Xenophon stared after him as he went out of the gate whistling heartily.
+The old darky lifted his hands, palms outward.
+
+"Lan' name, who dat!" he exclaimed aloud. "Who dat in dem pan-jingeries?
+He jine' de circus?" His hands fell upon his knees, and he got to his
+feet pneumatically, shaking his head with foreboding. "Honey, honey,
+hit' baid luck, baid luck sing 'fo' breakfus. Trouble 'fo' de day be
+done. Trouble, honey, gre't trouble. Baid luck, baid luck!"
+
+Along the Square the passing of the editor in his cool equipment evoked
+some gasps of astonishment; and Mr. Tibbs and his sister rushed from the
+postoffice to stare after him.
+
+"He looks just beautiful, Solomon," said Miss Tibbs.
+
+"But what's the name for them kind of clothes?" inquired her brother.
+"'Seems to me there's a special way of callin' 'em. 'Seems as if I see
+a picture of 'em, somewheres. Wasn't it on the cover of that there
+long-tennis box we bought and put in the window, and the country people
+thought it was a seining outfit?"
+
+"It was a game, the catalogue said," observed Miss Selina. "Wasn't it?"
+
+"It was a mighty pore investment," the postmaster answered.
+
+As Harkless approached the hotel, a decrepit old man, in a vast straw
+hat and a linen duster much too large for him, came haltingly forward
+to meet him. He was Widow-Woman Wimby's husband. And, as did every one
+else, he spoke of his wife by the name of her former martial companion.
+
+"Be'n a-lookin' fer you, Mr. Harkless," he said in a shaking spindle of
+a voice, as plaintive as his pale little eyes. "Mother Wimby, she sent
+some roses to ye. Cynthy's fixin' 'em on yer table. I'm well as ever
+I am; but her, she's too complaining to come in fer show-day. This
+morning, early, we see some the Cross-Roads folks pass the place towards
+town, an' she sent me in to tell ye. Oh, I knowed ye'd laugh. Says she,
+'He's too much of a man to be skeered,' says she, 'these here tall, big
+men always 'low nothin' on earth kin hurt 'em,' says she, 'but you tell
+him to be keerful,' says she; an' I see Bill Skillett an' his brother on
+the Square lessun a half-an-hour ago, 'th my own eyes. I won't keep ye
+from yer breakfast.--Eph Watts is in there, eatin'. He's come back; but
+I guess I don't need to warn ye agin' him. He seems peaceable enough.
+It's the other folks you got to look out fer."
+
+He limped away. The editor waved his hand to him from the door, but the
+old fellow shook his head, and made a warning, friendly gesture with his
+arm.
+
+Harkless usually ate his breakfast alone, as he was the latest riser
+in Plattville. (There were days in the winter when he did not reach
+the hotel until eight o'clock.) This morning he found a bunch of white
+roses, still wet with dew and so fragrant that the whole room was fresh
+and sweet with their odor, prettily arranged in a bowl on the table,
+and, at his plate, the largest of all with a pin through the stem. He
+looked up, smilingly, and nodded at the red-haired girl. "Thank you,
+Charmion," he said. "That's very pretty."
+
+She turned even redder than she always was, and answered nothing,
+vigorously darting her brush at an imaginary fly on the cloth. After
+several minutes she said abruptly, "You're welcome."
+
+There was a silence, finally broken by a long, gasping sigh. Astonished,
+he looked at the girl. Her eyes were set unfathomably upon his pink tie;
+the wand had dropped from her nerveless hand, and she stood rapt and
+immovable. She started violently from her trance. "Ain't you goin'
+to finish your coffee?" she asked, plying her instrument again, and,
+bending over him slightly, whispered: "Say, Eph Watts is over there
+behind you."
+
+At a table in a far corner of the room a large gentleman in a brown
+frock coat was quietly eating his breakfast and reading the "Herald." He
+was of an ornate presence, though entirely neat. A sumptuous expanse of
+linen exhibited itself between the lapels of his low-cut waistcoat, and
+an inch of bediamonded breastpin glittered there, like an ice-ledge on
+a snowy mountain side. He had a steady, blue eye and a dissipated,
+iron-gray mustache. This personage was Mr. Ephraim Watts, who, following
+a calling more fashionable in the eighteenth century than in the latter
+decades of the nineteenth, had shaken the dust of Carlow from his feet
+some three years previously, at the strong request of the authorities.
+The "Herald" had been particularly insistent upon his deportation, and,
+in the local phrase, Harkless had "run him out of town." Perhaps it was
+because the "Herald's" opposition (as the editor explained at the
+time) had been merely moral and impersonal, and the editor had always
+confessed to a liking for the unprofessional qualities of Mr. Watts,
+that there was but slight embarrassment when the two gentlemen met
+to-day. His breakfast finished, Harkless went over to the other and
+extended his hand. Cynthia held her breath and clutched the back of
+a chair. However, Mr. Watts made no motion toward his well-known hip
+pocket. Instead, he rose, flushed slightly, and accepted the hand
+offered him.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Watts," said the journalist, cordially. "Also,
+if you are running with the circus and calculate on doing business here
+to-day, I'll have to see that you are fired out of town before noon. How
+are you? You're looking extremely well."
+
+"Mr. Harkless," answered Watts, "I cherish no hard feelings, and I never
+said but what you done exactly right when I left, three years ago. No,
+sir; I'm not here in a professional way at all, and I don't want to be
+molested. I've connected myself with an oil company, and I'm down here
+to look over the ground. It beats poker and fan-tan hollow, though there
+ain't as many chances in favor of the dealer, and in oil it's the farmer
+that gets the rake-off. I've come back, but in an enterprising spirit
+this time, to open up a new field and shed light and money in Carlow.
+They told me never to show my face here again, but if you say I stay, I
+guess I stay. I always was sure there was oil in the county, and I want
+to prove it for everybody's benefit. Is it all right?"
+
+"My dear fellow," laughed the young man, shaking the gambler's hand
+again, "it is all right. I have always been sorry I had to act against
+you. Everything is all right! Stay and bore to Corea if you like. Did
+ever you see such glorious weather?"
+
+"I'll let you in on some shares," Watts called after him as he turned
+away. He nodded in reply and was leaving the room when Cynthia detained
+him by a flourish of the fly-brush. "Say," she said,--she always called
+him "Say"--"You've forgot your flower."
+
+He came back, and thanked her. "Will you pin it on for me, Charmion?"
+
+"I don't know what call you got to speak to me out of my name," she
+responded, looking at the floor moodily.
+
+"Why?" he asked, surprised.
+
+"I don't see why you want to make fun of me."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Cynthia," he said gravely. "I didn't mean to do
+that. I haven't been considerate. I didn't think you'd be displeased.
+I'm very sorry. Won't you pin it on my coat?"
+
+Her face was lifted in grateful pleasure, and she began to pin the rose
+to his lapel. Her hands were large and red and trembled. She dropped
+the flower, and, saying huskily, "I don't know as I could do it right,"
+seized violently upon a pile of dishes and hurried from the room.
+
+Harkless rescued the rose, pinned it on his coat himself, and, observing
+internally, for the hundredth time, that the red-haired waitress was the
+queerest creature in the village, set forth gaily upon his holiday.
+
+When he reached the brick house on the pike he discovered a gentleman
+sunk in an easy and contemplative attitude in a big chair behind the
+veranda railing. At the click of the gate the lounger rose and disclosed
+the stalwart figure and brown, smiling, handsome face of Mr. Lige
+Willetts, an habitual devotee of Minnie Briscoe, and the most eligible
+bachelor of Carlow. "The ladies will be down right off," he said,
+greeting the editor's finery with a perceptible agitation and the editor
+himself with a friendly shake of the hand. "Mildy says to wait out
+here."
+
+But immediately there was a faint rustling within the house: the swish
+of draperies on the stairs, a delicious whispering when light feet
+descend, tapping, to hearts that beat an answer, the telegraphic
+message, "We come! We come! We are near! We are near!" Lige Willetts
+stared at Harkless. He had never thought the latter good-looking until
+he saw him step to the door to take Miss Sherwood's hand and say in a
+strange, low, tense voice, "Good-morning," as if he were announcing, at
+the least: "Every one in the world except us two, died last night. It is
+a solemn thing, but I am very happy."
+
+They walked, Minnie and Mr. Willetts a little distance in front of the
+others. Harkless could not have told, afterward, whether they rode,
+or walked, or floated on an air-ship to the court-house. All he knew
+distinctly was that a divinity in a pink shirt waist, and a hat that was
+woven of gauzy cloud by mocking fairies to make him stoop hideously to
+see under it, dwelt for the time on earth and was at his side, dazzling
+him in the morning sunshine. Last night the moon had lent her a silvery
+glamour; she had something of the ethereal whiteness of night-dews in
+that watery light, a nymph to laugh from a sparkling fountain, at the
+moon or, as he thought, remembering her courtesy for his pretty speech,
+perhaps a little lady of King Louis's court, wandering down the years
+from Fontainebleau and appearing to clumsy mortals sometimes, of a June
+night when the moon was in their heads.
+
+But to-day she was of the clearest color, a pretty girl, whose gray eyes
+twinkled to his in gay companionship. He marked how the sunshine was
+spun into the fair shadows of her hair and seemed itself to catch a
+lustre, rather than to impart it, and the light of the June day drifted
+through the gauzy hat, touching her face with a delicate and tender
+flush that came and went like the vibrating pink of early dawn. She
+had the divinest straight nose, tip-tilted the faintest, most alluring
+trifle, and a dimple cleft her chin, "the deadliest maelstrom in the
+world!" He thrilled through and through. He had been only vaguely
+conscious of the dimple in the night. It was not until he saw her by
+daylight that he really knew it was there.
+
+The village hummed with life before them. They walked through shimmering
+airs, sweeter to breathe than nectar is to drink. She caught a
+butterfly, basking on a jimson weed, and, before she let it go, held it
+out to him in her hand. It was a white butterfly. He asked which was the
+butterfly.
+
+"Bravo!" she said, tossing the captive craft above their heads and
+watching the small sails catch the breeze; "And so you can make little
+flatteries in the morning, too. It is another courtesy you should be
+having from me, if it weren't for the dustiness of it. Wait till we come
+to the board walk."
+
+She had some big, pink roses at her waist. "In the meantime," he
+answered, indicating these, "I know very well a lad that would be blithe
+to accept a pretty token of any lady's high esteem."
+
+"But you have one, already, a very beautiful one." She gave him a genial
+up-and-down glance from head to foot, half quizzical, but so quick he
+almost missed it. And then he was glad he had found the straw hat with
+the youthful ribbon, and all his other festal vestures. "And a very
+becoming flower a white rose is," she continued, "though I am a bold
+girl to be blarneying with a young gentleman I met no longer ago than
+last night."
+
+"But why shouldn't you blarney with a gentleman, when you began by
+saving his life?"
+
+"Or, rather, when the gentleman had the politeness to gallop about
+the county with me tucked under his arm?" She stood still and laughed
+softly, but consummately, and her eyes closed tight with the mirth of
+it. She had taken one of the roses from her waist, and, as she stood,
+holding it by the long stem, its petals lightly pressed her lips.
+
+"You may have it--in exchange," she said. He bent down to her, and she
+began to fasten the pink rose in place of the white one on his coat. She
+did not ask him, directly or indirectly, who had put the white one there
+for him, because she knew by the way it was pinned that he had done it
+himself. "Who is it that ev'ry morning brings me these lovely flow'rs?"
+she burlesqued, as he bent over her.
+
+"'Mr. Wimby,'" he returned. "I will point him out to you. You must see
+him, and, also, Mr. Bodeffer, the oldest inhabitant--and crossest."
+
+"Will you present them to me?"
+
+"No; they might talk to you and take some of my time with you away from
+me." Her eyes sparkled into his for the merest fraction of a second,
+and she laughed half mockingly. Then she dropped his lapel and they
+proceeded. She did not put the white rose in her belt, but carried it.
+
+The Square was heaving with a jostling, goodnatured, happy, and
+constantly increasing crowd that overflowed on Main Street in both
+directions; and the good nature of this crowd was augmented in the ratio
+that its size increased. The streets were a confusion of many colors,
+and eager faces filled every window opening on Main Street or the
+Square. Since nine o'clock all those of the courthouse had been
+occupied, and here most of the damsels congregated to enjoy the
+spectacle of the parade, and their swains attended, gallantly posting
+themselves at coignes of less vantage behind the ladies. Some of the
+faces that peeped from the dark, old court-house windows were
+pretty, and some of them were not pretty; but nearly all of them were
+rosy-cheeked, and all were pleasant to see because of the good
+cheer they showed. Some of the gallants affected the airy and easy,
+entertaining the company with badinage and repartee; some were openly
+bashful. Now and then one of the latter, after long deliberation,
+constructed a laborious compliment for his inamorata, and, after
+advancing and propounding half of it, again retired into himself, smit
+with a blissful palsy. Nearly all of them conversed in tones that might
+have indicated that they were separated from each other by an acre lot
+or two.
+
+Here and there, along the sidewalk below, a father worked his way
+through the throng, a licorice-bedaubed cherub on one arm, his coat
+(borne with long enough) on the other; followed by a mother with the
+other children hanging to her skirts and tagging exasperatingly
+behind, holding red and blue toy balloons and delectable batons of
+spiral-striped peppermint in tightly closed, sadly sticky fingers.
+
+A thousand cries rent the air; the strolling mountebanks and gypsying
+booth-merchants; the peanut vendors; the boys with palm-leaf fans for
+sale; the candy sellers; the popcorn peddlers; the Italian with the toy
+balloons that float like a cluster of colored bubbles above the heads of
+the crowd, and the balloons that wail like a baby; the red-lemonade
+man, shouting in the shrill voice that reaches everywhere and
+endures forever: "Lemo! Lemo! Ice-cole lemo! Five cents, a nickel, a
+half-a-dime, the twentiethpotofadollah! Lemo! Ice-cole lemo!"--all the
+vociferating harbingers of the circus crying their wares. Timid youth,
+in shoes covered with dust through which the morning polish but dimly
+shone, and unalterably hooked by the arm to blushing maidens, bought
+recklessly of peanuts, of candy, of popcorn, of all known sweetmeats,
+perchance; and forced their way to the lemonade stands; and there, all
+shyly, silently sipped the crimson-stained ambrosia. Everywhere the
+hawkers dinned, and everywhere was heard the plaintive squawk of the toy
+balloon.
+
+But over all rose the nasal cadence of the Cheap John, reeking oratory
+from his big wagon on the corner: "Walk up, walk up, walk up, ladies and
+gents! Here we are! Here we are! Make hay while we gather the moss. Walk
+up, one and all. Here I put this solid gold ring, sumptuous and golden,
+eighteen carats, eighteen golden carats of the priceless mother of
+metals, toiled fer on the wild Pacific slope, eighteen garnteed, I put
+this golden ring, rich and golden, in the package with the hangkacheef,
+the elegant and blue-ruled note-paper, self-writing pens, pencil and
+penholder. Who takes the lot? Who takes it, ladies and gents?"
+
+His tongue curled about his words; he seemed to love them. "Fer a
+quat-of-a-dollah! Don't turn away, young man--you feller in the green
+necktie, there. We all see the young lady on your arm is a-langrishing
+fer the golden ring and the package. Faint heart never won fair wummin'.
+There you are, sir, and you'll never regret it. Go--and be happy! Now,
+who's the next man to git solid with his girl fer a quat-of-a-dollah?
+Life is a mysterus and unviolable shadder, my friends; who kin read its
+orgeries? To-day we are here--but to-morrow we may be in jail. Only
+a quat-of-a-dollah! We are Seventh-Day Adventists, ladies and gents,
+a-givin' away our belongings in the awful face of Michael, fer a
+quat-of-a-dollah. The same price fer each-an-devery individual, lady and
+gent, man, wummin, wife and child, and happiness to one and all fer a
+quat-of-a-dollah!"
+
+Down the middle of the street, kept open between the waiting crowd, ran
+barefoot boys, many of whom had not slept at home, but had kept vigil in
+the night mists for the coming of the show, and, having seen the muffled
+pageant arrive, swathed, and with no pomp and panoply, had returned to
+town, rioting through jewelled cobwebs in the morning fields, happy in
+the pride of knowledge of what went on behind the scenes. To-night, or
+to-morrow, the runaways would face a woodshed reckoning with outraged
+ancestry; but now they caracoled in the dust with no thought of the grim
+deeds to be done upon them.
+
+In the court-house yard, and so sinning in the very eye of the law,
+two swarthy, shifty-looking gentlemen were operating (with some greasy
+walnut shells and a pea) what the fanciful or unsophisticated might have
+been pleased to call a game of chance; and the most intent spectator of
+the group around them was Mr. James Bardlock, the Town Marshal. He
+was simply and unofficially and earnestly interested. Thus the eye of
+Justice may not be said to have winked upon the nefariousness now under
+its vision; it gazed with strong curiosity, an itch to dabble, and (it
+must be admitted) a growing hope of profit. The game was so direct and
+the player so sure. Several countrymen had won small sums, and one, a
+charmingly rustic stranger, with a peculiar accent (he said that him and
+his goil should now have a smoot' old time off his winninks--though the
+lady was not manifested), had won twenty-five dollars with no trouble at
+all. The two operators seemed depressed, declaring the luck against them
+and the Plattville people too brilliant at the game.
+
+It was wonderful how the young couples worked their way arm-in-arm
+through the thickest crowds, never separating. Even at the lemonade
+stands they drank holding the glasses in their outer hands--such are the
+sacrifices demanded by etiquette. But, observing the gracious outpouring
+of fortune upon the rustic with the rare accent, a youth in a green tie
+disengaged his arm--for the first time in two hours--from that of a
+girl upon whose finger there shone a ring, sumptuous and golden, and,
+conducting her to a corner of the yard, bade her remain there until he
+returned. He had to speak to Hartly Bowlder, he explained.
+
+Then he plunged, red-faced and excited, into the circle about the shell
+manipulators, and offered, to lay a wager.
+
+"Hol' on there, Hen Fentriss," thickly objected a flushed young man
+beside him, "iss my turn."
+
+"I'm first. Hartley," returned the other. "You can hold yer bosses a
+minute, I reckon."
+
+"Plenty fer each and all, chents," interrupted one of the shell-men.
+"Place yer spondulicks on de little ball. Wich is de next lucky one
+to win our money? Chent bets four sixty-five he seen de little ball
+go under de middle shell. Up she comes! Dis time _we_ wins; Plattville
+can't win _every_ time. Who's de next chent?"
+
+Fentriss edged slowly out of the circle, abashed, and with rapidly
+whitening cheeks. He paused for a moment, outside, slowly realizing that
+all his money had gone in one wild, blind whirl--the money he had earned
+so hard and saved so hard, to make a holiday for his sweetheart and
+himself. He stole one glance around the building to where a patient
+figure waited for him. Then he fled down a side alley and soon was out
+upon the country road, tramping soddenly homeward through the dust, his
+chin sunk in his breast and his hands clenched tight at his sides. Now
+and then he stopped and bitterly hurled a stone at a piping bird on a
+fence, or gay Bob White in the fields. At noon the patient figure was
+still waiting in the corner of the court-house yard, meekly twisting the
+golden ring upon her finger.
+
+But the flushed young man who had spoken thickly to her deserter drew
+an envied roll of bankbills from his pocket and began to bet with
+tipsy caution, while the circle about the gamblers watched with fervid
+interest, especially Mr. Bardlock, Town Marshal.
+
+From far up Main Street came the cry "She's a-comin'! She's a-comin'!"
+and, this announcement of the parade proving only one of a dozen false
+alarms, a thousand discussions took place over old-fashioned silver
+timepieces as to when "she" was really due. Schofields' Henry was much
+appealed to as an arbiter in these discussions, from a sense of his
+having a good deal to do with time in a general sort of way; and thus
+Schofields' came to be reminded that it was getting on toward ten
+o'clock, whereas, in the excitement of festival, he had not yet struck
+nine. This, rushing forthwith to do, he did; and, in the elation of the
+moment, seven or eight besides. Miss Helen Sherwood was looking down on
+the mass of shifting color from a second-story window--whither many
+an eye was upturned in wonder--and she had the pleasure of seeing
+Schofields' emerge on the steps beneath her, when the bells had done,
+and heard the cheers (led by Mr. Martin) with which the laughing crowd
+greeted his appearance after the performance of his feat.
+
+She turned beamingly to Harkless. "What a family it is!" she laughed.
+"Just one big, jolly family. I didn't know people could be like this
+until I came to Plattville."
+
+"That is the word for it," he answered, resting his hand on the casement
+beside her. "I used to think it was desolate, but that was long ago." He
+leaned from the window to look down. In his dark cheek was a glow Carlow
+folk had never seen there; and somehow he seemed less thin and tired;
+indeed, he did not seem tired at all, by far the contrary; and he
+carried himself upright (when he was not stooping to see under the
+hat), though not as if he thought about it. "I believe they are the best
+people I know," he went on. "Perhaps it is because they have been so
+kind to me; but they are kind to each other, too; kind, good people----"
+
+"I know," she said, nodding--a flower on the gauzy hat set to vibrating
+in a tantalizing way. "I know. There are fat women who rock and rock
+on piazzas by the sea, and they speak of country people as the 'lower
+classes.' How happy this big family is in not knowing it is the lower
+classes!" "We haven't read Nordau down here," said John. "Old Tom
+Martin's favorite work is 'The Descent of Man.' Miss Tibbs admires
+Tupper, and 'Beulah,' and some of us possess the works of E. P. Roe--and
+why not?"
+
+"Yes; what of it," she returned, "since you escape Nordau? I think the
+conversation we hear from the other windows is as amusing and quite as
+loud as most of that I hear in Rouen during the winter; and Rouen, you
+know, is just like any other big place nowadays, though I suppose
+there are Philadelphians, for instance, who would be slow to believe a
+statement like that."
+
+"Oh, but they are not all of Philadelphia----" He left the sentence,
+smilingly.
+
+"And yet somebody said, 'The further West I travel the more convinced I
+am the Wise Men came from the East.'"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "'From' is the important word in that."
+
+"It was a girl from Southeast Cottonbridge, Massachusetts," said Helen,
+"who heard I was from Indiana and asked me if I didn't hate to live so
+far away from things." There was a pause, while she leaned out of the
+window with her face aside from him. Then she remarked carelessly, "I
+met her at Winter Harbor."
+
+"Do you go to Winter Harbor?" he asked.
+
+"We have gone there every summer until this one, for years. Have you
+friends who go there?"
+
+"I had--once. There was a classmate of mine from Rouen----"
+
+"What was his name? Perhaps I know him." She stole a glance at him. His
+face had fallen into sad lines, and he looked like the man who had come
+up the aisle with the Hon. Kedge Halloway. A few moments before he had
+seemed another person entirely.
+
+"He's forgotten me, I dare say. I haven't seen him for seven years; and
+that's a long time, you know. Besides, he's 'out in the world,' where
+remembering is harder. Here in Plattville we don't forget."
+
+"Were you ever at Winter Harbor?"
+
+"I was--once. I spent a very happy day there long ago, when you must
+have been a little girl. Were you there in--"
+
+"Listen!" she cried. "The procession is coming. Look at the crowd!" The
+parade had seized a psychological moment.
+
+There was a fanfare of trumpets in the east. Lines of people rushed for
+the street, and, as one looked down on the straw hats and sunbonnets and
+many kinds of finer head apparel, tossing forward, they seemed like surf
+sweeping up the long beaches.
+
+She was coming at last. The boys whooped in the middle of the street;
+some tossed their arms to heaven, others expressed their emotion by
+somersaults; those most deeply moved walked on their hands. In the
+distance one saw, over the heads of the multitude, tossing banners and
+the moving crests of triumphal cars, where "cohorts were shining in
+purple and gold." She _was_ coming. After all the false alarms and
+disappointments, she was coming!
+
+There was another flourish of music. Immediately all the band gave
+sound, and then, with blare of brass and the crash of drums, the glory
+of the parade burst upon Plattville. Glory in the utmost! The resistless
+impetus of the march-time music; the flare of royal banners, of pennons
+on the breeze; the smiling of beautiful Court Ladies and great, silken
+Nobles; the swaying of howdahs on camel and elephant, and the awesome
+shaking of the earth beneath the elephant's feet, and the gleam of his
+small but devastating eye (every one declared he looked the alarmed Mr.
+Snoddy full in the face as he passed, and Mr. Snoddy felt not at
+all reassured when Tom Martin severely hinted that it was with the
+threatening glance of a rival); then the badinage of the clown, creaking
+along in his donkey cart; the terrific recklessness of the spangled hero
+who was drawn by in a cage with two striped tigers; the spirit of the
+prancing steeds that drew the rumbling chariots, and the grace of the
+helmeted charioteers; the splendor of the cars and the magnificence
+of the paintings with which they were adorned; the ecstasy of all this
+glittering, shining, gorgeous pageantry needed even more than walking on
+your hands to express.
+
+Last of all came the tooting calliope, followed by swarms of boys as it
+executed, "Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie" with infinite dash and
+gusto.
+
+When it was gone, Miss Sherwood's intent gaze relaxed--she had been
+looking on as eagerly as any child,--and she turned to speak to Harkless
+and discovered that he was no longer in the room; instead, she found
+Minnie and Mr. Willetts, whom he had summoned from another window.
+
+"He was called away," explained Lige. "He thought he'd be back before
+the parade was over, and said you were enjoying it so much he didn't
+want to speak to you."
+
+"Called away?" she said, inquiringly.
+
+Minnie laughed. "Oh, everybody sends for Mr. Harkless."
+
+"It was a farmer, name of Bowlder," added Mr. Willetts. "His son
+Hartley's drinking again, and there ain't any one but Harkless can do
+anything with him. You let him tackle a sick man to nurse, or a tipsy
+one to handle, and I tell you," Mr. Willetts went on with enthusiasm,
+"he is at home. It beats me,--and lots of people don't think college
+does a man any good! Why, the way he cured old Fis----"
+
+"See!" cried Minnie, loudly, pointing out of the window. "Look down
+there. Something's happened."
+
+There was a swirl in the crowd below. Men were running around a corner
+of the court-house, and the women and children were harking after. They
+went so fast, and there were so many of them, that immediately that
+whole portion of the yard became a pushing, tugging, pulling, squirming
+jam of people.
+
+"It's on the other side," said Lige. "We can see from the hall window.
+Come quick, before these other folks fill it up."
+
+They followed him across the building, and looked down on an agitated
+swarm of faces. Five men were standing on the entrance steps to the
+door below, and the crowd was thickly massed beyond, leaving a little
+semicircle clear about the steps. Those behind struggled to get closer,
+and leaped in the air to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Harkless
+stood alone on the top step, his hand resting on the shoulder of the
+pale and contrite and sobered Hartley. In the clear space, Jim Bardlock
+was standing with sheepishly hanging head, and between him and Harkless
+were the two gamblers of the walnut shells. The journalist held in his
+hand the implements of their profession.
+
+"Give it all up," he was saying in his steady voice. "You've taken
+eighty-six dollars from this boy. Hand it over."
+
+The men began to edge closer to the crowd, giving little, swift,
+desperate, searching looks from left to right, and right to left, moving
+nervously about, like weasels in a trap. "Close up there tight," said
+Harkless, sharply. "Don't let them out."
+
+"W'y can't we git no square treatment here?" one of the gamblers whined;
+but his eyes, blazing with rage, belied the plaintive passivity of his
+tone. "We been running no skin. Wy d'ye say we gotter give up our own
+money? You gotter prove it was a skin. We risked our money fair."
+
+"Prove it! Come up here, Eph Watts. Friends," the editor turned to the
+crowd, smiling, "friends, here's a man we ran out of town once, because
+he knew too much about things of this sort. He's come back to us again
+and he's here to stay. He'll give us an object-lesson on the shell
+game."
+
+"It's pretty simple," remarked Mr. Watts. "The best way is to pick up
+the ball with your second finger and the back part of your thumb as you
+pretend to lay the shell down over it: this way." He illustrated, and
+showed several methods of manipulation, with professional sang-froid;
+and as he made plain the easy swindle by which many had been duped that
+morning, there arose an angry and threatening murmur.
+
+"You all see," said Harkless, raising his voice a little, "what a simple
+cheat it is--and old as Pharaoh. Yet a lot of you stood around and lost
+your own money, and stared like idiots, and let Hartley Bowlder lose
+eighty-odd dollars on a shell racket, and not one of you lifted a hand.
+How hard did you work for what these two cheap crooks took from you?
+Ah!" he cried, "it is because you were greedy that they robbed you so
+easily. You know it's true. It's when you want to get something for
+nothing that the 'confidence men' steal the money you sweat for and
+make the farmer a laughing stock. And _you_, Jim Bardlock, Town
+Marshal!--you, who confess that you 'went in the game sixty cents'
+worth, yourself--" His eyes were lit with wrath as he raised his
+accusing hand and levelled it at the unhappy municipal.
+
+The Town Marshal smiled uneasily and deprecatingly about him, and,
+meeting only angry glances, hearing only words of condemnation, he
+passed his hand unsteadily over his fat mustache, shifted from one
+leg to the other and back again, looked up, looked down, and then, an
+amiable and pleasure-loving man, beholding nothing but accusation and
+anger in heaven and earth, and wishing nothing more than to sink into
+the waters under the earth, but having no way of reaching them, finding
+his troubles quite unbearable, and unable to meet the manifold eye of
+man, he sought relief after the unsagacious fashion of a larger bird
+than he. His burly form underwent a series of convulsions not unlike
+sobs, and he shut his eyes tightly and held them so, presenting a
+picture of misery unequalled in the memory of any spectator. Harkless's
+outstretched hand began to shake. "You!" he tried to continue--"you, a
+man elected to----"
+
+There came from the crowd the sound of a sad, high-keyed voice,
+drawling: "That's a nice vest Jim's got on, but it ain't hardly the
+feathers fitten for an ostrich, is it?"
+
+The editor's gravity gave way; he broke into a ringing laugh and turned
+again to the shell-men. "Give up the boy's money. Hurry."
+
+"Step down here and git it," said the one who had spoken.
+
+There was a turbulent motion in the crowd, and a cry arose, "Run 'em
+out! Ride 'em on a rail! Tar and feathers! Run 'em out o' town!"
+
+"I wouldn't dilly-dally long if I were you," said Harkless, and his
+advice seemed good to the shell-men. A roll of bills, which he counted
+and turned over to the elder Bowlder, was sullenly placed in his hand.
+The fellow who had not yet spoken clutched the journalist's sleeve with
+his dirty hand.
+
+"We hain't done wit' youse," he said, hoarsely. "Don't belief it, not
+fer a minute, see?"
+
+The Town Marshal opened his eyes briskly, and placing a hand on each of
+the gamblers, said: "I hereby do arrest your said persons, and declare
+you my prisoners." The cry rose again, louder: "Run 'em out! String 'em
+up! Hang them! Hang them!" and a forward rush was made.
+
+"This way, Jim. Be quick," said Harkless, quietly, bending down and
+jerking one of the gamblers half-way up the steps. "Get through the hall
+to the other side and then run them to the lock-up. No one will stop
+you that way. Watts and I will hold this door." Bardlock hustled his
+prisoners through the doorway, and the crowd pushed up the steps, while
+Harkless struggled to keep the vestibule clear until Watts got the
+double doors closed. "Stand back, here!" he cried; "it's all over. Don't
+be foolish. The law is good enough for us. Stand back, will you!"
+
+He was laughing a little, shoving them back with open hand and elbow,
+when a small, compact group of men suddenly dashed up the steps
+together, and a heavy stick swung out over their heads. A straw hat with
+a gay ribbon sailed through the air. The journalist's long arms went
+out swiftly from his body in several directions, the hands not open, but
+clenched and hard. The next instant he and Mr. Watts stood alone on the
+steps, and a man with a bleeding, blaspheming mouth dropped his
+stick and tried to lose himself in the crowd. Mr. Watts was returning
+something he had not used to his hip-pocket.
+
+"Prophets of Israel!" exclaimed William Todd, ruefully, "it wasn't Eph
+Watts's pistol. Did you see Mr. Harkless? I was up on them steps when he
+begun. I don't believe he needs as much takin' care of as we think."
+
+"Wasn't it one of them Cross-Roads devils that knocked his hat off?"
+asked Judd Bennett. "I thought I see Bob Skillett run up with a club."
+
+Harkless threw open the doors behind him; the hall was empty. "You may
+come in now," he said. "This isn't my court-house."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. GLAD AFTERNOON: THE GIRL BY THE BLUE TENT-POLE
+
+They walked slowly back along the pike toward the brick house. The
+white-ruffed fennel reached up its dusty yellow heads to touch her
+skirts as she passed, and then drooped, satisfied, against the purple
+iron-weed at the roadside. In the noonday silence no cricket chirped nor
+locust raised its lorn monotone; the tree shadows mottled the road with
+blue, and the level fields seemed to pant out a dazzling breath, the
+transparent "heat-waves" that danced above the low corn and green wheat.
+
+He was stooping very much as they walked; he wanted to be told that
+he could look at her for a thousand years. Her face was rarely and
+exquisitely modelled, but, perhaps, just now the salient characteristic
+of her beauty (for the salient characteristic seemed to be a different
+thing at different times) was the coloring, a delicate glow under the
+white skin, that bewitched him in its seeming a reflection of the rich
+benediction of the noonday sun that blazed overhead.
+
+Once he had thought the way to the Briscoe homestead rather a long walk;
+but now the distance sped malignantly; and strolled they never so
+slow, it was less than a "young bird's flutter from a wood." With her
+acquiescence he rolled a cigarette, and she began to hum lightly the air
+of a song, a song of an ineffably gentle, slow movement.
+
+That, and a reference of the morning, and, perhaps, the smell of his
+tobacco mingling with the fragrance of her roses, awoke again the keen
+reminiscence of the previous night within him. Clearly outlined before
+him rose the high, green slopes and cool cliff-walls of the coast of
+Maine, while his old self lazily watched the sharp little waves through
+half-closed lids, the pale smoke of his cigarette blowing out under the
+rail of a waxen deck where he lay cushioned. And again a woman pelted
+his face with handfuls of rose-petals and cried: "Up lad and at 'em!
+Yonder is Winter Harbor." Again he sat in the oak-raftered Casino,
+breathless with pleasure, and heard a young girl sing the "Angel's
+Serenade," a young girl who looked so bravely unconscious of the big,
+hushed crowd that listened, looked so pure and bright and gentle and
+good, that he had spoken of her as "Sir Galahad's little sister." He
+recollected he had been much taken with this child; but he had not
+thought of her from that time to this, he supposed; had almost forgotten
+her. No! Her face suddenly stood out to his view as though he saw
+her with his physical eye--a sweet and vivacious child's face with
+light-brown hair and gray eyes and a short upper lip. ... And the
+voice....
+
+He stopped short and struck his palms together. "You are Tom Meredith's
+little cousin!"
+
+"The Great Harkless!" she answered, and stretched out her hand to him.
+
+"I remember you!"
+
+"Isn't it time?"
+
+"Ah, but I never forgot you," he cried. "I thought I had. I didn't know
+who it was I was remembering. I thought it was fancy, and it was memory.
+I never forgot your voice, singing--and I remembered your face too;
+though I thought I didn't." He drew a deep breath. "_That_ was why----"
+
+"Tom Meredith has not forgotten you," she said, as he paused.
+
+"Would you mind shaking hands once more?" he asked. She gave him her
+hand again. "With all my heart. Why?"
+
+"I'm making a record at it. Thank you."
+
+"They called me 'Sir Galahad's little sister' all one summer because the
+Great John Harkless called me that. You danced with me in the evening."
+
+"Did I?"
+
+"Ah," she said, shaking her head, "you were too busy being in love with
+Mrs. Van Skuyt to remember a waltz with only me! I was allowed to meet
+you as a reward for singing my very best, and you--you bowed with the
+indulgence of a grandfather, and asked me to dance."
+
+"Like a grandfather? How young I was then! How time changes us!"
+
+"I'm afraid my conversation did not make a great impression upon you,"
+she continued.
+
+"But it did. I am remembering very fast. If you will wait a moment, I
+will tell you some of the things you said."
+
+The girl laughed merrily. Whenever she laughed he realized that it was
+becoming terribly difficult not to tell her how adorable she was. "I
+wouldn't risk it, if I were you," she warned him, "because I didn't
+speak to you at all. I shut my lips tight and trembled all over every
+bit of the time I was dancing with you. I did not sleep that night,
+because I was so unhappy, wondering what the Great Harkless would think
+of me. I knew he thought me unutterably stupid because I couldn't
+talk to him. I wanted to send him word that I knew I had bored him.
+I couldn't bear for him not to know that I knew I had. But he was not
+thinking of me in any way. He had gone to sea again in a big boat, the
+ungrateful pirate, cruising with Mrs. Van Skuyt."
+
+"How time _does_ change us!" said John. "You are wrong, though; I did
+think of you; I have al----"
+
+"Yes," she interrupted, tossing her head in airy travesty of the stage
+coquette, "you think so--I mean you say so--now. Away with you and your
+blarneying!"
+
+
+
+And so they went through the warm noontide, and little he cared for the
+heat that wilted the fat mullein leaves and made the barefoot boy, who
+passed by, skip gingerly through the burning dust with anguished mouth
+and watery eye. Little he knew of the locust that suddenly whirred his
+mills of shrillness in the maple-tree, and sounded so hot, hot, hot; or
+those others that railed at the country quiet from the dim shade around
+the brick house; or even the rain-crow that sat on the fence and swore
+to them in the face of a sunny sky that they should see rain ere the day
+were done.
+
+Little the young man recked of what he ate at Judge Briscoe's good noon
+dinner: chicken wing and young roas'n'-ear; hot rolls as light as
+the fluff of a summer cloudlet; and honey and milk; and apple-butter
+flavored like spices of Arabia; and fragrant, flaky cherry-pie; and
+cool, rich, yellow cream. Lige Willetts was a lover, yet he said he
+asked no better than to Just go on eating that cherry-pie till a sweet
+death overtook him; but railroad sandwiches and restaurant chops might
+have been set before Harkless for all the difference it would have made
+to him.
+
+At no other time is a man's feeling of companionship with a woman
+so strong as when he sits at table with her-not at a "decorated" and
+becatered and bewaitered table, but at a homely, appetizing, wholesome
+home table like old Judge Briscoe's. The very essence of the thing is
+domesticity, and the implication is utter confidence and liking. There
+are few greater dangers for a bachelor. An insinuating imp perches on
+his shoulder, and, softly tickling the bachelor's ear with the feathers
+of an arrow-shaft, whispers: "Pretty nice, isn't it, eh? Rather pleasant
+to have that girl sitting there, don't you think? Enjoy having her
+notice your butter-plate was empty? Think it exhilarating to hand her
+those rolls? Looks nice, doesn't she? Says 'Thank you' rather prettily?
+Makes your lonely breakfast seem mighty dull, doesn't it? How would you
+like to have her pour your coffee for you to-morrow, my boy? How would
+it seem to have such pleasant company all the rest of your life? Pretty
+cheerful, eh?"
+
+When Miss Sherwood passed the editor the apple-butter, the casual,
+matter-of-course way she did it entranced him in a strange, exquisite
+wonderment. He did not set the dish down when she put it in his hand,
+but held it straight out before him, just looking at it, until Mr.
+Willetts had a dangerous choking fit, for which Minnie was very proud of
+Lige; no one could have suspected that it was the veil of laughter. When
+Helen told John he really must squeeze a lemon into his iced tea, he
+felt that his one need in life was to catch her up in his arms and run
+away with her, not anywhere in particular, but just run and run and run
+away.
+
+After dinner they went out to the veranda and the gentlemen smoked. The
+judge set his chair down on the ground, tilted back in it with his feet
+on the steps, and blew a wavery domed city up in the air. He called it
+solid comfort. He liked to sit out from under the porch roof, he said;
+he wanted to see more of the sky. The others moved their chairs down to
+join him in the celestial vision. There had blown across the heaven a
+feathery, thin cloud or two, but save for these, there was nothing but
+glorious and tender, brilliant blue. It seemed so clear and close one
+marvelled the little church spire in the distance did not pierce it;
+yet, at the same time, the eye ascended miles and miles into warm,
+shimmering ether. Far away two buzzards swung slowly at anchor, half-way
+to the sun.
+
+           "'O bright, translucent, cerulean hue,
+             Let my wide wings drift on in you,'"
+
+said Harkless, pointing them out to Helen.
+
+"You seem to get a good deal of fun out of this kind of weather,"
+observed Lige, as he wiped his brow and shifted his chair out of the
+sun.
+
+"I expect you don't get such skies as this up in Rouen," said the judge,
+looking at the girl from between half-closed eyelids.
+
+"It's the same Indiana sky, I think," she answered.
+
+"I guess maybe in the city you don't see as much of it, or think as much
+about it. Yes, they're the Indiana skies," the old man went on.
+
+                Skies as blue
+        As the eyes of children when they smile at you.'
+
+"There aren't any others anywhere that ever seemed much like them to
+me. They've been company for me all my life. I don't think there are any
+others half as beautiful, and I know there aren't any as sociable. They
+were always so." He sighed gently, and Miss Sherwood fancied his wife
+must have found the Indiana skies as lovely as he had, in the days of
+long ago. "Seems to me they _are_ the softest and bluest and kindest in
+the world."
+
+"I think they are," said Helen, "and they are more beautiful than the
+'Italian skies,' though I doubt if many of us Hoosiers realize it;
+and--certainly no one else does."
+
+The old man leaned over and patted her hand. Harkless gasped. "'Us
+Hoosiers!'" chuckled the judge. "You're a great Hoosier, young lady! How
+much of your life have you spent in the State? 'Us Hoosiers!'"
+
+"But I'm going to be a good one," she answered, gaily, "and if I'm good
+enough, when I grow up maybe I'll be a great one."
+
+The buckboard had been brought around, and the four young people climbed
+in, Harkless driving. Before they started, the judge, standing on the
+horse-block in front of the gate, leaned over and patted Miss Sherwood's
+hand again. Harkless gathered up the reins.
+
+"You'll make a great Hoosier, all right," said the old man, beaming upon
+the girl. "You needn't worry about that, I guess, my dear."
+
+When he said "my dear," Harkless spoke to the horses.
+
+"Wait," said the judge, still holding the girl's hand. "You'll make a
+great Hoosier, some day; don't fret. You're already a very beautiful
+one." Then he bent his white head and kissed her, gallantly. John said:
+"Good afternoon, judge"; the whip cracked like a pistol-shot, and the
+buckboard dashed off in a cloud of dust.
+
+"Every once in a while, Harkless," the old fellow called after them,
+"you must remember to look at the team."
+
+The enormous white tent was filled with a hazy yellow light, the warm,
+dusty, mellow light that thrills the rejoicing heart because it is
+found nowhere in the world except in the tents of a circus--the
+canvas-filtered sunshine and sawdust atmosphere of show day. Through the
+entrance the crowd poured steadily, coming from the absorptions of
+the wild-animal tent to feast upon greater wonders; passing around the
+sawdust ellipse that contained two soul-cloying rings, to find seats
+whence they might behold the splendors so soon to be unfolded. Every one
+who was not buying the eternal lemonade was eating something; and the
+faces of children shone with gourmand rapture; indeed, very often the
+eyes of them were all you saw, half-closed in palate-gloating over a
+huge apple, or a bulky oblong of popcorn, partly unwrapped from its
+blue tissue-paper cover; or else it might be a luscious pink crescent of
+watermelon, that left its ravisher stained and dripping to the brow.
+
+Here, as in the morning, the hawkers raised their cries in
+unintermittent shrillness, offering to the musically inclined the Happy
+Evenings Song-book, alleged to contain those treasures, all the latest
+songs of the day, or presented for the consideration of the humorous
+the Lawrence Lapearl Joke-book, setting forth in full the art of comical
+entertainment and repartee. (Schofields' Henry bought two of
+these--no doubt on the principle that two were twice as instructive as
+one--intending to bury himself in study and do battle with Tom Martin on
+his own ground.)
+
+Here swayed the myriad palm-leaf fans; here paraded blushing youth and
+rosy maiden, more relentlessly arm-in-arm than ever; here crept
+the octogenarian, Mr. Bodeffer, shaking on cane and the shoulder of
+posterity; here waddled Mr. Snoddy, who had hurried through the animal
+tent for fear of meeting the elephant; here marched sturdy yeomen and
+stout wives; here came William Todd and his Anna Belle, the good William
+hushed with the embarrassments of love, but looking out warily with
+the white of his eye for Mr. Martin, and determined not to sit within a
+hundred yards of him; here rolled in the orbit of habit the bacchanal,
+Mr. Wilkerson, who politely answered in kind all the uncouth roarings
+and guttural ejaculations of jungle and fen that came from the animal
+tent; in brief, here came with lightest hearts the population of Carlow
+and part of Amo.
+
+Helen had found a true word: it was a big family. Jim Bardlock, broadly
+smiling and rejuvenated, shorn of depression, paused in front of the
+"reserve" seats, with Mrs. Bardlock on his arm, and called loudly to a
+gentleman on a tier about the level of Jim's head: "How are ye? I reckon
+we were a _little_ too smart fer 'em, this morning, huh?" Five or six
+hundred people--every one within hearing--fumed to look at Jim; but the
+gentleman addressed was engaged in conversation with a lady and did not
+notice.
+
+"Hi! Hi, there! _Say_! Mr. Harkless!" bellowed Jim, informally. The
+people turned to look at Harkless. His attention was arrested and his
+cheek grew red.
+
+"_What is it_?" he asked, a little confused and a good deal annoyed.
+
+"I don't hear what ye say," shouted Jim, putting his hand to his ear.
+
+"_What is it_?" repeated the young man. "I'll kill that fellow
+to-night," he added to Lige Willetts. "Some one ought to have done it
+long ago."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I _say_, WHAT IS IT?"
+
+"I only wanted to say me and you certainly did fool these here Hoosiers
+this morning, huh? Hustled them two fellers through the court-house, and
+nobody never thought to slip round to the other door and head us off.
+Ha, ha! We were jest a _leetle_ too many fer 'em, huh?"
+
+From an upper tier of seats the rusty length of Mr. Martin erected
+itself joint by joint, like an extension ladder, and he peered down
+over the gaping faces at the Town Marshal. "Excuse me," he said sadly to
+those behind him, but his dry voice penetrated everywhere, "I got up to
+hear Jim say 'We' again."
+
+Mr. Bardlock joined in the laugh against himself, and proceeded with
+his wife to some seats, forty or fifty feet distant. When he had settled
+himself comfortably, he shouted over cheerfully to the unhappy editor:
+"Them shell-men got it in fer you, Mr. Harkless."
+
+"Ain't that fool shet up _yit_?" snarled the aged Mr. Bodeffer,
+indignantly. He was sitting near the young couple, and the expression
+of his sympathy was distinctly audible to them and many others. "Got
+no more regards than a brazing calf-disturbin' a feller with his
+sweetheart!"
+
+"The both of 'em says they're goin' to do fer you," bleated Mr.
+Bardlock. "Swear they'll git their evens with ye."
+
+Mr. Martin rose again. "Don't git scared and leave town, Mr. Harkless,"
+he called out; "Jim'll protect you."
+
+Vastly to the young man's relief the band began to play, and the
+equestrians and equestriennes capered out from the dressing-tent for the
+"Grand Entrance," and the performance commenced. Through the long
+summer afternoon it went on: wonders of horsemanship and horsewomanship;
+hair-raising exploits on wires, tight and slack; giddy tricks on the
+high trapeze; feats of leaping and tumbling in the rings; while the
+tireless musicians blatted inspiringly through it all, only pausing
+long enough to allow that uproarious jester, the clown, to ask the
+ring-master what he would do if a young lady came up and kissed him on
+the street, and to exploit his hilarities during the short intervals of
+rest for the athletes.
+
+When it was over, John and Helen found themselves in the midst of a
+densely packed crowd, and separated from Miss Briscoe and Lige. People
+were pushing and shoving, and he saw her face grow pale. He realized
+with a pang of sympathy how helpless he would feel if he were as small
+as she, and at his utmost height could only see big, suffocating backs
+and huge shoulders pressing down from above. He was keeping them from
+crowding heavily upon her with all his strength, and a royal feeling of
+protectiveness came over him. She was so little. And yet, without the
+remotest hint of hardness, she gave him such a distinct impression of
+poise and equilibrium, she seemed so able to meet anything that might
+come, to understand it--even to laugh at it--so Americanly capable and
+sure of the event, that in spite of her pale cheek he could not feel
+quite so protective as he wished to feel.
+
+He managed to get her to one of the tent-poles, and placed her with her
+back to it. Then he set one of his own hands against it over her head,
+braced himself and stood, keeping a little space about her, ruggedly
+letting the crowd surge against him as it would; no one should touch her
+in rough carelessness.
+
+"Thank you. It was rather trying in there," she said, and looked up into
+his eyes with a divine gratitude.
+
+"Please don't do that," he answered in a low voice.
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"Look like that."
+
+She not only looked like that, but more so. "Young man, young man," she
+said, "I fear you're wishful of turning a girl's head."
+
+The throng was thick around them, garrulous and noisy, but they two were
+more richly alone together, to his appreciation, than if they stood on
+some far satellite of Mars. He was not to forget that moment, and he
+kept the picture of her, as she leaned against the big blue tent-pole,
+there, in his heart: the clear gray eyes lifted to his, the delicate
+face with the color stealing back to her cheeks, and the brave little
+figure that had run so straight to him out of the night shadows. There
+was something about her, and in the moment, that suddenly touched him
+with a saddening sweetness too keen to be borne; the forget-me-not
+finger of the flying hour that could not come again was laid on his
+soul, and he felt the tears start from his heart on their journey to his
+eyes. He knew that he should always remember that moment. She knew it,
+too. She put her hand to her cheek and turned away from him a little
+tremulously. Both were silent.
+
+They had been together since early morning. Plattville was proud of him.
+Many a friendly glance from the folk who jostled about them favored his
+suit and wished both of them well, and many lips, opening to speak to
+Harkless in passing, closed when their owners (more tactful than Mr.
+Bardlock) looked a second time.
+
+Old Tom Martin, still perched alone On his high seat, saw them standing
+by the tent-pole, and watched them from under his rusty hat brim. "I
+reckon it's be'n three or four thousand years since I was young," he
+sighed to himself; then, pushing his hat still further down over his
+eyes: "I don't believe I'd ort to rightly look on at that." He
+sighed again as he rose, and gently spoke the name of his dead wife:
+"Marjie,--it's be'n lonesome, sometimes. I reckon you're mighty tired
+waitin' for me, ever since sixty-four--yet maybe not; Ulysses S. Grant's
+over on your side now, and perhaps you've got acquainted with him; you
+always thought a good deal more of him than you did of me."
+
+"Do you see that tall old man up there?" said Helen, nodding her head
+toward Martin. "I think I should like to know him. I'm sure I like him."
+
+"That is old Tom Martin."
+
+"I know."
+
+"I was sorry and ashamed about all that conspicuousness and shouting.
+It must have been very unpleasant for you; it must have been so, for a
+stranger. Please try to forgive me for letting you in for it."
+
+"But I liked it. It was 'all in the family,' and it was so jolly and
+good-natured, and that dear old man was so bright. Do you know," she
+said softly, "I don't think I'm such a stranger--I--I think I love all
+these people a great deal--in spite of having known them only two days."
+
+At that a wild exhilaration possessed him. He wanted to shake hands
+with everybody in the tent, to tell them all that he loved them with
+his whole heart, but, what was vastly more important, _she_ loved them a
+great deal--in spite of having known them only two days!
+
+He made the horses prance on the homeward drive, and once, when she
+told him that she had read a good many of his political columns in the
+"Herald," he ran them into a fence. After this it occurred to him that
+they were nearing their destination and had come at a perversely sharp
+gait; so he held the roans down to a snail's pace (if it be true that a
+snail's natural gait is not a trot) for the rest of the way, while they
+talked of Tom Meredith and books and music, and discovered that they
+differed widely about Ibsen.
+
+They found Mr. Fisbee in the yard, talking to Judge Briscoe. As they
+drove up, and before the horses had quite stopped, Helen leaped to the
+ground and ran to the old scholar with both her hands outstretched to
+him. He looked timidly at her, and took the hands she gave him; then
+he produced from his pocket a yellow telegraph envelope, watching
+her anxiously as she received it. However, she seemed to attach no
+particular importance to it, and, instead of opening it, leaned toward
+him, still holding one of his hands.
+
+"These awful old men!" Harkless groaned inwardly as he handed the horses
+over to the judge. "I dare say _he_'ll kiss her, too." But, when the
+editor and Mr. Willetts had gone, it was Helen who kissed Fisbee.
+
+"They're coming out to spend the evening, aren't they?" asked Briscoe,
+nodding to the young men as they set off down the road.
+
+"Lige has to come whether he wants to or not," Minnie laughed, rather
+consciously; "It's his turn to-night to look after Mr. Harkless."
+
+"I guess he won't mind coming," said the judge.
+
+"Well," returned his daughter, glancing at Helen, who stood apart,
+reading the telegram to Fisbee, "I know if he follows Mr. Harkless
+he'll get here pretty soon after supper--as soon as the moon comes up,
+anyway."
+
+The editor of the "Herald" was late to his supper that evening. It was
+dusk when he reached the hotel, and, for the first time in history, a
+gentleman sat down to meat in that house of entertainment in evening
+dress. There was no one in the diningroom when he went in; the other
+boarders had finished, and it was Cynthia's "evening out," but the
+landlord came and attended to his guests' wants himself, and chatted
+with him while he ate.
+
+"There's a picture of Henry Clay," remarked Landis, in obvious relevancy
+to his companion's attire, "there's a picture of Henry Clay somewheres
+about the house in a swallow-tail coat. Governor Ray spoke here in one
+in early times, Bodeffer says, except it was higher built up 'n yourn
+about the collar, and had brass buttons, I think. Ole man Wimby was
+here to-night," the landlord continued, changing the subject. "He
+waited around fer ye a good while. He's be'n mighty wrought up sence the
+trouble this morning, an' wanted to see ye bad. I don't know 'f you
+seen it, but that feller 't knocked your hat off was mighty near tore
+to pieces in the crowd before he got away. 'Seems some the boys
+re-_cog_-nized him as one the Cross-Roads Skillets, and sicked the dogs
+on him, and he had a pretty mean time of it. Wimby says the Cross-Roads
+folks'll be worse 'n ever, and, says he, 'Tell him to stick close to
+town,' says he. 'They'll do anything to git him now,' says he, 'and
+_resk_ anything.' I told him you wouldn't take no stock in it, but, see
+here, don't you put nothin' too mean fer them folks. I tell you, Mr.
+Harkless, plenty of us are scared fer ye."
+
+The good fellow was so earnest that when the editor's meal was finished
+and he would have departed, Landis detained him almost by force until
+the arrival of Mr. Willetts, who, the landlord knew, was his allotted
+escort' for the evening. When Lige came (wearing a new tie, a pink one
+he had hastened to buy as soon as his engagements had allowed him
+the opportunity), Mr. Landis hissed a savage word of reproach for his
+tardiness in his ear, and whisperingly bade him not let the other out
+of reach that night, to which Willetts replied with a nod implying his
+trustworthiness; and the young men set off in the darkness.
+
+Harkless wondered if his costume were not an injustice to his companion,
+but he did not regret it; he would wear his best court suit, his laces
+and velvets, for deference to that lady. It was a painful thing to
+remember his dusty rustiness of the night before, the awful Carlow cut
+of his coat, and his formless black cravat; the same felt hat he wore
+again to-night, perforce, but it was brushed--brushed almost to holes in
+spots, and somehow he had added a touch of shape to it. His dress-coat
+was an antique; fashions had changed, no doubt; he did not know;
+possibly she would recognize its vintage--but it was a dress-coat.
+
+Lige walked along talking; Harkless answering "Yes" and "No" at random.
+The woodland-spiced air was like champagne to him; the road under foot
+so elastic and springy that he felt like a thoroughbred before a race;
+he wanted to lift his foot knee-high at every step, he had so much
+energy to spare. In the midst of a speech of Lige's about the look of
+the wheat he suddenly gave out a sigh so deep, so heartfelt, so vibrant,
+so profound, that Willetts turned with astonishment; but when his eye
+reached his companion's face, Harkless was smiling. The editor extended
+his hand.
+
+"Shake hands, Lige," he cried.
+
+The moon peeped over the shoulder of an eastern wood, and the young
+men suddenly descried their long shadows stretching in front of them.
+Harkless turned to look at the silhouetted town, the tree-tops and roofs
+and the Methodist church spire, silvered at the edges.
+
+"Do you see that town, Willetts?" he asked, laying his fingers on his
+companion's sleeve. "That's the best town in the United States!"
+
+"I always kind of thought you didn't much like it," said the other,
+puzzled. "Seemed to me you always sort of wished you hadn't settled
+here."
+
+A little further on they passed Mr. Fisbee. He was walking into the
+village with his head thrown back, a strange thing for him. They gave
+him a friendly greeting and passed on.
+
+"Well, it beats me!" observed Lige, when the old man was out of hearing.
+"He's be'n there to supper again. He was there all day yesterday, and
+with 'em at the lecture, and at the deepo day before and he looks like
+another man, and dressed up--for him--to beat thunder----What do you
+expect makes him so thick out there all of a sudden?"
+
+"I hadn't thought about it. The judge and he have been friends a good
+while, haven't they?"
+
+"Yes, three or four years; but not like this. It beats _me_! He's all
+upset over Miss Sherwood, I think. Old enough to be her grandfather,
+too, the old----"
+
+His companion stopped him, dropping a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Listen!"
+
+They were at the corner of the Briscoe picket fence, and a sound lilted
+through the stillness--a touch on the keys that Harkless knew. "Listen,"
+he whispered.
+
+It was the "Moonlight Sonata" that Helen was playing. "It's a pretty
+piece," observed Lige after a time. John could have choked him, but he
+answered: "Yes, it is seraphic."
+
+"Who made it up?" pursued Mr. Willetts.
+
+"Beethoven."
+
+"Foreigner, I expect. Yet in some way or another makes me think of
+fishing down on the Wabash bend in Vigo, and camping out nights like
+this; it's a mighty pretty country around there--especially at night."
+
+The sonata was finished, and then she sang--sang the "Angel's Serenade."
+As the soft soprano lifted and fell in the modulations of that song
+there was in its timbre, apart from the pure, amber music of it, a
+questing, seeking pathos, and Willetts felt the hand on his shoulder
+tighten and then relax; and, as the song ended, he saw that his
+companion's eyes were shining and moist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. NIGHT: IT IS BAD LUCK TO SING BEFORE BREAKFAST
+
+There was a lace of faint mists along the creek and beyond, when John
+and Helen reached their bench (of course they went back there), and
+broken roundelays were croaking from a bayou up the stream, where rakish
+frogs held carnival in resentment of the lonesomeness. The air was still
+and close. Hundreds of fire-flies coquetted with the darkness amongst
+the trees across the water, glinting from unexpected spots, shading
+their little lanterns for a second to glow again from other shadows. The
+sky was a wonderful olive green; a lazy cloud drifted in it and lapped
+itself athwart the moon.
+
+"The dead painters design the skies for us each day and night, I think,"
+Helen said, as she dropped a little scarf from her shoulders and leaned
+back on the bench. "It must be the only way to keep them happy and busy
+'up there.' They let them take turns, and those not on duty, probably
+float around and criticise."
+
+"They've given a good man his turn to-night," said John; "some quiet
+colorist, a poetic, friendly soul, no Turner--though I think I've seen a
+Turner sunset or two in Plattville."
+
+"It was a sculptor's sunset this evening. Did you see it?--great
+massy clouds piled heap on heap, almost with violence. I'm sure it was
+Michelangelo. The judge didn't think it meant Michelangelo; he thought
+it meant rain."
+
+"Michelangelo gets a chance rather often, doesn't he, considering the
+number of art people there must be over there? I believe I've seen a
+good many sunsets of his, and a few dawns, too; the dawns not for a
+long time--I used to see them more frequently toward the close of senior
+year, when we sat up all night talking, knowing we'd lose one another
+soon, and trying to hold on as long as we could."
+
+She turned to him with a little frown. "Why have you never let Tom
+Meredith know you were living so near him, less than a hundred miles,
+when he has always liked and admired you above all the rest of mankind?
+I know that he has tried time and again to hear of you, but the other
+men wrote that they knew nothing--that it was thought you had gone
+abroad. I had heard of you, and so must he have seen your name in the
+Rouen papers--about the 'White-Caps,' and in politics--but he would
+never dream of connecting the Plattville Mr. Harkless with _his_ Mr.
+Harkless, though _I_ did, just a little, and rather vaguely. I knew, of
+course, when you came into the lecture. But why haven't you written to
+my cousin?"
+
+"Rouen seems a long way from here," he answered quietly. "I've only been
+there once--half a day on business. Except that, I've never been further
+away than Amo or Gainesville, for a convention or to make a speech,
+since I came here."
+
+"Wicked!" she exclaimed, "To shut yourself up like this! I said it was
+fine to drop out of the world; but why have you cut off your old friends
+from you? Why haven't you had a relapse, now and then, and come over
+to hear Ysaye play and Melba sing, or to see Mansfield or Henry Irving,
+when we have had them? And do you think you've been quite fair to Tom?
+What right had you to assume that he had forgotten you?"
+
+"Oh, I didn't exactly mean forgotten," he said, pulling a blade of grass
+to and fro between his fingers, staring at it absently. "It's only that
+I have dropped out of the world, you know. I kept track of every one,
+saw most of my friends, or corresponded, now and then, for a year or so
+after I left college; but people don't miss you much after a while.
+They rather expected me to do a lot of things, in a way, you know, and
+I wasn't doing them. I was glad to get away. I always had an itch for
+newspaper work, and I went on a New York paper. Maybe it was the wrong
+paper; at least, I wasn't fit for it. There was something in the side
+of life I saw, too, not only on the paper, that made me heart-sick; and
+then the rush and fight and scramble to be first, to beat the other man.
+Probably I am too squeamish. I saw classmates and college friends diving
+into it, bound to come out ahead, dear old, honest, frank fellows, who
+had been so happy-go-lucky and kind and gay, growing too busy to meet
+and be good to any man who couldn't be good to them, asking (more
+delicately) the eternal question, 'What does it get me?' You might think
+I bad-met with unkindness; but it was not so; it was the other way more
+than I deserved. But the cruel competition, the thousands fighting for
+places, the multitude scrambling for each ginger-bread baton, the cold
+faces on the streets--perhaps it's all right and good; of course it has
+to _be_--but I wanted to get out of it, though I didn't want to come
+_here_. That was chance. A new man bought the paper I was working for,
+and its policy changed. Many of the same men still wrote for it, facing
+cheerfully about and advocating a tricky theory, vehement champions of a
+set of personal schemers and waxy images."
+
+He spoke with feeling; but now, as though a trifle ashamed of too much
+seriousness, and justifiably afraid of talking like one of his own
+editorials, he took a lighter tone. "I had been taken on the paper
+through a friend and not through merit, and by the same undeserved,
+kindly influence, after a month or so I was set to writing short
+political editorials, and was at it nearly two years. When the paper
+changed hands the new proprietor indicated that he would be willing to
+have me stay and write the other way. I refused; and it became somewhat
+plain to me that I was beginning to be a failure.
+
+"A cousin of mine, the only relative I had, died in Chicago, and I went
+to his funeral. I happened to hear of the Carlow 'Herald' through an
+agent there, the most eloquent gentleman I ever met. I was younger, and
+even more thoughtless than now, and I had a little money and I handed it
+over for the 'Herald.' I wanted to run a paper myself, and to build up a
+power! And then, though I only lived here the first few years of my
+life and all the rest of it had been spent in the East, I was born in
+Indiana, and, in a way, the thought of coming back to a life-work in my
+native State appealed to me. I always had a dim sort of feeling that
+the people out in these parts knew more--had more sense and were less
+artificial, I mean--and were kinder, and tried less to be somebody else,
+than almost any other people anywhere. And I believe it's so. It's dull,
+here in Carlow, of course--that is, it used to be. The agent explained
+that I could make the paper a daily at once, with an enormous
+circulation in the country. I was very, very young. Then I came here and
+saw what I had got. Possibly it is because I am sensitive that I never
+let Tom know. They expected me to amount to something; but I don't
+believe his welcome would be less hearty to a failure--he is a good
+heart."
+
+"Failure!" she cried, and clapped her hands and laughed.
+
+"I'm really not very tragic about it, though I must seem consumed with
+self-pity," he returned, smiling. "It is only that I have dropped out of
+the world while Tom is still in it."
+
+"Dropped out of the world!'" she echoed, impatiently. "Can't you see
+you've dropped into it? That you----"
+
+"Last night I was honored by your praise of my graceful mode of quitting
+it!"
+
+"And so you wish me to be consistent!" she retorted scornfully. "What
+becomes of your gallantry when _we_ abide by reason?"
+
+"True enough; equality is a denial of privilege."
+
+"And privilege is a denial of equality. I don't like that at all."
+She turned a serious, suddenly illuminated face upon him and spoke
+earnestly. "It's my hobby, I should tell you, and I'm very tired of that
+nonsense about 'women always sounding the personal note.' It _should_
+be sounded as we would sound it. And I think we could bear the loss of
+'privilege'--"
+
+He laughed and raised a protesting hand. "But _we_ couldn't."
+
+"No, you couldn't; it's the ribbon of superiority in your buttonhole.
+I know several women who manage to live without men to open doors for
+them, and I think I could bear to let a man pass before me now and then,
+or wear his hat in an office where I happened to be; and I could get my
+own ice at a dance, I think, possibly with even less fuss and scramble
+than I've sometimes observed in the young men who have done it for me.
+But you know you would never let us do things for ourselves, no matter
+what legal equality might be declared, even when we get representation
+for our taxation. You will never be able to deny yourselves giving
+us our 'privilege.' I hate being waited on. I'd rather do things for
+myself."
+
+She was so earnest in her satire, so full of scorn and so serious in
+her meaning, and there was such a contrast between what she said and her
+person; she looked so preeminently the pretty marquise, all silks and
+softness, the little exquisite, so essentially to be waited on and
+helped, to have cloaks thrown over the dampness for her to tread upon,
+to be run about for--he could see half a dozen youths rushing about
+for her ices, for her carriage, for her chaperone, for her wrap, at
+dances--that to save his life he could not repress a chuckle. He managed
+to make it inaudible, however; and it was as well that he did.
+
+"I understand your love of newspaper work," she went on, less
+vehemently, but not less earnestly. "I have always wanted to do it
+myself, wanted to immensely. I can't think of any more fascinating way
+of earning one's living. And I know I could do it. Why don't you make
+the 'Herald' a daily?"
+
+To hear her speak of "earning one's living" was too much for him.
+She gave the impression of riches, not only for the fine texture and
+fashioning of her garments, but one felt that luxuries had wrapped
+her from her birth. He had not had much time to wonder what she did in
+Plattville; it had occurred to him that it was a little odd that she
+could plan to spend any extent of time there, even if she had liked
+Minnie Briscoe at school. He felt that she must have been sheltered and
+petted and waited on all her life; one could not help yearning to wait
+on her.
+
+He answered inarticulately, "Oh, some day," in reply to her question,
+and then burst into outright laughter.
+
+"I might have known you wouldn't take me seriously," she said with no
+indignation, only a sad wistfulness. "I am well used to it. I think it
+is because I am not tall; people take big girls with more gravity. Big
+people are nearly always listened to."
+
+"Listened to?" he said, and felt that he must throw himself on his knees
+before her. "You oughtn't to mind being Titania. She was listened to,
+you----"
+
+She sprang to her feet and her eyes flashed. "Do you think personal
+comment is ever in good taste?" she cried fiercely, and in his surprise
+he almost fell off the bench. "If there is one thing I cannot bear,
+it is to be told that I am '_small_' I am not! Every one who isn't a
+giantess isn't '_small_'. I _hate_ personalities! I am a great deal over
+five feet, a great deal more than that. I----"
+
+"Please, _please_," he said, "I didn't----"
+
+"Don't say you are sorry," she interrupted, and in spite of his
+contrition he found her angry voice delicious, it was still so sweet,
+hot with indignation, but ringing, not harsh. "Don't say you didn't mean
+it; because you did! You can't unsay it, you cannot alter it! Ah!" She
+drew in her breath with a sharp sigh, and covering her face with her
+hands, sank back upon the bench. "I will not cry," she said, not so
+firmly as she thought she did.
+
+"My blessed child!" he cried, in great distress and perturbation, "What
+have I done? I--I----"
+
+"Call me 'small' all you like!" she answered. "I don't care. It isn't
+that. You mustn't think me such an imbecile." She dropped her hands from
+her face and shook the tears from her eyes with a mournful laugh. He saw
+that her hands were clenched tightly and her lip trembled. "I will not
+cry!" she said in a low voice.
+
+"Somebody ought to murder me; I ought to have thought--personalities
+_are_ hideous----"
+
+"Don't! It wasn't that."
+
+"I ought to be shot----"
+
+"Ah, please don't say that," she said, shuddering; "please don't, not
+even as a joke--after last night."
+
+"But I ought to be for hurting you, indeed----"
+
+She laughed sadly, again. "It wasn't that. I don't care what you call
+me. I am small. You'll try to forgive me for being such a baby? I didn't
+mean anything I said. I haven't acted so badly since I was a child."
+
+"It's my fault, all of it. I've tired you out. And I let you get into
+that crush at the circus--" he was going on, remorsefully.
+
+"_That_!" she interrupted. "I don't think I would have missed the
+circus." He had a thrilling hope that she meant the tent-pole; she
+looked as if she meant that, but he dared not let himself believe it.
+
+"No," he continued; "I have been so madly happy in being with you that
+I've fairly worn out your patience. I've haunted you all day, and I
+have----"
+
+"All that has nothing to do with it," she said, slowly. "Just after you
+left, this afternoon, I found that I could not stay here. My people are
+going abroad, to Dresden, at once, and I must go with them. That's what
+almost made me cry. I leave to-morrow morning."
+
+He felt something strike at his heart. In the sudden sense of dearth
+he had no astonishment that she should betray such agitation over
+her departure from a place she had known so little, and friends who
+certainly were not part of her life. He rose to his feet, and, resting
+his arm against a sycamore, stood staring away from her at nothing.
+
+She did not move. There was a long silence.
+
+He had wakened suddenly; the skies had been sapphire, the sward emerald,
+Plattville a Camelot of romance; to be there, enchantment--and now, like
+a meteor burned out in a breath, the necromancy fell away and he gazed
+into desolate years. The thought of the Square, his dusty office, the
+bleak length of Main Street, as they should appear to-morrow, gave him
+a faint physical sickness. To-day it had all been touched to beauty; he
+had felt fit to live and work there a thousand years--a fool's dream,
+and the waking was to emptiness. He should die now of hunger and thirst
+in that Sahara; he hoped the Fates would let it be soon--but he knew
+they would not; knew that this was hysteria, that in his endurance he
+should plod on, plod, plod dustily on, through dingy, lonely years.
+
+There was a rumble of thunder far out on the western prairie. A cold
+breath stole through the hot stillness, and an arm of vapor reached out
+between the moon and the quiet earth. Darkness fell. The man and the
+girl kept silence between them. They might have been two sad guardians
+of the black little stream that splashed unseen at their feet. Now and
+then an echo of far away lightning faintly illumined them with a green
+light. Thunder rolled nearer, ominously; the gods were driving their
+chariots over the bridge. The chill breath passed, leaving the air again
+to its hot inertia.
+
+"I did not want to go," she said, at last, with tears just below the
+surface of her voice. "I wanted to stay here, but he--they wouldn't--I
+can't."
+
+"Wanted to stay here?" he said, huskily, not turning. "Here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In Rouen, you mean?"
+
+"In Plattville."
+
+"In Plattville?" He turned now, astounded.
+
+"Yes; wouldn't you have taken me on the 'Herald'?" She rose and came
+toward him. "I could have supported myself here if you would--and I've
+studied how newspapers are made; I know I could have earned a wage. We
+could have made it a daily." He searched in vain for a trace of raillery
+in her voice; there was none; she seemed to intend her words to be taken
+literally.
+
+"I don't understand," he said. "I don't know what you mean."
+
+"I mean that I want to stay here; that I ought to stay here; that my
+conscience tells me I should--but I can't and it makes me very unhappy.
+That was why I acted so badly."
+
+"Your conscience!" he cried.
+
+"Oh, I know what a jumble and puzzle it must seem to you."
+
+"I only know one thing; that you are going away to-morrow morning, and
+that I shall never see you again."
+
+The darkness had grown heavy. They could not see each other; but a wan
+glimmer gave him a fleeting, misty view of her; she stood half-turned
+away from him, her hand to her cheek in the uncertain fashion of his
+great moment of the afternoon; her eyes-he saw in the flying picture
+that he caught--were adorably troubled and her hand trembled. She had
+been irresistible in her gaiety; but now that a mysterious distress
+assailed her, the reason for which he had no guess, she was so divinely
+pathetic; and seemed such a rich and lovely and sad and happy thing to
+have come into his life only to go out of it; and he was so full of
+the prophetic sense of loss of her--it seemed so much like losing
+everything--that he found too much to say to be able to say anything.
+
+He tried to speak, and choked a little. A big drop of rain fell on his
+bare head. Neither of them noticed the weather or cared for it. They
+stood with the renewed blackness hanging like a thick drapery between
+them.
+
+"Can--can you--tell me why you think you ought not to go?" he whispered,
+finally, with a great effort.
+
+"No; not now. But I know you would think I am right in wanting to stay,"
+she cried, impulsively. "I know you would, if you knew about it--but I
+can't, I can't. I must go in the morning."
+
+"I should always think you right," he answered in an unsteady tone,
+"Always!" He went over to the bench, fumbled about for his hat, and
+picked it up.
+
+"Come," he said, gently, "I am going now."
+
+She stood quite motionless for a full minute or longer; then, without a
+word, she moved toward the house. He went to her with hands extended to
+find her, and his fingers touched her sleeve. Then together and silently
+they found the garden-path; and followed its dim length. In the orchard
+he touched her sleeve again and led the way.
+
+As they came out behind the house she detained him. Stopping short, she
+shook his hand from her arm. She spoke in a single breath, as if it were
+all one word:
+
+"Will you tell me why you go? It is not late. Why do you wish to leave
+me, when I shall not see you again?"
+
+"The Lord be good to me!" he broke out, all his long-pent passion of
+dreams rushing to his lips, now that the barrier fell. "Don't you see
+it is because I can't bear to let you go? I hoped to get away without
+saying it. I want to be alone. I want to be with myself and try to
+realize. I didn't want to make a babbling idiot of myself--but I am!
+It is because I don't want another second of your sweetness to leave
+an added pain when you've gone. It is because I don't want to hear your
+voice again, to have it haunt me in the loneliness you will leave--but
+it's useless, useless! I shall hear it always, just as I shall always
+see your face, just as I have heard your voice and seen your face these
+seven years--ever since I first saw you, a child at Winter Harbor. I
+forgot for a while; I thought it was a girl I had made up out of my own
+heart, but it was you--you always! The impression I thought nothing of
+at the time, just the merest touch on my heart, light as it was, grew
+and grew deeper until it was there forever. You've known me twenty-four
+hours, and I understand what you think of me for speaking to you like
+this. If I had known you for years and had waited and had the right to
+speak and keep your respect, what have I to offer you? I, couldn't even
+take care of you if you went mad as I and listened. I've no excuse for
+this raving. Yes, I have!"
+
+He saw her in another second of lightning, a sudden, bright one. Her
+back was turned to him; she had taken a few startled steps from him.
+
+"Ah," he cried, "you are glad enough, now, to see me go! I knew it. I
+wanted to spare myself that. I tried not to be a hysterical fool in your
+eyes." He turned aside and his head fell on his breast. "God help me,"
+he said, "what will this place be to me now?"
+
+The breeze had risen; it gathered force; it was a chill wind, and there
+rose a wailing on the prairie. Drops of rain began to fall.
+
+"You will not think a question implied in this," he said more
+composedly, and with an unhappy laugh at himself. "I believe you will
+not think me capable of asking you if you care----"
+
+"No," she answered; "I--I do not love you."
+
+"Ah! Was it a question, after all? I--you read me better than I do,
+perhaps--but if I asked, I knew the answer."
+
+She made as if to speak again, but words refused her.
+
+After a moment, "Good-by," he said, very steadily. "I thank you for
+the charity that has given me this little time with you--it will always
+be--precious to me--I shall always be your servant." His steadiness did
+not carry him to the end of his sentence. "Good-by."
+
+She started toward him and stopped, without his seeing her. She answered
+nothing; but stretched out her hand to him and then let it fall quickly.
+
+"Good-by," he said again. "I shall go out the orchard gate. Please tell
+them good-night for me. Won't you speak to me? Good-by."
+
+He stood waiting while the rising wind blew their garments about them.
+She leaned against the wall of the house. "Won't you say good-by and
+tell me you can forget my----"
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"No!" he cried, wildly. "Since you don't forget it! I have spoiled
+what might have been a pleasant memory for you, and I know it. You were
+already troubled, and I have added, and you won't forget it, nor shall
+I--nor shall I! Don't say good-by--I can say it for both of us. God
+bless you--and good-by, good-by, good-by!"
+
+He crushed his hat down over his eyes and ran toward the orchard gate.
+For a moment lightning flashed repeatedly; she saw him go out the gate
+and disappear into sudden darkness. He ran through the field and came
+out on the road. Heaven and earth were revealed again for a dazzling
+white second. From horizon to horizon rolled clouds contorted like
+an illimitable field of inverted haystacks, and beneath them enormous
+volumes of pale vapor were tumbling in the west, advancing eastward with
+sinister swiftness. She ran to a little knoll at the corner of the house
+and saw him set his face to the storm. She cried aloud to him with all
+her strength and would have followed, but the wind took the words out of
+her mouth and drove her back cowering to the shelter of the house.
+
+Out on the road the dust came lashing and stinging him like a thousand
+nettles; it smothered him, and beat upon him so that he covered his face
+with his sleeve and fought into the storm shoulder foremost, dimly glad
+of its rage, scarcely conscious of it, keeping westward on his way to
+nowhere. West or east, south or north--it was all one to him. The few
+heavy drops that fell boiling into the dust ceased to come; the rain
+withheld while the wind-kings rode on earth. On he went in spite of
+them. On and on, running blindly when he could run at all. At least, the
+wind-kings were company. He had been so long alone. He could remember no
+home that had ever been his since he was a little child, neither father
+nor mother, no one who belonged to him or to whom he belonged, except
+one cousin, an old man who was dead. For a day his dreams had found in a
+girl's eyes the precious thing that is called home--oh, the wild fancy!
+He laughed aloud.
+
+There was a startling answer; a lance of living fire hurled from
+the sky, riving the fields before his eyes, while crash on crash of
+artillery numbed his ears. With that his common-sense awoke and he
+looked about him. He was almost two miles from town; the nearest house
+was the Briscoes' far down the road. He knew the rain would come now.
+There was a big oak near him at the roadside. He stepped under its
+sheltering branches and leaned against the great trunk, wiping the
+perspiration and dust from his face. A moment of stunned quiet had
+succeeded the peal of thunder. It was followed by several moments of
+incessant lightning that played along the road and danced in the fields.
+From that intolerable brightness he turned his head and saw, standing
+against the fence, five feet away, a man, leaning over the top rail and
+looking at him.
+
+
+
+The same flash staggered brilliantly before Helen's eyes as she crouched
+against the back steps of the brick house. It scarred a picture like a
+marine of big waves: the tossing tops of the orchard trees; for in the
+same second the full fury of the storm was loosed, wind and rain and
+hail. It drove her against the kitchen door with cruel force; the latch
+lifted, the door blew open violently, and she struggled to close it in
+vain. The house seemed to rock. A lamp flickered toward her from the
+inner doorway and was blown out.
+
+"Helen! Helen!" came Minnie's voice, anxiously. "Is that you? We were
+coming to look for you. Did you get wet?"
+
+Mr. Willetts threw his weight against the door and managed to close it.
+Then Minnie found her friend's hand and led her through the dark hall to
+the parlor where the judge sat, placidly reading by a student-lamp.
+
+Lige chuckled as they left the kitchen. "I guess you didn't try too hard
+to shut that door, Harkless," he said, and then, when they came into the
+lighted room, "Why, where _is_ Harkless?" he asked. "Didn't he come with
+us from the kitchen?"
+
+"No," answered Helen, faintly; "he's gone." She sank upon the sofa and
+drew her hand across her eyes as if to shade them from too sudden light.
+
+"Gone!" The judge dropped his book and stared across the table at the
+girl. "Gone! When?"
+
+"Ten minutes--five--half an hour--I don't know. Before the storm
+commenced."
+
+"Oh!" The old gentleman appeared to be reassured. "Probably he had work
+to do and wanted to get in before the rain."
+
+But Lige Willetts was turning pale. He swallowed several times with
+difficulty. "Which way did he go? He didn't come around the house; we
+were out there till the storm broke."
+
+"He went by the orchard gate. When he got to the road he turned that
+way." She pointed to the west.
+
+"He must have been crazy!" exclaimed the judge. "What possessed the
+fellow?"
+
+"I couldn't stop him. I didn't know how." She looked at her three
+companions, slowly and with growing terror, from one face to another.
+Minnie's eyes were wide and she had unconsciously grasped Lige's arm;
+the young man was looking straight before him; the judge got up and
+walked nervously back and forth. Helen rose to her feet swiftly and went
+toward the old man, her hands pressed to her bosom.
+
+"Ah!" she cried out, sharply, "I had forgotten _that_! You don't think
+they--you don't think----"
+
+"I know what I think," Lige broke in; "I think I'd ought to be hanged
+for letting him out of my sight. Maybe it's all right; maybe he turned
+and started right back for town--and got there. But I had no business
+to leave him, and if I can I'll catch up with him yet." He went to the
+front door, and, opening it, let in a tornado of wind and flood of water
+that beat him back; sheets of rain blew in horizontally, in spite of the
+porch beyond.
+
+Briscoe followed him. "Don't be a fool, Lige," he said. "You hardly
+expect to go out in that." Lige shook his head; it needed them both
+to get the door closed. The young man leaned against it and passed his
+sleeve across his wet brow. "I hadn't ought to have left him."
+
+"Don't scare the girls," whispered the other; then in a louder tone:
+"All I'm afraid of is that he'll get blown to pieces or catch his death
+of cold. That's all there is to worry about. Those scalawags wouldn't
+try it again so soon after last night. I'm not bothering about that; not
+at all. That needn't worry anybody."
+
+"But this morning----"
+
+"Pshaw! He's likely home and dry by this time--all foolishness; don't be
+an old woman." The two men reentered the room and found Helen clinging
+to Minnie's hand on the sofa. She looked up at them quickly.
+
+"Do you think--do you--what do you--" Her voice shook so that she could
+not go on.
+
+The judge pinched her cheek and patted it. "I think he's home and dry,
+but I think he got wet first; that's what I think. Never you fear, he's
+a good hand at taking care of himself. Sit down, Lige. You can't go for
+a while." Nor could he. It was long before he could venture out; the
+storm raged and roared without abatement; it was Carlow's worst since
+'Fifty-one, the old gentleman said. They heard the great limbs crack and
+break outside, while the thunder boomed and the wind ripped at the
+eaves till it seemed the roof must go. Meanwhile the judge, after some
+apology, lit his pipe and told long stories of the storms of early
+days and of odd freaks of the wind. He talked on calmly, the picture of
+repose, and blew rings above his head, but Helen saw that one of his
+big slippers beat an unceasing little tattoo on the carpet. She sat with
+fixed eyes, in silence, holding Minnie's hand tightly; and her face was
+colorless, and grew whiter as the slow hours dragged by.
+
+Every moment Mr. Willetts became more restless, though assuring the
+ladies he had no anxiety regarding Mr. Harkless; it was only his own
+dereliction of duty that he regretted; the boys would have the laugh
+on him, he said. But he visibly chafed more and more under the judge's
+stories; and constantly rose to peer out of the window into the wrack
+and turmoil, or uneasily shifted in his chair. Once or twice he struck
+his hands together with muttered ejaculations. At last there was a lull
+in the fury without, and, as soon as it was perceptible, he declared his
+intention of making his way into town; he had ought to have went before,
+he declared, apprehensively; and then, with immediate amendment, of
+course he would find the editor at work in the "Herald" office; there
+wasn't the slightest doubt of that; he agreed with the judge, but he
+better see about it. He would return early in the morning to bid Miss
+Sherwood good-by; hoped she'd come back, some day; hoped it wasn't her
+last visit to Plattville. They gave him an umbrella and he plunged out
+into the night, and as they stood watching him for a moment from the
+door, the old man calling after him cheery good-nights and laughing
+messages to Harkless, they could hear his feet slosh into the puddles
+and see him fight with his umbrella when he got out into the road.
+
+Helen's room was over the porch, the windows facing north, looking out
+upon the pike and across the fields beyond. "Please don't light the
+lamp, Minnie," she said, when they had gone upstairs. "I don't need a
+light." Miss Briscoe was flitting about the room, hunting for matches.
+In the darkness she came to her friend, and laid a kind, large hand on
+Helen's eyes, and the hand became wet. She drew Helen's head down on her
+shoulder and sat beside her on the bed.
+
+"Sweetheart, you mustn't fret," she soothed, in motherly fashion.
+"Don't you worry, dear. He's all right. It isn't your fault, dear. They
+wouldn't come on a night like this."
+
+But Helen drew away and went to the window, flattening her arm against
+the pane, her forehead pressed against her arm. She had let him go; she
+had let him go alone. She had forgotten the danger that always beset
+him. She had been so crazy, she had seen nothing, thought of nothing.
+She had let him go into that, and into the storm, alone. Who knew better
+than she how cruel they were? She had seen the fire leap from the white
+blossom and heard the ball whistle, the ball they had meant for his
+heart, that good, great heart. She had run to him the night before--why
+had she let him go into the unknown and the storm to-night? But how
+could she have stopped him? How could she have kept him, after what he
+had said? She peered into the night through distorting tears.
+
+The wind had gone down a little, but only a little, and the electrical
+flashes danced all around the horizon in magnificent display, sometimes
+far away, sometimes dazingly near, the darkness trebly deep between the
+intervals when the long sweep of flat lands lay in dazzling clearness,
+clean-cut in the washed air to the finest detail of stricken field and
+heaving woodland. A staggering flame clove earth and sky; sheets of
+light came following it, and a frightful uproar shook the house and
+rattled the casements, but over the crash of thunder Minnie heard her
+friend's loud scream and saw her spring back from the window with both
+hands, palm outward, pressed to her face. She leaped to her and threw
+her arms about her.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Look!" Helen dragged her to the window. "At the next flash--the fence
+beyond the meadow----"
+
+"What was it? What was it like?" The lightning flashed incessantly.
+Helen tried to point; her hand only jerked from side to side.
+
+"_Look_!" she cried.
+
+"I see nothing but the lightning," Minnie answered, breathlessly.
+
+"Oh, the _fence_! The fence--and in the field!"
+
+"_Helen_! What was it _like_?"
+
+"Ah-ah!" she panted, "a long line of white--horrible white----"
+
+"What _like_?" Minnie turned from the window and caught the other's
+wrist in a fluttering clasp.
+
+"Minnie, Minnie! Like long white gowns and cowls crossing the fence."
+Helen released her wrist, and put both hands on Minnie's cheeks, forcing
+her around to face the pane. "You must look--you must look," she cried.
+
+"They wouldn't do it, they wouldn't--it _isn't_!" Minnie cried. "They
+couldn't come in the storm. They wouldn't do it in the pouring rain!"
+
+"Yes! Such things would mind the rain!" She burst into hysterical
+laughter, and Minnie, almost as unnerved, caught her about the waist.
+"They would mind the rain. They would fear a storm! Ha, ha, ha!
+Yes--yes! And I let him go--I let him go!"
+
+Pressing close together, shuddering, clasping each other's waists, the
+two girls peered out at the flickering landscape.
+
+"_Look_!"
+
+Up from the distant fence that bordered the northern side of Jones's
+field, a pale, pelted, flapping thing reared itself, poised, and seemed,
+just as the blackness came again, to drop to the ground.
+
+"Did you _see_?"
+
+But Minnie had thrown herself into a chair with a laugh of wild relief.
+"My darling girl!" she cried. "Not a line of white things--just one--Mr.
+Jones's old scarecrow! And we saw it blown down!"
+
+"No, no, no! I saw the others; they were in the field beyond. I saw
+them! When I looked the first time they were nearly all on the fence.
+This time we saw the last man crossing. Ah! I let him go alone!"
+
+Minnie sprang up and enfolded her. "No; you dear, imagining child,
+you're upset and nervous--that's all the matter in the world. Don't
+worry; don't, child, it's all right. Mr. Harkless is home and safe in
+bed long ago. I know that old scarecrow on the fence like a book; you're
+so unstrung you fancied the rest. He's all right; don't you bother,
+dear."
+
+The big, motherly girl took her companion in her arms and rocked her
+back and forth soothingly, and petted and reassured her, and then cried
+a little with her, as a good-hearted girl always will with a friend.
+Then she left her for the night with many a cheering word and tender
+caress. "Get to sleep, dear," she called through the door when she had
+closed it behind her. "You must, if you have to go in the morning--it
+just breaks my heart. I don't know how we'll bear it without you. Father
+will miss you almost as much as I will. Good-night. Don't bother
+about that old white scarecrow. That's all it was. Good-night, dear,
+good-night."
+
+"Good-night, dear," answered a plaintive little voice. Helen's hot cheek
+pressed the pillow and tossed from side to side. By and by she turned
+the pillow over; it had grown wet. The wind blew about the eaves and
+blew itself out; she hardly heard it. Sleep would not come. She got
+up and laved her burning eyes. Then she sat by the window. The storm's
+strength was spent at last; the rain grew lighter and lighter, until
+there was but the sound of running water and the drip, drip on the tin
+roof of the porch. Only the thunder rumbling in the distance marked the
+storm's course; the chariots of the gods rolling further and further
+away, till they finally ceased to be heard altogether. The clouds parted
+majestically, and then, between great curtains of mist, the day-star was
+seen shining in the east.
+
+The night was hushed, and the peace that falls before dawn was upon
+the wet, flat lands. Somewhere in the sodden grass a swamped cricket
+chirped. From an outlying flange of the village a dog's howl rose
+mournfully; was answered by another, far away, and by another and
+another. The sonorous chorus rose above the village, died away, and
+quiet fell again.
+
+Helen sat by the window, no comfort touching her heart. Tears coursed
+her cheeks no longer, but her eyes were wide and staring, and her lips
+parted, for the hush was broken by the far clamor of the court-house
+bell ringing in the night. It rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. She
+could not breathe. She threw open the window. The bell stopped. All was
+quiet once more. The east was growing gray.
+
+Suddenly out of the stillness there came the sound of a horse galloping
+over a wet road. He was coming like mad. Some one for a doctor? No;
+the horse-hoofs grew louder, coming out from the town, coming this
+way, coming faster and faster, coming _here_. There was a splashing and
+trampling in front of the house and a sharp "Whoa!" In the dim gray of
+first dawn she made out a man on a foam-flecked horse. He drew up at the
+gate.
+
+A window to the right of hers went screeching up. She heard the judge
+clear his throat before he spoke.
+
+"What is it? That's you, isn't it, Wiley? What is it?" He took a good
+deal of time and coughed between the sentences. His voice was more than
+ordinarily quiet, and it sounded husky. "What is it, Wiley?"
+
+"Judge, what time did Mr. Harkless leave here last night and which way
+did he go?"
+
+There was a silence. The judge turned away from the window. Minnie was
+standing just outside his door. "It must have been about half-past nine,
+wasn't it, father?" she called in a shaking voice. "And, you know, Helen
+thought he went west."
+
+"Wiley!" The old man leaned from the sill again.
+
+"Yes!" answered the man on horseback.
+
+"Wiley, he left about half-past nine--just before the storm. They think
+he went west."
+
+"Much obliged. Willetts is so upset he isn't sure of anything."
+
+
+"Wiley!" The old man's voice shook; Minnie began to cry aloud. The
+horseman wheeled about and turned his animal's head toward town.
+"Wiley!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Wiley, they haven't--you don't think they've got him?"
+
+"By God, judge," said the man on horseback, "I'm afraid they have!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE COURT-HOUSE BELL
+
+The court-house bell ringing in the night! No hesitating stroke of
+Schofields' Henry, no uncertain touch, was on the rope. A loud, wild,
+hurried clamor pealing out to wake the country-side, a rapid _clang!
+clang! clang!_ that struck clear in to the spine.
+
+The court-house bell had tolled for the death of Morton, of Garfield, of
+Hendricks; had rung joy-peals of peace after the war and after political
+campaigns; but it had rung as it was ringing now only three times; once
+when Hibbard's mill burned, once when Webb Landis killed Sep Bardlock
+and intrenched himself in the lumber-yard and would not be taken till he
+was shot through and through, and once when the Rouen accommodation was
+wrecked within twenty yards of the station.
+
+Why was the bell ringing now? Men and women, startled into wide
+wakefulness, groped to windows--no red mist hung over town or country.
+What was it? The bell rang on. Its loud alarm beat increasingly into
+men's hearts and quickened their throbbing to the rapid measure of
+its own. Vague forms loomed in the gloaming. A horse, wildly ridden,
+splashed through the town. There were shouts; voices called hoarsely.
+Lamps began to gleam in the windows. Half-clad people emerged from their
+houses, men slapping their braces on their shoulders as they ran out of
+doors. Questions were shouted into the dimness.
+
+Then the news went over the town.
+
+It was cried from yard to yard, from group to group, from gate to gate,
+and reached the furthermost confines. Runners shouted it as they sped
+by; boys panted it, breathless; women with loosened hair stumbled into
+darkling chambers and faltered it out to new-wakened sleepers; pale
+girls clutching wraps at their throats whispered it across fences; the
+sick, tossing on their hard beds, heard it. The bell clamored it far and
+near; it spread over the country-side; it flew over the wires to distant
+cities. The White-Caps had got Mr. Harkless!
+
+Lige Willetts had lost track of him out near Briscoes', it was said, and
+had come in at midnight seeking him. He had found Parker, the "Herald"
+foreman, and Ross Schofield, the typesetter, and Bud Tipworthy, the
+devil, at work in the printing-room, but no sign of Harkless, there or
+in the cottage. Together these had sought for him and had roused others,
+who had inquired at every house where he might have gone for shelter,
+and they had heard nothing. They had watched for his coming during the
+slackening of the storm and he had not come, and there was nowhere he
+could have gone. He was missing; only one thing could have happened.
+
+They had roused up Warren Smith, the prosecutor, the missing editor's
+most intimate friend in Carlow, and Homer, the sheriff, and Jared Wiley,
+the deputy. William Todd had rung the alarm. The first thing to do was
+to find him. After that there would be trouble--if not before. It looked
+as if there would be trouble before. The men tramping up to the muddy
+Square in their shirt-sleeves were bulgy about the right hips; and when
+Homer Tibbs joined Lum Landis at the hotel corner, and Landis saw that
+Homer was carrying a shot-gun, Landis went back for his. A hastily sworn
+posse galloped out Main Street. Women and children ran into neighbors'
+yards and began to cry. Day was coming; and, as the light grew, men
+swore and savagely kicked at the palings of fences that they passed.
+
+In the foreglow of dawn they gathered in the Square and listened to
+Warren Smith, who made a speech from the court-house fence and warned
+them to go slow. They answered him with angry shouts and hootings, but
+he made his big voice heard, and bade them do nothing rash; no facts
+were known, he said; it was far from certain that harm had been done,
+and no one knew that the Six-Cross-Roads people had done it--even if
+something had happened to Mr. Harkless. He declared that he spoke in
+Harkless's name. Nothing could distress _him_ so much as for them to
+defy the law, to take it out of the proper hands. Justice would be done.
+
+"Yes it will!" shouted a man below him, brandishing the butt of a
+raw-hide whip above his head. "And while you jaw on about it here, he
+may be tied up like a dog in the woods, shot full of holes by the men
+you never lifted a finger to hender, because you want their votes when
+you run for circuit judge. What are we doin' _here_? What's the good of
+listening to you?"
+
+There was a yell at this, and those who heard the speaker would probably
+have started for the Cross-Roads without further parley, had not a rumor
+sprung up, which passed so rapidly from man to man that within five
+minutes it was being turbulently discussed in every portion of the
+crowd. The news came that the two shell-gamblers had wrenched a bar
+out of a window under cover of the storm, had broken jail, and were
+at large. Their threats of the day before were remembered now, with
+convincing vividness. They had sworn repeatedly to Bardlock and to the
+sheriff, and in the hearing of others, that they would "do" for the man
+who took their money from them and had them arrested. The prosecuting
+attorney, quickly perceiving the value of this complication in holding
+back the mob that was already forming, called Homer from the crowd
+and made him get up on the fence and confess that his prisoners had
+escaped--at what time he did not know, probably toward the beginning of
+the storm, when it was noisiest.
+
+"You see," cried the attorney, "there is nothing as yet of which we can
+accuse the Cross-Roads. If our friend has been hurt, it is much more
+likely that these crooks did it. They escaped in time to do it, and
+we all know they were laying for him. You want to be mighty careful,
+fellow-citizens. Homer is already in telegraphic communication with
+every town around here, and we'll have those men before night. All
+you've got to do is to control yourselves a little and go home quietly."
+He could see that his words (except those in reference to returning
+home--no one was going home) made an impression. There rose a babble of
+shouting and argument and swearing that grew continually louder, and
+the faces the lawyer looked down on were creased with perplexity, and
+shadowed with an anger that settled darker and darker.
+
+Mr. Ephraim Watts, in spite of all confusion, clad as carefully as
+upon the preceding day, deliberately climbed the fence and stood by the
+lawyer and made a single steady gesture with his hand. He was listened
+to at once, as his respect for the law was less notorious than his
+irreverence for it, and he had been known in Carlow as a customarily
+reckless man. They wanted illegal and desperate advice, and quieted down
+to hear it. He spoke in his professionally calm voice.
+
+"Gentlemen, it seems to me that Mr. Smith and Mr. Ribshaw" (nodding to
+the man with the rawhide whip) "are both right. What good are we doing
+here? What we want to know is what's happened to Mr. Harkless. It looks
+just now like the shell-men might have done it. Let's find out what they
+done. Scatter and hunt for him. 'Soon as anything is known for certain,
+Hibbard's mill whistle will blow three times. Keep on looking till it
+does. _Then_" he finished, with a barely perceptible scornful smile at
+the attorney, "_then_ we can decide on what had ought to be done."
+
+Six-Cross-Roads lay dark and steaming in the sun that morning. The forge
+was silent, the saloon locked up, the roadway deserted, even by the
+pigs. The broken old buggy stood rotting in the mud without a
+single lean, little old man or woman--such were the children of
+the Cross-Roads--to play about it. The fields were empty, and the
+rag-stuffed windows blank, under the baleful glance of the horsemen
+who galloped by at intervals, muttering curses, not always confining
+themselves to muttering them. Once, when the deputy sheriff rode
+through alone, a tattered black hound, more wolf than dog, half-emerged,
+growling, from beneath one of the tumble-down barns, and was jerked back
+into the darkness by his tail, with a snarl fiercer than his own, while
+a gun-barrel shone for a second as it swung for a stroke on the brute's
+head. The hound did not yelp or whine when the blow fell. He shut his
+eyes twice, and slunk sullenly back to his place.
+
+The shanties might have received a volley or two from some of the
+mounted bands, exasperated by futile searching, had not the escape of
+Homer's prisoners made the guilt of the Cross-Roads appear doubtful in
+the minds of many. As the morning waned, the advocates of the theory
+that the gamblers had made away with Harkless grew in number. There came
+a telegram from the Rouen chief of police that he had a clew to their
+whereabouts; he thought they had succeeded in reaching Rouen, and it
+began to be generally believed that they had escaped by the one-o'clock
+freight, which had stopped to take on some empty cars at a side-track
+a mile northwest of the town, across the fields from the Briscoe house.
+Toward noon a party went out to examine the railroad embankment.
+
+Men began to come back into the village for breakfast by twos and
+threes, though many kept on searching the woods, not feeling the need of
+food, or caring if they did. Every grove and clump of underbrush, every
+thicket, was ransacked; the waters of the creek, shallow for the most
+part, but swollen overnight, were dragged at every pool. Nothing was
+found; there was not a sign.
+
+The bar of the hotel was thronged all morning as the returning citizens
+rapidly made their way thither, and those who had breakfasted and were
+going out again paused for internal, as well as external, reinforcement.
+The landlord, himself returned from a long hunt, set up his whiskey with
+a lavish hand.
+
+"He was the best man we had, boys," said Landis, as he poured the
+little glasses full. "We'd ort of sent him to the legislative halls of
+Washington long ago. He'd of done us honor there; but we never thought
+of doin' anything fer him; jest set 'round and let him build up the
+town and give him empty thankyes. Drink hearty, gentlemen," he finished,
+gloomily, "I don't grudge no liquor to-day--except to Lige Willetts."
+
+"He was a good man," said young William Todd, whose nose was red, not
+from the whiskey. "I've about give up."
+
+Schofields' Henry drew his sleeve across his eyes. "He was the only man
+in this whole city that didn't jab and nag at me when I done my best,"
+he exclaimed, with an increasing break in his utterance. "Many a good
+word I've had from him when nobody in town done nothin' but laugh an'
+rile an' badger me about my--my bell." And Schofields' Henry began to
+cry openly.
+
+"He was a great hand with the chuldern," said one man. "Always have
+something to say to 'em to make 'em laugh when he went by. 'Talk more to
+them 'n he would to grown folks. Yes, sir."
+
+"They knowed _him_ all right," added another. "I reckon all of us did,
+little and big."
+
+"It's goin' to seem mighty empty around here," said Ross Schofield.
+"What's goin' to become o' the 'Herald' and the party in this district?
+Where's the man to run either of 'em now. Like as not," he concluded
+desperately, "the election'll go against us in the fall."
+
+Dibb Zane choked over his four fingers. "We might's well bust up this
+dab-dusted ole town ef he's gone."
+
+"I don't know what's come over that Cynthy Tipworthy," said the
+landlord. "She's waited table on him last two year, and her brother Bud
+works at the 'Herald' office. She didn't say a word--only looked
+and looked and looked--like a crazy woman; then her and Bud went off
+together to hunt in the woods. They just tuck hold of each other's hands
+like----"
+
+"That ain't nothin'," Homer Tibbs broke in. "You'd ort to've saw old Miz
+Hathaway, that widder woman next door to us, when she heard it. He had
+helped her to git her pension; and she tuck on worse 'n' anything I ever
+hear--lot worse 'n' when Hathaway died."
+
+"I reckon there ain't many crazier than them two Bowlders, father and
+son," said the postmaster, wiping the drops from his beard as he set his
+glass on the bar. "They rid into town like a couple of wild Indians, the
+old man beatin' that gray mare o' theirn till she was one big welt, and
+he ain't natcherly no cruel man, either. I reckon Lige Willetts better
+keep out of Hartley's way."
+
+"I keep out of no man's way," cried a voice behind him. Turning, they
+saw Lige standing on the threshold of the door that led to the street.
+In his hand he held the bridle of the horse he had ridden across the
+sidewalk, and that now stood panting, with lowered head, half through
+the doorway, beside his master. Lige was hatless, splashed with mud
+from head to foot; his jaw was set, his teeth ground together; his eyes
+burned under red lids, and his hair lay tossed and damp on his brow. "I
+keep out of no man's way," he repeated, hoarsely.
+
+"I heard you, Mr. Tibbs, but I've got too much to do, while you loaf
+and gas and drink over Lum Landis's bar--I've got other business than
+keeping out of Hartley Bowlder's way. I'm looking for John Harkless. He
+was the best man we had in this ornery hole, and he was too good for us,
+and so we've maybe let him get killed, and maybe I'm to blame. But I'm
+going to find him, and if he's hurt--damn _me_! I'm going to have a hand
+on the rope that lifts the men that did it, if I have to go to Rouen to
+put it there! After that I'll answer for my fault, not before!"
+
+He threw himself on his horse and was gone. Soon the room was emptied,
+as the patrons of the bar returned to the search, and only Mr. Wilkerson
+and the landlord remained, the bar being the professional office, so to
+speak, of both.
+
+Wilkerson had a chair in a corner, where he sat chanting a funeral march
+in a sepulchral murmur, allowing a parenthetical _hic_ to punctuate the
+dirge in place of the drum. Whenever a batch of newcomers entered,
+he rose to drink with them; and, at such times, after pouring off his
+liquor with a rich melancholy, shedding tears after every swallow, he
+would make an exploring tour of the room on his way back to his corner,
+stopping to look under each chair inquiringly and ejaculate: "Why, where
+kin he be!" Then, shaking his head, he would observe sadly: "Fine
+young man, he was, too; fine young man. Pore fellow! I reckon we hain't
+a-goin' to git him."
+
+At eleven o'clock. Judge Briscoe dropped wearily from his horse at his
+own gate, and said to a wan girl who came running down the walk to meet
+him: "There is nothing, yet. I sent the telegram to your mother--to Mrs.
+Sherwood."
+
+Helen turned away without answering. Her face was very white and looked
+pinched about the mouth. She went back to where old Fisbee sat on the
+porch, his white head held between his two hands; he was rocking himself
+to and fro. She touched him gently, but he did not look up. She spoke to
+him.
+
+"There isn't anything--yet. He sent the telegram to mamma. I shall stay
+with you, now, no matter what you say." She sat beside him and put her
+head down on his shoulder, and though for a moment he appeared not to
+notice it, when Minnie came out on the porch, hearing her father at the
+door, the old scholar had put his arm about the girl and was stroking
+her fair hair softly.
+
+Briscoe glanced at them, and raised a warning finger to his daughter,
+and they went tiptoeing into the house, where the judge dropped heavily
+upon a sofa with an asthmatic sigh; he was worn and tired. Minnie stood
+before him with a look of pale inquiry, and he shook his head.
+
+"No use to tell _them_; but I can't see any hope," he answered her,
+biting nervously at the end of a cigar. "I expect you better bring me
+some coffee in here; I couldn't take another step to save me. I'm too
+old to tear around the country horseback before breakfast, like I have
+to-day."
+
+"Did you send her telegram?" Minnie asked, as he drank the coffee she
+brought him. She had interpreted "coffee" liberally, and, with the
+assistance of Mildy Upton (whose subdued nose was frankly red and who
+shed tears on the raspberries), had prepared an appetizing table at his
+elbow.
+
+"Yes," responded the judge, "and I'm glad she sent it. I talked
+the other way yesterday, what little I said--it isn't any of our
+business--but I don't think any too much of those people, somehow. She
+thinks she belongs with Fisbee, and I guess she's right. That young
+fellow must have got along with her pretty well, and I'm afraid when
+she gives up she'll be pretty bad over it; but I guess we all will. It's
+terribly sudden, somehow, though it's only what everybody half expected
+would come; only we thought it would come from over yonder." He nodded
+toward the west. "But she's got to stay here with us. Boarding at Sol
+Tibbs's with that old man won't do; and she's no girl to live in two
+rooms. You fix it up with her--you make her stay."
+
+"She must," answered his daughter as she knelt beside him and patted his
+coat and handed him several things to eat at the same time. "Mr. Fisbee
+will help me persuade her, now that she's bound to stay in spite of him
+and the Sherwoods, too. I think she is perfectly grand to do it. I've
+always thought she was grand--ever since she took me under her wing
+at school when I was terribly 'country' and frightened; but she was so
+sweet and kind she made me forget. She was the pet of the school, too,
+always doing things for the other girls, for everybody; looking out for
+people simply heads and heads bigger than herself, and so
+recklessly generous and so funny about it; and always thoughtful
+and--and--pleasant----"
+
+Minnie was speaking sadly, mechanically; but suddenly she broke off with
+a quick sob, sprang up and went to the window; then, turning, cried out:
+
+"I don't believe it! He knew how to take care of himself too well. He'd
+have got away from them."
+
+Her father shook his head. "Then why hasn't he turned up? He'd have gone
+home after the storm if something bad wasn't the matter."
+
+"But nothing--nothing _that_ bad could have happened. They haven't
+found--any--anything."
+
+"But why hasn't he come back, child?"
+
+"Well, he's lying hurt somewhere, that's all."
+
+"Then why haven't they found him?"
+
+"I don't care!" she cried, and choked with the words and tossed her
+dishevelled hair from her temples; "it isn't true. Helen won't believe
+it--why should I? It's only a few hours since he was right here in our
+yard, talking to us all. I won't believe it till they've searched every
+stick and stone of Six-Cross-Roads and found him."
+
+"It wasn't the Cross-Roads," said the old gentleman, pushing the table
+away and relaxing his limbs on the sofa. "They probably didn't have
+anything to do with it. We thought they had at first, but everybody's
+about come to believe it was those two devils that he had arrested
+yesterday."
+
+"Not the Cross-Roads!" echoed Minnie, and she began to tremble
+violently. "Haven't they been out there yet?"
+
+"What use? They are out of it, and they can thank God they are!"
+
+"They are not!" she cried excitedly. "They did it. It was the
+White-Caps. We saw them, Helen and I."
+
+The judge got upon his feet with an oath. He had not sworn for years
+until that morning. "What's this?" he said sharply.
+
+"I ought to have told you before, but we were so frightened, and--and
+you went off in such a rush after Mr. Wiley was here. I never dreamed
+everybody wouldn't know it was the Cross-Roads; that they would _think_
+of any one else. And I looked for the scarecrow as soon as it was light
+and it was 'way off from where we saw them, and wasn't blown down at
+all, and Helen saw them in the field besides--saw all of them----"
+
+He interrupted her. "What do you mean? Try to tell me about it quietly,
+child." He laid his hand on her shoulder.
+
+She told him breathlessly (while he grew more and more visibly perturbed
+and uneasy, biting his cigar to pieces and groaning at intervals) what
+she and Helen had seen in the storm. When she finished he took a few
+quick turns about the room with his hands thrust deep in his coat
+pockets, and then, charging her to repeat the story to no one, left the
+house, and, forgetting his fatigue, rapidly crossed the fields to the
+point where the bizarre figures of the night had shown themselves to the
+two girls at the window.
+
+The soft ground had been trampled by many feet. The boot-prints pointed
+to the northeast. He traced them backward to the southwest through the
+field, and saw where they had come from near the road, going northeast.
+Then, returning, he climbed the fence and followed them northward
+through the next field. From there, the next, beyond the road that was
+a continuation of Main Street, stretched to the railroad embankment.
+The track, raggedly defined in trampled loam and muddy furrow, bent in
+a direction which indicated that its terminus might be the switch
+where the empty cars had stood last night, waiting for the one-o'clock
+freight. Though the fields had been trampled down in many places by
+the searching parties, he felt sure of the direction taken by the
+Cross-Roads men, and he perceived that the searchers had mistaken the
+tracks he followed for those of earlier parties in the hunt. On the
+embankment he saw a number of men, walking west and examining the ground
+on each side, and a long line of people following them out from town. He
+stopped. He held the fate of Six-Cross-Roads in his hand and he knew it.
+
+He knew that if he spoke, his evidence would damn the Cross-Roads,
+and that it meant that more than the White-Caps would be hurt, for the
+Cross-Roads would fight. If he had believed that the dissemination of
+his knowledge could have helped Harkless, he would have called to the
+men near him at once; but he had no hope that the young man was alive.
+They would not have dragged him out to their shanties wounded, or as
+a prisoner; such a proceeding would have courted detection, and, also,
+they were not that kind; they had been "looking for him" a long time,
+and their one idea was to kill him.
+
+And Harkless, for all his gentleness, was the sort of man, Briscoe
+believed, who would have to be killed before he could be touched. Of one
+thing the old gentleman was sure; the editor had not been tied up and
+whipped while yet alive. In spite of his easy manners and geniality,
+there was a dignity in him that would have made him kill and be killed
+before the dirty fingers of a Cross-Roads "White-Cap" could have been
+laid upon him in chastisement. A great many good Americans of Carlow who
+knew him well always Mistered him as they would have Mistered only an
+untitled Morton or Hendricks who might have lived amongst them. He
+was the only man the old darky, Uncle Xenophon, had ever addressed as
+"Marse" since he came to Plattville, thirty years ago.
+
+Briscoe considered it probable that a few people were wearing bandages,
+in the closed shanties over to the west to-day. A thought of the number
+they had brought against one man; a picture of the unequal struggle, of
+the young fellow he had liked so well, unarmed and fighting hopelessly
+in a trap, and a sense of the cruelty of it, made the hot anger surge
+up in his breast, and he started on again. Then he stopped once more.
+Though long retired from faithful service on the bench, he had been all
+his life a serious exponent of the law, and what he went to tell meant
+lawlessness that no one could hope to check. He knew the temper of the
+people; their long suffering was at an end, and they would go over at
+last and wipe out the Cross-Roads. It depended on him. If the mob could
+be held off over to-day, if men's minds could cool over night, the
+law could strike and the innocent and the hotheaded be spared from
+suffering. He would wait; he would lay his information before the
+sheriff; and Horner would go quietly with a strong posse, for he would
+need a strong one. He began to retrace his steps.
+
+The men on the embankment were walking slowly, bending far over, their
+eyes fixed on the ground. Suddenly one of them stood erect and tossed
+his arms in the air and shouted loudly. Other men ran to him, and
+another far down the track repeated the shout and the gesture to another
+far in his rear; this man took it up, and shouted and waved to a fourth
+man, and so they passed the signal back to town. There came, almost
+immediately three long, loud whistles from a mill near the station, and
+the embankment grew black with people pouring out from town, while the
+searchers came running from the fields and woods and underbrush on both
+sides of the railway.
+
+Briscoe paused for the last time; then he began to walk slowly toward
+the embankment.
+
+The track lay level and straight, not dimming in the middle distances,
+the rails converging to points, both northwest and southeast, in
+the clean-washed air, like examples of perspective in a child's
+drawing-book. About seventy miles to the west and north lay Rouen; and,
+in the same direction, nearly six miles from where the signal was
+given, the track was crossed by a road leading directly south to
+Six-Cross-Roads.
+
+The embankment had been newly ballasted with sand. What had been
+discovered was a broad brown stain on the south slope near the top.
+There were smaller stains above and below; none beyond it to left or
+right; and there were deep boot-prints in the sand. Men were examining
+the place excitedly, talking and gesticulating. It was Lige Willetts who
+had found it. His horse was tethered to a fence near by, at the end of
+a lane through a cornfield. Jared Wiley, the deputy, was talking to a
+group near the stain, explaining.
+
+"You see them two must have knowed about the one-o'clock freight, and
+that it was to stop here to take on the empty lumber cars. I don't know
+how they knowed it, but they did. It was this way: when they dropped
+from the window, they beat through the storm, straight for this
+side-track. At the same time Mr. Harkless leaves Briscoes' goin'
+west. It begins to rain. He cuts across to the railroad to have a sure
+footing, and strikin' for the deepo for shelter--near place as any
+except Briscoes' where he'd said good-night already and prob'ly don't
+wish to go back, 'fear of givin' trouble or keepin' 'em up--anybody can
+understand that. He comes along, and gets to where we are precisely at
+the time _they_ do, them comin' from town, him strikin' for it. They run
+right into each other. That's what happened. They re-_cog_-nized him and
+raised up on him and let him have it. What they done it with, I don't
+know; we took everything in that line off of 'em; prob'ly used railroad
+iron; and what they done with him afterwards we don't know; but we will
+by night. They'll sweat it out of 'em up at Rouen when they get 'em."
+
+"I reckon maybe some of us might help," remarked Mr. Watts,
+reflectively.
+
+Jim Bardlock swore a violent oath. "That's the talk!" he shouted. "Ef I
+ain't the first man of this crowd to set my foot in Roowun, an' first to
+beat in that jail door, an' take 'em out an' hang 'em by the neck till
+they're dead, dead, dead, I'm not Town Marshal of Plattville, County of
+Carlow, State of Indiana, and the Lord have mercy on our souls!"
+
+Tom Martin looked at the brown stain and quickly turned away; then he
+went back slowly to the village. On the way he passed Warren Smith.
+
+"Is it so?" asked the lawyer.
+
+Martin answered with a dry throat. He looked out dimly over the sunlit
+fields, and swallowed once or twice. "Yes, it's so. There's a good deal
+of it there. Little more than a boy he was." The old fellow passed his
+seamy hand over his eyes without concealment. "Peter ain't very bright,
+sometimes, it seems to me," he added, brokenly; "overlook Bodeffer and
+Fisbee and me and all of us old husks, and--and--" he gulped suddenly,
+then finished--"and act the fool and take a boy that's the best we had.
+I wish the Almighty would take Peter off the gate; he ain't fit fer it."
+
+When the attorney reached the spot where the crowd was thickest, way
+was made for him. The old colored man, Xenophon, approached at the
+same time, leaning on a hickory stick and bent very far over, one hand
+resting on his hip as if to ease a rusty joint. The negro's age was
+an incentive to fable; from his appearance he might have known the
+prophets, and he wore that hoary look of unearthly wisdom many decades
+of superstitious experience sometimes give to members of his race.
+His face, so tortured with wrinkles that it might have been made of
+innumerable black threads woven together, was a living mask of the
+mystery of his blood. Harkless had once said that Uncle Xenophon had
+visited heaven before Swedenborg and hell before Dante. To-day, as he
+slowly limped over the ties, his eyes were bright and dry under the
+solemn lids, and, though his heavy nostrils were unusually distended in
+the effort for regular breathing, the deeply puckered lips beneath them
+were set firmly.
+
+He stopped and looked at the faces before him. When he spoke his voice
+was gentle, and though the tremulousness of age harped on the vocal
+strings, it was rigidly controlled. "Kin some kine gelmun," he asked,
+"please t'be so good ez t' show de ole main whuh de W'ite-Caips is done
+shoot Marse Hawkliss?"
+
+"Here was where it happened, Uncle Zen," answered Wiley, leaning him
+forward. "Here is the stain."
+
+Xenophon bent over the spot on the sand, making little odd noises in his
+throat. Then he painfully resumed his former position. "Dass his blood,"
+he said, in the same gentle, quavering tone. "Dass my bes' frien' whut
+lay on de groun' whuh yo staind, gelmun."
+
+There was a pause, and no one spoke.
+
+"Dass whuh day laid 'im an' dass whuh he lie," the old negro continued.
+"Dey shot 'im in de fiels. Dey ain' shot 'im hear-yondeh dey drugged
+'im, but dis whuh he lie." He bent over again, then knelt, groaningly,
+and placed his hand on the stain, one would have said, as a man might
+place his hand over a heart to see if it still beat. He was motionless,
+with the air of hearkening.
+
+"Marse, honey, is you gone?" He raised his voice as if calling, "Is you
+gone, suh?--Marse?"
+
+He looked up at the circle about him, and, still kneeling, not taking
+his hand from the sand, seeming to wait for a sign, to listen for a
+voice, he said: "Whafo' you gelmun think de good Lawd summon Marse
+Hawkliss? Kaze he de mos' fittes'? You know dat man he ketch me in de
+cole night, wintuh 'to' lais', stealin' 'is wood. You know whut he done
+t'de ole thief? Tek an' bull' up big fiah een ole Zen' shainty; say,
+'He'p yo'se'f an' welcome. Reckon you hongry, too, ain' you, Xenophon?'
+Tek an' feed me. Tek an' tek keer o' me ev' since. Ah pump de baith full
+in de mawin'; mek 'is bed; pull de weeds out'n of de front walk--dass
+all. He tek me in. When Ah aisk 'im ain' he fraid keep ole thief he say,
+jesso: 'Dass all my fault, Xenophon; ought look you up long 'go; ought
+know long 'go you be cole dese baid nights. Reckon Ahm de thievenest one
+us two, Xenophon, keepin' all dis wood stock' up when you got none,' he
+say, jesso. Tek me in; say he _lahk_ a thief. Pay me sala'y. Feed me.
+Dass de main whut de Caips gone shot lais' night." He raised his head
+sharply, and the mystery in his gloomy eyes intensified as they opened
+wide and stared at the sky, unseeingly.
+
+"Ise bawn wid a cawl!" he exclaimed, loudly. His twisted frame was
+braced to an extreme tension. "Ise bawn wid a cawl! De blood anssuh!"
+
+"It wasn't the Cross-Roads, Uncle Xenophon," said Warren Smith, laying
+his hand on the old man's shoulder.
+
+Xenophon rose to his feet. He stretched a long, bony arm straight to the
+west, where the Cross-Roads lay; stood rigid and silent, like a seer;
+then spoke:
+
+"De men whut shot Marse Hawkliss lies yondeh, hidin' f'um de light o'
+day. An' _him_"--he swerved his whole rigid body till the arm pointed
+northwest--"he lies yondeh. You won't find him heah. Dey fought 'im een
+de fiel's an' dey druggen 'im heah. Dis whim dey lay 'im down. Ise bawn
+wid a cawl!"
+
+There were exclamations from the listeners, for Xenophon spoke as one
+having authority. Suddenly he turned and pointed his outstretched hand
+full at Judge Briscoe.
+
+"An' dass de main," he cried, "dass de main kin tell you Ah speak de
+trufe."
+
+Before he was answered, Eph Watts looked at Briscoe keenly and then
+turned to Lige Willetts and whispered: "Get on your horse, ride in, and
+ring the court-house bell like the devil. Do as I say!"
+
+Tears stood in the judge's eyes. "It is so," he said, solemnly. "He
+speaks the truth. I didn't mean to tell it to-day, but somehow--" He
+paused. "The hounds!" he cried. "They deserve it! My daughter saw them
+crossing the fields in the night--saw them climb the fence, hoods,
+gowns, and all, a big crowd of them. She and the lady who is visiting
+us saw them, saw them plainly. The lady saw them several times, clear as
+day, by the flashes of lightning--the scoundrels were coming this way.
+They must have been dragging him with them then. He couldn't have had a
+show for his life amongst them. Do what you like--maybe they've got him
+at the Cross-Roads. If there's a chance of it--dead or alive--bring him
+back!"
+
+A voice rang out above the clamor that followed the judge's speech.
+
+"'Bring him back!' God could, maybe, but He won't. Who's travelling
+my way? I go west!" Hartley Bowlder had ridden his sorrel up the
+embankment, and the horse stood between the rails. There was an angry
+roar from the crowd; the prosecutor pleaded and threatened unheeded; and
+as for the deputy sheriff, he declared his intention of taking with him
+all who wished to go as his posse. Eph Watts succeeded in making himself
+heard above the tumult.
+
+"The Square!" he shouted. "Start from the Square. We want everybody, and
+we'll need them. We want every one in Carlow to be implicated in this
+posse."
+
+"They will be!" shouted a farmer. "Don't you worry about that."
+
+"We want to get into some sort of shape," cried Eph.
+
+"Shape, hell!" said Hartley Bowlder.
+
+There was a hiss and clang and rattle behind him, and a steam whistle
+shrieked. The crowd divided, and Hartley's sorrel jumped just in time as
+the westbound accommodation rushed through on its way to Rouen. From the
+rear platform leaned the sheriff, Horner, waving his hands frantically
+as he flew by, but no one understood--or cared--what he said, or, in the
+general excitement, even wondered why he was leaving the scene of
+his duty at such a time. When the train had dwindled to a dot and
+disappeared, and the noise of its rush grew faint, the court-house bell
+was heard ringing, and the mob was piling pell-mell into the village to
+form on the Square. The judge stood alone on the embankment.
+
+"That settles it," he said aloud, gloomily, watching the last figures.
+He took off his hat and pushed back the thick, white hair from his
+forehead. "Nothing to do but wait. Might as well go home for that. Blast
+it!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "I don't want to go there. It's too hard
+on the little girl. If she hadn't come till next week she'd never have
+known John Harkless."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. JOHN BROWN'S BODY
+
+All morning horsemen had been galloping through Six-Cross-Roads,
+sometimes singly, oftener in company. At one-o'clock the last posse
+passed through on its return to the county-seat, and after that there
+was a long, complete silence, while the miry corners were undisturbed by
+a single hoof-beat. No unkempt colt nickered from his musty stall; the
+sparse young corn that was used to rasp and chuckle greenly stood rigid
+in the fields. Up the Plattville pike despairingly cackled one old
+hen, with her wabbling sailor run, smit with a superstitious horror of
+nothing, in the stillness; she hid herself in the shadow underneath a
+rickety barn, and her shrieking ceased.
+
+Only on the Wimby farm were there signs of life. The old lady who had
+sent Harkless roses sat by the window all morning and wiped her eyes,
+watching the horsemen ride by; sometimes they would hail her and tell
+her there was nothing yet. About two-o'clock, her husband rattled up
+in a buckboard, and got out the late, and more authentic, Mr. Wimby's
+shot-gun, which he carefully cleaned and oiled, in spite of its
+hammerless and quite useless condition, sitting, meanwhile, by the
+window opposite his wife, and often looking up from his work to shake
+his weak fist at his neighbors' domiciles and creak decrepit curses and
+denunciations.
+
+But the Cross-Roads was ready. It knew what was coming now. Frightened,
+desperate, sullen, it was ready.
+
+The afternoon wore on, and lengthening shadows fell upon a peaceful--one
+would have said, a sleeping--country. The sun-dried pike, already dusty,
+stretched its serene length between green borders flecked with purple
+and yellow and white weedflowers; and the tree shadows were not shade,
+but warm blue and lavender glows in the general pervasion of still,
+bright light, the sky curving its deep, unburnished, penetrable blue
+over all, with no single drift of fleece upon it to be reflected in
+the creek that wound along past willow and sycamore. A woodpecker's
+telegraphy broke the quiet like a volley of pistol shots.
+
+But far eastward on the pike there slowly developed a soft, white haze.
+It grew denser and larger. Gradually it rolled nearer. Dimly behind it
+could be discerned a darker, moving nucleus that extended far back upon
+the road. A heavy tremor began to stir the air--faint manifold sounds, a
+waxing, increasing, multitudinous rumor.
+
+The pike ascended a long, slight slope leading west up to the
+Cross-Roads. From a thicket of iron-weed at the foot of this slope was
+thrust the hard, lean visage of an undersized girl of fourteen. Her
+fierce eyes examined the approaching cloud of dust intently. A redness
+rose under the burnt yellow skin and colored the wizened cheeks.
+
+They were coming.
+
+She stepped quickly out of the tangle, and darted up the road, running
+with the speed of a fleet little terrier, not opening her lips, not
+calling out, but holding her two thin hands high above her head.
+That was all. But Birnam wood was come to Dunsinane at last, and the
+messenger sped. Out of the weeds in the corners of the snake fence,
+in the upper part of the rise, silently lifted the heads of men whose
+sallowness became a sickish white as the child flew by.
+
+The mob was carefully organized. They had taken their time and had
+prepared everything deliberately, knowing that nothing could stop them.
+No one had any thought of concealment; it was all as open as the light
+of day, all done in the broad sunshine. Nothing had been determined as
+to what was to be done at the Cross-Roads more definite than that the
+place was to be wiped out. That was comprehensive enough; the details
+were quite certain to occur. They were all on foot, marching in fairly
+regular ranks. In front walked Mr. Watts, the man Harkless had abhorred
+in a public spirit and befriended in private--to-day he was a hero and
+a leader, marching to avenge his professional oppressor and personal
+brother. Cool, unruffled, and, to outward vision, unarmed, marching the
+miles in his brown frock coat and generous linen, his carefully creased
+trousers neatly turned up out of the dust, he led the way. On one side
+of him were the two Bowlders, on the other was Lige Willetts, Mr.
+Watts preserving peace between the two young men with perfect tact and
+sang-froid.
+
+They kept good order and a similitude of quiet for so many, except
+far to the rear, where old Wilkerson was bringing up the tail of the
+procession, dragging a wretched yellow dog by a slip-noose fastened
+around the poor cur's protesting neck, the knot carefully arranged under
+his right ear. In spite of every command and protest, Wilkerson had
+marched the whole way uproariously singing, "John Brown's Body."
+
+The sun was in the west when they came in sight of the Cross-Roads, and
+the cabins on the low slope stood out angularly against the radiance
+beyond. As they beheld the hated settlement, the heretofore orderly
+ranks showed a disposition to depart from the steady advance and rush
+the shanties. Willetts, the Bowlders, Parker, Ross, Schofield, and fifty
+others did, in fact, break away and set a sharp pace up the slope.
+
+Watts tried to call them back. "What's the use your gettin' killed?" he
+shouted.
+
+"Why not?" answered Lige, who, like the others, was increasing his speed
+when old "Wimby" rose up suddenly from the roadside ahead of them, and
+motioned them frantically to go back. "They're laid out along the fence,
+waitin' fer ye," he warned them. "Git out the road. Come by the fields.
+Per the Lord's sake, spread!" Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he
+dropped down into the weeds again. Lige and those with him paused, and
+the whole body came to a halt while the leaders consulted. There was a
+sound of metallic clicking and a thin rattle of steel. From far to the
+rear came the voice of old Wilkerson:
+
+   "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
+    John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground--"
+
+A few near him, as they stood waiting, began to take up the burden of
+the song, singing in slow time like a dirge; then those further away
+took it up; it spread, reached the leaders; they, too, began to sing,
+taking off their hats as they joined in; and soon the whole concourse,
+solemn, earnest, and uncovered, was singing--a thunderous requiem for
+John Harkless.
+
+The sun was swinging lower and the edges of the world were embroidered
+with gold while that deep volume of sound shook the air, the song of a
+stern, savage, just cause--sung, perhaps, as some of the ancestors of
+these men sang with Hampden before the bristling walls of a hostile
+city. It had iron and steel in it. The men lying on their guns in the
+ambuscade along the fence heard the dirge rise and grow to its mighty
+fulness, and they shivered. One of them, posted nearest the advance,
+had his rifle carefully levelled at Lige Willetts, a fair target in the
+road. When he heard the singing, he turned to the man next behind
+him and laughed harshly: "I reckon we'll see a big jamboree in hell
+to-night, huh?"
+
+The huge murmur of the chorus expanded, and gathered in rhythmic
+strength, and swelled to power, and rolled and thundered across the
+plain.
+
+     "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
+      John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
+      John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
+               His soul goes marching on!
+      Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
+      Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
+      Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
+               His soul goes marching on!"
+
+A gun spat from the higher ground, and Willetts dropped where he stood,
+but was up again in a second, with a red line across his forehead where
+the ball had grazed his temple. Then the mob spread out like a fan,
+hundreds of men climbing the fence and beginning the advance through
+the fields, dosing on the ambuscade from both sides. Mr. Watts, wading
+through the high grass in the field north of the road, perceived the
+barrel of a gun shining from a bush some distance in front of him, and,
+although in the same second no weapon was seen in his hand, discharged a
+revolver at the bush behind the gun. Instantly ten or twelve men leaped
+from their hiding-places along the fences of both fields, and, firing
+hurriedly and harmlessly into the scattered ranks of the oncoming mob,
+broke for the shelter of the houses, where their fellows were posted.
+Taken on the flanks and from the rear, there was but one thing for
+them to do to keep from being hemmed in and shot or captured. (They
+excessively preferred being shot.) With a wild, high, joyous yell,
+sounding like the bay of young hounds breaking into view of their
+quarry, the Plattville men followed.
+
+The most eastward of the debilitated edifices of Six-Cross-Roads was the
+saloon, which bore the painted legends: on the west wall, "Last Chance";
+on the east wall, "First Chance." Next to this, and separated by two
+or three acres of weedy vacancy from the corners where the population
+centred thickest, stood-if one may so predicate of a building which
+leaned in seven directions-the house of Mr. Robert Skillett, the
+proprietor of the saloon. Both buildings were shut up as tight as their
+state of repair permitted. As they were furthest to the east, they
+formed the nearest shelter, and to them the Cross-Roaders bent their
+flight, though they stopped not here, but disappeared behind Skillett's
+shanty, putting it between them and their pursuers, whose guns were
+beginning to speak. The fugitives had a good start, and, being the
+picked runners of the Cross-Roads, they crossed the open, weedy acres in
+safety and made for their homes. Every house had become a fort, and the
+defenders would have to be fought and torn out one by one. As the guns
+sounded, a woman in a shanty near the forge began to scream, and kept on
+screaming.
+
+On came the farmers and the men of Plattville. They took the saloon at a
+run; battered down the crazy doors with a fence-rail, and swarmed inside
+like busy insects, making the place hum like a hive, but with the hotter
+industries of destruction. It was empty of life as a tomb, but they beat
+and tore and battered and broke and hammered and shattered like madmen;
+they reduced the tawdry interior to a mere chaos, and came pouring forth
+laden with trophies of ruin. And then there was a charry smell in the
+air, and a slender feather of smoke floated up from a second-story
+window.
+
+At the same time Watts led an assault on the adjoining house--an assault
+which came to a sudden pause, for, from cracks in the front wall, a
+squirrel-rifle and a shot-gun snapped and banged, and the crowd fell
+back in disorder. Homer Tibbs had a hat blown away, full of buck-shot
+holes, while Mr. Watts solicitously examined a small aperture in the
+skirts of his brown coat. The house commanded the road, and the rush of
+the mob into the village was checked, but only for the instant.
+
+A rickety woodshed, which formed a portion of the Skillett mansion,
+closely joined the "Last Chance" side of the family place of business.
+Scarcely had the guns of the defenders sounded, when, with a loud shout,
+Lige Willetts leaped from an upper window on that side of the burning
+saloon and landed on the woodshed, and, immediately climbing the roof
+of the house itself, applied a fiery brand to the time-worn clapboards.
+Ross Schofield dropped on the shed, close behind him, his arm lovingly
+enfolding a gallon jug of whiskey, which he emptied (not without evident
+regret) upon the clapboards as Lige fired them. Flames burst forth
+almost instantly, and the smoke, uniting with that now rolling out
+of every window of the saloon, went up to heaven in a cumbrous, gray
+column.
+
+As the flames began to spread, there was a rapid fusillade from the rear
+of the house, and a hundred men and more, who had kept on through the
+fields to the north, assailed it from behind. Their shots passed clear
+through the flimsy partitions, and there was a horrid screeching, like a
+beast's howls, from within. The front door was thrown open, and a lean,
+fierce-eyed girl, with a case-knife in her hand, ran out in the face of
+the mob. At sound of the shots in the rear they had begun to advance on
+the house a second time, and Hartley Bowlder was the nearest man to the
+girl. With awful words, and shrieking inconceivably, she made straight
+at Hartley, and attacked him with the knife. She struck at him again
+and again, and, in her anguish of hate and fear, was so extraordinary
+a spectacle that she gained for her companions the four or five seconds
+they needed to escape from the house. As she hurled herself alone at
+the oncoming torrent, they sped from the door unnoticed, sprang over the
+fence, and reached the open lots to the west before they were seen by
+Willetts from the roof.
+
+"Don't let 'em fool you!" he shouted. "Look to I your left! There they
+go! Don't let 'em get away."
+
+The Cross-Readers were running across the field. They were Bob Skillett
+and his younger brother, and Mr. Skillett was badly damaged: he seemed
+to be holding his jaw on his face with both hands. The girl turned, and
+sped after them. She was over the fence almost as soon as they were,
+and the three ran in single file, the girl last. She was either
+magnificently sacrificial and fearless, or she cunningly calculated that
+the regulators would take no chances of killing a woman-child, for she
+kept between their guns and her two companions, trying to cover and
+shield the latter with her frail body.
+
+"Shoot, Lige," called Watts. "If we fire from here we'll hit the girl.
+Shoot!"
+
+Willetts and Ross Schofield were still standing on the roof, at the
+edge, out of the smoke, and both fired at the same time. The fugitives
+did not turn; they kept on running, and they had nearly reached the
+other side of the field, when suddenly, without any premonitory gesture,
+the elder Skillett dropped flat on his face. The Cross-Roaders stood by
+each other that day, for four or five men ran out of the nearest shanty
+into the open, lifted the prostrate figure from the ground, and began
+to carry it back with them. But Mr. Skillett was alive; his curses were
+heard above all other sounds. Lige and Schofield fired again, and one of
+the rescuers staggered. Nevertheless, as the two men slid down from the
+roof, the burdened Cross-Readers were seen to break into a run; and at
+that, with another yell, fiercer, wilder, more joyous than the first,
+the Plattville men followed.
+
+The yell rang loudly in the ears of old Wilkerson, who had remained back
+in the road, and at the same instant he heard another shout behind him.
+Mr. Wilkerson had not shared in the attack, but, greatly preoccupied
+with his own histrionic affairs, was proceeding up the pike
+alone--except for the unhappy yellow mongrel, still dragged along by the
+slip-noose--and alternating, as was his natural wont, from one fence to
+the other; crouching behind every bush to fire an imaginary rifle at his
+dog, and then springing out, with triumphant bellowings, to fall prone
+upon the terrified animal. It was after one of these victories that a
+shout of warning was raised behind him, and Mr. Wilkerson, by grace of
+the god Bacchus, rolling out of the way in time to save his life, saw
+a horse dash by him--a big, black horse whose polished flanks were
+dripping with lather. Warren Smith was the rider. He was waving a slip
+of yellow paper high in the air.
+
+He rode up the slope, and drew rein beyond the burning buildings, just
+ahead of those foremost in the pursuit. He threw his horse across the
+road to oppose their progress, rose in his stirrups, and waved the paper
+over his head. "Stop!" he roared, "Give me one minute. Stop!" He had a
+grand voice; and he was known in many parts of the State for the great
+bass roar with which he startled his juries. To be heard at a distance
+most men lift the pitch of their voices; Smith lowered his an octave
+or two, and the result was like an earthquake playing an organ in a
+catacomb.
+
+"Stop!" he thundered. "Stop!"
+
+In answer, one of the flying Cross-Roaders turned and sent a bullet
+whistling close to him. The lawyer paused long enough to bow deeply in
+satirical response; then, flourishing the paper, he roared again: "Stop!
+A mistake! I have news! Stop, I say! Homer has got them!"
+
+To make himself heard over that tempestuous advance was a feat; for him,
+moreover, whose counsels had so lately been derided, to interest the
+pursuers at such a moment enough to make them listen--to find the
+word--was a greater; and by the word, and by gestures at once vehemently
+imperious and imploring, to stop them was still greater; but he did it.
+He had come at just the moment before the moment that would have been
+too late. They all heard him. They all knew, too, he was not trying to
+save the Cross-Roads as a matter of duty, because he had given that up
+before the mob left Plattville. Indeed, it was a question if, at the
+last, he had not tacitly approved; and no one feared indictments for
+the day's work. It would do no harm to listen to what he had to say. The
+work could wait; it would "keep" for five minutes. They began to gather
+around him, excited, flushed, perspiring, and smelling of smoke. Hartley
+Bowlder, won by Lige's desperation and intrepidity, was helping the
+latter tie up his head; no one else was hurt.
+
+"What is it?" they clamored impatiently. "Speak quick!" There was
+another harmless shot from a fugitive, and then the Cross-Roaders,
+divining that the diversion was in their favor, secured themselves in
+their decrepit fastnesses and held their fire. Meanwhile, the flames
+crackled cheerfully in Plattville ears. No matter what the prosecutor
+had to say, at least the Skillett saloon and homestead were gone, and
+Bob Skillett and one other would be sick enough to be good for a while.
+
+"Listen," cried Warren Smith, and, rising in his stirrups again, read
+the missive in his hand, a Western Union telegraph form. "Warren Smith,
+Plattville," was the direction. "Found both shell-men. Police familiar
+with both, and both wanted here. One arrested at noon in a second-hand
+clothes store, wearing Harkless's hat, also trying dispose torn
+full-dress coat known to have been worn by Harkless last night. Stains
+on lining believed blood. Second man found later at freight-yards in
+empty lumber car left Plattville 1 P.M., badly hurt, shot, and
+bruised. Supposed Harkless made hard fight. Hurt man taken to hospital
+unconscious. Will die. Hope able question him first and discover
+whereabouts body. Other man refuses talk so far. Check any movement
+Cross-Roads. This clears Skillett, etc. Come over on 9.15."
+
+The telegram was signed by Homer and by Barrett, the superintendent of
+police at Rouen.
+
+"It's all a mistake, boys," the lawyer said, as he handed the paper
+to Watts and Parker for inspection. "The ladies at the judge's
+were mistaken, that's all, and this proves it. It's easy enough to
+understand: they were frightened by the storm, and, watching a fence
+a quarter-mile away by flashes of lightning, any one would have been
+confused, and imagined all the horrors on earth. I don't deny but what I
+believed it for a while, and I don't deny but the Cross-Roads is pretty
+tough, but you've done a good deal here already, to-day, and we're
+saved in time from a mistake that would have turned out mighty bad. This
+settles it. Homer got a wire from Rouen to come over there, soon as
+they got track of the first man; that was when we saw him on the Rouen
+accommodation."
+
+A slightly cracked voice, yet a huskily tuneful one, was lifted
+quaveringly on the air from the roadside, where an old man and a yellow
+dog sat in the dust together, the latter reprieved at the last moment,
+his surprised head rakishly garnished with a hasty wreath of dog-fennel
+daisies.
+
+   "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
+            While we go marching on!"
+
+Three-quarters of an hour later, the inhabitants of the Cross-Roads,
+saved, they knew not how; guilty; knowing nothing of the fantastic
+pendulum of opinion, which, swung by the events of the day, had marked
+the fatal moment of guilt, now on others, now on them, who deserved
+it--these natives and refugees, conscious of atrocity, dumfounded by a
+miracle, thinking the world gone mad, hovered together in a dark, ragged
+mass at the crossing corners, while the skeleton of the rotting buggy
+in the slough rose behind them against the face of the west. They peered
+with stupified eyes through the smoky twilight.
+
+From afar, faintly through the gloaming, came mournfully to their ears
+the many-voiced refrain--fainter, fainter:
+
+    "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground,
+     John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground.
+     John Brown's body lies--mould--
+     ..... we go march....  on."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. JERRY THE TELLER At midnight a small brougham stopped at
+the gates of the city hospital in Rouen. A short distance ahead, the
+lamps of a cab, drawn up at the curbing, made two dull orange sparks
+under the electric light swinging over the street. A cigarette described
+a brief parabola as it was tossed from the brougham, and a short young
+man jumped out and entered the gates, then paused and spoke to the
+driver of the cab.
+
+"Did you bring Mr. Barrett here?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the driver; "him and two other gentlemen."
+
+Lighting another cigarette, from which he drew but two inspirations
+before he threw it away, the young man proceeded quickly up the walk.
+As he ascended the short flight of steps which led to the main doors,
+he panted a little, in a way which suggested that (although his
+white waistcoat outlined an ellipse still respectable) a crescendo of
+portliness was playing diminuendo with his youth. And, though his
+walk was brisk, it was not lively. The expression of his very red face
+indicated that his briskness was spurred by anxiety, and a fattish groan
+he emitted on the top step added the impression that his comfortable
+body protested against the mental spur. In the hall he removed his
+narrow-brimmed straw hat and presented a rotund and amiable head,
+from the top of which his auburn hair seemed to retire with a sense of
+defeat; it fell back, however, not in confusion, but in perfect order,
+and the sparse pink mist left upon his crown gave, by a supreme effort,
+an effect of arrangement, so that an imaginative observer would have
+declared that there was a part down the middle. The gentleman's plump
+face bore a grave and troubled expression, and gravity and trouble were
+patent in all the lines of his figure and in every gesture; in the way
+he turned his head; in the uneasy shifting of his hat from one hand to
+the other and in his fanning himself with it in a nervous fashion;
+and in his small, blue eyes, which did not twinkle behind his rimless
+glasses and looked unused to not twinkling. His gravity clothed him
+like an ill-fitting coat; or, possibly, he might have reminded the
+imaginative observer, just now conjured up, of a music-box set to
+turning its cylinder backwards.
+
+He spoke to an attendant, and was directed to an office, which he
+entered without delay. There were five men in the room, three of them
+engaged in conversation near the door; another, a young surgeon, was
+writing at a desk; the fifth drowsily nodding on a sofa. The newcomer
+bowed as he entered.
+
+"Mr. Barrett?" he said inquiringly.
+
+One of the men near the door turned about. "Yes, sir," he answered, with
+a stem disfavor of the applicant; a disfavor possibly a perquisite of
+his office. "What's wanted?"
+
+"I think I have met you," returned the other. "My name is Meredith."
+
+Mr. Barrett probably did not locate the meeting, but the name proved
+an open sesame to his geniality, for he melted at once, and saying: "Of
+course, of course, Mr. Meredith; did you want a talk with me?" clasped
+the young man's hand confidentially in his, and, with an appearance
+of assuring him that whatever the atrocity which had occurred in the
+Meredith household it should be discreetly handled and hushed up,
+indicated a disposition to conduct him toward a more appropriate
+apartment for the rehearsal of scandal. The young man accepted the
+hand-clasp with some resignation, but rejected the suggestion of
+privacy.
+
+"A telegram from Plattville reached me half an hour ago," he said. "I
+should have had it sooner, but I have been in the country all day."
+
+The two men who had been talking with the superintendent turned quickly,
+and stared at the speaker. He went on: "Mr. Harkless was an old--and--"
+He broke off, with a sudden, sharp choking, and for a moment was unable
+to control an emotion that seemed, for some reason, as surprising and
+unbefitting, in a person of his rubicund presence, as was his gravity.
+An astonished tear glittered in the corner of his eye. The grief of
+the gayer sorts of stout people appears, sometimes, to dumfound even
+themselves. The young man took off his glasses and wiped them slowly.
+"--An old and very dear friend of mine." He replaced the glasses
+insecurely upon his nose. "I telephoned to your headquarters, and they
+said you had come here."
+
+"Yes, sir; yes, sir," the superintendent of police responded,
+cheerfully. "These two gentlemen are from Plattville; Mr. Smith just
+got in. They mighty near had big trouble down there to-day, but I guess
+we'll settle things for 'em up here. Let me make you acquainted with my
+friend, Mr. Smith, and my friend, Mr. Homer. Gentlemen, my friend, Mr.
+Meredith, one of our well-known citizens."
+
+"You hear it from the police, gentlemen," added Mr. Meredith, perking up
+a little. "I know Dr. Gay." He nodded to the surgeon.
+
+"I suppose you have heard some of the circumstances--those that we've
+given out," said Barrett.
+
+"I read the account in the evening paper. I had heard of Harkless, of
+Carlow, before; but it never occurred to me that it was my friend--I had
+heard he was abroad--until I got this telegram from a relative of mine
+who happened to be down there."
+
+"Well," said the superintendent, "your friend made a mighty good fight
+before he gave up. The Teller, that's the man we've got out here, he's
+so hacked up and shot and battered his mother wouldn't know him, if she
+wanted to; at least, that's what Gay, here, says. We haven't seen him,
+because the doctors have been at him ever since he was found, and they
+expect to do some more tonight, when we've had our interview with
+him, if he lives long enough. One of my sergeants found him in, the
+freight-yards about four-o'clock and sent him here in the ambulance;
+knew it was Teller, because he was stowed away in one of the empty cars
+that came from Plattville last night, and Slattery--that's his running
+mate, the one we caught with the coat and hat--gave in that they beat
+their way on that freight. I guess Slattery let this one do most of the
+fighting; he ain't scratched; but Mr. Harkless certainly made it hot for
+the Teller."
+
+"My relative believes that Mr. Harkless is still alive," said Meredith.
+
+Mr. Barrett permitted himself an indulgent smile. He had the air of
+having long ago discovered everything which anybody might wish to know,
+and of knowing a great deal which he held in reserve because it was
+necessary to suppress many facts for a purpose far beyond his auditor's
+comprehension, though a very simple matter to himself.
+
+"Well, hardly, I expect," he replied, easily. "No; he's hardly alive."
+
+"Oh, don't say that," said Meredith.
+
+"I'm afraid Mr. Barrett has to say it," broke in Warren Smith. "We're up
+here to see this fellow before he dies, to try and get him to tell what
+disposal they made of the----"
+
+"Ah!" Meredith shivered. "I believe I'd rather he said the other than to
+hear you say that."
+
+Mr. Horner felt the need of defending a fellow-townsman, and came to the
+rescue, flushing painfully. "It's mighty bad, I know," said the sheriff
+of Carlow, the shadows of his honest, rough face falling in a solemn
+pattern; "I reckon we hate to say it as much as you hate to hear it;
+and Warren really didn't get the word out. It's stuck in our throats all
+day; and I don't recollect as I heard a single man say it before I
+left our city this morning. Our folks thought a great deal of him, Mr.
+Meredith; I don't believe there's any thinks more. But it's come to that
+now; you can't hardly see no chance left. We be'n sweating this other
+man, Slattery, but we can't break him down. Jest tells us to go to"--the
+sheriff paused, evidently deterred by the thought that swear-words were
+unbefitting a hospital--"to the other place, and shets his jaw up tight.
+The one up here is called the Teller, as Mr. Barrett says; his name's
+Jerry the Teller. Well, we told Slattery that Jerry had died and left a
+confession; tried to make him think there wasn't no hope fer him, and he
+might as well up and tell his share; might git off easier; warned him to
+look out for a mob if he didn't, maybe, and so on, but it never bothered
+him at all. He's nervy, all right. Told us to go--that is, he said it
+again--and swore the Teller was on his way to Chicago, swore he seen him
+git on the train. Wouldn't say another word tell he got a lawyer. So,
+'soon as it was any use, we come up here--they reckon he'll come to
+before he dies. We'll be glad to have you go in with us," Horner said
+kindly. "I reckon it's all the same to Mr. Barrett."
+
+"He will die, will he, Gay?" Meredith asked, turning to the surgeon.
+
+"Oh, not necessarily," the young man replied, yawning slightly behind
+his hand, and too long accustomed to straightforward questions to be
+shocked at an evident wish for a direct reply. "His chances are better,
+because they'll hang him if he gets well. They took the ball and a good
+deal of shot out of his side, and there's a lot more for afterwhile, if
+he lasts. He's been off the table an hour, and he's still going."
+
+"That's in his favor, isn't it?" said Meredith. "And extraordinary,
+too?" If young Dr. Gay perceived a slur in these interrogations he
+betrayed no exterior appreciation of it.
+
+"Shot!" exclaimed Homer. "Shot! I knowed there'd be'n a pistol used,
+though where they got it beats me--we stripped 'em--and it wasn't Mr.
+Harkless's; he never carried one. But a shot-gun!"
+
+An attendant entered and spoke to the surgeon, and Gay rose wearily,
+touched the drowsy young man on the shoulder, and led the way to the
+door. "You can come now," he said to the others; "though I doubt its
+being any good to you. He's delirious."
+
+They went down a long hall and up a narrow corridor, then stepped softly
+into a small, quiet ward.
+
+There was a pungent smell of chemicals in the room; the light was low,
+and the dimness was imbued with a thick, confused murmur, incoherent
+whisperings that came from a cot in the corner. It was the only cot in
+use in the ward, and Meredith was conscious of a terror that made him
+dread, to look at it, to go near it. Beside it a nurse sat silent, and
+upon it feebly tossed the racked body of him whom Barrett had called
+Jerry the Teller.
+
+The head was a shapeless bundle, so swathed it was with bandages
+and cloths, and what part of the face was visible was discolored and
+pigmented with drugs. Stretched under the white sheet the man looked
+immensely tall--as Horner saw with vague misgiving--and he lay in an
+odd, inhuman fashion, as though he had been all broken to pieces.
+His attempts to move were constantly soothed by the nurse, and he
+as constantly renewed such attempts; and one hand, though torn and
+bandaged, was not to be restrained from a wandering, restless movement
+which Meredith felt to be pathetic. He had entered the room with a flare
+of hate for the thug whom he had come to see die, and who had struck
+down the old friend whose nearness he had never known until it was too
+late. But at first sight of the broken figure he felt all animosity fall
+away from him; only awe remained, and a growing, traitorous pity as he
+watched the long, white fingers of the Teller "pick at the coverlet."
+The man was muttering rapid fragments of words, and syllables.
+
+"Somehow I feel a sense of wrong," Meredith whispered to Gay. "I feel as
+if I had done the fellow to death myself, as if it were all out of gear.
+I know, now, how Henry felt over the great Guisard. My God, how tall he
+looks! That doesn't seem to me like a thug's hand."
+
+The surgeon nodded. "Of course, if there's a mistake to be made, you can
+count on Barrett and his sergeants to make it. I doubt if this is their
+man. When they found him what clothes he wore were torn and stained; but
+they had been good once, especially the linen."
+
+Barrett bent over the recumbent figure. "See here. Jerry," he said, "I
+want to talk to you a little. Rouse up, will you? I want to talk to you
+as a friend."
+
+The incoherent muttering continued.
+
+"See here, Jerry!" repeated Barrett, more sharply. "Jerry! rouse up,
+will you? We don't want any fooling; understand that, Jerry!" He dropped
+his hand on the man's shoulder and shook him slightly. The Teller
+uttered a short, gasping cry.
+
+"Let me," said Gay, and swiftly interposed. Bending over the cot, he
+said in a pleasant, soft voice: "It's all right, old man; it's all
+right. Slattery wants to know what you did with that man down at
+Plattville, when you got through with him. He can't remember, and he
+thinks there was money left on him. Slattery's head was hurt--he can't
+remember. He'll go shares with you, when he gets it. Slattery's going to
+stand by you, if he can get the money."
+
+The Teller only tried to move his free hand to the shoulder Barrett had
+shaken.
+
+"Slattery wants to know," repeated the surgeon, gently moving the hand
+back upon the sheet. "He'll divvy up, when he gets it. He'll stand by
+you, old man."
+
+"Would you please not mind," whispered the Teller faintly, "would
+you please not mind if you took care not to brush against my shoulder
+again?"
+
+The surgeon drew back with an exclamation; but the Teller's whisper
+gathered strength, and they heard him murmuring oddly to himself.
+Meredith moved forward.
+
+"What's that?" he asked, with a startled gesture.
+
+"Seems to be trying to sing, or something," said Barrett, bending over
+to listen. The Teller swung his arm heavily over the side of the cot,
+the fingers never ceasing their painful twitching, and Gay leaned down
+and gently moved the cloths so that the white, scarred lips were free.
+They moved steadily; they seemed to be framing the semblance of an old
+ballad that Meredith knew; the whisper grew more distinct, and it became
+a rich but broken voice, and they heard it singing, like the sound of
+some far, halting minstrelsy:
+
+"Wave willows--murmur waters--golden sunbeams smile, Earthly
+music--cannot waken--lovely--Annie Lisle."
+
+"My God!" cried Tom Meredith.
+
+The bandaged hand waved jauntily over the Teller's head. "Ah, men," he
+said, almost clearly, and tried to lift himself on his arm, "I tell
+you it's a grand eleven we have this year! There will be little left of
+anything that stands against them. Did you see Jim Romley ride over his
+man this afternoon?"
+
+As the voice grew clearer the sheriff stepped forward, but Tom Meredith,
+with a loud exclamation of grief, threw himself on his knees beside
+the cot and seized the wandering fingers in his own. "John!" he cried.
+"John! Is it _you_?"
+
+The voice went on rapidly, not heeding him: "Ah, you needn't howl; I'd
+have been as much use at right as that Sophomore. Well, laugh away, you
+Indians! If it hadn't been for this ankle--but it seems to be my chest
+that's hurt--and side--not that it matters, you know; the Sophomore's
+just as good, or better. It's only my egotism. Yes, it must be
+the side--and chest--and head--all over, I believe. Not that it
+matters--I'll try again next year--next year I'll make it a daily, Helen
+said, not that I should call you Helen--I mean Miss--Miss--Fisbee--no,
+Sherwood--but I've always thought Helen was the prettiest name in the
+world--you'll forgive me?--And please tell Parker there's no more
+copy, and won't be--I wouldn't grind out another stick to save
+his immortal--yes, yes, a daily--she said-ah, I never made a good
+trade--no--they can't come seven miles--but I'll finish _you_, Skillett,
+first; I know _you_! I know nearly all of you! Now let's sing 'Annie
+Lisle.'" He lifted his hand as if to beat the time for a chorus.
+
+"Oh, John, John!" cried Tom Meredith, and sobbed outright. "My boy--my
+boy--old friend----" The cry of the classmate was like that of a mother,
+for it was his old idol and hero who lay helpless and broken before him.
+
+
+
+The brougham lamps and the apathetic sparks of the cab gleamed in front
+of the hospital till daylight. Two other pairs of lamps joined them
+in the earliest of the small hours, these subjoined to two deep-hooded
+phaetons, from each of which quickly descended a gentleman with a beard,
+an air of eminence, and a small, ominous black box. The air of eminence
+was justified by the haste with which Meredith had sent for them, and by
+their wide repute. They arrived almost simultaneously, and hastily shook
+hands as they made their way to the ward down the long hall and up the
+narrow corridor. They had a short conversation with Gay and a word
+with the nurse, then turned the others out of the room by a practiced
+innuendo of manner. They stayed a long time in the room without opening
+the door. Meredith paced the hall alone, sometimes stopping to speak
+to Warren Smith; but the two officials of peace sat together in dumb
+consternation and astonishment. The sleepy young man relaxed himself
+resignedly upon a bench in the hall had returned to the dormance from
+which he had been roused. The big hospital was very still. Now and then
+a nurse went through the hall, carrying something, and sometimes a
+neat young physician passed cheerfully along, looking as if he had many
+patients who were well enough to testify to his skill, but sick enough
+to pay for it. Outside, through the open front doors, the crickets
+chirped.
+
+Meredith went out on the steps, and breathed the cool night air. A
+slender taint of drugs hung everywhere about the building, and the
+almost imperceptible permeation sickened him; it was deadly, he thought,
+and imbued with a hideous portent of suffering. That John Harkless, of
+all men, should lie stifled with ether, and bandaged and splintered,
+and smeared with horrible unguents, while they stabbed and slashed
+and tortured him, and made an outrage and a sin of that grand, big,
+dexterous body of his! Meredith shuddered. The lights in the little
+ward were turned up, and they seemed to shine from a chamber of
+horrors, while he waited, as a brother might have waited outside the
+Inquisition--if, indeed, a brother would have been allowed to wait
+outside the Inquisition.
+
+Alas, he had found John Harkless! He had "lost track" of him as men
+sometimes do lose track of their best beloved, but it had always been a
+comfort to know that Harkless _was_--somewhere, a comfort without which
+he could hardly have got along. Like others he had been waiting for John
+to turn up--on top, of course; for people would always believe in him
+so, that he would be shoved ahead, no matter how much he hung back
+himself--but Meredith had not expected him to turn up in Indiana. He had
+heard vaguely that Harkless was abroad, and he had a general expectation
+that people would hear of him over there some day, with papers like the
+"Times" beseeching him to go on missions. And he found him here, in his
+own home, a stranger, alone and dying, receiving what ministrations were
+reserved for Jerry the Teller. But it was Helen Sherwood who had found
+him. He wondered how much those two had seen of each other, down there
+in Plattville. If they had liked each other, and Harkless could have
+lived, he thought it might have simplified some things for Helen. "Poor
+Helen!" he exclaimed aloud. Her telegram had a ring, even in the barren
+four sentences. He wondered how much they had liked each other. Perhaps
+she would wish to come at once. When those fellows came out of the room
+he would send her a word by telegraph.
+
+When they came out--ah! he did not want them to come out; he was afraid.
+They were an eternity--why didn't they come? No; he hoped they would not
+come, just now. In a little time, in a few minutes, even, he would not
+dread a few words so much; but _now_ he couldn't quite bear to be told
+he had found his friend only to lose him, the man he had always most
+needed, wanted, loved. Everybody had always cared for Harkless, wherever
+he went. That _he_ had always cared for everybody was part of the
+reason, maybe. Meredith remembered, now, hearing a man who had spent a
+day in Plattville on business speak of him: "They've got a young fellow
+down there who'll be Governor in a few years. He's a sort of dictator;
+and runs the party all over that part of the State to suit his own sweet
+will, just by sheer personality. And there isn't a man in that district
+who wouldn't cheerfully lie down in the mud to let him pass over dry.
+It's that young Harkless, you know; owns the 'Herald,' the paper
+that downed McCune and smashed those imitation 'White-Caps' in Carlow
+County." Meredith had been momentarily struck by the coincidence of the
+name, but his notion of Harkless was so inseparably connected with
+what was (to his mind) a handsome and more spacious--certainly more
+illuminated--field of action, that the idea that this might be his
+friend never entered his head. Helen had said something once--he could
+not remember what--that made him think she had half suspected it, and
+he had laughed. He thought of the whimsical fate that had taken her to
+Plattville, of the reason for her going, and the old thought came to
+him that the world is, after all, so very small. He looked up at the
+twinkling stars; they were reassuring and kind. Under their benignancy
+no loss could befall, no fate miscarry--for in his last thought he felt
+his vision opened, for the moment, to perceive a fine tracery of fate.
+
+"Ah, that would be too beautiful!" he said.
+
+And then he shivered; for his name was spoken from within.
+
+It was soon plain to him that he need not have feared a few words, for
+he did not in the least understand those with which the eminent surgeons
+favored him; and they at once took their departure. He did understand,
+however, what Horner told him. Mr. Barrett, Warren Smith, and the sleepy
+young man had reentered the ward; and Horner was following, but waited
+for Meredith. Somehow, the look of the sheriff's Sunday coat, wrinkling
+forlornly from his broad, bent shoulders, was both touching and solemn.
+He said simply: "He's conscious and not out of his head. They're gone in
+to take his ante-mortem statement," and they went into the room.
+
+Harkless's eyes were bandaged. The lawyer was speaking to him, and as
+Horner went awkwardly toward the cot. Warren said something indicative
+of the sheriff's presence, and the hand on the sheet made a formless
+motion which Horner understood, for he took the pale fingers in his own,
+very gently, and then set them back. Smith turned toward Meredith, but
+the latter made a gesture which forbade the attorney to speak of him,
+and went to a corner and sat down with his head in his hands.
+
+The sleepy young man opened a notebook and shook a stylographic pen so
+that the ink might flow freely. The lawyer, briefly and with unlegal
+agitation, administered an oath, to which Harkless responded feebly, and
+then there was silence.
+
+"Now, Mr. Harkless, if you please," said Barrett, insinuatingly; "if you
+feel like telling us as much as you can about it?"
+
+He answered in a low, rather indistinct voice, very deliberately,
+pausing before almost every word. It was easy work for the sleepy
+stenographer.
+
+"I understand. I don't want to go off my head again before I finish.
+Of course I know why you want this. If it were only for myself I should
+tell you nothing, because, if I am to leave, I should like it better if
+no one were punished. But that's a bad community over there; they are
+everlastingly worrying our people; they have always been a bother to
+us, and it's time it was stopped for good. I don't believe very much
+in punishment, but you can't do a great deal of reforming with the
+Cross-Roaders unless you catch them young--very young, before they're
+weaned--they wean them on whiskey, I think. I realize you needn't have
+sworn me for me to tell you this."
+
+Homer and Smith had started at the mention of the Cross-Roads, but they
+subdued their ejaculations, while Mr. Barrett looked as if he had known
+it, of course. The room was still, save for the dim voice and the soft
+transcribings of the stylographic pen.
+
+"I left Judge Briscoe's, and went west on the pike to a big tree. It
+rained, and I stepped under the tree for shelter. There was a man on the
+other side of the fence. It was Bob Skillett. He was carrying his gown
+and hood--I suppose it was that--on his arm. Then I saw two others a
+little farther east, in the middle of the road; and I think they had
+followed me from the Briscoes', or near there. They had their foolish
+regalia on, as all the rest had,--there was plenty of lightning to see.
+The two in the road were simply standing there in the rain, looking
+at me through the eye-holes in their hoods. I knew there were
+others--plenty--but I thought they were coming from behind me--the west.
+
+"I wanted to get home--the court-house yard was good enough for me--so I
+started east, toward town. I passed the two gentlemen; and one fell down
+as I went by him, but the other fired a shot as a signal, and I got
+his hood off his face for it--I stopped long enough--and it was Force
+Johnson. I know him well. Then I ran, and they followed. A little ahead
+of me I saw six or eight of them spread across the road. I knew I'd have
+a time getting through, so I jumped the fence to cut across the fields,
+and I lit in a swarm of them--it had rained them just where I jumped. I
+set my back to the fence, but one of the fellows in the road leaned over
+and smashed my head in, rather--with the butt of a gun, I believe. I
+came out from the fence and they made a little circle around me. No
+one said anything. I saw they had ropes and saplings, and I didn't want
+that, exactly, so I went into them. I got a good many hoods off before
+it was over, and I can swear to quite a number besides those I told
+you."
+
+He named the men, slowly and carefully. Then he went on: "I think
+they gave up the notion of whipping. We all got into a bunch, and they
+couldn't clear to shoot without hitting some of their own: and there was
+a lot of gouging and kicking--one fellow nearly got my left eye, and
+I tried to tear him apart and he screamed so that I think he was hurt.
+Once or twice I thought I might get away, but somebody hammered me over
+the head and face again, and I got dizzy; and then they all jumped away
+from me suddenly, and Bob Skillett stepped up--and--shot me. He waited
+for a good flurry of lightning, and I was slow tumbling down. Some one
+else fired a shot-gun, I think--I can't be sure--about the same time,
+from the side. I tried to get up, but I couldn't, and then they got
+together, for a consultation. The man I had hurt--I didn't recognize
+him--came and looked at me. He was nursing himself all over; and
+groaned; and I laughed, I--at any rate, my arm was lying stretched out
+on the grass, and he stamped his heel into my hand, and after a little
+of that I quit feeling.
+
+"I'm not quite clear about what happened afterwards. They went away, not
+far, I think. There's an old shed, a cattle-shelter, near there, and
+I think the storm drove them under it to wait for a slack. It seemed a
+long time. Sometimes I was conscious, sometimes I wasn't. I thought
+I might be drowned, but I suppose the rain was good for me. Then I
+remember being in motion, being dragged and carried a long way. They
+took me up a steep, short slope, and set me down near the top. I knew
+that was the railroad embankment, and I thought they meant to lay me
+across the track, but it didn't occur to them, I suppose--they are not
+familiar with melodrama--and a long time after that I felt and heard a
+great banging and rattling under me and all about me, and it came to me
+that they had disposed of me by hoisting me into an empty freight-car.
+The odd part of it was that the car wasn't empty, for there were two men
+already in it, and I knew them by what they said to me.
+
+"They were the two shell-men who cheated Hartley Bowlder, and they
+weren't vindictive; they even seemed to be trying to help me a little,
+though perhaps they were only stealing my clothes, and maybe they
+thought for them to do anything unpleasant would be superfluous; I could
+see that they thought I was done for, and that they had been hiding in
+the car when I was put there. I asked them to try to call the train
+men for me, but they wouldn't listen, or else I couldn't make myself
+understood. That's all. The rest is a blur. I haven't known anything
+more until those surgeons were here. Please tell me how long ago it
+happened. I shall not die, I think; there are a good many things I want
+to know about." He moved restlessly and the nurse soothed him.
+
+Meredith rose and left the room with a noiseless step. He went out
+to the stars again, and looked to them to check the storm of rage and
+sorrow that buffeted his bosom. He understood lynching, now the thing
+was home to him, and his feeling was no inspiration of a fear lest the
+law miscarry; it was the itch to get his own hand on the rope. Horner
+came out presently, and whispered a long, broad, profound curse upon
+the men of the Cross-Roads, and Meredith's gratitude to him was keen.
+Barrett went away, soon after, leaving the cab for the gentlemen from
+Plattville. Meredith had a strange, unreasonable desire to kick Barrett,
+possibly for his sergeant's sake. Warren Smith sat in the ward with the
+nurse and Gay, and the room was very quiet. It was a long vigil.
+
+They were only waiting.
+
+At five o'clock he was still alive--just that, Smith came out to say.
+Meredith sent his driver with a telegram to Helen which would give
+Plattville the news that Harkless was found and was not yet gone from
+them. Homer took the cab and left for the station; there was a train,
+and there were things for him to do in Carlow. At noon Meredith sent
+a second telegram to Helen, as barren of detail as the first: he was
+alive--was a little improved. This telegram did not reach her, for she
+was on the way to Rouen, and half of the population of Carlow--at least,
+so it appeared to the unhappy conductor of the accommodation--was with
+her.
+
+They seemed to feel that they could camp in the hospital halls and
+corridors, and they were an incalculable worry to the authorities. More
+came on every train, and nearly all brought flowers, and jelly, and
+chickens for preparing broth, and they insisted that the two latter
+delicacies be fed to the patient at once. Meredith was possessed by an
+unaccountable responsibility for them all, and invited a great many to
+stay at his own house. They were still in ignorance of the truth about
+the Cross-Roads, and some of them spent the day (it was Sunday) in
+planning an assault upon the Rouen jail for the purpose of lynching
+Slattery in case Harkless's condition did not improve at once. Those who
+had heard his statement kept close mouths until the story appeared
+in full in the Rouen papers on Monday morning; but by that time every
+member of the Cross-Roads White-Caps was lodged in the Rouen jail with
+Slattery. Homer and a heavily armed posse rode over to the muddy corners
+on Sunday night, and the sheriff discovered that he might have taken the
+Skilletts and Johnsons single-handed and unarmed. Their nerve was
+gone; they were shaken and afraid; and, to employ a figure somewhat
+inappropriate to their sullen, glad surrender, they fell upon his neck
+in their relief at finding the law touching them. They had no wish to
+hear "John Brown's Body" again. They wanted to get inside of a strong
+jail, and to throw themselves on the mercy of the court as soon as
+possible. And those whom Harkless had not recognized delayed not to give
+themselves up; they did not desire to remain in Six-Cross-Roads. Bob
+Skillett, Force Johnson, and one or two others needed the care of a
+physician badly, and one man was suffering from a severely wrenched
+back. Homer had a train stopped at a crossing, so that his prisoners
+need not be taken through Plattville, and he brought them all safely
+to Rouen. Had there chanced any one to ride through the deserted
+Cross-Roads the next morning, passing the trampled fields and the
+charred ruins of the two shanties to the east, and listening to the
+lamentations of the women and children, he would have declared that at
+last the old score had been paid, and that Six-Cross-Roads was wiped
+out.
+
+The Carlow folks were deeply impressed with the two eminent surgeons,
+of whom some of them had heard, and on Tuesday, the bulletins marking
+considerable encouragement, most of them decided to temporarily risk the
+editor of the "Herald" to such capable hands, and they returned quietly
+to their homes; only a few were delayed in reaching Carlow by travelling
+to the first station in the opposite direction before they succeeded in
+planting themselves on the proper train.
+
+Meanwhile, the object of their solicitude tossed and burned on his bed
+of pain. He was delirious most of the time, and, in the intervals of
+half-consciousness, found that his desire to live, very strong at first,
+had disappeared; he did not care much about anything except rest--he
+wanted peace. In his wanderings he was almost always back in his college
+days, beholding them in an unhappy, distorted fashion. He would lie
+asprawl on the sward with the others, listening to the Seniors singing
+on the steps, and, all at once, the old, kindly faces would expand
+enormously and press over him with hideous mouthings, and an ugly Senior
+in cap and gown would stamp him and grind a spiked heel into his hand;
+then they would toss him high into air that was all flames, and he would
+fall and fall through the raging heat, seeing the cool earth far beneath
+him, but never able to get down to it again. And then he was driven
+miles and miles by dusky figures, through a rain of boiling water; and
+at other times the whole universe was a vast, hot brass bell, and it
+gave off a huge, continuous roar and hum, while he was a mere point of
+consciousness floating in the exact centre of the heat and sound waves,
+and he listened, listened for years, to the awful, brazen hum from which
+there could be no escape; at the same time it seemed to him that he was
+only a Freshman on the slippery roof of the tower, trying to steal the
+clapper of the chapel bell.
+
+Finally he came to what he would have considered a lucid interval, had
+it not appeared that Helen Sherwood was whispering to Tom Meredith at
+the foot of his bed. This he knew to be a fictitious presentation of
+his fever, for was she not by this time away and away for foreign lands?
+And, also, Tom Meredith was a slim young thing, and not the middle-aged
+youth with an undeniable stomach and a baldish head, who, by the
+grotesque necromancy of his hallucinations, assumed a preposterous
+likeness to his old friend. He waved his hand to the figures and they
+vanished like figments of a dream; but all the same the vision had been
+realistic enough for the lady to look exquisitely pretty. No one could
+help wishing to stay in a world which contained as charming a picture as
+that.
+
+And then, too quickly, the moment of clearness passed; and he was
+troubled about the "Herald," beseeching those near him to put copies
+of the paper in his hands, threatening angrily to believe they were
+deceiving him, that his paper had suspended, if the three issues of
+the week were not instantly produced. What did they mean by keeping the
+truth from him? He knew the "Herald" had not come out. Who was there to
+get it out in his absence? He raised himself on his elbow and struggled
+to be up; and they had hard work to quiet him.
+
+But the next night Meredith waited near his bedside, haggard and
+dishevelled. Harkless had been lying in a long stupor; suddenly he
+spoke, quite loudly, and the young surgeon, Gay, who leaned over him,
+remembered the words and the tone all his life.
+
+"Away and away--across the waters," said John Harkless. "She was
+here--once--in June."
+
+"What is it, John?" whispered Meredith, huskily. "You're easier, aren't
+you?"
+
+And John smiled a little, as if, for an instant, his swathed eyes
+penetrated the bandages, and saw and knew his old friend again.
+
+That same night a friend of Rodney McCune's sent a telegram from Rouen:
+"He is dying. His paper is dead. Your name goes before convention in
+September."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. JAMES FISBEE
+
+On Monday morning three men sat in council in the "Herald" office; that
+is, if staring out of dingy windows in a demented silence may be
+called sitting in council; that was what Mr. Fisbee and Parker and Ross
+Schofield were doing. By almost desperate exertions, these three and Bud
+Tipworthy had managed to place before the public the issues of the paper
+for the previous week, unaided by their chief, or, rather, aided by long
+accounts of his condition and the manner of his mishap; and, in
+truth, three copies were at that moment in the possession of Dr. Gay,
+accompanied by a note from Parker warning the surgeon to exhibit them to
+his patient only as a last resort, as the foreman feared the perusal of
+them might cause a relapse.
+
+By indiscriminate turns, acting as editors, reporters, and
+typesetters--and particularly space-writers--the three men had worried
+out three issues, and part of the fourth (to appear the next morning)
+was set up; but they had come to the end of their string, and there were
+various horrid gaps yet to fill in spite of a too generous spreading of
+advertisements. Bud Tipworthy had been sent out to besiege Miss Tibbs,
+all of whose recent buds of rhyme had been hot-housed into inky blossom
+during the week, and after a long absence the youth returned with a
+somewhat abrupt quatrain, entitled "The Parisians of Old," which she had
+produced while he waited--only four lines, according to the measure they
+meted, which was not regardful of art--less than a drop in the bucket,
+or, to preserve the figure, a single posy where they needed a bouquet.
+Bud went down the rickety outside stairs, and sat on the lowest
+step, whistling "Wait till the Clouds Roll by, Jenny"; Ross Schofield
+descended to set up the quatrain, and Fisbee and Parker were left to
+silence and troubled meditation.
+
+They were seated on opposite sides of Harkless's desk. Sheets of blank
+scratch-paper lay before them, and they relaxed not their knit brows.
+Now and then, one of them, after gazing vacantly about the room for
+ten or fifteen minutes, would attack the sheet before him with fiercest
+energy; then the energy would taper off, and the paragraph halt, the
+writer peruse it dubiously, then angrily tear off the sheet and hurl
+it to the floor. All around them lay these snowballs of defeated
+journalism.
+
+Mr. Parker was a long, loose, gaunt gentleman, with a peremptory
+forehead and a capable jaw, but on the present occasion his capability
+was baffled and swamped in the attempt to steer the craft of his talent
+up an unaccustomed channel without a pilot. "I don't see as it's any
+use, Fisbee," he said, morosely, after a series of efforts that littered
+the floor in every direction. "I'm a born compositor, and I can't shift
+my trade. I stood the pace fairly for a week, but I'll have to give up;
+I'm run plumb dry. I only hope they won't show him our Saturday with
+your three columns of 'A Word of the Lotus Motive,' reprinted from
+February. I begin to sympathize with the boss, because I know what he
+felt when I ballyragged him for copy. Yes, sir, I know how it is to be
+an editor in a dead town now."
+
+"We must remember, too," said his companion, thoughtfully, "there is the
+Thursday issue of this week to be prepared, almost at once."
+
+"_Don't_! Please don't mention that, Fisbee!" Parker tilted far back in
+his chair with his feet anchored under the desk, preserving a precarious
+balance. "I ain't as grateful for my promotion to joint Editor-in-Chief
+as I might be. I'm a middling poor man for the hour, I guess," he
+remarked, painfully following the peregrinations of a fly on his
+companion's sleeve.
+
+Mr. Fisbee twisted up another sheet, and employed his eyes in following
+the course of a crack in the plaster, a slender black aperture which
+staggered across the dusty ceiling and down the dustier wall to
+disappear behind a still dustier map of Carlow County. "That's the
+trouble!" exclaimed Parker, observing the other's preoccupation. "Soon
+as you get to writing a line or two that seems kind of promising, you
+begin to take a morbid interest in that blamed crack. It's busted up
+enough copy for me, the last eight days, to have filled her up twenty
+times over. I don't know as I ever care to see that crack again. I
+turned my back on it, but there wasn't any use in that, because if a
+fly lights on you I watch him like a brother, and if there ain't any fly
+I've caught a mania for tapping my teeth with a pencil, that is just as
+good."
+
+To these two gentlemen, thus disengaged, reentered (after a much longer
+absence than Miss Selina's quatrain justified) Mr. Ross Schofield, a
+healthy glow of exertion lending pleasant color to his earnest visage,
+and an almost visible laurel of success crowning his brows. In addition
+to this imaginary ornament, he was horned with pencils over both ears,
+and held some scribbled sheets in his hand.
+
+"I done a good deal down there," he announced cheerfully, drawing up a
+chair to the desk. "I thought up a heap of things I've heard lately, and
+they'll fill up mighty well. That there poem of Miss Seliny's was a kind
+of an inspiration to me, and I tried one myself, and it didn't come
+hard at all. When I got started once, it jest seemed to flow from me.
+I didn't set none of it up," he added modestly, but with evident
+consciousness of having unearthed genius in himself and an elate
+foreknowledge of the treat in store for his companions. "I thought I'd
+ort to see how you liked it first." He offered the papers to Mr. Parker,
+but the foreman shook his head.
+
+"You read it, Ross," I said. "I don't believe I feel hearty enough
+to-day. Read the items first--we can bear the waiting."
+
+"What waiting?" inquired Mr. Schofield.
+
+"For the poem," replied Parker, grimly.
+
+With a vague but not fleeting smile, Ross settled the sheets in order,
+and exhibited tokens of that pleasant nevousness incident to appearing
+before a critical audience, armed with literature whose merits should
+delight them out of the critical attitude. "I run across a great scheme
+down there," he volunteered amiably, by way of preface; "I described
+everything in full, in as many words as I could think up; it's mighty
+filling, and it'll please the public, too; it gives 'em a lot more
+information than they us'ally git. I reckon there's two sticks of jest
+them extry words alone."
+
+"Go on," said the foreman, rather ominously.
+
+Ross began to read, a matter necessitating a puckered brow and at times
+an amount of hesitancy and ruminating, as his results had already cooled
+a little, and he found his hand difficult to decipher. "Here's the
+first," he said:
+
+"'The large and handsome, fawn-colored, two years and one-half year old
+Jersey of Frederick Bibshaw Jones, Esquire----'"
+
+The foreman interrupted him: "Every reader of the 'Herald' will be glad
+to know that Jersey's age and color! But go on."
+
+"'--Frederick Bibshaw Jones, Esquire,'" pursued his assistant, with
+some discomfiture, "'--Esquire, our popular and well-dressed
+fellow-citizen----'"
+
+"You're right; Bib Jones is a heavy swell," said Parker in a breaking
+voice.
+
+"'--Citizen, can be daily seen wandering from the far end of his
+pasture-lot to the other far end of it.'"
+
+"'His!'" exclaimed Parker. "'_His_ pasture-lot?' The Jersey's?"
+
+"No," returned the other, meekly, "Bib Jones's."
+
+"Oh," said Parker. "Is that the end of that item? It is! You want to get
+out of Plattville, my friend; it's too small for you; you go to Rouen
+and you'll be city editor of the 'Journal' inside of a week. Let's have
+another."
+
+Mr. Schofield looked up blankly; however, he felt that there was enough
+live, legitimate news in his other items to redeem the somewhat tame
+quality of the first, and so, after having crossed out several of the
+extra words which had met so poor a reception, he proceeded:
+
+"'Whit Upton's pigs broke out last Wednesday and rooted up a fine patch
+of garden truck. Hard luck, Whit.'
+
+"'Jerusalem Hawkins took a drive yesterday afternoon. He had the bay
+to his side-bar. Jee's buggy has been recently washed. Congratulations,
+Jee.'"
+
+"There's thrilling information!" shouted the foreman. "That'll touch the
+gentle reader to the marrow. The boss had to use some pretty rotten copy
+himself, but he never got as low as that. But we'll use it; oh, we'll
+use it! If we don't get her out he'll have a set-back, but if they show
+her to him it'll kill him. If it doesn't, and he gets well, he'll kill
+us. But we'll use it, Ross. Don't read any more to us, though; I feel
+weaker than I did, and I wasn't strong before. Go down and set it all
+up."
+
+Mr. Schofield rejoined with an injured air, and yet hopefully: "I'd like
+to see what you think of the poetry--it seemed all right to me, but I
+reckon you ain't ever the best judge of your own work. Shall I read it?"
+The foreman only glanced at him in silence, and the young man took this
+for assent. "I haven't made up any name for it yet."
+
+            "'O, the orphan boy stood on the hill,
+              The wind blew cold and very chill--'"
+
+Glancing at his auditors, he was a trifle abashed to observe a glaze
+upon the eyes of Mr. Parker, while a purple tide rose above his
+neck-band and unnaturally distended his throat and temples. With a
+placative little laugh, Mr. Schofield remarked: "I git the swing to her
+all right, I reckon, but somehow it doesn't sound so kind of good as
+when I was writing it." There was no response, and he went on hurriedly:
+
+            "'But there he saw the little rill--'"
+
+The poet paused to say, with another amiable laugh: "It's sort of hard
+to git out of them ill, hill, chill rhymes once you strike 'em. It runs
+on like this:
+
+                                        "'--Little rill
+         That curved and spattered around the hill.'
+
+"I guess that's all right, to use 'hill' twice; don't you reckon so?
+
+            "'And the orphan he stood there until
+              The wind and all gave him a chill;
+              And he sickened--'"
+
+That day Ross read no more, for the tall printer, seemingly incapable
+of coherent speech, kicked the desk impotently, threw his arms above
+his head, and, his companions confidently looking to see him foam at the
+mouth, lost his balance and toppled over backward, his extensive legs
+waving wildly in the air as he struck the floor. Mr. Schofield fled.
+
+Parker made no effort to rise, but lay glaring at the ceiling, breathing
+hard. He remained in that position for a long time, until finally the
+glaze wore away from his eyes and a more rational expression settled
+over his features. Mr. Fisbee addressed him timidly: "You don't think we
+could reduce the size of the sheet?"
+
+"It would kill him," answered his prostrate companion. "We've got to
+fill her solid some way, though I give up; I don't know how. How that
+man has worked! It was genius. He just floated around the county and
+soaked in items, and he wrote editorials that people read. One thing's
+certain: we can't do it. We're ruining his paper for him, and when he
+gets able to read, it'll hurt him bad. Mighty few knew how much pride he
+had in it. Has it struck you that now would be a precious good time for
+it to occur to Rod McCune to come out of his hole? Suppose we go by the
+board, what's to stop him? What's to stop him, anyway? Who knows where
+the boss put those copies and affidavits, and if we did know, would we
+know the best way to use 'em? If we did, what's to keep the 'Herald'
+alive until McCune lifts his head? And if we don't stop him, the 'Carlow
+County Herald' is finished. Something's got to be done!'"
+
+No one realized this more poignantly than Mr. Fisbee, but no one was
+less capable of doing something of his own initiation. And although
+the Tuesday issue was forthcoming, embarrassingly pale in spots--most
+spots--Mr. Martin remarked rather publicly that the items were not what
+you might call stirring, and that the unpatented pages put him in mind
+of Jones's field in winter with a dozen chunks of coal dropped in the
+snow. And his observations on the later issues of the week (issues which
+were put forth with a suggestion of spasm, and possibly to the permanent
+injury of Mr. Parker's health, he looked so thin) were too cruelly
+unkind to be repeated here. Indeed, Mr. Fisbee, Parker, the luckless Mr.
+Schofield, and the young Tipworthy may be not untruthfully likened to
+a band of devoted mariners lost in the cold and glaring regions of a
+journalistic Greenland: limitless plains of empty white paper extending
+about them as far as the eye could reach, while life depended upon their
+making these terrible voids productive; and they shrank appalled from
+the task, knowing no means to fertilize the barrens; having no talent to
+bring the still snows into harvests, and already feeling-in the chill of
+Mr. Martin's remarks--a touch of the frost that might wither them.
+
+It was Fisbee who caught the first glimpse of a relief expedition
+clipping the rough seas on its lively way to rescue them, and, although
+his first glimpse of the jaunty pennant of the relieving vessels was
+over the shoulder of an iceberg, nothing was surer than that the craft
+was flying to them with all good and joyous speed. The iceberg just
+mentioned assumed--by no melting process, one may be sure--the form of a
+long letter, first postmarked at Rouen, and its latter substance was as
+follows:
+
+
+"Henry and I have always believed you as selfish, James Fisbee, as
+you are self-ingrossed and incapable. She has told us of your
+'renunciation'; of your 'forbidding' her to remain with you; how you
+'commanded,' after you had 'begged' her, to return to us, and how her
+conscience told her she should stay and share your life in spite of
+our long care of her, but that she yielded to your 'wishes' and our
+entreaty. What have you ever done for her and what have you to offer
+her? She is our daughter, and needless to say we shall still take care
+of her, for no one believes you capable of it, even in that miserable
+place, and, of course, in time she will return to her better wisdom,
+her home, and her duty. I need scarcely say we have given up the happy
+months we had planned to spend in Dresden. Henry and I can only stay at
+home to pray that her preposterous mania will wear itself out in short
+order, as she will find herself unfitted for the ridiculous task which
+she insists upon attempting against the earnest wishes of us who have
+been more than father and mother to her. Of course, she has talked
+volumes of her affection for us, and of her gratitude, which we do not
+want--we only want her to stay with us. Please, please try to make her
+come back to us--we cannot bear it long. If you are a man you will send
+her to us soon. Her excuse for not returning on the day we wired our
+intention to go abroad at once (and I may as well tell you now that our
+intention to go was formed in order to bring affairs to a crisis and to
+draw her away from your influence--we always dreaded her visit to you
+and held it off for years)--her excuse was that your best friend, and,
+as I understand it, your patron, had been injured in some brawl in
+that Christian country of yours--a charming place to take a girl like
+her--and she would not leave you in your 'distress' until more was known
+of the man's injuries. And now she insists--and you will know it from
+her by the next mail--on returning to Plattville, forsooth, because
+she has been reading your newspaper, and she says she knows you are in
+difficulties over it, and it is her moral obligation--as by some wild
+reasoning of her own she considers herself responsible for your ruffling
+patron's having been alone when he was shot--to go down and help. I
+suppose he made love to her, as all the young men she meets always do,
+sooner or later, but I have no fear of any rustic entanglements tor her;
+she has never been really interested, save in one affair. We are
+quite powerless--we have done everything; but we cannot alter her
+determination to edit your paper for you. Naturally, she knows nothing
+whatever about such work, but she says, with the air of triumphantly
+quelching all such argument, that she has talked a great deal to Mr.
+Macauley of the 'Journal.' Mr. Macauley is the affair I have alluded to;
+he is what she has meant when she has said, at different times, that she
+was interested in journalism. But she is very business-like now. She
+has bought a typewriter and purchased a great number of soft pencils and
+erasers at an art shop; I am only surprised that she does not intend to
+edit your miserable paper in water-colors. She is coming at once. For
+mercy's sake don't telegraph her not to; your forbiddings work the
+wrong way. Our only hope is that she will find the conditions so utterly
+discouraging at the very start that she will give it up and come home.
+If you are a man you will help to make them so. She has promised to stay
+with that country girl with whom she contracted such an incomprehensible
+friendship at Miss Jennings's.
+
+"Oh, James, pray for grace to be a man once in your life and send her
+back to us! Be a man--try to be a man! Remember the angel you killed!
+Remember all we have done for you and what a return you have made, and
+be a man for the first time. Try and be a man!
+
+                         "Your unhappy sister-in-law,
+
+                                         "MARTHA SHERWOOD."
+
+
+Mr. Fisbee read the letter with a great, rising delight which no sense
+of duty could down; indeed, he perceived that his sense of duty had
+ceased to conflict with the one strong hope of his life, just as he
+perceived that to be a man, according to Martha Sherwood, was, in part,
+to assist Martha Sherwood to have her way in things; and, for the rest,
+to be the sort of man she persuaded herself she would be were she not a
+woman. This he had never been able to be.
+
+By some whimsy of fate, or by a failure of Karma (or, perhaps, by some
+triumph of Kismetic retribution), James Fisbee was born in one of the
+most business-like and artless cities of a practical and modern country,
+of money-getting, money-saving parents, and he was born a dreamer of
+the past. He grew up a student of basilican lore, of choir-screens, of
+Persian frescoes, and an ardent lounger in the somewhat musty precincts
+of Chaldea and Byzantium and Babylon. Early Christian Symbolism, a
+dispute over the site of a Greek temple, the derivation of the lotus
+column, the restoration of a Gothic buttress--these were the absorbing
+questions of his youth, with now and then a lighter moment spent in
+analytical consideration of the extra-mural decorations of St. Mark's.
+The world buzzed along after its own fashion, not disturbing him, and
+his absorptions permitted only a faint consciousness of the despair of
+his relatives regarding his mind. Arrived at middle-age, and a little
+more, he found himself alone in the world (though, for that matter, he
+had always been alone and never of the world), and there was plenty of
+money for him with various bankers who appeared to know about looking
+after it. Returning to the town of his nativity after sundry expeditions
+in Syria--upon which he had been accompanied by dusky gentlemen with
+pickaxes and curly, long-barrelled muskets--he met, and was married by,
+a lady who was ambitious, and who saw in him (probably as a fulfilment
+of another Kismetic punishment) a power of learning and a destined
+success. Not long after the birth of their only child, a daughter,
+he was "called to fill the chair" of archaeology in a newly founded
+university; one of the kind which a State and a millionaire combine to
+purchase ready-made. This one was handed down off the shelf in a more or
+less chaotic condition, and for a period of years betrayed considerable
+doubt as to its own intentions, undecided whether they were classical
+or technical; and in the settlement of that doubt lay the secret of the
+past of the one man in Plattville so unhappy as to possess a past. From
+that settlement and his own preceding action resulted his downfall,
+his disgrace with his wife's relatives, the loss of his wife, the rage,
+surprise, and anguish of her sister, Martha, and Martha's husband, Henry
+Sherwood, and the separation from his little daughter, which was by
+far to him the hardest to bear. For Fisbee, in his own way, and without
+consulting anybody--it never occurred to him, and he was supposed often
+to forget that he had a wife and child--had informally turned over to
+the university all the money which the banks had kindly taken care of,
+and had given it to equip an expedition which never expedited. A new
+president of the institution was installed; he talked to the trustees;
+they met, and elected to become modern and practical and technical; they
+abolished the course in fine arts, which abolished Fisbee's connection
+with them, and they then employed his money to erect a building for the
+mechanical engineering department. Fisbee was left with nothing. His
+wife and her kinsfolk exhibited no brilliancy in holding a totally
+irresponsible man down to responsibilities, and they made a tragedy of
+a not surprising fiasco. Mrs. Fisbee had lived in her ambitions, and
+she died of heartbreak over the discovery of what manner of man she had
+married. But, before she died, she wisely provided for her daughter.
+
+Fisbee told Parker the story after his own queer fashion.
+
+"You see, Mr. Parker," he said, as they sat together in the dust and
+litter of the "Herald" office, on Sunday afternoon, "you see, I admit
+that my sister-in-law has always withheld her approbation from me, and
+possibly her disapproval is well founded--I shall say probably. My wife
+had also a considerable sum, and this she turned over to me at the time
+of our marriage, though I had no wish regarding it one way or the other.
+When I gave my money to the university with which I had the honor to be
+connected, I added to it the fund I had received from her, as I was the
+recipient of a comfortable salary as a lecturer in the institution
+and had no fear of not living well, and I was greatly interested in
+providing that the expedition should be perfectly equipped. Expeditions
+of the magnitude of that which I had planned are expensive, I should,
+perhaps, inform you, and this one was to carry on investigations
+regarding several important points, very elaborately; and I am still
+convinced it would have settled conclusively many vital questions
+concerning the derivation of the Babylonian column, as: whether the
+lotus column may be without prejudice said to--but at the present moment
+I will not enter into that. I fear I had no great experience in money
+matters, for the transaction had been almost entirely verbal, and
+there was nothing to bind the trustees to carry out my plans for the
+expedition. They were very sympathetic, but what could they do? they
+begged leave to inquire. Such an institution cannot give back money once
+donated, and it was clearly out of character for a school of technology
+and engineering to send savants to investigate the lotus column."
+
+"I see," Mr. Parker observed, genially. He listened with the most
+ingratiating attention, knowing that he had a rich sensation to
+set before Plattville as a dish before a king, for Fisbee's was no
+confidential communication. The old man might have told a part of his
+history long ago, but it had never occurred to him to talk about his
+affairs--things had a habit of not occurring to Fisbee--and the efforts
+of the gossips to draw him out always passed over his serene and absent
+head.
+
+"It was a blow to my wife," the old man continued, sadly, "and I cannot
+deny that her reproaches were as vehement as her disappointment was
+sincere." He hurried over this portion of his narrative with a vaguely
+troubled look, but the intelligent Parker read poor Mrs. Fisbee's state
+of mind between the sentences. "She never seemed to regard me in the
+same light again," the archaeologist went on. "She did not conceal
+from me that she was surprised and that she could not look upon me as a
+practical man; indeed, I may say, she appeared to regard me with marked
+antipathy. She sent for her sister, and begged her to take our daughter
+and keep her from me, as she did not consider me practical enough-I will
+substitute for her more embittered expressions--to provide for a
+child and instruct it in the world's ways. My sister-in-law, who was
+childless, consented to adopt the little one, on the conditions that
+I renounced all claim, and that the child legally assumed her name and
+should be in all respects as her own daughter, and that I consented to
+see her but once a year, in Rouen, at my brother-in-law's home.
+
+"I should have refused, but I--my wife--that is--she was--very
+pressing--in her last hours, and they all seemed to feel that I ought to
+make amends--all except the little girl herself, I should say, for she
+possessed, even as an infant, an exceptional affection for her father.
+I had nothing; my salary was gone, and I was discomfited by the combined
+actions of the trustees and my relatives, so--I--I gave her up to them,
+and my wife passed away in a more cheerful frame of mind, I think. That
+is about all. One of the instructors obtained the position here for me,
+which I--I finally--lost, and I went to See the little girl every New
+Year's day. This year she declared her intention of visiting _me_, but
+she was persuaded by friends who were conversant with the circumstances
+to stay with them, where I could be with her almost as much as at my
+apartment at Mr. Tibbs's. She had long since declared her intention of
+some day returning to live with me, and when she came she was strenuous
+in insisting that the day had come." The old man's voice broke suddenly
+as he observed: "She has--a very--beautiful--character, Mr. Parker."
+
+The foreman nodded with warm confirmation. "I believe you, sir. Yes,
+sir; I saw her, and I guess she looks it. You take that kind of a lady
+usually, and catch her in a crowd like the one show-day, and she can't
+help doing the Grand Duchess, giving the tenants a treat--but not her;
+she didn't seem to _separate_ herself from 'em, some way."
+
+"She is a fine lady," said the other simply. "I did not accept her
+renunciation, though I acknowledge I forbade it with a very poignant
+envy. I could not be the cause of her giving up for my sake her state
+of ease and luxury--for my relatives are more than well-to-do, and they
+made it plain she must choose between them and me, with the design, I
+think, of making it more difficult to choose me. And, also, it seemed
+to me, as it did to her, that she owed them nearly everything, but she
+declared I had lived alone so long that she owed me everything, also.
+She is a--beautiful--character, Mr. Parker."
+
+"Well," said Parker, after a pause, "the town will be upside down over
+this; and folks will be mighty glad to have it explained about your
+being out there so much, and at the deepo, and all this and that.
+Everybody in the place has been wondering what in--that is--" he
+finished in some confusion--"that is--what I started to say was that
+it won't be so bad as it might be, having a lady in the office here. I
+don't cuss to speak of, and Ross can lay off on his till the boss comes
+back. Besides, it's our only chance. If she can't make the 'Herald' hum,
+we go to the wall."
+
+The old man did not seem to hear him. "I forbade the renunciation she
+wished to make for my sake," he said, gently, "but I accept it now for
+the sake of our stricken friend--for Mr. Harkless."
+
+"And for the Carlow 'Herald,'" completed the foreman.
+
+The morning following that upon which this conversation took place,
+the two gentlemen stood together on the station platform, awaiting
+the arrival of the express from Rouen. It was a wet gray day; the wide
+country lay dripping under formless wraps of thin mist, and a warm,
+drizzling rain blackened the weather-beaten shingles of the station;
+made clear-reflecting puddles of the unevenly worn planks of the
+platform, and dampened the packing-cases that never went anywhere too
+thoroughly for occupation by the station-lounger, and ran in a little
+crystal stream off Fisbee's brown cotton umbrella and down Mr. Parker's
+back. The 'bus driver, Mr. Bennett, the proprietor of two attendant
+"cut-unders," and three or four other worthies whom business, or the
+lack of it, called to that locality, availed themselves of the shelter
+of the waiting-room, but the gentlemen of the "Herald" were too agitated
+to be confined, save by the limits of the horizon. They had reached the
+station half an hour before train time, and consumed the interval in
+pacing the platform under the cotton umbrella, addressing each other
+only in monosyllables. Those in the waiting-room gossiped eagerly, and
+for the thousandth time, about the late events, and the tremendous news
+concerning Fisbee. Judd Bennett looked out through the rainy doorway at
+the latter with reverence and a fine pride of townsmanship, declaring
+it to be his belief that Fisbee and Parker were waiting for her at
+the present moment. It was a lady, and a bird of a lady, too, else why
+should Cale Parker be wearing a coat, and be otherwise dooded and fixed
+up beyond any wedding? Judd and his friends were somewhat excited over
+Parker.
+
+Fisbee was clad in his best shabby black, which lent an air of state to
+the occasion, but Mr. Parker--Caleb Parker, whose heart, during his five
+years of residence in Plattville, had been steel-proof against all the
+feminine blandishments of the town, whose long, lank face had shown
+beneath as long, and lanker, locks of proverbially uncombed hair, he who
+had for weeks conspicuously affected a single, string-patched suspender,
+who never, even upon the Sabbath day, wore a collar or blacked his
+shoes--what aesthetic leaven had entered his soul that he donned not a
+coat alone but also a waistcoat with checks?--and, more than _that_, a
+gleaming celluloid collar?--and, more than that, a brilliant blue tie?
+What had this iron youth to do with a rising excitement at train time
+and brilliant blue ties?
+
+Also, it might have been inquired if this parade of fashion had no
+connection with the simultaneous action of Mr. Ross Schofield; for
+Ross was at this hour engaged in decorating the battered chairs in the
+"Herald" editorial room with blue satin ribbon, the purchase of which at
+the Dry Goods Emporium had been directed by a sudden inspiration of his
+superior of the composing force. It was Ross's intention to garnish
+each chair with an elaborately tied bow, but, as he was no sailor and
+understood only the intricacies of a hard-knot, he confined himself
+to that species of ornamentation, leaving, however, very long ends of
+ribbon hanging down after the manner of the pendants of rosettes.
+
+It scarcely needs the statement that his labors were in honor of the new
+editor-in-chief of the Carlow "Herald." The advent and the purposes
+of this personage were, as yet, known certainly to only those of the
+"Herald" and to the Briscoes. It had been arranged, however, that Minnie
+and her father were not to come to the station, for the journalistic
+crisis was immoderately pressing; the "Herald" was to appear on the
+morrow, and the new editor wished to plunge directly, and without the
+briefest distraction, into the paper's difficulties, now accumulated
+into a veritable sea of troubles. The editor was to be delivered to the
+Briscoes at eventide and returned by them again at dewy morn; and
+this was to be the daily programme. It had been further--and most
+earnestly--stipulated that when the wounded proprietor of the ailing
+journal should be informed of the addition to his forces, he was not
+to know, or to have the slenderest hint of, the sex or identity of the
+person in charge during his absence. It was inevitable that Plattville
+(already gaping to the uttermost) would buzz voluminously over it before
+night, but Judge Briscoe volunteered to prevent the buzz from reaching
+Rouen. He undertook to interview whatever citizens should visit
+Harkless, or write to him--when his illness permitted visits and
+letters--and forewarn them of the incumbent's desires. To-day, the
+judge stayed at home with his daughter, who trilled about the house
+for happiness, and, in their place, the "Herald" deputation of two had
+repaired to the station to act as a reception committee.
+
+Far away the whistle of the express was heard, muffled to sweetness in
+the damp, and the drivers, whip in hand, came out upon the platform, and
+the loafers issued, also, to stand under the eaves and lean their backs
+against the drier boards, preparing to eye the travellers with languid
+raillery.
+
+Mr. Parker, very nervous himself, felt the old man's elbow trembling
+against his own as the great engine, reeking in the mist, and sending
+great clouds of white vapor up to the sky, rushed by them, and came to a
+standstill beyond the platform.
+
+Fisbee and the foreman made haste to the nearest vestibule, and were
+gazing blankly at its barred approaches when they heard a tremulous
+laugh behind them and an exclamation.
+
+"Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber! Just behind you,
+dear."
+
+Turning quickly, Parker beheld a blushing and smiling little vision,
+a vision with light-brown hair, a vision enveloped in a light-brown
+rain-cloak and with brown gloves, from which the handles of a big brown
+travelling bag were let fall, as the vision disappeared under the cotton
+umbrella, while the smitten Judd Bennett reeled gasping against the
+station.
+
+"Dearest," the girl cried to the old man, "you were looking for me
+between the devil and deep sea--the parlor-car and the smoker. I've
+given up cigars, and I've begun to study economy, so I didn't come on
+either."
+
+There was but this one passenger for Plattville; two enormous trunks
+thundered out of the baggage car onto the truck, and it was the work of
+no more than a minute for Judd to hale them to the top of the omnibus
+(he well wished to wear them next his heart, but their dimensions
+forbade the thought), and immediately he cracked his whip and drove
+off furiously through the mud to deposit his freight at the Briscoes'.
+Parker, Mr. Fisbee, and the new editor-in-chief set forth, directly
+after, in one of the waiting cut-unders, the foreman in front with the
+driver, and holding the big brown bag on his knees in much the same
+manner he would have held an alien, yet respected, infant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A RESCUE
+
+The drizzle and mist blew in under the top of the cut-under as they
+drove rapidly into town, and bright little drops sparkled on the fair
+hair above the new editor's forehead and on the long lashes above the
+new editor's cheeks.
+
+She shook these transient gems off lightly, as she paused in the doorway
+of the office at the top of the rickety stairway. Mr. Schofield had just
+added the last touch to his decorations and managed to slide into
+his coat as the party came up the stairs, and now, perspiring, proud,
+embarrassed, he assumed an attitude at once deprecatory of his endeavors
+and pointedly expectant of commendation for the results. (He was a
+modest youth and a conscious; after his first sight of her, as she stood
+in the doorway, it was several days before he could lift his distressed
+eyes under her glance, or, indeed, dare to avail himself of more than
+a hasty and fluttering stare at her when her back was turned.) As she
+entered the room, he sidled along the wall and laughed sheepishly at
+nothing.
+
+Every chair in the room was ornamented with one of his blue rosettes,
+tied carefully (and firmly) to the middle slat of each chair-back. There
+had been several yards of ribbon left over, and there was a hard knot
+of glossy satin on each of the ink-stands and on the door-knobs; a
+blue band, passing around the stovepipe, imparted an antique rakishness
+suggestive of the charioteer; and a number of streamers, suspended from
+a hook in the ceiling, encouraged a supposition that the employees
+of the "Herald" contemplated the intricate festivities of May Day. It
+needed no genius to infer that these garnitures had not embellished the
+editorial chamber during Mr. Harkless's activity, but, on the contrary,
+had been put in place that very morning. Mr. Fisbee had not known of
+the decorations, and, as his glance fell upon them, a faint look of pain
+passed over his brow; but the girl examined the room with a dancing eye,
+and there were both tears and laughter in her heart.
+
+"How beautiful!" she cried. "How beautiful!" She crossed the room and
+gave her hand to Ross. "It is Mr. Schofield, isn't it? The ribbons are
+delightful. I didn't know Mr. Harkless's room was so pretty."
+
+Ross looked out of the window and laughed as he took her hand (which he
+shook with a long up and down motion), but he was set at better ease
+by her apparent unrecognition of the fact that the decorations were for
+her. "Oh, it ain't much, I reckon," he replied, and continued to look
+out of the window and laugh.
+
+She went to the desk and removed her gloves and laid her rain-coat over
+a chair near by. "Is this Mr. Harkless's chair?" she asked, and, Fisbee
+answering that it was, she looked gravely at it for a moment, passed her
+hand gently over the back of it, and then, throwing the rain-cloak over
+another chair, said cheerily:
+
+"Do you know, I think the first thing for us to do will be to dust
+everything very carefully."
+
+"You remember I was confident she would know precisely where to begin?"
+was Fisbee's earnest whisper in the willing ear of the long foreman.
+"Not an instant's indecision, was there?"
+
+"No, siree!" replied the other; and, as he went down to the press-room
+to hunt for a feather-duster which he thought might be found there,
+he collared Bud Tipworthy, who, not admitted to the conclave of his
+superiors, was whistling on the rainy stairway. "You hustle and find
+that dust brush we used to have. Bud," said Parker. And presently, as
+they rummaged in the nooks and crannies about the machinery, he melted
+to his small assistant. "The paper is saved, Buddie--saved by an angel
+in light brown. You can tell it by the look of her."
+
+"Gee!" said Bud.
+
+Mr. Schofield had come, blushing, to join them. "Say, Cale, did you
+notice the color of her eyes?"
+
+"Yes; they're gray."
+
+"I thought so, too, show day, and at Kedge Halloway's lecture; but, say,
+Cale, they're kind of changeable. When she come in upstairs with you and
+Fisbee, they were jest as blue!--near matched the color of our ribbons."
+
+"Gee!" repeated Mr. Tipworthy.
+
+When the editorial chamber had been made so Beat that it almost
+glowed--though it could never be expected to shine as did Fisbee and
+Caleb Parker and Ross Schofield that morning--the editor took her seat
+at the desk and looked over the few items the gentlemen had already
+compiled for her perusal. Mr. Parker explained many technicalities
+peculiar to the Carlow "Herald," translated some phrases of the
+printing-room, and enabled her to grasp the amount of matter needed to
+fill the morrow's issue.
+
+When Parker finished, the three incompetents sat watching the little
+figure with the expression of hopeful and trusting terriers. She knit
+her brow for a second--but she did not betray an instant's indecision.
+
+"I think we should have regular market reports," she announced,
+thoughtfully. "I am sure Mr. Harkless would approve. Don't you think he
+would?" She turned to Parker.
+
+"Market reports!" Mr. Fisbee exclaimed. "I should never have thought of
+market reports, nor, do I imagine, would either of my--my associates. A
+woman to conceive the idea of market reports!"
+
+The editor blushed. "Why, who would, dear, if not a woman, or a
+speculator, and I'm not a speculator; and neither are you, and that's
+the reason you didn't think of them. So, Mr. Parker, as there is so much
+pressure, and if you don't mind continuing to act as reporter as well as
+compositor until after to-morrow, and if it isn't too wet--you must take
+an umbrella--would it be too much bother if you went around to all the
+shops--_stores_, I mean--to all the grocers', and the butchers', and
+that leather place we passed, the tannery?--and if there's one of those
+places where they bring cows, would it be too much to ask you to
+stop there?--and at the flour-mill, if it isn't too far?--and at the
+dry-goods store? And you must take a blank-book and sharpened pencil,
+And will you price everything, please, and jot down how much things
+are?"
+
+Orders received, the impetuous Parker was departing on the instant, when
+she stopped him with a little cry: "But you haven't any umbrella!"
+And she forced her own, a slender wand, upon him; it bore a cunningly
+wrought handle and its fabric was of glistening silk. The foreman,
+unable to decline it, thanked her awkwardly, and, as she turned to
+speak to Fisbee, bolted out of the door and ran down the steps without
+unfolding the umbrella; and as he made for Mr. Martin's emporium, he
+buttoned it securely under his long "Prince Albert," determined that
+not a drop of water should touch and ruin so delicate a thing. Thus he
+carried it, triumphantly dry, through the course of his reportings of
+that day.
+
+When he had gone the editor laid her hand on Fisbee's arm. "Dear," she
+said, "do you think you would take cold if you went over to the
+hotel and made a note of all the arrivals for the last week--and the
+departures, too? I noticed that Mr. Harkless always filled two or
+three--sticks, isn't it?--with them and things about them, and somehow
+it 'read' very nicely. You must ask the landlord all about them; and, if
+there aren't any, we can take up the same amount of space lamenting
+the dull times, just as he used to. You see I've read the 'Herald'
+faithfully; isn't it a good thing I always subscribed for it?" She
+patted Fisbee's cheek, and laughed gaily into his mild, vague old eyes.
+
+"It won't be this scramble to 'fill up' much longer. I have plans,
+gentlemen," she cried, "and before long we will print news. And we must
+buy 'plate matter' instead of 'patent insides'; and I had a talk with
+the Associated Press people in Rouen--but that's for afterwhile. And I
+went to the hospital this morning before I left. They wouldn't let me
+see him again, but they told me all about him, and he's better; and I
+got Tom to go to the jail--he was so mystified, he doesn't know what I
+wanted it for--and he saw some of those beasts, and I can do a column of
+description besides an editorial about them, and I will be fierce enough
+to suit Carlow, you may believe that. And I've been talking to Senator
+Burns--that is, listening to Senator Burns, which is much stupider--and
+I think I can do an article on national politics. I'm not very well up
+on local issues yet, but I--" She broke off suddenly. "There! I think we
+can get out to-morrow's number without any trouble. By the time you get
+back from the hotel, father, I'll have half my stuff written--'written
+up,' I mean. Take your big umbrella and go, dear, and please ask at the
+express office if my typewriter has come."
+
+She laughed again with sheer delight, like a child, and ran to the
+corner and got the cotton umbrella and placed it in the old man's hand.
+As he reached the door, she called after him: "Wait!" and went to him
+and knelt before him, and, with the humblest, proudest grace in the
+world, turned up his trousers to keep them from the mud. Ross Schofield
+had never considered Mr. Fisbee a particularly sacred sort of person,
+but he did from that moment. The old man made some timid protest, at his
+daughter's action, But she answered; "The great ladies used to buckle
+the Chevalier Bayard's spurs for him, and you're a great deal nicer than
+the Chev----_You haven't any rubbers_! I don't believe _any_ of you have
+any rubbers!" And not until both Fisbee and Mr. Schofield had promised
+to purchase overshoes at once, and in the meantime not to step in any
+puddles, would she let her father depart upon his errand. He crossed
+the Square with the strangest, jauntiest step ever seen in Plattville.
+Solomon Tibbs had a warm argument with Miss Selina as to his identity.
+Miss Selina maintaining that the figure under the big umbrella--only
+the legs and coat-tails were visible to them--was that of a stranger,
+probably an Englishman.
+
+In the "Herald" office the editor turned, smiling, to the paper's
+remaining vassal. "Mr. Schofield, I heard some talk in Rouen of an oil
+company that had been formed to prospect for kerosene in Carlow County.
+Do you know anything about it?"
+
+Ross, surfeited with honor, terror, and possessed by a sweet distress
+at finding himself tete-a-tete with the lady, looked at the wall and
+replied:
+
+"Oh, it's that Eph Watts's foolishness."
+
+"Do you know if they have begun to dig for it yet?"
+
+"Ma'am?" said Ross.
+
+"Have they begun the diggings yet?"
+
+"No, ma'am; I think not. They've got a contrapshun fixed up about three
+mile south. I don't reckon they've begun yet, hardly; they're gittin'
+the machinery in place. I heard Eph say they'd begin to bore--_dig_, I
+mean, ma'am, I meant to say dig----" He stopped, utterly confused
+and unhappy; and she understood his manly purpose, and knew him for a
+gentleman whom she liked.
+
+"You mustn't be too much surprised," she said; "but in spite of my
+ignorance about such things, I mean to devote a good deal of space to
+the oil company; it may come to be of great importance to Carlow. We
+won't go into it in to-morrow's paper, beyond an item or so; but do you
+think you could possibly find Mr. Watts and ask him for some information
+as to their progress, and if it would be too much trouble for him to
+call here some time to-morrow afternoon, or the day after? I want him to
+give me an interview if he will. Tell him, please, he will very greatly
+oblige us."
+
+"Oh, he'll come all right," answered her companion, quickly. "I'll
+take Tibbs's buggy and go down there right off. Eph won't lose no time
+gittin' _here_!" And with this encouraging assurance he was flying
+forth, when he, like the others, was detained by her solicitous care.
+She was a born mother. He protested that in the buggy he would be
+perfectly sheltered; besides, there wasn't another umbrella about the
+place; he _liked_ to get wet, anyway; had always loved rain. The end
+of it was that he went away in a sort of tremor, wearing her rain-cloak
+over his shoulders, which garment, as it covered its owner completely
+when she wore it, hung almost to his knees. He darted around a corner;
+and there, breathing deeply, tenderly removed it; then, borrowing paper
+and cord at a neighboring store, wrapped it neatly, and stole back to
+the printing-office on the ground floor of the "Herald" building, and
+left the package in charge of Bud Tipworthy, mysteriously charging him
+to care for it as for his own life, and not to open it, but if the lady
+so much as set one foot out of doors before his return, to hand it to
+her with the message: "He borrowed another off J. Hankins."
+
+Left alone, the lady went to the desk and stood for a time looking
+gravely at Harkless's chair. She touched it gently, as she had touched
+it once before that morning, and then she spoke to it as if he were
+sitting there, and as she would not have spoken, had he been sitting
+there.
+
+"You didn't want gratitude, did you?" she whispered, with sad lips.
+
+Soon she smiled at the blue ribbons, patted the chair gaily on the back,
+and, seizing upon pencil and pad, dashed into her work with rare energy.
+She bent low over the desk, her pencil moving rapidly, and, except for
+a momentary interruption from Mr. Tipworthy, she seemed not to pause for
+breath; certainly her pencil did not. She had covered many sheets when
+her father returned; and, as he came in softly, not to disturb her, she
+was so deeply engrossed she did not hear him; nor did she look up when
+Parker entered, but pursued the formulation of her fast-flying ideas
+with the same single purpose and abandon; so the two men sat and waited
+while their chieftainess wrote absorbedly. At last she glanced up and
+made a little startled exclamation at seeing them there, and then gave
+them cheery greeting. Each placed several scribbled sheets before
+her, and she, having first assured herself that Fisbee had bought his
+overshoes, and having expressed a fear that Mr. Parker had found her
+umbrella too small, as he looked damp (and indeed he _was_ damp), cried
+praises on their notes and offered the reporters great applause.
+
+"It is all so splendid!" she cried. "How could you do it so quickly? And
+in the rain, too! This is exactly what we need. I've done most of
+the things I mentioned, I think, and made a draught of some plans for
+hereafter. And about that man's coming out for Congress, I must tell you
+it is my greatest hope that he will. We can let it go until he does, and
+then----But doesn't it seem to you that it would be a good notion for
+the 'Herald' to have a woman's page--'For Feminine Readers,' or, 'Of
+Interest to Women'--once a week?"
+
+"A woman's page!" exclaimed Fisbee. "I could never have thought of that,
+could you, Mr. Parker?"
+
+"And now," she continued, "I think that when I've gone over what I've
+written and beat it into better shape I shall be ready for something to
+eat. Isn't it almost time for luncheon?"
+
+This simple, and surely natural, inquiry had a singular, devastating
+effect upon her hearers. They looked upon each other with fallen jaws
+and complete stupefaction. The old man began to grow pale, and Parker
+glared about him with a wild eye. Fortunately, the editor was too busy
+at her work to notice their agitation; she applied herself to making
+alterations here and there, sometimes frowningly crossing out whole
+lines and even paragraphs, sometimes smiling and beaming at the writing;
+and, as she bent earnestly over the paper, against the darkness of the
+rainy day, the glamour about her fair hair was like a light in the
+room. To the minds of her two companions, this lustre was a gentle but
+unbearable accusation; and each dreaded the moment when her Work
+should be finished, with a great dread. There was a small "store-room"
+adjoining the office, and presently Mr. Parker, sweating at the brow,
+walked in there. The old man gave him a look of despairing reproach, but
+in a moment the foreman's voice was heard: "Oh, Mr. Fisbee, can you step
+here a second?"
+
+"Yes, indeed!" was Fisbee's reply; and he fled guiltily into the
+"store-room," and Parker closed the door. They stood knee-deep in the
+clutter and lumber, facing each other abjectly.
+
+"Well, we're both done, anyway, Mr. Fisbee," remarked the foreman.
+
+"Indubitably, Mr. Parker," the old man answered; "it is too true."
+
+"Never to think a blame thing about dinner for her!" Parker continued,
+remorsefully. "And her a lady that can turn off copy like a rotary
+snowplough in a Dakota blizzard! Did you see the sheets she's piled up
+on that desk?"
+
+"There is no cafe--nothing--in Plattville, that could prepare food
+worthy of her," groaned Fisbee. "Nothing!"
+
+"And we never thought of it. Never made a single arrangement. Never
+struck us she didn't live on keeping us dry and being good, I guess."
+
+"How can I go there and tell her that?"
+
+"Lord!"
+
+"She cannot go to the hotel----"
+
+"Well, I guess not! It ain't fit for her. Lum's table is hard enough
+on a strong man. Landis doesn't know a good cake from a Fiji missionary
+pudding. I don't expect pie is much her style, and, besides, the Palace
+Hotel pies--well!--the boss was a mighty uncomplaining man, but I
+used to notice his articles on field drainage got kind of sour and
+low-spirited when they'd been having more than the regular allowance of
+pie for dinner. She can't go there anyway; it's no use; it's after two
+o'clock, and the dining-room shuts off at one. I wonder what kind of
+cake she likes best."
+
+"I don't know," said the perplexed Fisbee. "If we ask her--"
+
+"If we could sort of get it out of her diplomatically, we could
+telegraph to Rouen for a good one."
+
+"Ha!" said the other, brightening up. "You try it, Mr. Parker. I fear I
+have not much skill in diplomacy, but if you----"
+
+The compositor's mouth drooped at the corners, and he interrupted
+gloomily: "But it wouldn't get here till to-morrow."
+
+"True; it would not."
+
+They fell into a despondent reverie, with their chins in their bosoms.
+There came a cheerful voice from the next room, but to them it brought
+no cheer; in their ears it sounded weak from the need of food and faint
+with piteous reproach.
+
+"Father, aren't you coming to have luncheon with me?"
+
+"Mr. Parker, what are we to do?" whispered the old man, hoarsely.
+
+"Is it too far to take her to Briscoes'?"
+
+"In the rain?"
+
+"Take her with you to Tibbs's."
+
+"Their noon meal is long since over; and their larder is not--is
+not--extensive."
+
+"Father!" called the girl. She was stirring; they could hear her moving
+about the room.
+
+"You've got to go in and tell her," said the foreman, desperately, and
+together they stumbled into the room. A small table at one end of it was
+laid with a snowy cloth and there was a fragrance of tea, and, amidst
+various dainties, one caught a glimpse of cold chicken and lettuce
+leaves. Fisbee stopped, dumfounded, but the foreman, after stammeringly
+declining an invitation to partake, alleging that his own meal awaited,
+sped down to the printing-room, and seized upon Bud Tipworthy with a
+heavy hand.
+
+"Where did all that come from, up there?"
+
+"Leave go me! _What_ 'all that'?"
+
+"All that tea and chicken and salad and wafers--all kinds of things;
+sardines, for all I know!"
+
+"They come in Briscoes' buckboard while you was gone. Briscoes sent 'em
+in a basket; I took 'em up and she set the basket under the table. You'd
+seen it if you'd 'a' looked. _Quit_ that!" And it was unjust to cuff the
+perfectly innocent and mystified Bud, and worse not to tell him what the
+punishment was for.
+
+Before the day was over, system had been introduced, and the "Herald"
+was running on it: and all that warm, rainy afternoon, the editor and
+Fisbee worked in the editorial rooms, Parker and Bud and Mr. Schofield
+(after his return with the items and a courteous message from Ephraim
+Watts) bent over the forms downstairs, and Uncle Xenophon was cleaning
+the store-room and scrubbing the floor.
+
+An extraordinary number of errands took the various members of the
+printing force up to see the editor-in-chief, literally to see the
+editor-in-chief; it was hard to believe that the presence had not
+flown--hard to keep believing, without the repeated testimony of sight,
+that the dingy room upstairs was actually the setting for their jewel;
+and a jewel they swore she was. The printers came down chuckling and
+gurgling after each interview; it was partly the thought that she
+belonged to the "Herald," _their_ paper. Once Ross, as he cut down one
+of the temporarily distended advertisements, looked up and caught the
+foreman giggling to himself.
+
+"What in the name of common-sense you laughin' at, Cale?" he asked.
+
+"What are _you_ laughing at?" rejoined the other.
+
+"I dunno!"
+
+The day wore on, wet and dreary outside, but all within the "Herald's"
+bosom was snug and busy and murmurous with the healthy thrum of life
+and prosperity renewed. Toward six o'clock, system accomplished, the new
+guiding-spirit was deliberating on a policy as Harkless would conceive
+a policy, were he there, when Minnie Briscoe ran joyously up the stairs,
+plunged into the room, waterproofed and radiant, and caught her friend
+in her eager arms, and put an end to policy for that day.
+
+But policy and labor did not end at twilight every day; there were
+evenings, as in the time of Harkless, when lamps shone from the upper
+windows of the "Herald" building. For the little editor worked hard,
+and sometimes she worked late; she always worked early. She made some
+mistakes at first, and one or two blunders which she took more seriously
+than any one else did. But she found a remedy for all such results of
+her inexperience, and she developed experience. She set at her task with
+the energy of her youthfulness and no limit to her ambition, and she
+felt that Harkless had prepared the way for a wide expansion of the
+paper's interests; wider than he knew. She had a belief that there were
+possibilities for a country newspaper, and she brought a fresh point of
+view to operate in a situation where Harkless had fallen, perhaps, too
+much in the rut; and she watched every chance with a keen eye and looked
+ahead of her with clear foresight. What she waited and yearned for and
+dreaded, was the time when a copy of the new "Herald" should be placed
+in the trembling hands of the man who lay in the Rouen hospital. Then,
+she felt, if he, unaware of her identity, should place everything in her
+hands unreservedly, that would be a tribute to her work--and how hard
+she would labor to deserve it! After a time, she began to realize that,
+as his representative and the editor of the "Herald," she had become
+a factor in district politics. It took her breath--but with a gasp of
+delight, for there was something she wanted to do.
+
+Above all, she brought a light heart to her work. One evening in the
+latter part of that first week of the new regime, Parker perceived Bud
+Tipworthy standing in the doorway of the printing-room, beckoning him
+silently to come without.
+
+"What's the matter, Buddie?"
+
+"Listen. She's singin' over her work."
+
+Parker stepped outside. On the pavement, people had stopped to listen;
+they stood in the shadow, looking up with parted lips at the open,
+lighted Windows, whence came a clear, soft, reaching voice, lifted in
+song; now it swelled louder, unconsciously; now its volume was more
+slender and it melted liquidly into the night; again, it trembled and
+rose and dwelt in the ear, strong and pure; and, hearing it, you sighed
+with unknown longings. It was the "Angels' Serenade."
+
+Bud Tipworthy's sister, Cynthia, was with him, and Parker saw that she
+turned from the window and that she was crying, quietly; she put her
+hand on the boy's shoulder and patted it with a forlorn gesture which,
+to the foreman's eye, was as graceful as it was sad. He moved closer to
+Bud and his big hand fell on Cynthia's brother's other shoulder, as he
+realized that red hair could look pretty sometimes; and he wondered why
+the editor's singing made Cynthy cry; and at the same time he decided
+to be mighty good to Bud henceforth. The spell of night and song was
+on him; that and something more; for it is a strange, inexplicable
+fact that the most practical chief ever known to the "Herald" had a
+singularly sentimental influence over her subordinates, from the moment
+of her arrival. Under Harkless's domination there had been no more
+steadfast bachelors in Carlow than Ross Schofield and Caleb Parker, and,
+like timorous youths in a graveyard, daring and mocking the ghosts in
+order to assuage their own fears, they had so jibed and jeered at the
+married state that there was talk of urging the minister to preach at
+them; but now let it be recorded that at the moment Caleb laid his hand
+on Bud's other shoulder, his associate, Mr. Schofield, was enjoying a
+walk in the far end of town with a widow, and it is not to be doubted
+that Mr. Tipworthy's heart, also, was no longer in his possession,
+though, as it was after eight o'clock, the damsel of his desire had
+probably long since retired to her couch.
+
+For some faint light on the cause of these spells, we must turn to a
+comment made by the invaluable Mr. Martin some time afterward. Referring
+to the lady to whose voice he was now listening in silence (which shows
+how great the enthralling of her voice was), he said: "When you saw her,
+or heard her, or managed to be around, any, where she was, why, if
+you couldn't git up no hope of marryin' _her_, you wanted to marry
+_somebody_."
+
+Mr. Lige Willetts, riding idly by, drew rein in front of the lighted
+windows, and listened with the others. Presently he leaned from his
+horse and whispered to a man near him:
+
+"I know that song."
+
+"Do you?" whispered the other.
+
+"Yes; he and I heard her sing it, the night he was shot."
+
+"So!"
+
+"Yes, sir. It's by Beethoven."
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"It's a seraphic song," continued Lige.
+
+"No!" exclaimed his friend; then, shaking his head, he sighed: "Well,
+it's mighty sweet."
+
+The song was suddenly woven into laughter in the unseen chamber, and the
+lights in the windows went out, and a small lady and a tall lady and
+a thin old man, all three laughing and talking happily, came down and
+drove off in the Briscoe buckboard. The little crowd dispersed quietly;
+Lige Willetts plucked to his horse and cantered away to overtake the
+buckboard; William Todd took his courage between his teeth, and, the
+song ringing in his ears, made a desperate resolve to call upon Miss
+Bardlock that evening, in spite of its being a week day, and Caleb
+Parker gently and stammeringly asked Cynthia if she would wait till he
+shut up the shop, and let him walk home with her and Bud.
+
+Soon the Square was quiet as before, and there was naught but peace
+under the big stars of July.
+
+That day the news had come that Harkless, after weeks of alternate
+improvement and relapse, hazardously lingering in the borderland of
+shadows, had passed the crucial point and was convalescent. His recovery
+was assured. But from their first word of him, from the message that he
+was found and was alive, none of the people of Carlow had really doubted
+it. They are simple country people, and they know that God is good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. NETTLES
+
+Two men who have been comrades and classmates at the Alma Mater of John
+Harkless and Tom Meredith; two who have belonged to the same dub and
+roomed in the same entry; who have pooled their clothes and money in
+a common stock for either to draw on; who have shared the fortunes
+of athletic war, triumphing together, sometimes with an intense
+triumphancy; two men who were once boys getting hazed together, hazing
+in no unkindly fashion in their turn, always helping each other to stuff
+brains the night before an examination and to blow away the suffocating
+statistics like foam the night after; singing, wrestling, dancing,
+laughing, succeeding together, through the four kindest years of life;
+two such brave companions, meeting in the after years, are touchingly
+tender and caressive of each other, but the tenderness takes the shy,
+United States form of insulting epithets, and the caresses are blows. If
+John Harkless had been in health, uninjured and prosperous, Tom Meredith
+could no more have thrown himself on his knees beside him and called him
+"old friend" than he could have danced on the slack-wire.
+
+One day they thought the patient sleeping; the nurse fanned him softly,
+and Meredith had stolen in and was sitting by the cot. One of Harkless's
+eyes had been freed of the bandage, and, when Tom came in, it was
+closed; but, by and by, Meredith became aware that the unbandaged eye
+had opened and that it was suffused with a pathetic moisture; yet it
+twinkled with a comprehending light, and John knew that it was his old
+Tom Meredith who was sitting beside him, with the air of having sat
+there very often before. But this bald, middle-aged young man, not
+without elegance, yet a prosperous burgher for all that--was _this_ the
+slim, rollicking broth of a boy whose thick auburn hair used to make one
+streak of flame as he spun around the bases on a home run? Without doubt
+it was the stupendous fact, wrought by the alchemy of seven years.
+
+For, though seven years be a mere breath in the memories of the old, it
+is a long transfiguration to him whose first youth is passing, and who
+finds unsolicited additions accruing to some parts of his being and
+strange deprivations in others, and upon whom the unhappy realization
+begins to be borne in, that his is no particular case, and that he
+of all the world is not to be spared, but, like his forbears, must
+inevitably wriggle in the disguising crucible of time. And, though men
+accept it with apparently patient humor, the first realization that
+people do grow old, and that they do it before they have had time to be
+young, is apt to come like a shock.
+
+Perhaps not even in the interminable months of Carlow had Harkless
+realized the length of seven years so keenly as he did when he beheld
+his old friend at his bedside. How men may be warped apart in seven
+years, especially in the seven years between twenty-three and thirty! At
+the latter age you may return to the inseparable of seven years before
+and speak not the same language; you find no heartiness to carry on with
+each other after half an hour. Not so these classmates, who had known
+each other to the bone.
+
+Ah, yes, it was Tom Meredith, the same lad, in spite of his masquerade
+of flesh; and Helen was right: Tom had not forgotten.
+
+"It's the old horse-thief!" John murmured, tremulously.
+
+"You go plumb to thunder," answered Meredith between gulps.
+
+
+When he was well enough, they had long talks; and at other times
+Harkless lay by the window, and breathed deep of the fresh air, while
+Meredith attended to his correspondence for him, and read the papers
+to him. But there was one phenomenon of literature the convalescent
+insisted upon observing for himself, and which he went over again and
+again, to the detriment of his single unswathed eye, and this was the
+Carlow "Herald."
+
+The first letter he had read to him was one from Fisbee stating that the
+crippled forces left in charge had found themselves almost distraught in
+their efforts to carry on the paper (as their chief might conclude for
+himself on perusal of the issues of the first fortnight of his absence),
+and they had made bold to avail themselves of the services of a young
+relative of the writer's from a distant city--a capable journalist,
+who had no other employment for the present, and who had accepted the
+responsibilities of the "Herald" temporarily. There followed a note from
+Parker, announcing that Mr. Fisbee's relative was a bird, and was the
+kind to make the "Herald" hum. They hoped Mr. Harkless would approve
+of their bespeaking the new hand on the sheet; the paper must have
+suspended otherwise. Harkless, almost overcome by his surprise that
+Fisbee possessed a relative, dictated a hearty and grateful indorsement
+of their action, and, soon after, received a typewritten rejoinder,
+somewhat complicated in the reading, because of the numerous type
+errors and their corrections. The missive was signed "H. Fisbee," in
+a strapping masculine hand that suggested six feet of enterprise and
+muscle spattering ink on its shirt sleeves.
+
+John groaned and fretted over the writhings of the "Herald's" headless
+fortnight, but, perusing the issues produced under the domination of H.
+Fisbee, he started now and then, and chuckled at some shrewd felicities
+of management, or stared, puzzled, over an oddity, but came to a feeling
+of vast relief; and, when the question of H. Fisbee's salary was settled
+and the tenancy assured, he sank into a repose of mind. H. Fisbee might
+be an eccentric fellow, but he knew his business, and, apparently,
+he knew something of other business as well, for he wrote at length
+concerning the Carlow oil fields, urging Harkless to take shares in Mr.
+Watts's company while the stock was very low, two wells having been
+sunk without satisfactory results. H. Fisbee explained with exceeding
+technicality his reasons for believing that the third well would strike
+oil.
+
+But with his ease of mind regarding the "Herald," Harkless found himself
+possessed by apathy. He fretted no longer to get back to Plattville.
+With the prospect of return it seemed an emptiness glared at him from
+hollow sockets, and the thought of the dreary routine he must follow
+when he went back gave him the same faint nausea he had felt the evening
+after the circus. And, though it was partly the long sweat of anguish
+which had benumbed him, his apathy was pierced, at times, by a bodily
+horror of the scene of his struggle. At night he faced the grotesque
+masks of the Cross-Roads men and the brutal odds again; over and over
+he felt the blows, and clapped his hand to where the close fire of Bob
+Skillett's pistol burned his body.
+
+And, except for the release from pain, he rejoiced less and less in
+his recovery. He remembered a tedious sickness of his childhood and
+how beautiful he had thought the world, when he began to get well, how
+electric the open air blowing in at the window, how green the smile of
+earth, and how glorious to live and see the open day again. He had none
+of that feeling now. No pretty vision came again near his bed, and he
+beheld his convalescence as a mistake. He had come to a jumping-off
+place in his life--why had they not let him jump? What was there left
+but the weary plod, plod, and dust of years?
+
+He could have gone back to Carlow in better spirit if it had not been
+for the few dazzling hours of companionship which had transformed it to
+a paradise, but, gone, left a desert. She, by the sight of her, had made
+him wish to live, and now, that he saw her no more, she made him wish
+to die. How little she had cared for him, since she told him she did
+not care, when he had not meant to ask her. He was weary, and at last he
+longed to find the line of least resistance and follow it; he had done
+hard things for a long time, but now he wanted to do something easy.
+Under the new genius--who was already urging that the paper should
+be made a daily--the "Herald" could get along without him; and the
+"White-Caps" would bother Carlow no longer; and he thought that Kedge
+Halloway, an honest man, if a dull one, was sure to be renominated for
+Congress at the district convention which was to meet at Plattville in
+September--these were his responsibilities, and they did not fret him.
+Everything was all right. There was only one thought which thrilled him:
+his impression that she had come to the hospital to see him was not a
+delusion; she had really been there--as a humane, Christian person,
+he said to himself. One day he told Meredith of his vision, and Tom
+explained that it was no conjuration of fever.
+
+"But I thought she'd gone abroad," said Harkless, staring.
+
+"They had planned to," answered his friend. "They gave it up for some
+reason. Uncle Henry decided that he wasn't strong enough for the trip,
+or something."
+
+"Then--is she--is she here?"
+
+"No; Helen is never here in summer. When she came back from Plattville,
+she went north, somewhere, to join people she had promised, I think."
+Meredith had as yet no inkling or suspicion that his adopted cousin had
+returned to Plattville. What he told Harkless was what his aunt had told
+him, and he accepted it as the truth.
+
+Mrs. Sherwood (for she was both Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood) had always
+considered Fisbee an enigmatic rascal, and she regarded Helen's
+defection to him in the light of a family scandal to be hushed up, as
+well as a scalding pain to be borne. Some day the unkind girl-errant
+would "return to her wisdom and her duty"; meanwhile, the less known
+about it the better.
+
+Meredith talked very little to Harkless of his cousin, beyond lightly
+commenting on the pleasure and oddity of their meeting, and telling
+him of her friendly anxiety about his recovery; he said she had perfect
+confidence from the first that he would recover. Harkless had said a
+word or two in his delirium and a word or two out of it, and these,
+with once a sudden brow of suffering, and a difference Meredith felt in
+Helen's manner when they stood together by the sick man's bedside, had
+given the young man a strong impression, partly intuitive, that in spite
+of the short time the two had known each other, something had happened
+between them at Plattville, and he ventured a guess which was not far
+from the truth. Altogether, the thing was fairly plain--a sad lover
+is not so hard to read--and Meredith was sorry, for they were the two
+people he liked best on earth.
+
+The young man carried his gay presence daily to the hospital, where
+Harkless now lay in a pleasant room of his own, and he tried to keep
+his friend cheery, which was an easy matter on the surface, for the
+journalist turned ever a mask of jokes upon him; but it was not hard
+for one who liked him as Meredith did to see through to the melancholy
+underneath. After his one reference to Helen, John was entirely silent
+of her, and Meredith came to feel that both would be embarrassed if
+occasion should rise and even her name again be mentioned between them.
+
+He did not speak of his family connection with Mr. Fisbee to the
+invalid, for, although the connection was distant, the old man was, in a
+way, the family skeleton, and Meredith had a strong sense of the decency
+of reserve in such a matter. There was one thing Fisbee's shame had made
+the old man unable not to suppress when he told Parker his story; the
+wraith of a torrid palate had pursued him from his youth, and the days
+of drink and despair from which Harkless had saved him were not the
+first in his life. Meredith wondered as much as did Harkless where
+Fisbee had picked up the journalistic "young relative" who signed his
+extremely business-like missives in such a thundering hand. It was
+evident that the old man was grateful to his patron, but it did not
+occur to Meredith that Fisbee's daughter might have an even stronger
+sense of gratitude, one so strong that she could give all her young
+strength to work for the man who had been good to her father.
+
+There came a day in August when Meredith took the convalescent from the
+hospital in a victoria, and installed him in his own home. Harkless's
+clothes hung on his big frame limply; however, there was a drift of
+light in his eyes as they drove slowly through the pretty streets of
+Rouen. The bandages and splints and drugs and swathings were all gone
+now, and his sole task was to gather strength. The thin face was sallow
+no longer; it was the color of evening shadows; indeed he lay among the
+cushions seemingly no more than a gaunt shadow of the late afternoon,
+looking old and gray and weary. They rolled along abusing each other,
+John sometimes gratefully threatening his friend with violence.
+
+The victoria passed a stone house with wide lawns and an inhospitable
+air of wealth and importunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung,
+ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one expected a fine lady to
+come smiling and glittering from the door. Oddly enough, though he
+had never seen the place before, it struck Harkless with a sense of
+familiarity. "Who lives there?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"Who lives there? On the left? Why that--that is the Sherwood place,"
+Meredith answered, in a tone which sounded as if he were not quite sure
+of it, but inclined to think his information correct. Harkless relapsed
+into silence.
+
+Meredith's home was a few blocks further up the same street; a capacious
+house in the Western fashion of the Seventies. In front, on the lawn,
+there was a fountain with a leaping play of water; maples and shrubbery
+were everywhere; and here and there stood a stiff sentinel of Lombardy
+poplar. It was all cool and incongruous and comfortable; and, on the
+porch, sheltered from publicity by a multitude of palms and flowering
+plants, a white-jacketed negro appeared with a noble smile and a more
+important tray, whereon tinkled bedewed glasses and a crystal pitcher,
+against whose sides the ice clinked sweetly. There was a complement of
+straws.
+
+When they had helped him to an easy chair on the porch, Harkless
+whistled luxuriously. "Ah, my bachelor!" he exclaimed, as he selected a
+straw.
+
+"'Who would fardels bear?'" rejoined Mr. Meredith. Then came to the
+other a recollection of an auburn-haired ball player on whom the third
+strike had once been called while his eyes wandered tenderly to the
+grandstand, where the prettiest girl of that commencement week was
+sitting.
+
+"Have you forgot the 'Indian Princess'?" he asked.
+
+"You're a dull old person," Tom laughed. "Haven't you discovered that
+'tis they who forget us? And why shouldn't they? Do _we_ remember
+well?--anybody except just us two, I mean, of course."
+
+"I've a notion we do, sometimes."
+
+The other set his glass on the tray, and lit his cigarette. "Yes; when
+we're unsuccessful. Then I think we do."
+
+"That may be true."
+
+"Of course it is. If a lady wishes to make an impression on me that is
+worth making, let her let me make none on her."
+
+"You think it is always our vanity?"
+
+"Analyze it as your revered Thomas does and you shall reach the same
+conclusion. Let a girl reject you and--" Meredith broke off, cursing
+himself inwardly, and, rising, cried gaily: "What profiteth it a man
+if he gain the whole wisdom in regard to women and loseth not his own
+heart? And neither of us is lacking a heart--though it may be; one can't
+tell, one's self; one has to find out about that from some girl. At
+least, I'm rather sure of mine; it's difficult to give a tobacco-heart
+away; it's drugged on the market. I'm going to bring out the dogs; I'm
+spending the summer at home just to give them daily exercise."
+
+This explanation of his continued presence in Rouen struck John as
+quite as plausible as Meredith's more seriously alleged reasons for not
+joining his mother and sister, at Winter Harbor. (He possessed a mother,
+and, as he explained, he had also sisters to satiety, in point of
+numbers.) Harkless knew that Tom had stayed to look after him; and he
+thought there never was so poor a peg as himself whereon to hang
+the warm mantle of such a friendship. He knew that other mantles of
+affection and kindliness hung on that self-same peg, for he had been
+moved by the letters and visits from Carlow people, and he had heard
+the story of their descent upon the hospital, and of the march on the
+Cross-Roads. Many a good fellow, too, had come to see him during his
+better days--from Judge Briscoe, openly tender and solicitous, to the
+embarrassed William Todd, who fiddled at his hat and explained that,
+being as he was in town on business (a palpable fiction) he thought he'd
+look in to see if "they was any word would wish to be sent down to our
+city." The good will the sick man had from every one touched him, and
+made him feel unworthy, and he could see nothing he had done to deserve
+it. Mr. Meredith could (and would not--openly, at least) have explained
+to him that it made not a great deal of difference what he did; it was
+what people thought he was.
+
+His host helped him upstairs after dinner, and showed him the room
+prepared for his occupancy. Harkless sank, sighing with weakness, into a
+deep chair, and Meredith went to a window-seat and stretched himself out
+for a smoke and chat.
+
+"Doesn't it beat your time," he said, cheerily, "to think of what's
+become of all the old boys? They turn up so differently from what we
+expected, when they turn up at all. We sized them up all right so far
+as character goes, I fancy, but we couldn't size up the chances of
+life. Take poor old Pickle Haines: who'd have dreamed Pickle would shoot
+himself over a bankruptcy? I dare say that wasn't all of it--might have
+been cherchez la femme, don't you think? What do you make of Pickle's
+case, John?"
+
+There was no answer. Harkless's chair was directly in front of the
+mantel-piece, and upon the carved wooden shelf, amongst tobacco-jars
+and little curios, cotillion favors and the like, there were scattered
+a number of photographs. One of these was that of a girl who looked
+straight out at you from a filigree frame; there was hardly a corner
+of the room where you could have stood without her clear, serious eyes
+seeming to rest upon yours.
+
+"Cherchez la femme?" repeated Tom, puffing unconsciously. "Pickle was
+a good fellow, but he had the deuce of an eye for a girl. Do you
+remember--" He stopped short, and saw the man and the photograph looking
+at each other. Too late, he unhappily remembered that he had meant, and
+forgotten, to take that photograph out of the room before he brought
+Harkless in. Now he would have to leave it; and Helen Sherwood was not
+the sort of girl, even in a flat presentment, to be continually thrown
+in the face of a man who had lost her. And it always went hard, Tom
+reflected, with men who stretched vain hands to Helen, only to lose her.
+But there was one, he thought, whose outstretched hands might not prove
+so vain. Why couldn't she have cared for John Harkless? Deuce take
+the girl, did she want to marry an emperor? He looked at Harkless, and
+pitied him with an almost tearful compassion. A feverish color dwelt in
+the convalescent's cheek; the apathy that had dulled his eyes was there
+no longer; instead, they burned with a steady fire. The image returned
+his unwavering gaze with inscrutable kindness.
+
+"You heard that Pickle shot himself, didn't you?" Meredith asked. There
+was no answer; John did not hear him.
+
+"Do you know that poor Jeny Haines killed himself, last March?" Tom said
+sharply.
+
+There was only silence in the room. Meredith got up and rattled some
+tongs in the empty fireplace, but the other did not move or notice him
+in any way.
+
+Meredith set the tongs down, and went quietly out of the room, leaving
+his friend to that mysterious interview.
+
+When he came back, after a remorseful cigarette in the yard, Harkless
+was still sitting, motionless, looking up at the photograph above the
+mantel-piece.
+
+
+
+They drove abroad every day, at first in the victoria, and, as
+Harkless's strength began to come back, in a knock-about cart of Tom's,
+a light trail of blue smoke floating back wherever the two friends
+passed. And though the country editor grew stronger in the pleasant,
+open city, Meredith felt that his apathy and listlessness only deepened,
+and he suspected that, in Harkless's own room, where the photograph
+reigned, the languor departed for the time, making way for a destructive
+fire. Judge Briscoe, paying a second visit to Rouen, told Tom, in an
+aside, that their friend did not seem to be the same man. He was altered
+and aged beyond belief, the old gentleman whispered sadly.
+
+Meredith decided that his guest needed enlivening--something to take him
+out of himself; he must be stirred up to rub against people once more.
+And therefore, one night he made a little company for him: two or three
+apparently betrothed very young couples, for whom it was rather dull,
+after they had looked their fill of Harkless (it appeared that every one
+was curious to see him); and three or four married young couples, for
+whom the entertainment seemed rather diverting in an absent-minded way
+(they had the air of remembering that they had forgotten the baby); and
+three or four bachelors, who seemed contented in any place where they
+were allowed to smoke; and one widower, whose manner indicated that any
+occasion whatever was gay enough for him; and four or five young women,
+who (Meredith explained to John) were of their host's age, and had been
+"left over" out of the set he grew up with; and for these the modest
+party took on a hilarious and chipper character. "It is these girls that
+have let the men go by because they didn't see any good enough; they're
+the jolly souls!" the one widower remarked, confidentially. "They've
+been at it a long while, and they know how, and they're light-hearted as
+robins. They have more fun than people who have responsibilities."
+
+All of these lively demoiselles fluttered about Harkless with
+commiserative pleasantries, and, in spite of his protestations, made
+him recline in the biggest and deepest chair on the porch, where they
+surfeited him with kindness and grouped about him with extra cushions
+and tenderness for a man who had been injured. No one mentioned the fact
+that he had been hurt; it was not spoken of, though they wished mightily
+he would tell them the story they had read luridly in the public prints.
+They were very good to him. One of them, in particular, a handsome,
+dark, kind-eyed girl, constituted herself at once his cicerone in Rouen
+gossip and his waiting-maid. She sat by him, and saw that his needs (and
+his not-needs, too) were supplied and oversupplied; she could not let
+him move, and anticipated his least wish, though he was now amply able
+to help himself; and she fanned him as if he were a dying consumptive.
+
+They sat on Meredith's big porch in the late twilight and ate a
+substantial refection, and when this was finished, a buzz of nonsense
+rose from all quarters, except the remote corners where the youthful
+affianced ones had defensively stationed themselves behind a rampart of
+plants. They, having eaten, had naught to do, and were only waiting
+a decent hour for departure. Laughing voices passed up and down the
+street, and mingled with the rhythmic plashing of Meredith's fountain,
+and, beyond the shrubberies and fence, one caught glimpses of the light
+dresses of women moving to and fro, and of people sitting bareheaded on
+neighboring lawns to enjoy the twilight. Now and then would pass, with
+pipe and dog, the beflanneled figure of an undergraduate, home for
+vacation, or a trio of youths in knickerbockers, or a band of young
+girls, or both trio and band together; and from a cross street, near by,
+came the calls and laughter of romping children and the pulsating
+whirr of a lawn-mower: This sound Harkless remarked as a ceaseless
+accompaniment to life in Rouen; even in the middle of the night there
+was always some unfortunate, cutting grass.
+
+When the daylight was all gone, and the stars had crept out, strolling
+negroes patrolled the sidewalks, thrumming mandolins and guitars, and
+others came and went, singing, making the night Venetian. The untrained,
+joyous voices, chording eerily in their sweet, racial minors, came on
+the air, sometimes from far away. But there swung out a chorus from
+fresh, Aryan throats, in the house south of Meredith's:
+
+        "Where, oh where, are the grave old Seniors?
+         Safe, now, in the wide, wide world!"
+
+"Doesn't that thrill you, boy?" said Meredith, joining the group about
+Harkless's chair. "Those fellows are Sophomores, class of heaven knows
+what. _Aren't_ you feeling a fossil. Father Abraham?"
+
+A banjo chattered on the lawn to the north, and soon a mixed chorus of
+girls and boys sang from there:
+
+       "O, 'Arriet, I'm waiting, waiting alone out 'ere."
+
+Then a piano across the street sounded the dearthful harmonies of
+Chopin's Funeral March.
+
+"You may take your choice," remarked Meredith, flicking a spark over the
+rail in the ash of his cigar, "Chopping or Chevalier."
+
+"Chopin, my friend," said the lady who had attached herself to
+Harkless. She tapped Tom's shoulder with her fan and smiled, graciously
+corrective.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Hinsdale," he answered, gratefully. "And as I, perhaps,
+had better say, since otherwise there might be a pause and I am the
+host, we have a wide selection. In addition to what is provided at
+present, I predict that within the next ten minutes a talented girl who
+lives two doors south will favor us with the Pilgrims' Chorus, piano
+arrangement, break down in the middle, and drift, into 'Rastus on
+Parade,' while a double quartette of middle-aged colored gentlemen under
+our Jim will make choral offering in our own back yard."
+
+"My dear Tom," exclaimed Miss Hinsdale, "you forget Wetherford Swift!"
+
+"I could stand it all," put forth the widower, "if it were not for
+Wetherford Swift."
+
+"When is Miss Sherwood coming home?" asked one of the ladies. "Why does
+she stay away and leave him to his sufferings?"
+
+"Us to his sufferings," substituted a bachelor. "He is just beginning;
+listen."
+
+Through all the other sounds of music, there penetrated from an unseen
+source, a sawish, scraped, vibration of catgut, pathetic, insistent,
+painstaking, and painful beyond belief.
+
+"He is in a terrible way to-night," said the widower.
+
+Miss Hinsdale laughed. "Worse every night. The violinist is young
+Wetherford Swift," she explained to Harkless. "He is very much in love,
+and it doesn't agree with him. He used to be such a pleasant boy,
+but last winter he went quite mad over Helen Sherwood, Mr. Meredith's
+cousin, our beauty, you know--I am so sorry she isn't here; you'd be
+interested in meeting her, I'm sure--and he took up the violin."
+
+"It is said that his family took up chloroform at the same time," said
+the widower.
+
+"His music is a barometer," continued the lady, "and by it the
+neighborhood nightly observes whether Miss Sherwood has been nice to him
+or not."
+
+"It is always exceedingly plaintive," explained another.
+
+"Except once," rejoined Miss Hinsdale. "He played jigs when she came
+home from somewhere or other, in June."
+
+"It was Tosti's 'Let Me Die,' the very next evening," remarked the
+widower.
+
+"Ah," said one of the bachelors, "but his joy was sadder for us than his
+misery. Hear him now."
+
+"I think he means it for 'What's this dull town to me,'" observed
+another, with some rancor. "I would willingly make the town sufficiently
+exciting for him--"
+
+"If there were not an ordinance against the hurling of missiles,"
+finished the widower.
+
+The piano executing the funeral march ceased to execute, discomfited by
+the persistent and overpowering violin; the banjo and the coster-songs
+were given over; even the collegians' music was defeated; and the
+neighborhood was forced to listen to the dauntless fiddle, but not
+without protest, for there came an indignant, spoken chorus from the
+quarter whence the college songs had issued: "Ya-a-ay! Wetherford, put
+it away! _She'll_ come back!" The violin played on.
+
+"We all know each other here, you see, Mr. Harkless," Miss Hinsdale
+smiled benignantly.
+
+"They didn't bother Mr. Wetherford Swift," said the widower. "Not that
+time. Do you hear him?--'Could ye come back to me, Douglas'?"
+
+"Oh, but it isn't absence that is killing him and his friends," cried
+one of the young women. "It is Brainard Macauley."
+
+"That is a mistake," said Tom Meredith, as easily as he could. "There
+goes Jim's double quartette. Listen, and you will hear them try to----"
+
+But the lady who had mentioned Brainard Macauley cried indignantly: "You
+try to change the subject the moment it threatens to be interesting.
+They were together everywhere until the day she went away; they danced
+and 'sat out' together through the whole of one country-club party;
+they drove every afternoon; they took long walks, and he was at the
+Sherwoods' every evening of her last week in town. 'That is a mistake!'"
+
+"I'm afraid it looks rather bleak for Wetherford," said the widower. "I
+went up to the 'Journal' office on business, one day, and there sat Miss
+Sherwood in Macauley's inner temple, chatting with a reporter, while
+Brainard finished some work."
+
+"Helen is eccentric," said the former speaker, "but she's not quite that
+eccentric, unless they were engaged. It is well understood that they
+will announce it in the fall."
+
+Miss Hinsdale kindly explained to Harkless that Brainard Macauley was
+the editor of the "Rouen Morning Journal"--"a very distinguished young
+man, not over twenty-eight, and perfectly wonderful." Already a power
+to be accounted with in national politics, he was "really a tremendous
+success," and sure to go far; "one of those delicate-looking men, who
+are yet so strong you know they won't let the lightning hurt you." It
+really looked as if Helen Sherwood (whom Harkless really ought to meet)
+had actually been caught in the toils at tet, those toils wherein so
+many luckless youths had lain enmeshed for her sake. He must meet Mr.
+Macauley, too, the most interesting man in Rouen. After her little
+portrait of him, didn't Mr. Harkless agree that it looked really pretty
+dull for Miss Sherwood's other lovers?
+
+Mr. Harkless smiled, and agreed that it did indeed. She felt a thrill of
+compassion for him, and her subsequent description of the pathos of
+his smile was luminous. She said it was natural that a man who had been
+through so much suffering from those horrible "White-Cappers" should
+have a smile that struck into your heart like a knife.
+
+Despite all that Meredith could do, and after his notorious effort to
+shift the subject he could do very little, the light prattle ran on
+about Helen Sherwood and Brainard Macauley. Tom abused himself for his
+wild notion of cheering his visitor with these people who had no talk,
+and who, if they drifted out of commonplace froth, had no medium to
+float them unless they sailed the currents, of local personality, and he
+mentally upbraided them for a set of gossiping ninnies. They conducted
+a conversation (if it could be dignified by a name) of which no stranger
+could possibly partake, and which, by a hideous coincidence, was making
+his friend writhe, figuratively speaking, for Harkless sat like a fixed
+shadow. He uttered scarcely a word the whole evening, though Meredith
+knew that his guests would talk about him enthusiastically, the next
+day, none the less. The journalist's silence was enforced by the
+topics; but what expression and manner the light allowed them to see was
+friendly and receptive, as though he listened to brilliant suggestions.
+He had a nice courtesy, and Miss Hinsdale felt continually that she
+was cleverer than usual this evening, and no one took his silence to be
+churlish, though they all innocently wondered why he did not talk more;
+however, it was probable that a man who had been so interestingly and
+terribly shot would be rather silent for a time afterward.
+
+That night, when Harkless had gone to bed Meredith sat late by his own
+window calling himself names. He became aware of a rhomboidal patch of
+yellow light on a wall of foliage without, and saw that it came from his
+friend's window. After dubious consideration, he knocked softly on the
+door.
+
+"Come."
+
+He went in. Harkless was in bed, and laughed faintly as Meredith
+entered. "I--I'm fearing you'll have to let me settle your gas bill,
+Tom. I'm not like I used to be, quite. I find--since--since that
+business, I can't sleep without a light. I rather get the--the horrors
+in the dark."
+
+Incoherently, Meredith made a compassionate exclamation and turned to
+go, and, as he left the room, his eye fell upon the mantel-piece. The
+position of the photographs had been altered, and the picture of the
+girl who looked straight out at you was gone. The mere rim of it was
+visible behind the image of an old gentleman with a sardonic mouth.
+
+An hour later, Tom came back, and spoke through the closed door. "Boy,
+don't you think you can get to sleep now?"
+
+"Yes, Tom. It's all right. You get to bed. Nothing troubles me."
+
+Meredith spent the next day in great tribulation and perplexity; he felt
+that something had to be done, but what to do he did not know. He still
+believed that a "stirring-up" was what Harkless needed--not the species
+of "stirring-up" that had taken place last night, but a diversion which
+would divert. As they sat at dinner, a suggestion came to him and he
+determined to follow it. He was called to the telephone, and a voice
+strange to his ear murmured in a tone of polite deference: "A lady
+wishes to know if Mr. Meredith and his visitor intend being present at
+the country-club this evening."
+
+He had received the same inquiry from Miss Hinsdale on her departure the
+previous evening, and had answered vaguely; hence he now rejoined:
+
+"You are quite an expert ventriloquist, but you do not deceive me."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," creaked the small articulation.
+
+"This is Miss Hinsdale, isn't it?"
+
+"No, sir. The lady wishes to know if you will kindly answer her
+question."
+
+"Tell her, yes." He hung up the receiver, and returned to the table.
+"Some of Clara Hinsdale's play," he explained. "You made a devastating
+impression on her, boy; you were wise enough not to talk any, and she
+foolishly thought you were as interesting as you looked. We're going out
+to a country-club dance. It's given for the devotees who stay here all
+summer and swear Rouen is always cool; and nobody dances but me and the
+very young ones. It won't be so bad; you can smoke anywhere, and there
+are little tables. We'll go."
+
+"Thank you, Tom, you're so good to think of it, but----"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Would you mind going alone? I find it very pleasant sitting on your
+veranda, or I'll get a book."
+
+"Very well, if you don't want to go, I don't. I haven't had a dance for
+three months and I'm still addicted to it. But of course----"
+
+"I think I'd like to go." Harkless acquiesced at once, with a cheerful
+voice and a lifeless eye, and the good Tom felt unaccountably mean in
+persisting.
+
+They drove out into the country through mists like lakes, and found
+themselves part of a procession of twinkling carriage-lights, and cigar
+sparks shining above open vehicles, winding along the levels like a
+canoe fete on the water. In the entrance hall of the club-house they
+encountered Miss Hinsdale, very handsome, large, and dark, elaborately
+beaming and bending toward them warmly.
+
+"Who do you think is here?" she said.
+
+"Gomez?" ventured Meredith.
+
+"Helen Sherwood!" she cried. "Go and present Mr. Harkless before
+Brainard Macauley takes her away to some corner."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. PRETTY MARQUISE
+
+The two friends walked through a sort of opera-bouffe to find her; music
+playing, a swaying crowd, bright lights, bright eyes, pretty women, a
+glimpse of dancers footing it over a polished floor in a room beyond--a
+hundred colors flashing and changing, as the groups shifted, before the
+eye could take in the composition of the picture. A sudden thrill of
+exhilaration rioted in John's pulses, and he trembled like a child
+before the gay disclosure of a Christmas tree. Meredith swore to himself
+that he would not have known him for the man of five minutes agone. Two
+small, bright red spots glowed in his cheeks; he held himself erect with
+head thrown back and shoulders squared, and the idolizing Tom thought he
+looked as a king ought to look at the acme of power and dominion. Miss
+Hinsdale's word in the hallway was the geniuses touch: a bent, gray man
+of years--a word--and behold the Great John Harkless, the youth of elder
+days ripened to his prime of wisdom and strength! People made way for
+them and whispered as they passed. It had been years since John Harkless
+had been in the midst of a crowd of butterfly people; everything seemed
+unreal, or like a ball in a play; presently the curtain would fall and
+close the lights and laughter from his view, leaving only the echo of
+music. It was like a kaleidoscope for color: the bouquets of crimson or
+white or pink or purple; the profusion of pretty dresses, the brilliant,
+tender fabrics, and the handsome, foreshortened faces thrown back over
+white shoulders in laughter; glossy raven hair and fair tresses moving
+in quick salutations; and the whole gay shimmer of festal tints and rich
+artificialities set off against the brave green of out-doors, for the
+walls were solidly adorned with forest branches, with, here and there
+amongst them, a blood-red droop of beech leaves, stabbed in autumn's
+first skirmish with summer. The night was cool, and the air full of
+flower smells, while harp, violin, and 'cello sent a waltz-throb through
+it all.
+
+They looked rapidly through several rooms and failed to find her
+indoors, and they went outside, not exchanging a word, and though
+Harkless was a little lame, Tom barely kept up with his long stride.
+On the verandas there were fairy lamps and colored incandescents over
+little tables, where people sat chatting. She was not there. Beyond
+was a terrace, where a myriad of Oriental lanterns outlined themselves
+clearly in fantastically shaped planes of scarlet and orange and green
+against the blue darkness. Many couples and groups were scattered over
+the terrace, and the young men paused on the steps, looking swiftly from
+group to group. She was not there.
+
+"We haven't looked in the dancing-room," said Tom, looking at his
+companion rather sorrowfully. John turned quickly and they reentered the
+house.
+
+He had parted from her in the blackness of storm with only the flicker
+of lightning to show her to him, but it was in a blaze of lights that
+he saw her again. The dance was just ended, and she stood in a wide
+doorway, half surrounded by pretty girls and young men, who were
+greeting her. He had one full look at her. She was leaning to them all,
+her arms full of flowers, and she seemed the radiant centre of all the
+light and gaiety of the place. Even Meredith stopped short and exclaimed
+upon her; for one never got used to her; and he remembered that whenever
+he saw her after absence the sense of her beauty rushed over him anew.
+And he believed the feeling on this occasion was keener than ever
+before, for she was prettier than he had ever seen her.
+
+"No wonder!" he cried; but Harkless did not understand. As they pressed
+forward, Meredith perceived that they were only two more radii of
+a circle of youths, sprung from every direction as the waltz ended,
+bearing down upon the common focus to secure the next dance. Harkless
+saw nothing but that she stood there before him. He feared a little that
+every one might notice how he was trembling, and he was glad of the many
+voices that kept them from hearing his heart knock against his ribs.
+She saw him coming toward her, and nodded to him pleasantly, in just the
+fashion in which she was bowing to half a dozen others, and at that a
+pang of hot pain went through him like an arrow--an arrow poisoned with
+cordial, casual friendliness.
+
+She extended her hand to him and gave him a smile that chilled him--it,
+was so conventionally courteous and poised so nicely in the manner of
+society. He went hot and cold fast enough then, for not less pleasantly
+in that manner did she exclaim: "I am very glad to see you, Mr.
+Harkless, so extremely glad! And so delighted to find you looking strong
+again! Do tell me about all our friends in Plattville. I should like to
+have a little chat with you some time. So good of you to find me in this
+melee."
+
+And with that she turned from the poor fellow to Meredith. "How do you
+do. Cousin Tom? I've saved the next dance for you." Then she distributed
+words here and there and everywhere, amongst the circle about
+her--pretty Marquise with a vengeance! "No, Mr. Swift, I shall not make
+a card; you must come at the beginning of a dance if you want one. I
+cannot promise the next; it is quite impossible. No, I did not go as
+far north as Mackinac. How do you do, Mr. Burlingame?--Yes, quite an
+age;--no, not the next, I am afraid; nor the next;--I'm not keeping a
+card. Good evening, Mr. Baird. No, not the next. Oh, _thank_ you, Miss
+Hinsdale!--No, Mr. Swift, it is quite impossible--I'm so sorry. Cousin,
+the music is commencing; this is ours."
+
+As she took Meredith's arm, she handed her flowers to a gentleman beside
+her with the slightest glance at the recipient; and the gesture and look
+made her partner heartsick for his friend; it was so easy and natural
+and with the air of habit, and had so much of the manner with which a
+woman hands things to a man who partakes of her inner confidences. Tom
+knew that Harkless divined the gesture, as well as the identity of the
+gentleman. They started away, but she paused, and turned to the latter.
+"Mr. Macauley, you must meet Mr. Harkless. We leave him in your care,
+and you must see that he meets all the pretty girls--you are used to
+being nice to distinguished strangers, you know."
+
+Tom put his arm about her, and whirled her away, and Harkless felt as if
+a soft hand had dealt him blow after blow in the face. Was this lady of
+little baffling forms and small cold graces the girl who had been his
+kind comrade, the girl who stood with him by the blue tent-pole, she who
+had run to him to save his life, she who walked at his side along the
+pike? The contrast of these homely scenes made him laugh grimly. Was
+this she who had wept before him--was it she who had been redolent of
+kindness so fragrantly natural and true--was it she who said she "loved
+all these people very much, in spite of having known them only two
+days"?
+
+He cried out upon himself for a fool. What was he in her eyes but a
+man who had needed to be told that she did not love him! Had he not
+better--and more courteously to her--have avoided the meeting which was
+necessarily an embarrassment to her? But no; he must rush like a Mohawk
+till he found her and forced her to rebuff him, to veil her kindness in
+little manners, to remind him that he put himself in the character of a
+rejected importunate. She had punished him enough, perhaps a little too
+cruelly enough, in leaving him with the man to whom she handed bouquets
+as a matter of course. And this man was one whose success had long been
+a trumpet at his ear, blaring loudly of his own failure in the same
+career.
+
+It had been several years since he first heard of the young editor of
+the Rouen "Journal," and nowadays almost everybody knew about Brainard
+Macauley. Outwardly, he was of no unusual type: an American of affairs;
+slight, easy, yet alert; relaxed, yet sharp; neat, regular, strong; a
+quizzical eye, a business chin, an ambitious head with soft, straight
+hair outlining a square brow; and though he was "of a type," he was not
+commonplace, and one knew at once that he would make a rattling fight to
+arrive where he was going.
+
+It appeared that he had heard of Harkless, as well as the Carlow editor
+of him. They had a few moments of shop, and he talked to Harkless as a
+brother craftsman, without the offense of graciousness, and spoke of his
+pleasure in the meeting and of his relief at Harkless's recovery, for,
+aside from the mere human feeling, the party needed him in Carlow--even
+if he did not always prove himself "quite a vehement partisan." Macauley
+laughed. "But I'm not doing my duty," he said presently; "I was to
+present you to the pretty ones only, I believe. Will you designate your
+preferred fashion of beauty? We serve all styles."
+
+"Thank you," the other answered, hurriedly. "I met a number last
+night--quite a number, indeed." He had seen them only in dim lights,
+however, and except Miss Hinsdale and the widower, had not the faintest
+recognition of any of them, and he cut them all, except those two, one
+after the other, before the evening was over; and this was a strange
+thing for a politician to do; but he did it with such an innocent eye
+that they remembered the dark porch and forgave him.
+
+"Shall we watch the dancing, then?" asked Macauley. Harkless was already
+watching part of it.
+
+"If you will. I have not seen this sort for more than five years."
+
+"It is always a treat, I think, and a constant proof that the older
+school of English caricaturists didn't overdraw."
+
+"Yes; one realizes they couldn't."
+
+Harkless remembered Tom Meredith's fine accomplishment of dancing;
+he had been the most famous dancer of college days, and it was in the
+dancer that John best saw his old friend again as he had known him, the
+light lad of the active toe. Other couples flickered about the one
+John watched, couples that plodded, couples that bobbed, couples that
+galloped, couples that slid, but the cousins alone passed across the
+glistening reflections as lightly as October leaves blown over the
+forest floor. In the midst of people who danced with fixed, glassy eyes,
+or who frowned with determination to do their duty or to die, and
+seemed to expect the latter, or who were pale with the apprehension of
+collision, or who made visible their anxiety to breathe through the nose
+and look pleased at the same time, these two floated and smiled
+easily upon life. Three or four steep steps made the portly and
+cigarette-smoking Meredith pant like an old man, but a dance was a
+cooling draught to him. As for the little Marquise--when she danced, she
+danced away with all those luckless hearts that were not hers already.
+The orchestra launched the jubilant measures of the deux-temps with a
+torrent of vivacity, and the girl's rhythmic flight answered like a sail
+taking the breeze.
+
+There was one heart she had long since won which answered her every
+movement. Flushed, rapturous, eyes sparkling, cheeks aglow, the small
+head weaving through the throng like a golden shuttle--ah, did she know
+how adorable she was! Was Tom right: is it the attainable unattainable
+to one man and given to some other that leaves a deeper mark upon him
+than success? At all events the unattainable was now like a hot sting
+in the heart, but yet a sting more precious than a balm. The voice of
+Brainard Macauley broke in:
+
+"A white brow and a long lash, a flushing cheek and a soft eye, a voice
+that laughs and breaks and ripples in the middle of a word, a girl you
+could put in your hat, Mr. Harkless--and there you have a strong man
+prone! But I congratulate you on the manner your subordinates operate
+the 'Herald' during your absence. I understand you are making it a
+daily."
+
+Macauley was staring at him quizzically, and Harkless, puzzled, but
+without resentment of the other's whimsey, could only decide that the
+editor of the Rouen "Journal" was an exceedingly odd young man. All at
+once he found Meredith and the girl herself beside him; they had stopped
+before the dance was finished. He had the impulse to guard himself from
+new blows as a boy throws up his elbow to ward a buffet, and, although
+he could not ward with his elbow, for his heart was on his sleeve--where
+he began to believe that Macauley had seen it--he remembered that he
+could smile with as much intentional mechanism as any wornout rounder of
+afternoons. He stepped aside for her, and she saw what she had known but
+had not seen before, for the thickness of the crowd, and this was that
+he limped and leaned upon his stick.
+
+"Do let me thank you," he said, with a louder echo of her manner of
+greeting him, a little earlier. "It has been such a pleasure to watch
+you dance. It is really charming to meet you here. If I return to
+Plattville I shall surely remember to tell Miss Briscoe."
+
+At this she surprised him with a sudden, clear look in the eyes, so
+reproachful, so deep, so sad, that he started. She took her flowers
+from Macauley, who had the air of understanding the significance of such
+ceremonies very well, and saying, "Shan't we all go out on the terrace?"
+placed her arm in Harkless's, and conducted him (and not the others)
+to the most secluded corner of the terrace, a nook illumined by one
+Japanese lantern; to which spot it was his belief that he led her. She
+sank into a chair, with the look of the girl who had stood by the blue
+tent-pole. He could only stare at her, amazed by her abrupt change to
+this dazzling, if reproachful, kindness, confused by his good fortune.
+
+"'_If_ you go back to Plattville!'" she said in a low voice. "What do
+you mean?"
+
+"I don't know. I've been dull lately, and I thought I might go somewhere
+else." Caught in a witchery no lack of possession could dispel, and
+which the prospect of loss made only stronger while it lasted, he took
+little thought of what he said; little thought of anything but of the
+gladness it was to be with her again.
+
+"'Somewhere else?' Where?"
+
+"Anywhere."
+
+"Have you no sense of responsibility? What is to become of your paper?"
+
+"The 'Herald'? Oh, it will potter along, I think."
+
+"But what has become of it in your absence, already? Has it not
+deteriorated very much?"
+
+"No," he said; "it's better than it ever was before."
+
+"What!" she cried, with a little gasp.
+
+"You're so astounded at my modesty?"
+
+"But please tell me what you mean," she said quickly. "What happened to
+it?"
+
+"Isn't the 'Herald' rather a dull subject? I'll tell you how well Judge
+Briscoe looked when he came to see me; or, rather, tell me of your
+summer in the north."
+
+"No," she answered earnestly. "Don't you remember my telling you that I
+am interested in newspaper work?"
+
+"I have even heard so from others," he said, with an instant of dryness.
+
+"Please tell me about the 'Herald'?"
+
+"It is very simple. Your friend, Mr. Fisbee, found a substitute, a
+relative six feet high with his coat off, a traction engine for energy
+and a limited mail for speed. He writes me letters on a type writer
+suffering from an impediment in its speech; and in brief, he is an
+enterprising idiot with a mania for work-baskets."
+
+Her face was in the shadow.
+
+"You say the--idiot--is enterprising?" she inquired.
+
+"Far more enterprising and far less idiot than I. They are looking
+for oil down there, and when he came he knew less about oil than a
+kindergarten babe, and spoke of 'boring for kerosene' in his first
+letter to me; but he knows it all now, and writes long and convincing
+geological arguments. If a well comes in, he is prepared to get out an
+extra! Perhaps you may understand what that means in Plattville, with
+the 'Herald's' numerous forces. I owe him everything, even the shares in
+the oil company, which he has persuaded me to take. And he is going to
+dare to make the 'Herald' a daily. Do you remember asking me why I had
+never done that? It seemed rather a venture to try to compete with the
+Rouen papers in offering State and foreign news, but this young
+Gulliver has tacked onto the Associated Press, and means to print a
+quarto--that's eight pages, you know--once a week, Saturday, and a
+double sheet, four pages, on other mornings. The daily venture begins
+next Monday."
+
+"Will it succeed?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he laughed.
+
+"You think not?" Her interest in this dull business struck him as
+astonishing, and yet in character with her as he had known her in
+Plattville. Then he wondered unhappily if she thought that talking
+of the "Herald" and learning things about the working of a country
+newspaper would help her to understand Brainard Macauley.
+
+"Why have you let him go on with it?" she asked. "I suppose you have
+encouraged him?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I encouraged him. The creature's recklessness fascinated me. A
+dare-devil like that is always charming.'"
+
+"You think there is no chance for the creature's succeeding with the
+daily?"
+
+"None," he replied indifferently.
+
+"You mentioned work-baskets, I think?"
+
+He laughed again. "I believe him to be the original wooden-nutmeg man.
+Once a week he produces a 'Woman's Page,' wherein he presents to the
+Carlow female public three methods for making currant jelly, three
+receipts for the concoction of salads, and directs the ladies how to
+manufacture a pretty work-basket out of odd scraps in twenty minutes.
+The astonishing part of it is that he has not yet been mobbed by the
+women who have followed his directions."
+
+"So you think the daily is a mistake and that your enterprising idiot
+should be mobbed? Why?" She seemed to be taking him very seriously.
+
+"I think he may be--for his 'Woman's Page.'"
+
+"It is all wrong, you think?"
+
+"What could a Yankee six-footer cousin of old Fisbee's know about
+currant jelly and work-baskets?"
+
+"You know about currant jelly and work-baskets yourself?"
+
+"Heaven defend the right, I do not!"
+
+"You are sure he is six feet?"
+
+"You should see his signature; that leaves no doubt. And, also, his
+ability denotes his stature."
+
+"You believe that ability is in proportion to height, do you not?" There
+was a dangerous luring in her tone.
+
+His memory recalled to him that he was treading on undermined ground, so
+he hastened to say: "In inverse proportion."
+
+"Then your substitute is a failure. I see," she said, slowly.
+
+What muffled illumination there was in their nook fell upon his face;
+her back was toward it, so that she was only an outline to him, and he
+would have been startled and touched to the quick, could he have known
+that her lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears as she spoke the
+last words. He was happy as he had not been since his short June day;
+it was enough to be with her again. Nothing, not even Brainard Macauley,
+could dull his delight. And, besides, for a few minutes he had forgotten
+Brainard Macauley. What more could man ask than to sit in the gloom with
+her, to know that he was near her again for a little while, and to talk
+about anything--if he talked at all? Nonsense and idle exaggeration
+about young Fisbee would do as well as another thing.
+
+"The young gentleman is an exception," he returned. "I told you I owed
+everything to him; my gratitude will not allow me to admit that his
+ability is less than his stature. He suggested my purchase of a quantity
+of Mr. Watts's oil stock when it was knocked flat on its back by two
+wells turning out dry; but if Mr. Watts's third well comes in, and young
+Fisbee has convinced me that it will, and if my Midas's extra booms the
+stock and the boom develops, I shall oppose the income tax. Poor old
+Plattville will be full of strangers and speculators, and the 'Herald'
+will advocate vast improvements to impress the investor's eye.
+Stagnation and picturesqueness will flee together; it is the history
+of the Indiana town. Already the 'Herald' is clamoring with Schofields'
+Henry--you remember the bell-ringer?--for Main Street to be asphalted.
+It will all come. The only trouble with young Fisbee is that he has too
+much ability."
+
+"And yet the daily will not succeed?"
+
+"No. That's too big a jump, unless my young man's expressions on the
+tariff command a wide sale amongst curio-hunters."
+
+"Then he is quite a fool about political matters?"
+
+"Far from it; he is highly ingenious. His editorials are often the
+subtlest cups of flattery I ever sipped, many of them showing assiduous
+study of old files to master the method and notions of his eagle-eyed
+predecessor. But the tariff seems to have got him. He is a very
+masculine person, except for this one feminine quality, for, if I may
+say it without ungallantry, there is a legend that no woman has ever
+understood the tariff. Young Fisbee must be an extremely travelled
+person, because the custom-house people have made an impression upon him
+which no few encounters with them could explain, and he conceives the
+tariff to be a law which discommodes a lady who has been purchasing
+gloves in Paris. He thinks smuggling the great evil of the present
+tariff system; it is such a temptation, so insidious a break-down of
+moral fibre. His views must edify Carlow."
+
+She gave a quick, stifled cry. "Oh! there isn't a word of truth in what
+you say! Not a word! I did not think you could be so cruel!"
+
+He bent forward, peering at her in astonishment.
+
+"Cruel!"
+
+"You know it is a hateful distortion--an exaggeration!" she exclaimed
+passionately. "No man living could have so little sense as you say
+he has. The tariff is perfectly plain to any child. When you were in
+Plattville you weren't like this--I didn't know you were unkind!"
+
+"I--I don't understand, please----"
+
+"Miss Hinsdale has been talking--raving--to me about you! You may not
+know it--though I suppose you do--but you made a conquest last night.
+It seems a little hard on the poor young man who is at work for you in
+Plattville, doing his best for you, plodding on through the hot days,
+and doing all he knows how, while you sit listening to music in the
+evenings with Clara Hinsdale, and make a mock of his work and his trying
+to please you----"
+
+"But I didn't mention him to Miss Hinsdale. In fact, I didn't mention
+_anything_ to Miss Hinsdale. What have I done? The young man is making
+his living by his work--and my living, too, for that matter. It only
+seems to me that his tariff editorials are rather humorous."
+
+She laughed suddenly--ringingly. "Of course they are! How should I know?
+Immensely humorous! And the good creature knows nothing beyond smuggling
+and the custom-house and chalk marks? Why, even _I_--ha, ha, ha!--even
+_I_--should have known better than that. What a little fool your
+enterprising idiot must be!--with his work-baskets and currant jelly
+and his trying to make the 'Herald' a daily!--It will be a ludicrous
+failure, of course. No doubt he thought he was being quite wise, and
+was pleased over his tariff editorials--his funny, funny editorials--his
+best--to please you! Ha, ha, ha! How immensely funny!"
+
+"Do you know him?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"I have not the honor of the gentleman's acquaintance. Ah," she rejoined
+bitterly, "I see what you mean; it is the old accusation, is it? I am a
+woman, and I 'sound the personal note.' I could not resent a cruelty
+for the sake of a man I do not know. But let it go. My resentment is
+personal, after all, since it is against a man I do know--_you_!"
+
+He leaned toward her because he could not help it. "I'd rather have
+resentment from you than nothing."
+
+"Then I will give you nothing," she answered quickly.
+
+"You flout me!" he cried. "That is better than resentment."
+
+"I hate you most, I think," she said with a tremulousness he did not
+perceive, "when you say you do not care to go back to Plattville."
+
+"Did I say it?"
+
+"It is in every word, and it is true; you don't care to go back there."
+
+"Yes, it is true; I don't."
+
+"You want to leave the place where you do good; to leave those people
+who love you, who were ready to die to avenge your hurt!" she exclaimed
+vehemently. "Oh, I say that is shameful!"
+
+"Yes, I know," he returned gravely. "I am ashamed."
+
+"Don't say that!" she cried. "Don't say you are ashamed of it. Do you
+suppose I do not understand the dreariness it has been for you? Don't
+you know that I see it is a horror to you, that it brings back your
+struggle with those beasts in the dark, and revivifies all your
+suffering, merely to think of it?" Her turns and sudden contradictions
+left him tangled in a maze; he could not follow, but must sit helpless
+to keep pace with her, while the sheer happiness of being with her
+tingled through his veins. She rose and took a step aside, then spoke
+again: "Well, since you want to leave Carlow, you shall; since you do
+not wish to return, you need not.--Are you laughing at me?" She leaned
+toward him, and looked at him steadily, with her face close to his. He
+was not laughing; his eyes shone with a deep fire; in that nearness he
+hardly comprehended what she said. "Thank you for not laughing," she
+whispered, and leaned back from him. "I suppose you think my promises
+are quite wild, and they are. I do not know what I was talking about, or
+what I meant, any better than you do. You may understand some day. It
+is all--I mean that it hurts one to hear you say you do not care for
+Carlow." She turned away. "Come."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"It is my turn to conclude the interview. You remember, the last time it
+was you who--" She broke off, shuddering, and covered her face with her
+hands. "Ah, that!" she exclaimed. "I did not think--I did not mean to
+speak of that miserable, miserable night. And _I_ to be harsh with you
+for not caring to go back to Carlow!"
+
+"Your harshness," he laughed. "A waft of eider."
+
+"We must go," she said. He did not move, but sat staring at her like a
+thirsty man drinking. With an impulsive and pretty gesture she reached
+out her hand to him. Her little, white glove trembled in the night
+before his eyes, and his heart leaped to meet its sudden sweet
+generosity; his thin fingers closed over it as he rose, and then that
+hand he had likened to a white butterfly lay warm and light and quiet in
+his own. And as they had so often stood together in their short day and
+their two nights of the moon, so now again they stood with a serenading
+silence between them. A plaintive waltz-refrain from the house ran
+through the blue woof of starlit air as a sad-colored thread through
+the tapestry of night; they heard the mellow croon of the 'cello and the
+silver plaints of violins, the chiming harp, and the triangle bells,
+all woven into a minor strain of dance-music that beat gently upon their
+ears with such suggestion of the past, that, as by some witchcraft of
+hearing, they listened to music made for lovers dancing, and lovers
+listening, a hundred years ago.
+
+"I care for only one thing in this world," he said, tremulously. "Have
+I lost it? I didn't mean to ask you, that last night, although you
+answered. Have I no chance? Is it still the same? Do I come too late?"
+
+The butterfly fluttered in his hand and then away.
+
+She drew back and looked at him a moment.
+
+"There is one thing you must always understand," she said gently, "and
+that is that a woman can be grateful. I give you all the gratitude there
+is in me, and I think I have a great deal; it is all yours. Will you
+always remember that?"
+
+"Gratitude? What can there--"
+
+"You do not understand now, but some day you will. I ask you to remember
+that my every act and thought which bore reference to you--and there
+have been many--came from the purest gratitude. Although you do not see
+it now, will you promise to believe it?"
+
+"Yes," he said simply.
+
+"For the rest--" She paused. "For the rest--I do not love you."
+
+He bowed his head and did not lift it.
+
+"Do you understand?" she asked.
+
+"I understand," he answered, quietly.
+
+She looked at him long, and then, suddenly, her hand to her heart, gave
+a little, pitying, tender cry and moved toward him. At this he raised
+his head and smiled sadly. "No; don't you mind," he said. "It's all
+right. I was such a cad the other time I needed to be told; I was
+so entirely silly about it, I couldn't face the others to tell them
+good-night, and I left you out there to go in to them alone. I didn't
+realize, for my manners were all gone. I'd lived in a kind of stupor,
+I think, for a long time; then being with you was like a dream, and the
+sudden waking was too much for me. I've been ashamed often, since, in
+thinking of it--and I was well punished for not taking you in. I thought
+only of myself, and I behaved like a whining, unbalanced boy. But I had
+whined from the moment I met you, because I was sickly with egoism and
+loneliness and self-pity. I'm keeping you from the dancing. Won't you
+let me take you back to the house?"
+
+A commanding and querulous contralto voice was heard behind them, and a
+dim, majestic figure appeared under the Japanese lantern.
+
+"Helen?"
+
+The girl turned quickly. "Yes, mamma."
+
+"May I ask you to return to the club-house for supper with me? Your
+father has been very much worried about you. We have all been looking
+for you."
+
+"Mamma, this is Mr. Harkless."
+
+"How do you do?" The lady murmured this much so far under her breath
+that the words might have been mistaken for anything else--most
+plausibly, perhaps, for, "Who cares if it is?"--nor further did she
+acknowledge John's profound inclination. Frigidity and complaint of
+ill-usage made a glamour in every fold of her expensive garments; she
+was large and troubled and severe. A second figure emerged from behind
+her and bowed with the suave dignity that belonged to Brainard Macauley.
+"Mr. Macauley has asked to sit at our table," Mrs. Sherwood said to
+Helen. "May I beg you to come at once? Your father is holding places for
+us."
+
+"Certainly," she answered. "I will follow you with Mr. Harkless."
+
+"I think Mr. Harkless will excuse you," said the elder lady. "He has
+an engagement. Mr. Meredith has been looking everywhere for him to take
+Miss Hinsdale out to supper."
+
+"Good-night, Miss Sherwood," said John in a cheerful voice. "I thank you
+for sitting out the dance with me."
+
+"Good-night," she said, and gave him her hand. "I'm so sorry I shan't
+see you again; I am only in Rouen for this evening, or I should ask you
+to come to see me. I am leaving to-morrow morning. Good-night.--Yes,
+mamma."
+
+The three figures went toward the bright lights of the club-house. She
+was leaning on Macauley's arm and chatting gaily, smiling up at him
+brightly. John watched her till she was lost in the throng on the
+veranda. There, in the lights, where waiters were arranging little
+tables, every one was talking and moving about, noisily, good-humored
+and happy. There was a flourish of violins, and then the orchestra swung
+into a rampant march that pranced like uncurbed cavalry; it stirred the
+blood of old men with militant bugle calls and blast of horns; it
+might have heralded the chariot of a flamboyant war god rioting out of
+sunrise, plumed with youth. Some quite young men on the veranda made
+as if they were restive horses champing at the bit and heading a
+procession, and, from a group near by, loud laughter pealed.
+
+John Harkless lifted to his face the hand that had held hers; there was
+the faint perfume of her glove. He kissed his own hand. Then he put that
+hand and the other to his forehead, and sank into her chair.
+
+"Let me get back," he said. "Let me get back to Plattville, where I
+belong."
+
+Tom Meredith came calling him. "Harkless? John Harkless?"
+
+"Here I am, Tom."
+
+"Come along, boy. What on earth are you doing out here all alone? I
+thought you were with--I thought some people were with you. You're
+bored to death, I know; but come along and be bored some more, because I
+promised to bring you in for supper. Then we'll go home. They've saved a
+place for you by Miss Hinsdale."
+
+"Very well, lad," answered Harkless, and put his hand on the other's
+shoulder. "Thank you."
+
+The next day he could not leave his bed; his wounds were feverish and
+his weakness had returned. Meredith was shaken with remorse because
+he had let him wander around in the damp night air with no one to look
+after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. HELEN'S TOAST
+
+Judge Briscoe was sitting out under the afternoon sky with his chair
+tilted back and his feet propped against the steps. His coat was off,
+and Minnie sat near at hand sewing a button on the garment for him, and
+she wore that dreamy glaze that comes over women's eyes when they sew
+for other people.
+
+From the interior of the house rose and fell the murmur of a number of
+voices engaged in a conversation, which, for a time, seemed to consist
+of dejected monosyllables; but presently the judge and Minnie heard
+Helen's voice, clear, soft, and trembling a little with excitement. She
+talked only two or three minutes, but what she said stirred up a great
+commotion. All the voices burst forth at once in ejaculations--almost
+shouts; but presently they were again subdued and still, except for
+the single soft one, which held forth more quietly, but with a deeper
+agitation, than any of the others.
+
+"You needn't try to bamboozle me," said the judge in a covert tone to
+his daughter, and with a glance at the parlor window, whence now issued
+the rumble of Warren Smith's basso. "I tell you that girl would follow
+John Harkless to Jericho."
+
+Minnie shook her head mysteriously, and bit a thread with a vague frown.
+
+"Well, why not?" asked the judge crossly.
+
+"Why wouldn't she have him, then?"
+
+"Well, who knows he's asked her yet?"
+
+Minnie screamed derisively at the density of man, "What made him run off
+that way, the night he was hurt? Why didn't he come back in the house
+with her?"
+
+"Pshaw!"
+
+"Don't you suppose a woman understands?"
+
+"Meaning that you know more about it than I do, I presume," grunted the
+old gentleman.
+
+"Yes, father," she replied, smiling benignantly upon him.
+
+"Did she tell you?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"No, no. I guess the truth is that women don't know more than men so
+much as they see more; they understand more without having to read about
+it."
+
+"That's the way of it, is it?" he laughed. "Well, it don't make any
+difference, she'll have him some time."
+
+"No, father; it's only gratitude."
+
+"Gratitude!" The judge snorted scornfully. "Girls don't do as much as
+she's done for him out of gratitude. _Look_ what she's doing; not only
+running the 'Herald' for him, but making it a daily, and a good daily at
+that. First time I saw her I knew right away she was the smartest girl
+I ever laid eyes on;--I expect she must have got it from her mother.
+Gratitude! Pooh! Look how she's studied his interests, and watched like
+a cat for chances for him in everything. Didn't she get him into Eph
+Watts's company? She talked to Watts and the other fellows, day after
+day, and drove around their leased land with 'em, and studied it up, and
+got on the inside, and made him buy. Now, if they strike it--and
+she's sure they will, and _I_'m sure she knows when to have faith in a
+thing--why, they'll sell out to the Standard, and they can all quit work
+for the rest of their lives if they want to; and Harkless gets as
+much as any without lifting a finger, all because he had a little
+money--mighty little, too--laid up in bank and a girl that saw where to
+put it. She did that for him, didn't she?"
+
+"Don't you see what fun it's been for her?" returned Minnie. "She's been
+having the best time she ever had; I never knew any one half so happy."
+
+"Yes; she went up and saw him at that party, and she knows he's still
+thinking about her. I shouldn't be surprised if he asked her then, and
+that's what makes her so gay."
+
+"Well, she couldn't have said 'yes,' because he went back to his bed the
+next day, and he's been there most of the time since."
+
+"Pshaw! He wasn't over his injuries, and he was weak and got malaria."
+
+"Well, she couldn't be so happy while he's sick, if she cared very much
+about him."
+
+"He's not very sick. She's happy because she's working for him, and she
+knows his illness isn't serious. He'll be a well man when she says the
+word. He's love-sick, that's what he is; I never saw a man so taken down
+with it in my life."
+
+"Then it isn't malaria?" Minnie said, with a smile of some superiority.
+
+"You're just like your poor mother," the old gentleman answered, growing
+rather red. "She never could learn to argue. What I say is that Helen
+cares about him, whether she says she does or not, whether she acts like
+it or not--or whether she thinks she does or not," he added irascibly.
+"Do you know what she's doing for him to-day?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Well, when they were talking together at that party, he said something
+that made her think he was anxious to get away from Plattville--you're
+not to repeat this, child; she told me, relying on my discretion."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you know why she's got these men to come here to-day to meet
+her--Warren Smith and Landis and Homer, and Boswell and young Keating of
+Amo, and Tom Martin and those two fellows from Gaines County?"
+
+"Something about politics, isn't it?"
+
+"'Something about politics!'" he echoed. "I should say it is! Wait till
+it's done, and this evening I'll tell you--if you can keep a secret."
+
+Minnie set her work-basket on the steps. "Oh, I guess I can keep a
+secret," she said. "But it won't make any difference."
+
+"You mean you've said it, and you'll stick to it that it's gratitude
+till their wedding day."
+
+"She knows he gave her father something to do, and helped him in other
+ways, when no one else did."
+
+"I know all about that. She reproaches herself for having neglected
+Fisbee while a stranger took care of him, and saved him from
+starving--and worse. She's unreasonable about it; she didn't know he
+was in want till long after. That's just like Fisbee, to tell her,
+afterwards. He didn't tell her how low he got; but he hinted at it
+to her, and I guess she understood; I gathered that much from him. Of
+course she's grateful, but gratefulness don't account for everything."
+
+"Yes it does."
+
+"Well, I never expected to have the last word with a woman."
+
+"Well, you needn't," said Minnie.
+
+"I don't. I never do," he retorted. She did not answer, but hummed a
+little tune and looked up at the tree-tops.
+
+Warren Smith appeared in the doorway. "Judge," he said, "will you step
+inside? We need you."
+
+Briscoe nodded and rose at once. As he reached the door, Minnie said in
+a piercing whisper:
+
+"It's hard to be sure about her, but I'm right; it's gratitude."
+
+"There," he replied, chuckling, "I thought I shouldn't have the last
+word." Minnie began to sing, and the judge, after standing in the
+doorway till he was again summoned from within, slowly retired.
+
+
+
+Briscoe had persisted in his own explanation of Helen's gaiety;
+nevertheless he did not question his daughter's assumption that the
+young lady was enjoying her career in Carlow. She was free as a bird
+to go and come, and her duties and pleasures ran together in a happy
+excitement. Her hands were full of work, but she sought and increased
+new tasks, and performed them also. She came to Carlow as unused to the
+soil as was Harkless on his arrival, and her educational equipment for
+the work was far less than his; her experience, nothing. But both were
+native to the State; and the genius of the American is adaptability,
+and both were sprung from pioneers whose means of life depended on that
+quality.
+
+There are, here and there, excrescent individuals who, through stock
+decadence, or their inability to comprehend republican conditions,
+are not assimilated by the body of the country; but many of these are
+imports, while some are exports. Our foreign-born agitators now and then
+find themselves removed by the police to institutions of routine,
+while the romantic innocents who set up crests in the face of an
+unimpressionable democracy are apt to be lured by their own curious
+ambitions, or those of their women-folk, to spend a great part of their
+time in or about the villas of Albion, thus paid for its perfidy; and,
+although the anarchists and the bubble-hunters make a noise, it is
+enormously out of proportion to their number, which is relatively very
+small, and neither the imported nor the exported article can be taken as
+characteristic of our country. For the American is one who soon fits any
+place, or into any shaped hole in America, where you can set him down.
+It may be that without going so far as to suggest the halls of the great
+and good and rich, one might mention a number of houses of entertainment
+for man and beast in this country, in which Mr. Martin of the Plattville
+Dry Goods Emporium would find himself little at ease. But even in the
+extreme case, if Mr. Martin were given his choice of being burned to
+death, or drowned, or of spending a month at the most stupendously
+embellished tavern located in our possessions, and supposing him to
+have chosen the third alternate, it is probable that he would have grown
+almost accustomed to his surroundings before he died; and if he survived
+the month, we may even fancy him really enjoying moments of conversation
+with the night-clerks.
+
+As Mr. Parker observed, Miss Sherwood did not do the Grand Duchess,
+giving the Carlow tenants a treat. She felt no duchess symptoms within
+herself, and though, of course, she had various manners tucked away to
+wear as one suits garments to occasions--and it was a Rouen "party-gown"
+wherewith she chose to abash poor John Harkless at their meeting--here
+in Carlow, she was a woman of affairs, lively, shrewd, engaging,
+capable; she was herself (at least she was that side of herself). And
+it should be explained that Harkless had based his calumny regarding the
+tariff on a paragraph or two that crept inadvertently into an otherwise
+statesmanlike article, and that "H. Fisbee" understood the tariff
+as well as any woman who ever lived. But the tariff inspired no more
+articles from that pen.
+
+Rodney McCune had lifted his head, and those who had followed his
+stricken enemy felt that the cause was lost, without the leader. The old
+ring that the "Herald" had crushed was a ring once more, and the heelers
+had rallied--"the boys were in line again." The work had been done
+quietly, and Halloway was already beaten, and beaten badly. John
+Harkless lay sick, and Rodney McCune would sit in Congress, for the
+nomination meant election. But one day the Harkless forces, demoralized,
+broken, almost hopeless, woke up to find that they had a leader. Many
+of them were content with the belief that this was a young lawyer
+named Keating, who had risen up in Amo; but Mr. Keating himself had a
+different impression.
+
+Helen was a little nervous, and very much excited, over the political
+conference at Judge Briscoe's. She planned it with careful diplomacy,
+and arranged the details with a fine sense of the dramatic. There was
+a suggestion she desired to have made in this meeting, which she
+wished should emanate from the Amo and Gaines County people, instead of
+proceeding from Carlow--for she thought it better to make the outsiders
+believe her idea an inspiration of their own--so she made a little
+comedy and provided for Briscoe's entrance at an effective moment. The
+judge was a substantial influence, strong in the councils of his party
+when he chose to be; and though of late years he had contented himself
+with voting at the polls, every one knew what weight he carried when he
+saw fit to bestir himself.
+
+When he entered the parlor, he found the politicians in a state of
+subdued excitement. Helen sat by the window, blushing, and talking
+eagerly to old Fisbee. One of the gentlemen from Gaines County was
+walking about the room exclaiming, "A glorious conception! A glorious
+conception!" addressing the bric-a-brac, apparently. (He thought the
+conception his own.) Mr. Martin was tugging at his beard and whispering
+to Landis and Homer, and the two Amo men were consulting in a corner,
+but as the judge came in, one of them turned and said loudly, "That's
+the man."
+
+"What man am I, Keating?" asked Briscoe, cheerily.
+
+"We better explain, I guess," answered the other; and turning to his
+compatriot: "You tell him, Boswell."
+
+"Well--it's this way--" said Boswell, and came at once to an awkward
+pause, turning aside sheepishly and unable to proceed.
+
+"So that's the way of it, is it?" said the old gentleman.
+
+Helen laughed cheerfully, and looked about her with a courageous and
+encouraging eye. "It is embarrassing," she said. "Judge Briscoe, we are
+contemplating 'a piece of the blackest treachery and chicanery.' We are
+going to give Mr. Halloway the--the go-by!" The embarrassment fell away,
+and everybody began to talk at once.
+
+"Hold on a minute," said the judge; "let's get at it straight. What do
+you want with me?"
+
+"I'll tell you," volunteered Keating. "You see, the boys are getting in
+line again for this convention. They are the old file that used to rule
+the roost before the 'Herald' got too strong for them, and they rely on
+Mr. Harkless's being sick to beat Kedge Halloway with that Gaines
+County man, McCune. Now, none of us here want Rod McCune I guess. We had
+trouble enough once with him and his heelers, and now that Mr. Harkless
+is down, they've taken advantage of it to raise a revolution: Rod McCune
+for Congress! He's a dirty-hearted swindler--I hope Miss Sherwood will
+pardon the strong expression--and everybody thought the 'Herald' had
+driven him out of politics, though it never told how it did it; but
+he's up on top again. Now, the question is to beat him. We hold the
+committees, but the boys have been fighting the committees--call 'em
+the 'Harkless Ring,' and never understood that the 'Herald' would have
+turned us down in a second if it thought we weren't straight. Well,
+we saw a week ago that Kedge Halloway was going to lose to McCune; we
+figured it out pretty exactly, and there ain't a ray of hope for Kedge.
+We wrote to Mr. Harkless about it, and asked him to come down--if he'd
+been on the ground last Monday and had begun to work, I don't say but
+what his personal influence might have saved Halloway--but a friend of
+his, where he's staying, answered the letter: said Mr. Harkless was
+down with a relapse and was very fretful; and he'd taken the liberty of
+reading the letter and temporarily suppressing it under doctor's orders;
+they were afraid he'd come, sick as he was, from a sense of duty, and
+asked us to withdraw the letter, and referred us to Mr. Harkless's
+representative on the 'Herald.' So we applied here to Miss Sherwood, and
+that's why we had this meeting. Now, Halloway is honest--everybody knows
+that--and I don't say but what he's been the best available material Mr.
+Harkless had to send to Washington; but he ain't any too bright----"
+
+Mr. Martin interrupted the speaker. "I reckon, maybe, you never heard
+that lecture of his on the Past, Present, and Future'?"
+
+"Besides that," Keating continued, "Halloway has had it long enough,
+and he's got enough glory out of it, and, except for getting beat by Rod
+McCune, I believe he'd almost as soon give it up. Well, we discussed all
+this and that, and couldn't come to any conclusion. We didn't want to
+keep on with a losing fight if there was any way to put up a winner,
+though of course we all recognized that Mr. Harkless would want us to
+support Kedge to the death, and that's what he'd do if he was on the
+ground. But Miss Sherwood mentioned that she'd had one note since his
+last illness began, and he'd entrusted her and her associates on the
+paper with the entire policy, and she would take the responsibility for
+anything we determined on. Mr. Smith said the only thing to do was
+to give up Halloway and get a man that could beat McCune; Kedge would
+recognize it himself, that that was the only thing to do, and he could
+retire gracefully. Miss Sherwood said she was still more or less a
+stranger, and asked what man we could find who was strong enough to do
+it by popularity alone and who was also a man we wanted; somebody that
+had worked a good deal, but had never had any office. It was to such a
+man she could promise the 'Herald's' support, as for a time the paper
+was being operated almost independently, it might be said, of Mr.
+Harkless. Well, I expect it came to all of us at the same time, but it
+was Mr. Bence here that said it first."
+
+Mr. Bence was the gentleman who had walked about saying "A glorious
+conception," and he now thrust one hand into his breast and extended the
+other in a wide gesture, and looked as impressive as a very young man
+with white eyebrows can look.
+
+"The name of Harkless," he said abruptly, "the name of Harkless will
+sweep the convention like the fire of a Western prairie; the name of
+Harkless will thunder over their astonished heads and strike a peal
+of joy bells in every home in the district; it will re-echo in the
+corridors of posterity and teem with prosperity like a mighty river.
+The name of Harkless will reverberate in that convention hall, and they
+shall sit ashamed."
+
+"Harkless!" exclaimed the judge. "Why didn't some one think of that long
+ago?"
+
+"Then you approve?" asked Keating.
+
+"Yes, I think I do!"
+
+The Amo man shook hands with him. "We'll swim out," he exclaimed. "It
+will be the same everywhere. A lot of the old crowd themselves will be
+swept along with us when we make our nomination. People feel that that
+Cross-Roads business ought never to have been allowed to happen,
+and they'd like to make it up to him some way. There are just two
+difficulties, Halloway and Mr. Harkless himself. It's a sure thing that
+he wouldn't come out against Kedge and that he'd refuse to let his name
+be used against him. Therefore, we've got to keep it quiet from him; the
+whole thing has to be worked quietly. The McCune folks were quiet until
+they thought they were sure; we've got to be quieter still. Well, we've
+made out a plan."
+
+"And a plan that will operate," added Mr. Bence. "For the name of
+Harkless shall--" Mr. Keating interrupted him energetically:
+
+"We explain it to all the Halloway delegates, you see, and to all the
+shaky McCune people, and interview all the undecided ones. The McCune
+crowd may see them afterwards, but they can't fix men in this district
+against John Harkless. All we've got to do is to pass the word. It's all
+kept quiet, you understand. We go into the convention, and the names of
+Halloway and McCune are placed before it. Then will come a speech naming
+Harkless--and you want to stuff your ears with cotton! On the first
+ballot Harkless gets the scattering vote that was going to nominate
+McCune if we'd let things run, and Halloway is given every vote he'd
+have got if he'd run against McCune alone; it's as a compliment; it will
+help him see how things were, afterwards; and on the second ballot his
+vote goes to Harkless. There won't be any hitch if we get down to work
+right off; it's a mighty short campaign, but we've got big chances. Of
+course, it can't be helped that Halloway has to be kept in the dark; he
+won't spend any money, anyway."
+
+"It looks a little underhanded at first glance," said Warren Smith;
+"but, as Miss Sherwood said, you've got to be a little underhanded
+sometimes, especially when you're dealing with as scrupulous a man as
+John Harkless. But it's a perfectly honest deal, and it will be all
+right with him when he finds it's all over and he's nominated."
+
+"It's a plain case," added Boswell. "We want him, and we've got to have
+him."
+
+"There's one danger," Mr. Keating continued. "Kedge Halloway is honest,
+but I believe he's selfish enough to disturb his best friend's deathbed
+for his own ends, and it's not unlikely that he will get nervous towards
+the last and be telegraphing Harkless to have himself carried on a cot
+to the convention to save him. That wouldn't do at all, of course,
+and Miss Sherwood thinks maybe there'd be less danger if we set the
+convention a little ahead of the day appointed. It's dangerous, because
+it shortens our time; but we can fix it for three days before the day
+we'd settled on, and that will bring it to September 7th. What we want
+of you, judge, is to go to the convention as a delegate, and make the
+nominating speech for Mr. Harkless. Will you do it?"
+
+"Do it?" cried the old man, and he struck the table a resounding blow
+with his big fist. "Do it? I'd walk from here to Rouen and back again to
+do it!"
+
+They were all on their feet at this, and they pressed forward to shake
+Briscoe's hand, congratulating him and each other as though they were
+already victorious. Mr. Martin bent over Helen and asked her if she
+minded shaking hands with a man who had voted for Shem at the first
+election in the Ark.
+
+"I thought I'd rightly ort to thank you for finishin' off Kedge
+Halloway," he added. "I made up my mind I'd never vote for him again,
+the night he killed that intellectual insect of his."
+
+"Intellectual insect, Mr. Martin?" she asked, puzzled.
+
+He sighed. "The recollection never quits ha'ntin' me. I reckon I haven't
+had a restful night since June. Maybe you don't remember his lecture."
+
+"Oh, but I do," she laughed; "and I remember the story of the fly,
+vividly."
+
+"I never was jest what you might exactly call gushin' over Kedge,"
+Mr. Martin drawled. "He doesn't strike me as havin' many ideas,
+precisely--he had kind of a symptom of one once, that he caught from
+Harkless, but it didn't take; it sloshed around in his mind and never
+really come out on him. I always thought his brain was sort of syrupy.
+Harkless thought there was fruit in it, and I reckon there is; but some
+way it never seems to jell."
+
+"Go on," said Helen gayly. "I want to hear him abused. It helps me to
+feel less mean about the way we are treating him."
+
+"Yes; I'm slickin' over my conscience, too. I feel awnrier about it
+because he done me a good turn once, in the Hayes and Wheeler campaign.
+I went to a meetin' to hear him speak, and he got sick and couldn't."
+
+Warren Smith addressed the company. "Well, is this all for the present?"
+he asked. "Is everything settled?"
+
+"Wait a minute," said Keating. "I'd like to hear from the 'Herald' about
+its policy, if Miss Sherwood will tell us."
+
+"Yes, indeed," she answered. "It will be very simple. Don't you think
+there is only one course to pursue? We will advocate no one very
+energetically, but we will print as much of the truth about Mr. McCune
+as we can, with delicacy and honor, in this case, but, as I understand
+it, the work is almost all to be done amongst the delegates. We shall
+not mention our plan at all--but--but, when the convention is over, and
+he is nominated, we will get out an extra; and I am so confident of your
+success that I'll tell you now that the extra will be ready the night
+before the convention. We will contrive that Mr. Harkless shall not
+receive his copy of the paper containing the notice of the change of
+date, and I think the chance of his seeing it in any Rouen paper may be
+avoided. That is all, I think."
+
+"Thank you," said Keating. "That is certainly the course to follow."
+Every one nodded, or acquiesced in words; and Keating and Bence came
+over to Helen and engaged her in conversation. The others began to look
+about for their hats, vaguely preparing to leave.
+
+"Wait a minute," said the judge. "There's no train due just now." And
+Minnie appeared in the doorway with a big pitcher of crab-apple cider,
+rich and amber-hued, sparkling, cold, and redolent of the sweet-smelling
+orchard where it was born. Behind Miss Briscoe came Mildy Upton with
+glasses and a fat, shaking, four-storied jelly-cake on a second
+tray. The judge passed his cigars around, and the gentlemen took them
+blithely, then hesitatingly held them in their fingers and glanced at
+the ladies, uncertain of permission.
+
+"Let me get you some matches," Helen said, quickly, and found a box on
+the table and handed it to Keating. Every one sat beaming, and fragrant
+veils of smoke soon draped the room.
+
+"Why do you call her 'Miss Sherwood'?" Boswell whispered in Keating's
+ear.
+
+"That's her name."
+
+"Ain't she the daughter of that old fellow over there by the window?
+Ain't her name Fisbee?"
+
+"No; she's his daughter, but her legal name's Sherwood; she's an
+adop----"
+
+"Great Scott! I know all about that. I'd like to know if there's a man,
+woman, or child in this part of the country that doesn't. I guess it
+won't be Fisbee or Sherwood either very long. She can easy get a new
+name, _that_ lady! And if she took a fancy to Boswell, why, I'm a
+bach----"
+
+"I expect she won't take a fancy to Boswell very early," said Keating.
+"They say it will be Harkless."
+
+"Go 'way," returned Mr. Boswell. "What do you want to say that for?
+Can't you bear for anybody to be happy a minute or two, now and then?"
+
+Warren Smith approached Helen and inquired if it would be asking too
+much if they petitioned her for some music; so she went to the piano,
+and sang some darky songs for them, with a quaint suggestion of the
+dialect--two or three old-fashioned negro melodies of Foster's, followed
+by some rollicking modern imitations with the movement and spirit of
+a tinshop falling down a flight of stairs. Her audience listened in
+delight from the first; but the latter songs quite overcame them with
+pleasure and admiration, and before she finished, every head in the
+room was jogging from side to side, and forward and back, in time to the
+music, while every foot shuffled the measures on the carpet.
+
+When the gentlemen from out of town discovered that it was time to leave
+if they meant to catch their train, Helen called to them to wait, and
+they gathered about her.
+
+"Just one second," she said, and she poured all the glasses full to the
+brim; then, standing in the centre of the circle they made around her,
+she said:
+
+"Before you go, shan't we pledge each other to our success in this
+good, home-grown Indiana cider, that leaves our heads clear and our arms
+strong? If you will--then--" She began to blush furiously and her voice
+trembled, but she lifted the glass high over her head and cried bravely,
+"Here's to 'Our Candidate'!"
+
+The big men, towering over her, threw back their heads and quaffed the
+gentle liquor to the last drop. Then they sent up the first shout of the
+campaign, and cheered John Harkless till the rafters rang.
+
+"My friends," said Mr. Keating, as he and Boswell and the men from
+Gaines drove away in Judd Bennett's omnibus, "my friends, here is where
+I begin the warmest hustling I ever did. I want Harkless, everybody
+wants him----"
+
+"It is a glorious idea," said Mr. Bence. "The name of Harkless----"
+
+Keating drowned the oratory. "But that isn't all. That little girl wants
+him to go to Congress, and that settles it. He goes."
+
+That evening Minnie and her father were strolling up and down the front
+walk together, between the flowered borders.
+
+"Do you give up?" asked the judge.
+
+"Give up what? No!" returned his daughter.
+
+"She hasn't told you?"
+
+"Not yet; she and Mr. Fisbee left for the office right after those men
+went."
+
+"Haven't you discovered what the 'something about politics' she's doing
+for him is? Did you understand what she meant by 'Our Candidate'?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Did you see her blush when she proposed that toast?"
+
+"Yes. So would anybody--with all those men, and their eyes hanging out
+on their cheeks!"
+
+"Pooh! She got up the whole show. Do you know why?"
+
+"I only know it's politics."
+
+"Politics!" He glanced over his shoulder, and then, leaning toward her,
+he said, in a low tone: "I'll tell you in confidence, Minnie; she's
+sending him to Congress!"
+
+"Ah!" she cried triumphantly. "If she loved him she wouldn't do _that_,
+would she?"
+
+"Minnie!" Briscoe turned upon her sternly. "I don't want to hear any
+more talk like that. It's the way with some papers to jibe at our great
+institutions, and you've been reading them; that's the trouble with you.
+The only criticism any one has any business making against Congress is
+that it's too good for some of the men we send there. Congress is our
+great virtue, understand; the congressmen are our fault."
+
+"I didn't mean anything like that," protested the girl. "I haven't been
+reading any papers except the 'Herald.' I meant why should she send him
+away if she cared about him?"
+
+"She'll go with him."
+
+"They couldn't both go. What would become of the 'Herald'?"
+
+"They'd fix that easy enough; there are plenty of smart young fellows in
+Rouen they could get to run it while they are in Washington."
+
+"Mr. Harkless is sure to be elected, is he?"
+
+"He is, if he's nominated."
+
+"Can't he get the nomination?"
+
+"Get it! Nobody ever happened to think of him for it till it came into
+_her_ head; and the only thing I look to see standing in the way of it
+is Harkless himself; but I expect we can leave it to her to manage, and
+I guess she will. She's got more diplomacy than Blaine. Kedge Halloway
+is up the spout all right, but they want to keep it quiet; that's why
+she had them come here instead of the office."
+
+"She wouldn't marry him a minute sooner because he went to Congress,"
+said Minnie thoughtfully.
+
+"You're giving up," he exclaimed. "You know I'm right."
+
+"Wait and see. It might--No, you're wrong as wrong can be! I wish you
+weren't. Don't you see? You're blind. She _couldn't_ do all these
+things for him if she loved him. That's the very proof itself. I suppose
+you--well, you can't understand."
+
+"I'll tell you one thing," he returned. "If she doesn't, the rest of it
+won't amount to a rip with John Harkless."
+
+"Yes, it will. Nobody could help liking to find himself as big a man as
+he'll be when he comes back here. Besides, don't you see, it's her way
+of making it up to him for not liking him as much as he wants. _You_
+give up, don't you?"
+
+"No," he cried, with feeble violence, "I don't. She'll find out some
+things about herself when she sees him again."
+
+Minnie shook her head.
+
+There was a sound of wheels; the buckboard drew up at the gate, and
+Helen, returning from her evening's labor, jumped out lightly, and ran
+around to pat the horses' heads. "Thank you so much, Mr. Willetts," she
+said to the driver. "I know you will handle the two delegates you are
+to look after as well as you do the judge's team; and you ought to, you
+know, because the delegates are men. You dears!" She stroked the sleek
+necks of the colts and handed them bunches of grass.
+
+Briscoe came out, and let the friendly animals nose his shoulder as he
+looked gravely down on the piquant face beside him in the dusk. "Young
+lady," he said, "go East. Wait till we get on to Washington, and sit in
+the gallery, and see John Harkless rise up in his place, and hear the
+Speaker say: 'The Gentleman from Indiana!' I know the chills would go
+up and down my spine, and I guess you'd feel pretty well paid for your
+day's work. I guess we all would."
+
+"Aren't you tired, Helen?" asked Minnie, coming to her in the darkness
+and clasping her waist.
+
+"Tired? No; I'm happy. Did you ever see the stars so bright?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE TREACHERY OF H. FISBEE
+
+An Indiana town may lie asleep a long time, but there always comes a day
+when it wakes up; and Plattville had wakened in August when the "Herald"
+became a daily and Eph Watts struck oil. It was then that history began
+to be made. The "Herald" printed News, and the paper was sold every
+morning at stands in all the towns in that section of the State. Its
+circulation tripled. Parker talked of new presses; two men were added to
+his staff, and a reporter was brought from Rouen to join Mr. Fisbee. The
+"Herald" boomed the oil-field; people swarmed into town; the hotel was
+crowded; strangers became no sensation whatever. A capitalist bought the
+whole north side of the Square to erect new stores, and the Carlow Bank
+began the construction of a new bank building of Bedford stone on Main
+Street. Then it was whispered, next affirmed, that the "Herald" had
+succeeded in another of its enterprises, and Main Street was to be
+asphalted. That was the end of the "old days" of Plattville.
+
+There was a man who had laid the foundation upon which the new
+Plattville was to be built; he who, through the quiet labor of years,
+had stamped his spirit upon the people, as their own was stamped upon
+him; but he lay sick in his friend's house and did not care. One day
+Meredith found him propped up in bed, reading a letter--reading it
+listlessly, and with a dull eye.
+
+"PLATTVILLE, _September 1st_.
+
+"_Dear Mr. Harkless_: Yours of the 30th received. Every one here is very
+glad to know that your health is so far improved as to admit of your
+writing; and it is our strongest hope that you will soon be completely
+recovered.
+
+"New subscriptions are coming in at a slightly advanced rate since my
+last letter; you will see they are distributed over several counties,
+when you examine the books on your return; and I am glad to state that
+with our arrangement for Gainesville the 'Herald' is now selling every
+morning at a prominent store in all the towns within the radius we
+determined on. Our plan of offering the daily with no advance on the
+price of the former tri-weekly issue proves a success. I now propose
+making the issue a quarto every day (at the same price) instead of once
+a week. I think our experience warrants the experiment. It is my belief
+that our present circulation will be increased forty per cent. Please
+advise me if you approve. Of course this would mean a further increase
+of our working force, and we should have to bring another man
+from Rouen--possibly two more--but I think we need not fear such
+enlargements.
+
+"I should tell you that I have taken you at your word entrusting me
+with the entire charge of your interests here, and I had the store-room
+adjoining the office put in shape, and offered it to the telegraph
+company for half the rent they were paying in their former quarters over
+the post-office. They have moved in; and this, in addition to giving us
+our despatches direct, is a reduction of expense.
+
+"Mr. Watts informs me that the Standard's offer is liberal and the terms
+are settled. The boom is not hollow, it is simply an awakening; and the
+town, so long a dependent upon the impetus of agriculture or its trade,
+is developing a prosperity of its own on other lines as well. Strangers
+come every day; oil has lubricated every commercial joint. Contracts
+have been let for three new brick business buildings to be erected on
+the east side of the Square. The value of your Main Street frontage will
+have doubled by December, and possibly you may see fit to tear away the
+present building and put up another, instead; the investment might be
+profitable. The 'Herald' could find room on the second and third floors,
+and the first could be let to stores.
+
+"I regret that you find your copy of the paper for the 29th overlooked
+in the mail and that your messenger could find none for you at the
+newspaper offices in Rouen. Mr. Schofield was given directions in regard
+to supplying you with the missing issue at once.
+
+"I fear that you may have had difficulty in deciphering some of my
+former missives, as I was unfamiliar with the typewriter when I took
+charge of the 'Herald'; however, I trust that you find my later letters
+more legible.
+
+"The McCune people are not worrying us; we are sure to defeat them. The
+papers you speak of were found by Mr. Parker in your trunk, and are now
+in my hands.
+
+"I send with this a packet of communications and press clippings
+indicative of the success of the daily, and in regard to other
+innovations. The letters from women commendatory of our 'Woman's Page,'
+thanking us for various house-keeping receipts, etc., strike me as
+peculiarly interesting, as I admit that a 'Woman's Page' is always a
+difficult matter for a man to handle without absurdity.
+
+"Please do not think I mean to plume myself upon our various successes;
+we attempted our innovations and enlargements at just the right time--a
+time which you had ripened by years of work and waiting, and at the
+moment when you had built up the reputation of the 'Herald' to its
+highest point. Everything that has been done is successful only because
+you paved the way, and because every one knows it is your paper; and the
+people believe that whatever your paper does is interesting and right.
+
+"Trusting that your recovery will be rapid, I am
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"H. FISBEE."
+
+Harkless dropped the typewritten sheets with a sigh.
+
+"I suppose I ought to get well," he said wearily.
+
+"Yes," said Meredith, "I think you ought; but you're chock full of
+malaria and fever and all kinds of meanness, and----"
+
+"You 'tend to your own troubles," returned the other, with an imitation
+of liveliness. "I--I don't think it interests me much," he said
+querulously. He was often querulous of late, and it frightened Tom. "I'm
+just tired. I am strong enough--that is, I think I am till I try to move
+around, and then I'm like a log, and a lethargy gets me--that's it; I
+don't think it's malaria; it's lethargy."
+
+"Lethargy comes from malaria."
+
+"It's the other way with me. I'd be all right if I only could get over
+this--this tiredness. Let me have that pencil and pad, will you, please,
+Tom?"
+
+He set the pad on his knee, and began to write languidly:
+
+                                        "ROUEN, _September 2d_.
+
+"_Dear Mr. Fisbee_: Yours of the 1st to hand. I entirely approve all
+arrangements you have made. I think you understand that I wish you to
+regard _everything_ as in your own hands. You are the editor of the
+'Herald' and have the sole responsibility for everything, including
+policy, until, after proper warning, I relieve you in person. But until
+that time comes, you must look upon me as a mere spectator. I do not
+fear that you will make any mistakes; you have done very much better in
+all matters than I could have done myself. At present I have only
+one suggestion: I observe that your editorials concerning Halloway's
+renomination are something lukewarm.
+
+"It is very important that he be renominated, not altogether on account
+of assuring his return to Washington (for he is no Madison, I fear), but
+the fellow McCune must be so beaten that his defeat will be remembered
+for twenty years. Halloway is honest and clean, at least, while McCune
+is corrupt to the bone. He has been bought and sold, and I am glad the
+proofs of it are in your hands, as you tell me Parker found them, as
+directed, in my trunk, and gave them to you.
+
+"The papers you hold drove him out of politics once, by the mere threat
+of publication; you should have printed them last week, as I suggested.
+Do so at once; the time is short. You have been too gentle; it has
+the air of fearing to offend, and of catering, as if we were afraid of
+antagonizing people against us; as though we had a personal stake in the
+convention. Possibly you consider our subscription books as such; I do
+not. But if they are, go ahead twice as hard. What if it does give the
+enemy a weapon in case McCune is nominated; if he is (and I begin to
+see a danger of it) we will be with the enemy. I do not carry my
+partisanship so far as to help elect Mr. McCune to Congress. You have
+been as non-committal in your editorials as if this were a fit time for
+delicacy and the cheaper conception of party policy. My notion of party
+policy--no new one--is that the party which considers the public
+service before it considers itself will thrive best in the long run. The
+'Herald' is a little paper (not so little nowadays, after all, thanks to
+you), but it is an honest one, and it isn't afraid of Rod McCune and his
+friends. He is to be beaten, understand, if we have to send him to the
+penitentiary on an old issue to do it. And if the people wish to believe
+us cruel or vengeful, let them. Please let me see as hearty a word as
+you can say for Halloway, also. You can write with ginger; please show
+some in this matter.
+
+"My condition is improved.
+
+                    "I am, very truly yours,
+
+                                          "JOHN HARKLESS."
+
+When the letter was concluded, he handed it to Meredith. "Please address
+that, put a 'special' on it, and send it, Tom. It should go at once, so
+as to reach him by to-night."
+
+"H. Fisbee?"
+
+"Yes; H. Fisbee."
+
+"I believe it does you good to write, boy," said the other, as he bent
+over him. "You look more chirrupy than you have for several days."
+
+"It's that beast, McCune; young Fisbee is rather queer about it, and
+I felt stirred up as I went along." But even before the sentence was
+finished the favor of age and utter weariness returned, and the dark
+lids closed over his eyes. They opened again, slowly, and he took the
+others hand and looked up at him mournfully, but as it were his soul
+shone forth in dumb and eloquent thanks.
+
+"I--I'm giving you a jolly summer, Tom," he said, with a quivering
+effort to smile. "Don't you think I am? I don't--I don't know what I
+should have--done----"
+
+"You old Indian!" said Meredith, tenderly.
+
+Three days later, Tom was rejoiced by symptoms of invigoration in his
+patient. A telegram came for Harkless, and Meredith, bringing it into
+the sick room, was surprised to find the occupant sitting straight up on
+his couch without the prop of pillows. He was reading the day's copy of
+the "Herald," and his face was flushed and his brow stern.
+
+"What's the matter, boy?"
+
+"Mismanagement, I hope," said the other, in a strong voice. "Worse,
+perhaps. It's this young Fisbee. I can't think what's come over the
+fellow. I thought he was a rescuing angel, and he's turning out bad.
+I'll swear it looks like they'd been--well, I won't say that yet. But
+he hasn't printed that McCune business I told you of, and he's had two
+days. There is less than a week before the convention, and--" He broke
+off, seeing the yellow envelope in Meredith's hand. "Is that a telegram
+for me?" His companion gave it to him. He tore it open and read the
+contents. They were brief and unhappy.
+
+"Can't you do something? Can't you come down? It begins to look the
+other way.
+
+"K. H."
+
+
+"It's from Halloway," said John. "I have got to go. What did that doctor
+say?"
+
+"He said two weeks at the earliest, or you'll run into typhoid and
+complications from your hurts, and even pleasanter things than that.
+I've got you here, and here you stay; so lie back and get easy, boy."
+
+"Then give me that pad and pencil." He rapidly dashed off a note to H.
+Fisbee:
+
+"_September 5th_.
+
+"H. FISBEE,
+
+"Editor 'Carlow Herald.'
+
+"_Dear Sir_: You have not acknowledged my letter of the 2d September by
+a note (which should have reached me the following morning), or by
+the alteration in the tenor of my columns which I requested, or by the
+publication of the McCune papers which I directed. In this I hold you
+grossly at fault. If you have a conscientious reason for refusing to
+carry out my request it should have been communicated to me at once,
+as should the fact--if such be the case--that you are a personal (or
+impersonal, if you like) friend of Mr. Rodney McCune. Whatever the
+motive, ulterior or otherwise, which prevents you from operating my
+paper as I direct, I should have been informed of it. This is a matter
+vital to the interests of our community, and you have hitherto shown
+yourself too alert in accepting my slightest suggestion for me to
+construe this failure as negligence. Negligence I might esteem as at
+least honest and frank; your course has been neither the one nor the
+other.
+
+"You will receive this letter by seven this evening by special delivery.
+You will print the facts concerning McCune in to-morrow morning's paper.
+
+"I am well aware of the obligations under which your extreme efficiency
+and your thoughtfulness in many matters have placed me. It is to you I
+owe my unearned profits from the transaction in oil, and it is to you
+I owe the 'Herald's' extraordinary present circulation, growth of power
+and influence. That power is still under my direction, and is an added
+responsibility which shall not be misapplied.
+
+"You must forgive me if I write too sharply. You see I have failed to
+understand your silence; and if I wrong you I heartily ask your pardon
+in advance of your explanation. Is it that you are sorry for McCune? It
+would be a weak pity that could keep you to silence. I warned him long
+ago that the papers you hold would be published if he ever tried to
+return to political life, and he is deliberately counting on my physical
+weakness and absence. Let him rely upon it; I am not so weak as he
+thinks. Personally, I cannot say that I dislike Mr. McCune. I have found
+him a very entertaining fellow; it is said he is the best of husbands,
+and a friend to some of his friends, and, believe me, I am sorry for him
+from the bottom of my heart. But the 'Herald' is not.
+
+"You need not reply by letter. To-morrow's issue answers for you. Until
+I have received a copy, I withhold my judgment.
+
+"JOHN HARKLESS."
+
+The morrow's issue--that fateful print on which depended John Harkless's
+opinion of H. Fisbee's integrity--contained an editorial addressed
+to the delegates of the convention, warning them to act for the vital
+interest of the community, and declaring that the opportunity to be
+given them in the present convention was a rare one, a singular piece of
+good fortune indeed; they were to have the chance to vote for a man who
+had won the love and respect of every person in the district--one who
+had suffered for his championship of righteousness--one whom even his
+few political enemies confessed they held in personal affection and
+esteem--one who had been the inspiration of a new era--one whose life
+had been helpfulness, whose hand had reached out to every struggler
+and unfortunate--a man who had met and faced danger for the sake of
+others--one who lived under a threat for years, and who had been almost
+overborne in the fulfilment of that threat, but who would live to see
+the sun shine on his triumph, the tribute the convention would bring
+him as a gift from a community that loved him. His name needed not to be
+told; it was on every lip that morning, and in every heart.
+
+Tom was eagerly watching his companion as he read. Harkless fell back
+on the pillows with a drawn face, and for a moment he laid his thin hand
+over his eyes in a gesture of intense pain.
+
+"What is it?" Meredith said quickly.
+
+"Give me the pad, please."
+
+"What is it, boy?"
+
+The other's teeth snapped together.
+
+"What is it?" he cried. "What is it? It's treachery, and the worst I
+ever knew. Not a word of the accusation I demanded--lying _praises_
+instead! Read that editorial--there, _there_!" He struck the page
+with the back of his hand, and threw the paper to Meredith. "Read that
+miserable lie! 'One who has won the love and respect of every person
+in the district!'--'One who has suffered for his championship of
+righteousness!' _Righteousness!_ Save the mark!"
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"Mean! It means McCune--Rod McCune, 'who has lived under a threat for
+years'--_my_ threat! I swore I would print him out of Indiana if he ever
+raised his head again, and he knew I could. 'Almost overborne in the
+fulfilment of that threat!' _Almost_! It's a black scheme, and I see it
+now. This man came to Plattville and went on the 'Herald' for nothing
+in the world but this. It's McCune's hand all along. He daren't name
+him even now, the coward! The trick lies between McCune and young
+Fisbee--the old man is innocent. Give me the pad. Not _almost_
+overborne. There are three good days to work in, and, by the gods
+of Perdition, if Rod McCune sees Congress it will be in his next
+incarnation!"
+
+He rapidly scribbled a few lines on the pad, and threw the sheets to
+Meredith. "Get those telegrams to the Western Union office in a rush,
+please. Read them first."
+
+With a very red face Tom read them. One was addressed to H. Fisbee:
+
+"You are relieved from the cares of editorship. You will turn over the
+management of the 'Herald' to Warren Smith. You will give him the McCune
+papers. If you do not, or if you destroy them, you cannot hide where I
+shall not find you.
+
+                                    "JOHN HARKLESS."
+
+The second was to Warren Smith: "Take possession 'Herald.' Dismiss H.
+Fisbee. This your authority. Publish McCune papers so labelled which H.
+Fisbee will hand you. Letter follows. Beat McCune.
+
+                                    "JOHN HARKLESS."
+
+The author of the curt epistles tossed restlessly on his couch, but
+the reader of them stared, incredulous and dumfounded, uncertain of
+his command of gravity. His jaw fell, and his open mouth might have
+betokened a being smit to imbecility; and, haply, he might be, for Helen
+had written him from Plattville, pledging his honor to secrecy with the
+first words, and it was by her command that he had found excuses for
+not supplying his patient with all the papers which happened to contain
+references to the change of date for the Plattville convention. And
+Meredith had known for some time where James Fisbee had found a "young
+relative" to be the savior of the "Herald" for his benefactor's sake.
+
+"You mean--you--intend to--you discharge young Fisbee?" he stammered at
+last.
+
+"Yes! Let me have the answers the instant they come, will you, Tom?"
+Then Harkless turned his face from the wall and spoke through his teeth:
+"I mean to see H. Fisbee before many days; I want to talk to him!"
+
+But, though he tossed and fretted himself into what the doctor
+pronounced a decidedly improved state, no answer came to either telegram
+that day or night. The next morning a messenger boy stumbled up the
+front steps and handed the colored man, Jim, four yellow envelopes,
+night messages. Three of them were for Harkless, one was for Meredith.
+Jim carried them upstairs, left the three with his master's guest, then
+knocked on his master's door.
+
+"What is it?" answered a thick voice. Meredith had not yet risen.
+
+"A telegraph. Mist' Tawm."
+
+There was a terrific yawn. "O-o-oh! Slide it--oh--under the--door."
+
+"Yessuh."
+
+Meredith lay quite without motion for several minutes, sleepily watching
+the yellow rhomboid in the crevice. It was a hateful looking thing to
+come mixing in with pleasant dreams and insist upon being read. After a
+while he climbed groaningly out of bed, and read the message with heavy
+eyes, still half asleep. He read it twice before it penetrated:
+
+"Suppress all newspapers to-day. Convention meets at eleven. If we
+succeed a delegation will come to Rouen this afternoon. They will come.
+
+                                          "HELEN."
+
+
+Tom rubbed his sticky eyelids, and shook his head violently in a Spartan
+effort to rouse himself; but what more effectively performed the task
+for him were certain sounds issuing from Harkless's room, across the
+hall. For some minutes, Meredith had been dully conscious of a rustle
+and stir in the invalid's chamber, and he began to realize that no mere
+tossing about a bed would account for a noise that reached him across
+a wide hall and through two closed doors of thick walnut. Suddenly he
+heard a quick, heavy tread, shod, in Harkless's room, and a resounding
+bang, as some heavy object struck the floor. The doctor was not to come
+till evening; Jim had gone down-stairs. Who wore shoes in the sick
+man's room? He rushed across the hall in his pyjamas and threw open the
+unlocked door.
+
+The bed was disarranged and vacant. Harkless, fully dressed, was
+standing in the middle of the floor, hurling garments at a big
+travelling bag.
+
+The horrified Meredith stood for a second, bleached and speechless, then
+he rushed upon his friend and seized him with both hands.
+
+"Mad, by heaven! Mad!"
+
+"Let go of me, Tom!"
+
+"Lunatic! Lunatic!"
+
+"Don't stop me one instant!"
+
+Meredith tried to force him toward the bed. "For mercy's sake, get back
+to bed. You're delirious, boy!"
+
+"Delirious nothing. I'm a well man."
+
+"Go to bed--go to bed."
+
+Harkless set him out of the way with one arm. "Bed be hanged!" he cried.
+"I'm going to Plattville!"
+
+Meredith wrung his hands. "The doctor----"!
+
+"Doctor be damned!"
+
+"Will you tell me what has happened, John?"
+
+His companion slung a light overcoat, unfolded, on the overflowing,
+misshapen bundle of clothes that lay in the bag; then he jumped on the
+lid with both feet and kicked the hasp into the lock; a very elegantly
+laundered cuff and white sleeve dangling out from between the fastened
+lids. "I haven't one second to talk, Tom; I have seventeen minutes to
+catch the express, and it's a mile and a half to the station; the train
+leaves here at eight fifty, I get to Plattville at ten forty-seven.
+Telephone for a cab for me, please, or tell me the number; I don't want
+to stop to hunt it up."
+
+Meredith looked him in the eyes. In the pupils of Harkless flared a
+fierce light. His cheeks were reddened with an angry, healthy glow, and
+his teeth were clenched till the line of his jaw stood out like that
+of an embattled athlete in sculpture; his brow was dark; his chest was
+thrown out, and he took deep, quick breaths; his shoulders were squared,
+and in spite of his thinness they looked massy. Lethargy, or malaria, or
+both, whatever were his ailments, they were gone. He was six feet of hot
+wrath and cold resolution.
+
+Tom said: "You are going?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I am going."
+
+"Then I will go with you."
+
+"Thank you, Tom," said the other quietly.
+
+Meredith ran into his own room, pressed an electric button, sprang out
+of his pyjamas like Aphrodite from the white sea-foam, and began to dive
+into his clothes with a panting rapidity astonishingly foreign to his
+desire. Jim appeared in the doorway.
+
+"The cart, Jim," shouted his master. "We want it like lightning. Tell
+the cook to give Mr. Harkless his breakfast in a hurry. Set a cup of
+coffee on the table by the front door for me. Run like the deuce! We've
+got to catch a train.--That will be quicker than any cab," he explained
+to Harkless. "We'll break the ordinance against fast driving, getting
+down there."
+
+Ten minutes later the cart swept away from the house at a gait which
+pained the respectable neighborhood. The big horse plunged through the
+air, his ears laid flat toward his tail; the cart careened sickeningly;
+the face of the servant clutching at the rail in the rear was smeared
+with pallor as they pirouetted around curves on one wheel--to him it
+seemed they skirted the corners and Death simultaneously--and the speed
+of their going made a strong wind in their faces.
+
+Harkless leaned forward.
+
+"Can you make it a little faster, Tom?" he said.
+
+They dashed up to the station amid the cries of people flying to the
+walls for safety; the two gentlemen leaped from the cart, bore down upon
+the ticket-office, stormed at the agent, and ran madly at the gates,
+flourishing their passports. The official on duty eyed them wearily, and
+barred the way.
+
+"Been gone two minutes," he remarked, with a peaceable yawn.
+
+Harkless stamped his foot on the cement flags; then he stood stock
+still, gazing at the empty tracks; but Meredith turned to him, smiling.
+
+"Won't it keep?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, it will keep," John answered. "Part of it may have to keep till
+election day, but some of it I will settle before night. And that," he
+cried, between his teeth, "and that is the part of it in regard to young
+Mr. Fisbee!"
+
+"Oh, it's about H. Fisbee, is it?"
+
+"Yes, it's H. Fisbee."
+
+"Well, we might as well go up and see what the doctor thinks of you;
+there's no train."
+
+"I don't want to see a doctor again, ever--as long as I live. I'm as
+well as anybody."
+
+Tom burst out laughing, and clapped his companion lightly on the
+shoulder, his eyes dancing with pleasure.
+
+"Upon my soul," he cried, "I believe you are! It's against all my
+tradition, and I see I am the gull of poetry; for I've always believed
+it to be beyond question that this sort of miracle was wrought, not by
+rage, but by the tenderer senti--" Tom checked himself. "Well, let's
+take a drive."
+
+"Meredith," said the other, turning to him gravely, "you may think me a
+fool, if you will, and it's likely I am; but I don't leave this station
+except by train. I've only two days to work in, and every minute lessens
+our chances to beat McCune, and I have to begin by wasting time on a
+tussle with a traitor. There's another train at eleven fifty-five; I
+don't take any chances on missing that one."
+
+"Well, well," laughed his friend, pushing him good-humoredly toward a
+door by a red and white striped pillar, "we'll wait here, if you like;
+but at least go in there and get a shave; it's a clean shop. You want to
+look your best if you are going down to fight H. Fisbee."
+
+"Take these, then, and you will understand," said Harkless; and
+he thrust his three telegrams of the morning into Tom's hand and
+disappeared into the barber-shop. When he was gone, Meredith went to the
+telegraph office in the station, and sent a line over the wire to Helen:
+
+"Keep your delegation at home. He's coming on the 11.55."
+
+Then he read the three telegrams Harkless had given him. They were all
+from Plattville:
+
+"Sorry cannot oblige. Present incumbent tenacious. Unconditionally
+refuses surrender. Delicate matter. No hope for K. H. But don't worry.
+Everything all right.
+
+                                             "WARREN SMITH."
+
+
+"Harkless, if you have the strength to walk, come down before the
+convention. Get here by 10.47. Looks bad. Come if it kills you.
+
+                                             "K. H."
+
+"You entrusted me with sole responsibility for all matters pertaining
+to 'Herald.' Declared yourself mere spectator. Does this permit your
+interfering with my policy for the paper? Decline to consider any
+proposition to relieve me of my duties without proper warning and
+allowance of time.
+
+                                             "H. FISBEE."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE GREAT HARKLESS COMES HOME
+
+The accommodation train wandered languidly through the early afternoon
+sunshine, stopping at every village and almost every country post-office
+on the line; the engine toot-tooting at the road crossings; and, now and
+again, at such junctures, a farmer, struggling with a team of prancing
+horses, would be seen, or, it might be, a group of school children,
+homeward bound from seats of learning. At each station, when the train
+came to a stand-still, some passenger, hanging head and elbows out of
+his window, like a quilt draped over a chair, would address a citizen on
+the platform:
+
+"Hey, Sam, how's Miz Bushkirk?"
+
+"She's wal."
+
+"Where's Milt, this afternoon?"
+
+"Warshing the buggy." Then at the cry, "All 'board"--"See you Sunday
+over at Amo."
+
+"You make Milt come. I'll be there, shore. So long."
+
+There was an impatient passenger in the smoker, who found the stoppages
+at these wayside hamlets interminable, both in frequency and in the
+delay at each of them; and while the dawdling train remained inert, and
+the moments passed inactive, his eyes dilated and his hand clenched till
+the nails bit his palm; then, when the trucks groaned and the wheels
+crooned against the rails once more, he sank back in his seat with
+sighs of relief. Sometimes he would get up and pace the aisle until his
+companion reminded him that this was not certain to hasten the hour of
+their arrival at their destination.
+
+"I know that," answered the other, "but I've got to beat McCune."
+
+"By the way," observed Meredith, "you left your stick behind."
+
+"You don't think I need a club to face----"
+
+Tom choked. "Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of your giving H. Fisbee a
+thrashing. I meant to lean on."
+
+"I don't want it. I've got to walk lame all my life, but I'm not going
+to hobble on a stick." Tom looked at him sadly; for it was true, and the
+Cross-Roaders might hug themselves in their cells over the thought. For
+the rest of his life John Harkless was to walk with just the limp they
+themselves would have had, if, as in former days, their sentence had
+been to the ball and chain.
+
+The window was open beside the two young men, and the breeze swept in,
+fresh from the wide fields, There was a tang in the air; it soothed like
+a balm, but there was a spur to energy and heartiness in its crispness,
+the wholesome touch of fall. John looked out over the boundless aisles
+of corn that stood higher than a tall man could reach; long waves
+rippled across them. Here, where the cry of the brave had rung in forest
+glades, where the painted tribes had hastened, were marshalled the
+tasselled armies of peace. And beyond these, where the train ran between
+shadowy groves, delicate landscape vistas, framed in branches, opened,
+closed, and succeeded each other, and then the travellers were carried
+out into the level open again, and the intensely blue September skies
+ran down to the low horizon, meeting the tossing plumes of corn.
+
+It takes a long time for the full beauty of the flat lands to reach a
+man's soul; once there, nor hills, nor sea, nor growing fan leaves of
+palm shall suffice him. It is like the beauty in the word "Indiana." It
+may be that there are people who do not consider "Indiana" a beautiful
+word; but once it rings true in your ears it has a richer sound than
+"Vallombrosa."
+
+There was a newness in the atmosphere that day, a bright invigoration,
+that set the blood tingling. The hot months were done with, languor was
+routed. Autumn spoke to industry, told of the sowing of another harvest,
+of the tawny shock, of the purple grape, of the red apple, and called
+upon muscle and laughter; breathed gaiety into men's hearts. The little
+stations hummed with bustle and noise; big farm wagons rattled away and
+raced with cut-under or omnibus; people walked with quick steps; the
+baggage-masters called cheerily to the trainmen, and the brakemen
+laughed good-bys to rollicking girls.
+
+As they left Gainesville three children, clad in calico, barefoot and
+bareheaded, came romping out of a log cabin on the outskirts of the
+town, and waved their hands to the passengers. They climbed on the
+sagging gate in front of their humble domain, and laughed for joy to see
+the monstrous caravan come clattering out of the unknown, bearing the
+faces by. The smallest child, a little cherubic tow-head, whose cheeks
+were smeared with clean earth and the tracks of forgotten tears, stood
+upright on a fence-post, and blew the most impudent of kisses to the
+strangers on a journey.
+
+Beyond this they came into a great plain, acres and acres of green
+rag-weed where the wheat had grown, all so flat one thought of an
+enormous billiard table, and now, where the railroad crossed the country
+roads, they saw the staunch brown thistle, sometimes the sumach,
+and always the graceful iron-weed, slender, tall, proud, bowing a
+purple-turbaned head, or shaking in an agony of fright when it stood
+too close to the train. The fields, like great, flat emeralds set in
+new metal, were bordered with golden-rod, and at sight of this the heart
+leaped; for the golden-rod is a symbol of stored granaries, of ripe
+sheaves, of the kindness of the season generously given and abundantly
+received; more, it is the token of a land of promise and of bounteous
+fulfilment; and the plant stains its blossom with yellow so that when it
+falls it pays tribute to the ground which has nourished it.
+
+From the plain they passed again into a thick wood, where ruddy arrows
+of the sun glinted among the boughs; and, here and there, one saw a
+courtly maple or royal oak wearing a gala mantle of crimson and
+pale brown, gallants of the forest preparing early for the October
+masquerade, when they should hold wanton carnival, before they stripped
+them of their finery for pious gray.
+
+And when the coughing engine drew them to the borders of this wood, they
+rolled out into another rich plain of green and rust-colored corn; and
+far to the south John Harkless marked a winding procession of sycamores,
+which, he knew, followed the course of a slender stream; and the waters
+of the stream flowed by a bank where wild thyme might have grown, and
+where, beyond an orchard and a rose-garden, a rustic bench was placed in
+the shade of the trees; and the name of the stream was Hibbard's Creek.
+Here the land lay flatter than elsewhere; the sky came closer, with a
+gentler benediction; the breeze blew in, laden with keener spices;
+there was the flavor of apples and the smell of the walnut and a hint
+of coming frost; the immeasurable earth lay more patiently to await the
+husbandman; and the whole world seemed to extend flat in line with the
+eye--for this was Carlow County.
+
+All at once the anger ran out of John Harkless; he was a hard man for
+anger to tarry with. And in place of it a strong sense of home-coming
+began to take possession of him. He was going home. "Back to Plattville,
+where I belong," he had said; and he said it again without bitterness,
+for it was the truth. "Every man cometh to his own place in the end."
+
+Yes, as one leaves a gay acquaintance of the playhouse lobby for
+some hard-handed, tried old friend, so he would wave the outer world
+God-speed and come back to the old ways of Carlow. What though the years
+were dusty, he had his friends and his memories and his old black brier
+pipe. He had a girl's picture that he should carry in his heart till his
+last day; and if his life was sadder, it was infinitely richer for it.
+His winter fireside should be not so lonely for her sake; and losing
+her, he lost not everything, for he had the rare blessing of having
+known her. And what man could wish to be healed of such a hurt? Far
+better to have had it than to trot a smug pace unscathed.
+
+He had been a dullard; he had lain prostrate in the wretchedness of his
+loss. "A girl you could put in your hat--and there you have a strong
+man prone." He had been a sluggard, weary of himself, unfit to fight, a
+failure in life and a failure in love. That was ended; he was tired of
+failing, and it was time to succeed for a while. To accept the worst
+that Fate can deal, and to wring courage from it instead of despair,
+that is success; and it was the success that he would have. He would
+take Fate by the neck. But had it done him unkindness? He looked out
+over the beautiful, "monotonous" landscape, and he answered heartily,
+"No!" There was ignorance in man, but no unkindness; were man utterly
+wise he were utterly kind. The Cross-Roaders had not known better; that
+was all.
+
+The unfolding aisles of corn swam pleasantly before John's eyes. The
+earth hearkened to man's wants and answered; the clement sun and summer
+rains hastened the fruition. Yonder stood the brown haystack, garnered
+to feed the industrious horse who had earned his meed; there was the
+straw-thatched shelter for the cattle. How the orchard boughs bent with
+their burdens! The big red barns stood stored with the harvested wheat;
+and, beyond the pasture-lands, tall trees rose against the benign sky to
+feed the glance of a dreamer; the fertile soil lay lavender and glossy
+in the furrow. The farmhouses were warmly built and hale and strong; no
+winter blast should rage so bitterly as to shake them, or scatter the
+hospitable embers on the hearth. For this was Carlow County, and he was
+coming home.
+
+They crossed a by-road. An old man with a streaky gray chin-beard was
+sitting on a sack of oats in a seatless wagon, waiting for the train to
+pass. Harkless seized his companion excitedly by the elbow.
+
+"Tommy!" he cried. "It's Kim Fentriss--look! Did you see that old
+fellow?"
+
+"I saw a particularly uninterested and uninteresting gentleman sitting
+on a bag," replied his friend.
+
+"Why, that's old Kimball Fentriss. He's going to town; he lives on the
+edge of the county."
+
+"Can this be true?" said Meredith gravely.
+
+"I wonder," said Harkless thoughtfully, a few moments later, "I wonder
+why he had them changed around."
+
+"Who changed around?"
+
+"The team. He always used to drive the bay on the near side, and the
+sorrel on the off."
+
+"And at present," rejoined Meredith, "I am to understand that he is
+driving the sorrel on the near side, and bay on the off?"
+
+"That's it," returned the other. "He must have worked them like that for
+some time, because they didn't look uneasy. They're all right about the
+train, those two. I've seen them stand with their heads almost against
+a fast freight. See there!" He pointed to a white frame farmhouse with
+green blinds. "That's Win Hibbard's. We're just outside of Beaver."
+
+"Beaver? Elucidate Beaver, boy!"
+
+"Beaver? Meredith, your information ends at home. What do you know of
+your own State if you are ignorant of Beaver. Beaver is that city of
+Carlow County next in importance and population to Plattville."
+
+Tom put his head out of the window. "I fancy you are right," he said. "I
+already see five people there."
+
+Meredith had observed the change in his companion's mood. He had watched
+him closely all day, looking for a return of his malady; but he came
+to the conclusion that in truth a miracle had been wrought, for the
+lethargy was gone, and vigor seemed to increase in Harkless with every
+turn of the wheels that brought them nearer Plattville; and the nearer
+they drew to Plattville the higher the spirits of both the young men
+rose. Meredith knew what was happening there, and he began to be a
+little excited. As he had said, there were five people visible at
+Beaver; and he wondered where they lived, as the only building in sight
+was the station, and to satisfy his curiosity he walked out to the
+vestibule. The little station stood in deep woods, and brown leaves
+whirled along the platform. One of the five people was an old lady, and
+she entered a rear car. The other four were men. One of them handed the
+conductor a telegram.
+
+Meredith heard the official say, "All right. Decorate ahead. I'll hold
+it five minutes."
+
+The man sprang up the steps of the smoker and looked in. He turned
+to Meredith: "Do you know if that gentleman in the gray coat is Mr.
+Harkless? He's got his back this way, and I don't want to go inside.
+The--the air in a smoker always gives me a spell."
+
+"Yes, that's Mr. Harkless."
+
+The man jumped to the platform. "All right, boys," he said. "Rip her
+out."
+
+The doors of the freight-room were thrown open, and a big bundle of
+colored stuffs was dragged out and hastily unfolded. One of the men
+ran to the further end of the car with a strip of red, white and blue
+bunting, and tacked it securely, while another fastened the other
+extremity to the railing of the steps by Meredith. The two companions of
+this pair performed the same operation with another strip on the other
+side of the car. They ran similar strips of bunting along the roof from
+end to end, so that, except for the windows, the car was completely
+covered by the national colors. Then they draped the vestibules with
+flags. It was all done in a trice.
+
+Meredith's heart was beating fast. "What's it all about?" he asked.
+
+"Picnic down the line," answered the man in charge, removing a tack from
+his mouth. He motioned to the conductor, "Go ahead."
+
+The wheels began to move; the decorators remained on the platform,
+letting the train pass them; but Meredith, craning his neck from the
+steps, saw that they jumped on the last car.
+
+"What's the celebration?" asked Harkless, when Meredith returned.
+
+"Picnic down the line," said Meredith.
+
+"Nipping weather for a picnic; a little cool, don't you think? One of
+those fellows looked like a friend of mine. Homer Tibbs, or as Homer
+might look if he were in disgrace. He had his hat hung on his eyes, and
+he slouched like a thief in melodrama, as he tacked up the bunting
+on this side of the car." He continued to point out various familiar
+places, finally breaking out enthusiastically, as they drew nearer the
+town, "Hello! Look there--beyond the grove yonder! See that house?"
+
+"Yes, John."
+
+"That's the Bowlders'. You've got to know the Bowlders."
+
+"I'd like to."
+
+"The kindest people in the world. The Briscoe house we can't see,
+because it's so shut in by trees; and, besides, it's a mile or so ahead
+of us. We'll go out there for supper to-night. Don't you like Briscoe?
+He's the best they make. We'll go up town with Judd Bennett in the
+omnibus, and you'll know how a rapid-fire machine gun sounds. I want
+to go straight to the 'Herald' office," he finished, with a suddenly
+darkening brow.
+
+"After all, there may be some explanation," Meredith suggested, with a
+little hesitancy. "H. Fisbee might turn out more honest than you think."
+
+Harkless threw his head back and laughed; it was the first time Meredith
+had heard him laugh since the night of the dance in the country.
+"Honest! A man in the pay of Rodney McCune! Well, we can let it wait
+till we get there. Listen! There's the whistle that means we're getting
+near home. By heaven, there's an oil-well!"
+
+"So it is."
+
+"And another--three--five--seven--seven in sight at once! They tried it
+three miles south and failed; but you can't fool Eph Watts, bless him! I
+want you to know Watts."
+
+They were running by the outlying houses of the town, amidst a thousand
+descriptive exclamations from Harkless, who wished Meredith to meet
+every one in Carlow. But he came to a pause in the middle of a word.
+
+"Do you hear music?" he asked abruptly. "Or is it only the rhythm of the
+ties?"
+
+"It seems to me there's music in the air," answered his companion. "I've
+been fancying I heard it for a minute or so. There! No--yes. It's a
+band, isn't it?"
+
+"No; what would a band----"
+
+The train slowed up, and stopped at a watertank, two hundred yards east
+of the station, and their uncertainty was at an end.
+
+From somewhere down the track came the detonating boom of a cannon.
+There was a dash of brass, and the travellers became aware of a band
+playing "Marching through Georgia." Meredith laid his hand on his
+companion's shoulder. "John," he said, "John----" The cannon fired
+again, and there came a cheer from three thousand throats, the shouters
+all unseen.
+
+The engine coughed and panted, the train rolled on, and in another
+minute it had stopped alongside the station in the midst of a
+riotous jam of happy people, who were waving flags and banners and
+handkerchiefs, and tossing their hats high in the air, and shouting
+themselves hoarse. The band played in dumb show; it could not hear
+itself play. The people came at the smoker like a long wave, and Warren
+Smith, Briscoe, Keating, and Mr. Bence of Gaines were swept ahead of
+it. Before the train stopped they had rushed eagerly up the steps and
+entered the car.
+
+Harkless was on his feet and started to meet them. He stopped.
+
+"What does it mean?" he said, and began to grow pale. "Is Halloway--did
+McCune--have you----"
+
+Warren Smith seized one of his hands and Briscoe the other. "What does
+it mean?" cried Warren; "it means that you were nominated for Congress
+at five minutes after one-o'clock this afternoon."
+
+"On the second ballot," shouted the Judge, "just as young Fisbee planned
+it, weeks ago."
+
+
+It was one of the great crowds of Carlow's history. They had known since
+morning that he was coming home, and the gentlemen of the Reception
+Committee had some busy hours; but long before the train arrived,
+everything was ready. Homer Tibbs had done his work well at Beaver, and
+the gray-haired veterans of a battery Carlow had sent out in '61 had
+placed their worn old gun in position to fire salutes. At one-o'clock,
+immediately after the nomination had been made unanimous, the Harkless
+Clubs of Carlow, Amo, and Gaines, secretly organized during the quiet
+agitation preceding the convention, formed on parade in the court-house
+yard, and, with the Plattville Band at their head, paraded the streets
+to the station, to make sure of being on hand when the train arrived--it
+was due in a couple of hours. There they were joined by an increasing
+number of glad enthusiasts, all noisy, exhilarated, red-faced with
+shouting, and patriotically happy. As Mr. Bence, himself the spoiled
+child of another county, generously said, in a speech, which (with no
+outrageous pressure) he was induced to make during the long wait:
+"The favorite son of Carlow is returning to his Lares and Penates like
+another Cincinnatus accepting the call of the people; and, for the first
+time in sixteen years, Carlow shall have a representative to bear the
+banner of this district and the flaming torch of Progress sweeping on to
+Washington and triumph like a speedy galleon of old. And his friends are
+here to take his hand and do him homage, and the number of his friends
+is as the number given in the last census of the population of the
+counties of this district!"
+
+And, indeed, in this estimate the speaker seemed guilty of no great
+exaggeration. A never intermittent procession of pedestrians and
+vehicles made its way to the station; and every wagon, buckboard, buggy,
+and cut-under had its flags or bunting, or streamer of ribbons tied to
+the whip. The excitement increased as the time grew shorter; those
+on foot struggled for better positions, and the people in wagons
+and carriages stood upon seats, while the pedestrians besieged them,
+climbing on the wheels, or balancing recklessly, with feet on the hubs
+of opposite wagons. Everybody was bound to see _him_. When the whistle
+announced the coming of the train, the band began to play, the cannon
+fired, horns blew, and the cheering echoed and reechoed till heaven's
+vault resounded with the noise the people of Carlow were making.
+
+There was one heart which almost stopped beating. Helen was standing on
+the front seat of the Briscoe buckboard, with Minnie beside her, and, at
+the commotion, the horses pranced and backed so that Lige Willetts ran
+to hold them; but she did not notice the frightened roans, nor did she
+know that Minnie clutched her round the waist to keep her from falling.
+Her eyes were fixed intently on the smoke of the far-away engine, and
+her hand, lifted to her face in an uncertain, tremulous fashion, as it
+was one day in a circus tent, pressed against the deepest blush that
+ever mantled a girl's cheek. When the train reached the platform, she
+saw Briscoe and the others rush into the car, and there ensued what
+was to her an almost intolerable pause of expectation, while the crowd
+besieged the windows of the smoker, leaning up and climbing on each
+other's shoulders to catch the first glimpse of _him_. Briscoe and a
+red-faced young man, a stranger to Plattville, came down the steps,
+laughing like boys, and then Keating and Bence, and then Warren Smith.
+As the lawyer reached the platform, he turned toward the door of the car
+and waved his hand as in welcome.
+
+"Here he is, boys!" he shouted, "Welcome Home!" At that it was as if
+all the noise that had gone before had been mere leakage of pent-up
+enthusiasm. A thousand horns blared deafeningly, the whistles of the
+engine and of Hibbard's mill were added to the din, the court-house bell
+was pealing out a welcome, and the church bells were ringing, the cannon
+thundered, and then cheer on cheer shook the air, as John Harkless came
+out under the flags, and passed down the steps of the car.
+
+When Helen saw him, over the heads of the people and through a flying
+tumult of flags and hats and handkerchiefs, she gave one frightened
+glance about her, and jumped down from her high perch, and sank into the
+back seat of the buckboard with her burning face turned from the station
+and her eyes fixed on the ground. She wanted to run away, as she had run
+from him the first time she had ever seen him. Then, as now, he came
+in triumph, hailed by the plaudits of his fellows; and now, as on that
+long-departed day of her young girlhood, he was borne high over the
+heads of the people, for Minnie cried to her to look; they were carrying
+him on their shoulders to his carriage. She had had only that brief
+glimpse of him, before he was lost in the crowd that was so glad to get
+him back again and so proud of him; but she had seen that he looked very
+white and solemn.
+
+Briscoe and Tom Meredith made their way through the crowd, and climbed
+into the buckboard. "All right, Lige," called the judge to Willetts, who
+was at the horses' heads. "You go get into line with the boys; they want
+you. We'll go down on Main Street to see the parade," he explained to
+the ladies, gathering the reins in his hand.
+
+He clucked to the roans, and by dint of backing and twisting and turning
+and a hundred intricate manoeuvres, accompanied by entreaties
+and remonstrances and objurgations, addressed to the occupants of
+surrounding vehicles, he managed to extricate the buckboard from the
+press; and once free, the team went down the road toward Main Street
+at a lively gait. The judge's call to the colts rang out cheerily; his
+handsome face was one broad smile. "This is a big day for Carlow," he
+said; "I don't remember a better day's work in twenty years."
+
+"Did you tell him about Mr. Halloway?" asked Helen, leaning forward
+anxiously.
+
+"Warren told him before we left the car," answered Briscoe. "He'd have
+declined on the spot, I expect, if we hadn't made him sure it was all
+right with Kedge."
+
+"If I understood what Mr. Smith was saying, Halloway must have behaved
+very well," said Meredith.
+
+The judge laughed. "He saw it was the only way to beat McCune, and he'd
+have given his life and Harkless's, too, rather than let McCune have
+it."
+
+"Why didn't you stay with him, Tom?" asked Helen.
+
+"With Halloway? I don't know him."
+
+"One forgives a generous hilarity anything, even such quips as that,"
+she retorted. "Why did you not stay with Mr. Harkless?"
+
+"That's very hospitable of you," laughed the young man. "You forget that
+I have the felicity to sit at your side. Judge Briscoe has been kind
+enough to ask me to review the procession from his buckboard and to sup
+at his house with other distinguished visitors, and I have accepted."
+
+"But didn't he wish you to remain with him?"
+
+"But this second I had the honor to inform you that I am here distinctly
+by his invitation."
+
+"_His_?"
+
+"Precisely, his. Judge Briscoe, Miss Sherwood will not believe that you
+desire my presence. If I intrude, pray let me--" He made as if to spring
+from the buckboard, and the girl seized his arm impatiently.
+
+"You are a pitiful nonsense-monger!" she cried; and for some reason
+this speech made him turn his glasses upon her gravely. Her lashes fell
+before his gaze, and at that he took her hand and kissed it quickly.
+
+"No, no," she faltered. "You must not think it. It isn't--you see,
+I--there is nothing!"
+
+"You shall not dull the edge of my hilarity," he answered, "especially
+since so much may be forgiven it."
+
+"Why did you leave Mr. Harkless?" she asked, without raising her eyes.
+
+"My dear girl," he replied, "because, for some inexplicable reason, my
+lady cousin has not nominated me for Congress, but instead has chosen to
+bestow that distinction upon another, and, I may say, an unworthier and
+unfitter man than I. And, oddly enough, the non-discriminating multitude
+were not cheering for me; the artillery was not in action to celebrate
+me; the band was not playing to do me honor; therefore why should I ride
+in the midst of a procession that knows me not? Why should I enthrone me
+in an open barouche--a little faded and possibly not quite secure as to
+its springs, but still a barouche--with four white horses to draw it,
+and draped with silken flags, both barouche and steeds? Since these
+things were not for me, I flew to your side to dissemble my spleen under
+the licensed prattle of a cousin."
+
+"Then who _is_ with him?"
+
+"The population of this portion of our State, I take it."
+
+"Oh, it's all right," said the judge, leaning back to speak to Helen.
+"Keating and Smith and your father are to ride in the carriage with him.
+You needn't be afraid of any of them letting him know that H. Fisbee is
+a lady. Everybody understands about that; of course they know it's to be
+left to you to break it to him how well a girl has run his paper." The
+old gentleman chuckled, and looked out of the corner of his eye at his
+daughter, whose expression was inscrutable.
+
+"I!" cried Helen. "_I_ tell him! No one must tell him. He need never
+know it."
+
+Briscoe reached back and patted her cheek. "How long do you suppose he
+will be here in Plattville without it's leaking out?"
+
+"But they kept guard over him for months and nobody told him."
+
+"Ah," said Briscoe, "but this is different."
+
+"No, no, no!" she exclaimed. "It _must_ be kept from him somehow!"
+
+"He'll know it by to-morrow, so you'd better tell him this evening."
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"Yes. You'll have a good chance."
+
+"I will?"
+
+"He's coming to supper with us. He and your father, of course, and
+Keating and Bence and Boswell and Smith and Tom Martin and Lige. We're
+going to have a big time, with you and Minnie to do the honors; and
+we're all coming into town afterwards for the fireworks; I'll let him
+drive you in the phaeton. You'll have plenty of time to talk it over
+with him and tell him all about it."
+
+Helen gave a little gasp. "Never!" she cried. "Never!"
+
+The buckboard stopped on the "Herald" corner, and here, and along Main
+Street, the line of vehicles which had followed it from the station took
+their places. The Square was almost a solid mass of bunting, and the
+north entrance of the court-house had been decorated with streamers and
+flags, so as to make it a sort of stand. Hither the crowd was already
+streaming, and hither the procession made its way. At intervals the
+cannon boomed, and Schofields' Henry was winnowing the air with his
+bell; nobody had a better time that day than Schofields' Henry, except
+old Wilkerson, who was with the procession.
+
+In advance, came the boys, whooping and somersaulting, and behind them,
+rode a band of mounted men, sitting their horses like cavalrymen, led by
+the sheriff and his deputy and Jim Bardlock; then followed the Harkless
+Club of Amo, led by Boswell, with the magnanimous Halloway himself
+marching in the ranks; and at sight of this the people shouted like
+madmen. But when Helen's eye fell upon his fat, rather unhappy face, she
+felt a pang of pity and unreasoning remorse, which warned her that he
+who looks upon politics when it is red must steel his eyes to see many a
+man with the heart-burn. After the men of Amo, came the Harkless Club
+of Gainesville, Mr. Bence in the van with the step of a grenadier. There
+followed next, Mr. Ephraim Watts, bearing a light wand in his hand and
+leading a detachment of workers from the oil-fields in their stained
+blue overalls and blouses; and, after them, came Mr. Martin and Mr.
+Landis at the head of an organization recognized in the "Order of
+Procession," printed in the "Herald," as the Business Men of Plattville.
+They played in such magnificent time that every high-stepping foot in
+all the line came down with the same jubilant plunk, and lifted again
+with a unanimity as complete as that of the last vote the convention had
+taken that day. The leaders of the procession set a brisk pace, and who
+could have set any other kind of a pace when on parade to the strains of
+such a band, playing such a tune as "A New Coon in Town," with all its
+might and main?
+
+But as the line swung into the Square, there came a moment when the tune
+was ended, the musicians paused for breath, and there fell comparative
+quiet. Amongst the ranks of Business Men ambled Mr. Wilkerson, singing
+at the top of his voice, and now he could be heard distinctly enough
+for those near to him to distinguish the melody with which it was his
+intention to favor the public:
+
+            "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
+               As we go marching on."
+
+The words, the air, that husky voice, recalled to the men of Carlow
+another day and another procession, not like this one. And the song
+Wilkerson was singing is the one song every Northern-born American knows
+and can sing. The leader of the band caught the sound, signalled to his
+men; twenty instruments rose as one to twenty mouths; the snare-drum
+rattled, the big drum crashed, the leader lifted his baton high over his
+head, and music burst from twenty brazen throats:
+
+             "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!"
+
+Instantaneously, the whole procession began to sing the refrain, and the
+people in the street, and those in the wagons and carriages, and those
+leaning from the windows joined with one accord, the ringing bells
+caught the time of the song, and the upper air reverberated in the
+rhythm.
+
+The Harkless Club of Carlow wheeled into Main Street, two hundred
+strong, with their banners and transparencies. Lige Willetts rode at
+their head, and behind him strode young William Todd and Parker and Ross
+Schofield and Homer Tibbs and Hartley Bowlder, and even Bud Tipworthy
+held a place in the ranks through his connection with the "Herald." They
+were all singing.
+
+And, behind them, Helen saw the flag-covered barouche and her father,
+and beside him sat John Harkless with his head bared.
+
+She glanced at Briscoe; he was standing on the front seat with Minnie
+beside him, and both were singing. Meredith had climbed upon the back
+seat and was nervously fumbling at a cigarette.
+
+"Sing, Tom!" the girl cried to him excitedly.
+
+"I should be ashamed not to," he answered; and dropped the cigarette and
+began to sing "John Brown's Body" with all his strength. With that she
+seized his hand, sprang up beside him, and over the swelling chorus her
+full soprano rose, lifted with all the power in her.
+
+The barouche rolled into the Square, and, as it passed, Harkless turned,
+and bent a sudden gaze upon the group in the buckboard; but the western
+sun was in his eyes, and he only caught a glimpse of a vague, bright
+shape and a dazzle of gold, and he was borne along and out of view, down
+the singing street.
+
+             "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
+              Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
+              Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
+                   As we go marching on!"
+
+The barouche stopped in front of the courthouse, and he passed up a lane
+they made for him to the steps. When he turned to them to speak, they
+began to cheer again, and he had to wait for them to quiet down.
+
+"We can't hear him from over here," said Briscoe, "we're too far off.
+Mr. Meredith, suppose you take the ladies closer in, and I'll stay with
+the horses. You want to hear his speech."
+
+"He is a great man, isn't he?" Meredith said to Helen, gravely, as he
+handed her out of the buckboard. "I've been trying to realize for the
+last few minutes, that he is the same old fellow I've been treating so
+familiarly all day long."
+
+"Yes, he is a great man," she answered. "This is only the beginning."
+
+"That's true," said Briscoe, who had overheard her. "He'll go pretty
+far. A man that people know is steady and strong and level-headed can
+get whatever he wants, because a public man can get anything, if people
+know he's safe and honest and they can rely on him for _sense_. It
+sounds like a simple matter; but only three or four public men in the
+country have convinced us that they are like that. Hurry along, young
+people."
+
+Crossing the street, they met Miss Tibbs; she was wiping her streaming
+eyes with the back of her left hand and still mechanically waving her
+handkerchief with her right. "Isn't it beautiful?" she said, not ceasing
+to flutter, unconsciously, the little square of cambric. "There was
+such a throng that I grew faint and had to come away. I don't mind your
+seeing me crying. Pretty near everybody cried when he walked up to the
+steps and we saw that he was lame."
+
+Standing on the outskirts of the crowd, they could hear the mellow ring
+of Harkless's voice, but only fragments of the speech, for it was rather
+halting, and was not altogether clear in either rhetoric or delivery;
+and Mr. Bence could have been a good deal longer in saying what he had
+to say, and a thousand times more oratorical. Nevertheless, there was
+not a man or woman present who did not declare that it was the greatest
+speech ever heard in Plattville; and they really thought so--to such
+lengths are loyalty and friendship sometimes carried in Carlow and Amo
+and Gaines.
+
+He looked down upon the attentive, earnest faces and into the kindly
+eyes of the Hoosier country people, and, as he spoke, the thought kept
+recurring to him that this was the place he had dreaded to come back to;
+that these were the people he had wished to leave--these, who gave him
+everything they had to give--and this made it difficult to keep his
+tones steady and his throat clear.
+
+Helen stood so far from the steps (nor could she be induced to penetrate
+further, though they would have made way for her) that only fragments
+reached her, but what she heard she remembered:
+
+"I have come home... Ordinarily a man needs to fall sick by the wayside
+or to be set upon by thieves, in order to realize that nine-tenths
+of the world is Samaritan, and the other tenth only too busy or too
+ignorant to be. Down here he realizes it with no necessity of illness
+or wounds to bring it out; and if he does get hurt, you send him to
+Congress.... There will be no other in Washington so proud of what
+he stands for as I shall be. To represent you is to stand for
+realities--fearlessness, honor, kindness.... We are people who take
+what comes to us, and it comes bountifully; we are rich--oh, we are all
+Americans here!... This is the place for a man who likes to live where
+people are kind to one another, and where they have the old-fashioned
+way of saying 'Home.' Other places, they don't seem to get so much into
+it as we do. And to come home as I have to-day.... I have come home...."
+
+Every one meant to shake hands with him, and, when the speech was over,
+those nearest swooped upon him, cheering and waving, and grasping at
+his hand. Then a line was formed, and they began to defile by him, as
+he stood on the steps, and one by one they came up, and gave him hearty
+greetings, and passed on through the court-house and out at the south
+door. Tom Meredith and Minnie Briscoe came amongst the others, and Tom
+said only, "Good old boy," as he squeezed his friend's hand; and then,
+as he went down the hall, wiping his glasses, he asked Minnie if she
+believed the young man on the steps had risen from a sick bed that
+morning.
+
+It was five-o'clock when Harkless climbed the stairs to the "Herald"
+office, and his right arm and hand were aching and limp. Below him, as
+he reached the landing, he could see boys selling extras containing his
+speech (taken by the new reporter), and long accounts of the convention,
+of the nominee's career, and the celebration of his home-coming. The
+sales were rapid; for no one could resist the opportunity to read in
+print descriptions of what his eyes had beheld and his ears had heard
+that day.
+
+Ross Schofield was the only person in the editorial room, and there was
+nothing in his appearance which should cause a man to start and fall
+back from the doorway; but that was what Harkless did.
+
+"What's the matter, Mr. Harkless?" cried Ross, hurrying forward, fearing
+that the other had been suddenly reseized by illness.
+
+"What are those?" asked Harkless, with a gesture of his hand which
+seemed to include the entire room.
+
+"Those!" repeated Ross, staring blankly.
+
+"Those rosettes--these streamers--that stovepipe--all this blue ribbon."
+
+Ross turned pale. "Ribbon?" he said, inquiringly. "Ribbon?" He seemed
+unable to perceive the decorations referred to.
+
+"Yes," answered John; "these rosettes on the chairs, that band, and----"
+
+"Oh!" Ross exclaimed. "That?" He fingered the band on the stovepipe as
+if he saw it for the first time. "Yes; I see."
+
+"But what are they for?" asked Harkless, touching one of the streamers
+curiously.
+
+"Why--it's--it's likely meant for decorations."
+
+John picked up the ink-well, staring in complete amazement at the hard
+knot of ribbon with which it was garnished.
+
+"They seem to have been here some time."
+
+"They have; I reckon they're almost due to be called in. They've be'n up
+ever sence--sence----"
+
+"Who put them up, Ross?"
+
+"We did."
+
+"What for?"
+
+Ross was visibly embarrassed. "Why--fer--fer the other editor."
+
+"For Mr. Fisbee?"
+
+"Land, no! You don't suppose we'd go to work and bother to brisken
+things up fer that old gentleman, do you?"
+
+"I meant young Mr. Fisbee--he is the other editor, isn't he?"
+
+"Oh!" said Ross, coughing. "Young Mr. Fisbee? Yes; we put 'em up fer
+him."
+
+"You did! Did he appreciate them?"
+
+"Well--he seemed to--kind of like 'em."
+
+"Where is he now? I came here to find him."
+
+"He's gone."
+
+"Gone? Hasn't he been here this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes; some 'the time. Come in and stayed durin' the leevy you was
+holdin', and saw the extra off all right."
+
+"When will he be back?"
+
+"Sence it's be'n a daily he gits here by eight, after supper, but don't
+stay very late; the new man and old Mr. Fisbee and Parker look after
+whatever comes in late, unless it's something special. He'll likely be
+here by half-past eight at the farthest off."
+
+"I can't wait till then." John took a quick turn about the room.
+"I've been wanting to see him every minute since I got in," he said
+impatiently, "and he hasn't been near me. Nobody could even point him
+out to me. Where has he gone? I want to see him _now_."
+
+"Want to discharge him again?" said a voice from the door, and turning,
+they saw that Mr. Martin stood there observing them.
+
+"No," said Harkless; "I want to give him the 'Herald.' Do you know where
+he is?"
+
+Mr. Martin stroked his beard deliberately. "The person you speak
+of hadn't ort to be very hard to find--in Carlow. The committee was
+reckless enough to hire that carriage of yours by the day, and Keating
+and Warren Smith are setting in it up at the corner, with their feet
+on the cushions to show they're used to ridin' around with four white
+horses every day in the week. It's waitin' till you're ready to go out
+to Briscoe's. It's an hour before supper time, and you can talk to young
+Fisbee all you want. He's out there."
+
+As they drove along the pike, Harkless's three companions kept up a
+conversation sprightly beyond the mere exhilaration of the victorious;
+but John sat almost silent, and, in spite of their liveliness, the
+others eyed him a little anxiously now and then, knowing that he had
+been living on excitement through a physically exhausting day, and they
+were fearful lest his nerves react and bring him to a breakdown. But the
+healthy flush of his cheek was reassuring; he looked steady and strong,
+and they were pleased to believe that the stirring-up was what he
+needed.
+
+It had been a strange and beautiful day to him, begun in anger, but the
+sun was not to go down upon his wrath; for his choleric intention had
+almost vanished on his homeward way, and the first words Smith had
+spoken had lifted the veil of young Fisbee's duplicity, had shown him
+with what fine intelligence and supreme delicacy and sympathy young
+Fisbee had worked for him, had understood him, and had _made_ him. If
+the open assault on McCune had been pressed, and the damnatory evidence
+published in Harkless's own paper, while Harkless himself was a
+candidate and rival, John would have felt dishonored. The McCune papers
+could have been used for Halloway's benefit, but not for his own; he
+would not ride to success on another man's ruin; and young Fisbee had
+understood and had saved him. It was a point of honor that many would
+have held finicky and inconsistent, but one which young Fisbee had
+comprehended was vital to Harkless.
+
+And this was the man he had discharged like a dishonest servant; the man
+who had thrown what was (in Carlow's eyes) riches into his lap; the man
+who had made his paper, and who had made him, and saved him. Harkless
+wanted to see young Fisbee as he longed to see only one other person
+in the world. Two singular things had happened that day which made his
+craving to see Helen almost unbearable--just to rest his eyes upon her
+for a little while, he could ask no more. And as they passed along that
+well-remembered road, every tree, every leaf by the wayside, it seemed,
+spoke to him and called upon the dear memory of his two walks with
+her--into town and out of town, on show-day. He wondered if his heart
+was to project a wraith of her before him whenever he was deeply moved,
+for the rest of his life. For twice to-day he had seen her whom he knew
+to be so far away. She had gone back to her friends in the north, Tom
+had said. Twice that afternoon he had been momentarily, but vividly,
+conscious of her as a living presence. As he descended from the car
+at the station, his eyes, wandering out over the tumultuous crowd, had
+caught and held a picture for a second--a graceful arm upraised, and a
+gloved hand pressed against a blushing cheek under a hat such as is not
+worn in Carlow; a little figure poised apparently in air, full-length
+above the crowd about her; so, for the merest flick of time he had seen
+her, and then, to his straining eyes, it was as though she were not. She
+had vanished. And again, as his carriage reached the Square, a feeling
+had come to him that she was near him; that she was looking at him; that
+he should see her when the carriage turned; and in the same instant,
+above the singing of a multitude, he heard her voice as if there had
+been no other and once more his dazzled eyes beheld her for a second;
+she was singing, and as she sang she leaned toward him from on high with
+the most ineffable look of tenderness and pride and affection he had
+ever seen on a woman's face; such a look, he thought, as she would wear
+if she came to love some archangel (her love should be no less) with all
+of her heart and soul and strength. And so he knew he had seen a vision.
+But it was a cruel one to visit a man who loved her. He had summoned his
+philosophy and his courage in his interview with himself on the way to
+Carlow, and they had answered; but nothing could answer if his eyes were
+to play him tricks and bring her visibly before him, and with such an
+expression as he had seen upon her face. It was too real. It made his
+eyes yearn for the sight of her with an ache that was physical. And
+even at that moment, he saw, far ahead of them on the road, two figures
+standing in front of the brick house. One was unmistakable at any
+distance. It was that of old Fisbee; and the other was a girl's: a
+light, small figure without a hat, and the low, western sun dwelt on a
+head that shone with gold. Harkless put his hand over his eyes with a
+pain that was like the taste of hemlock in nectar.
+
+"Sun in your eyes?" asked Keating, lifting his hat, so as to shield the
+other's face.
+
+"Yes."
+
+When he looked again, both figures were gone. He made up his mind that
+he would think of the only other person who could absorb his attention,
+at least for a time; very soon he would stand face to face with the six
+feet of brawn and intelligence and manhood that was young Fisbee.
+
+"You are sure he is there?" he asked Tom Martin.
+
+"Yes," answered Martin, with no need to inquire whom the editor meant.
+"I reckon," he continued, solemnly, peering at the other from under his
+rusty hat-brim, "I reckon when you see him, maybe you'll want to put a
+kind of codicil to that deed to the 'Herald.'"
+
+"How's that, Martin?"
+
+"Why, I guess maybe you'll--well, wait till you see him."
+
+"I don't want to wait much longer, when I remember what I owe him
+and how I have used him, and that I have been here nearly three hours
+without seeing him."
+
+As they neared the brick house Harkless made out, through the trees, a
+retreative flutter of skirts on the porch, and the thought crossed his
+mind that Minnie had flown indoors to give some final directions toward
+the preparation of the banquet; but when the barouche halted at the
+gate, he was surprised to see her waving to him from the steps, while
+Tom Meredith and Mr. Bence and Mr. Boswell formed a little court around
+her. Lige Willetts rode up on horse back at the same moment, and the
+judge was waiting in front of the gate. Harkless stepped out of the
+barouche and took his hand.
+
+"I was told young Fisbee was here."
+
+"Young Fisbee is here," said the judge.
+
+"Where, please, Briscoe?"
+
+"Want to see him right off?"
+
+"I do, very much."
+
+"You'll withdraw his discharge, I expect, now?"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the other. "I want to make him a present of the
+'Herald,' if he'll take it." He fumed to Meredith, who had come to the
+gate. "Tom, where is he?"
+
+Meredith put his hand on his friend's shoulder, and answered: "I don't
+know. God bless you, old fellow!"
+
+"The truth is," said the judge, as they entered the gate, "that when you
+drove up, young Fisbee ran into the house. Minnie--" He turned, but his
+daughter had disappeared; however, she came to the door, a moment later,
+and shook her head mysteriously at her father.
+
+"Not in the house," she said.
+
+Mr. Fisbee came around the corner of the porch and went toward Harkless.
+"Fisbee," cried the latter, "where is your nephew?"
+
+The old man took his hand in both his own, and looked him between the
+eyes, and thus stood, while there was a long pause, the others watching
+them.
+
+"You must not say that I told you," he said at last. "Go into the
+garden."
+
+But when Harkless's step crunched the garden path there was no one
+there. Asters were blooming in beds between the green rose-bushes,
+and their many-fingered hands were flung open in wide surprise that he
+should expect to find young Fisbee there. It was just before sunset.
+Birds were gossiping in the sycamores on the bank. At the foot of
+the garden, near the creek, there were some tall hydrangea bushes,
+flower-laden, and, beyond them, one broad shaft of the sun smote the
+creek bends for a mile in that flat land, and crossed the garden like a
+bright, taut-drawn veil. Harkless passed the bushes and stepped out into
+this gold brilliance. Then he uttered a cry and stopped.
+
+Helen was standing beside the hydrangeas, with both hands against her
+cheeks and her eyes fixed on the ground. She had run away as far as she
+could run; there were high fences extending down to the creek on each
+side, and the water was beyond.
+
+"_You_!" he said. "_You--you_!"
+
+She did not lift her eyes, but began to move away from him with little
+backward steps. When she reached the bench on the bank, she spoke with
+a quick intake of breath and in a voice he scarcely heard. It was the
+merest whisper, and her words came so slowly that sometimes minutes
+separated them.
+
+"Can you--will you keep me--on the 'Herald'?"
+
+"Keep you----"
+
+"Will you--let me--help?"
+
+He came near her. "I don't understand. Is it you--you--who are here
+again?"
+
+"Have you--forgiven me? You know now why I wouldn't--resign? You forgive
+my--that telegram?"
+
+"What telegram?"
+
+"That one that came to you--this morning."
+
+"_Your_ telegram?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you send me one?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It did not come to me."
+
+"Yes--it did."
+
+"But there--What was it about?"
+
+"It was signed," she said, "it was signed--" She paused and turned half
+way, not lifting the downcast lashes; her hand, laid upon the arm of the
+bench, was shaking; she put it behind her. Then her eyes were lifted a
+little, and, though they did not meet his, he saw them, and a strange,
+frightened glory leaped in his heart. Her voice fell still lower and two
+heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. "It was signed," she whispered, "it
+was signed--'H. Fisbee.'"
+
+He began to tremble from head to foot. There was a long silence. She had
+turned quite away from him. When he spoke, his voice was as low as hers,
+and he spoke as slowly as she had.
+
+"You mean--then--it was--you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you have been here all the time?"
+
+"All--all except the week you were--hurt, and that--that one evening."
+
+The bright veil which wrapped them was drawn away, and they stood in the
+silent, gathering dusk.
+
+He tried to loosen his neck-band; it seemed to be choking him. "I--I
+can't--I don't comprehend it. I am trying to realize what it----"
+
+"It means nothing," she answered.
+
+"There was an editorial, yesterday," he said, "an editorial that I
+thought was about Rodney McCune. Did you write it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was about--me--wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It said--it said--that I had won the love of every person in Carlow
+County."
+
+Suddenly she found her voice. "Do not misunderstand me," she said
+rapidly. "I have done the little that I have done out of gratitude." She
+faced him now, but without meeting his eyes. "I told you, remember,
+that you would understand some day what I meant by that, and the day has
+come. I owed you more gratitude than a woman ever owed a man before, I
+think, and I would have died to pay a part of it. I set every gossip's
+tongue in Rouen clacking at the very start, in the merest amateurish
+preparation for the work Mr. Macauley gave me. That was nothing. And the
+rest has been the happiest time in my life. I have only pleased myself,
+after all!"
+
+"What gratitude did you owe me?"
+
+"What gratitude? For what you did for my father."
+
+"I have only seen your father once in my life--at your table at the
+dance supper, that night."
+
+"Listen. My father is a gentle old man with white hair and kind eyes.
+You saw my uncle, that night; he has been as good to me as a father,
+since I was seven years old, and he gave me his name by law and I lived
+with him. My father came to see me once a year; I never came to see him.
+He always told me everything was well with him; that his life was happy.
+Once he lost the little he had left to him in the world, his only way of
+making his living. He had no friends; he was hungry and desperate, and
+he wandered. I was dancing and going about wearing jewels--only--I did
+not know. All the time the brave heart wrote me happy letters. I should
+have known, for there was one who did, and who saved him. When at last
+I came to see my father, he told me. He had written of his idol before;
+but it was not till I came that he told it all to me. Do you know what
+I felt? While his daughter was dancing cotillions, a stranger had taken
+his hand--and--" A sob rose in her throat and checked her utterance
+for a moment; but she threw up her head and met his eyes proudly.
+"Gratitude, Mr. Harkless!" she cried. "I am James Fisbee's daughter."
+
+He fell back from the bench with a sharp exclamation, and stared at her
+through the gray twilight. She went on hurriedly, again not looking at
+him:
+
+"When you showed me that you cared for me--when you told me that you
+did--I--do you think I wanted to care for you? I wanted to do something
+to show you that I could be ashamed of my vile neglect of him--something
+to show you his daughter could be grateful. If I had loved you, what
+I did would have been for that--and I could not have done it. And how
+could I have shown my gratitude if I had done it for love? And it has
+been such dear, happy work, the little I have done, that it seems, after
+all, that I have done it for love of myself. But--but when you first
+told me--" She broke off with a strange, fluttering, half inarticulate
+little laugh that was half tears; and then resumed in another tone:
+"When you told me you cared that night--that night we were here--how
+could I be sure? It had been only two days, you see, and even if I could
+have been sure of myself, why, I couldn't have told you. Oh! I had so
+brazenly thrown myself at your head, time and again, those two days,
+in my--my worship of your goodness to my father and my excitement in
+recognizing in his friend the hero of my girlhood, that you had every
+right to think I cared; but if--but if I had--if I had--loved you with
+my whole soul, I could not have--why, no woman could have--I mean the
+sort of girl I am couldn't have admitted it--must have denied it. And
+what I was trying to do for you when we met in Rouen was--was courting
+you. You surely see I couldn't have done it if I had cared. It
+would have been brazen! And do you think that then I could have
+answered--'Yes'--even if I wanted to--even if I had been sure of myself?
+And now--" Her voice sank again to a whisper. "And now----"
+
+From the meadows across the creek, and over the fields, came a far
+tinkling of farm-bells. Three months ago, at this hour, John Harkless
+had listened to that sound, and its great lonesomeness had touched his
+heart like a cold hand; but now, as the mists were rising from the water
+and the small stars pierced the sky one by one, glinting down through
+the dim, immeasurable blue distances, he found no loneliness in heaven
+or earth. He leaned forward toward her; the bench was between them. The
+last light was gone; evening had fallen.
+
+"And now--" he said.
+
+She moved backward as he leaned nearer.
+
+"You promised to remember on the day you understood," she answered, a
+little huskily, "that it was all from the purest gratitude."
+
+"And--and there is nothing else?"
+
+"If there were," she said, and her voice grew more and more unsteady,
+"if there were, can't you see that what I have done--" She stopped, and
+then, suddenly, "Ah, it would have been _brazen_!"
+
+He looked up at the little stars and he heard the bells, and they struck
+into his heart like a dirge. He made a singular gesture of abnegation,
+and then dropped upon the bench with his head bowed between his hands.
+
+She pressed her hand to her bosom, watching him in a startled fashion,
+her eyes wide and her lips parted. She took a few quick, short steps
+toward the garden, still watching him over her shoulder.
+
+"You mustn't worry," he said, not lifting his bent head, "I know you're
+sorry. I'll be all right in a minute."
+
+She gave a hurried glance from right to left and from left to right,
+like one in terror seeking a way of escape; she gathered her skirts in
+her hand, as if to run into the garden; but suddenly she turned and ran
+to him--ran to him swiftly, with her great love shining from her eyes.
+She sank upon her knees beside him. She threw her arms about his neck
+and kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"Oh, my dear, don't you see?" she whispered, "don't you see--don't you
+see?"
+
+When they heard the judge calling from the orchard, they went back
+through the garden toward the house. It was dark; the whitest asters
+were but gray splotches. There was no one in the orchard; Briscoe had
+gone indoors. "Did you know you are to drive me into town in the phaeton
+for the fireworks?" she asked.
+
+"Fireworks?"
+
+"Yes; the Great Harkless has come home."
+
+Even in the darkness he could see the look the vision had given him when
+the barouche turned into the Square. She smiled upon him and said, "All
+afternoon I was wishing I could have been your mother."
+
+He clasped her hand more tightly. "This wonderful world!" he cried.
+"Yesterday I had a doctor--a doctor to cure me of love-sickness!"
+
+They went on a little way. "We must hurry," she said. "I am sure they
+have been waiting for us." This was true; they had.
+
+From the dining-room came laughter and hearty voices, and the windows
+were bright with the light of many lamps. By and by, they stood just
+outside the patch of light that fell from one of the windows.
+
+"Look," said Helen. "Aren't they good, dear people?"
+
+"The beautiful people!" he answered.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman From Indiana, by Booth Tarkington
+
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