[Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added by the transcriber. ]

 McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

 VOL. XXXI MAY, 1908 No. 1

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

 ILLUSTRATIONS. THE MISADVENTURES OF CASSIDY. By Edward S. Moffat. MARY BAKER G. EDDY. By Georgine Milmine. IN CHARGE OF TRUSTY. By Lucy Pratt. FIRST DAYS OF THE RECONSTRUCTION. By Carl Schurz. Restless Foot-loose Negroes. The Freedmen's Bureau. Pickles and Patriotism. The South's Hopeless Poverty. Johnson's Haste for Reconstruction. Arming the Young Men of the South. The President Defends Southern Militia. Criticism and Personal Discomfort. The End of an Aristocracy. An Ungracious Reception. Why the President Reversed his Policy. Congress and General Grant's Report. THE FLOWER FACTORY. By Florence Wilkinson. THE SILLY ASS. By James Barnes. WAR ON THE TIGER. By W. G. Fitz-gerald. THE RADICAL JUDGE. By Anita Fitch. POVERTY AND DISCONTENT IN RUSSIA. By George Kennan. "THE HEART KNOWETH. " By Charlotte Wilson. IN THE DARK HOUR. By Perceval Gibbon. "OLIVIA" and "FAUST" AT THE LYCEUM. By Ellen Terry. "Olivia" a Family Play. Ellen Terry and Eleanora Duse. "Faust. " George Alexander and the Barmaids. "Faust" a Paradoxical Success. Irving on Long Runs. Irving's Mephistopheles. "Faust's" Four Hundred Ropes. THE LIE DIRECT. By Caroline Duer. THE WAYFARERS. By Mary Stewart Cutting. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. 

 ILLUSTRATIONS

 "FOR FOUR LONG SUMMER MONTHS OF DUST AND HEAT CASSIDY HAD BEEN A FREIGHTER. " "'I'VE SOLD THEM WHEELERS!'" "NEAREST TO THE ROUGH PINE BOX STOOD THE WIDOW, WITH LOWERED EYES" "'I HEREBY PRONOUNCE YUH MAN AND WIFE!'" GREETING THE PILGRIMS. GEORGE WASHINGTON GLOVER. THE MOTHER CHURCH IN BOSTON. "'I'SE JUS 'BLIGE WHUP 'IM ALL DE WAY TER SCHOOL'" "I KIN GET 'EM YERE, EF YER WANTS. " "TWO SMALL FIGURES PUSHED THEIR WAY INTO THE ROOM" "THAT LITTLE BOY, SMILED THE ROSY-CHEEKED GENTLEMAN" MAJOR-GENERAL O. O. HOWARD. A PHOTOGRAPH OF GENERAL HOWARD. MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. SLOCUM FROM A WAR-TIME PHOTOGRAPH. MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. SLOCUM BEFORE HIS DEATH IN 1894. MAJOR-GENERAL E. R. S. CANBY. SENATOR WILLIAM LEWIS SHARKEY. "HE COULD HEAR THE CRASH, SEE THE GREAT BOW SINKING" "FIRST A MAGNIFICENT YELLOW HEAD EMERGES, THEN THE LONG, LITHE BODY" HOWDAH ELEPHANT TRAINING MADE EASY. LAST WALL OF DEFENSE. SLAYER OF SEVENTY-SIX NATIVES LAID LOW AT LAST. TIGRESS ALSO IS SLAIN. "'WADICAL!'" "AN UNTIDY MIDGET FOLLOWING CLOSELY AT HIS HEELS" "HOPE CAROLINA, FROM HER MARVELOUS BED, COULD SEE EVERYTHING. " "FOREVER TURNING BACK TO KISS HIM.... " "IT WAS THE QUAINT CUSTOM ... TO FOLLOW MOURNERS ... FROM THE GRAVE" PAUL MILYUKOV. P. A. STOLYPIN. THE AUDREY ARMS, OXBRIDGE, MIDDLESEX. ELLEN TERRY AS "OLIVIA. " ELLEN TERRY AS OLIVIA. HENRY IRVING AS THE VICAR. H. BEERBOHM TREE. ELEANORA DUSE WITH LENBACH'S CHILD. ELLEN TERRY AS ELLALINE IN "THE AMBER HEART. " HENRY IRVING AS MEPHISTOPHELES IN "FAUST. " ELLEN TERRY. ELLEN TERRY'S FAVOURITE PHOTOGRAPH AS OLIVIA. ELLEN TERRY AS OLIVIA AND HENRY IRVING AS THE VICAR. ELLEN TERRY AS MARGUERITE IN "FAUST. " "MRS. LEVERICH BOWED INCIDENTALLY" "WITH EYES FOR NOBODY ELSE" "FLOWERS AND CHILDREN--CHILDREN AND FLOWERS!" "'THE LITTLE SPIDER WON'T HURT YOU'" "'NEVER LET HIM COME HERE AGAIN--NEVER, NEVER!'"

[Illustration: "FOR FOUR LONG SUMMER MONTHS OF DUST AND HEAT CASSIDYHAD BEEN A FREIGHTER. "]

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

VOL. XXXI MAY, 1908 No. 1

THE MISADVENTURES OF CASSIDY

BY EDWARD S. MOFFAT

ILLUSTRATIONS BY N. C. WYETH

Cassidy gazed long and blankly across the desert. "Wot a life!" hemuttered grimly. "Say, _wot_ a life this is!" Cassidy made the wordsby putting his tongue against his set teeth and forcibly wrenching thesounds out by the roots. The words had been a long time in the making, but now, because of the infinite sourness of their birth and becauseof the acrid grinding and gritting that had been going on in the darkrecesses of his soul, Cassidy was forced at last to listen. Rudely andforever they dispelled Cassidy's dull impression that things were wellwith Cassidy, and in so doing tore away the veil and revealed Truthstanding before him, naked, yet gloriously unashamed. But the generaloutlines of the goddess had not been entirely unfamiliar to him. Although his previous skull-gropings had brought forth neither a causenor a remedy, he had so long felt that things were far fromsatisfactory that when at last she fronted him brazenly, eye to eye, he only sighed heavily, spat twice in sad reflection, and----noddedfor her to pass on; she had been accepted. 

"Gosh, wot a thirst I got!" he pondered, and kicked the empty canteenat his feet. "Wot a simply horrible thirst! Say, pardner, I wonder dida feller _ever_ have a thirst like this?" Luckily for Cassidy, histhroat was not yet so dry but that he could amuse himself byfancifully measuring his thirst, first by pints, then by quarts. 

"A quart would never do it, though, " he meditated whimsically. "Itwould be a mean, low trick to make it think so. This yere job rightlybelongs to a water-tank. Oh, gosh! And ten miles yet, across thatdarned dry lake, tuh Ochre. Gid-ap, Tawmm!"

In slow response, the four blacks settled into their sweaty collars, and the big Bain freighter, with its tugging trailer, heaved up theswale and lurched drunkenly down the other side to the glitteringmesa. 

For four long summer months of dust and heat Cassidy had been afreighter. From sun-up to sun-down he had dragged with snail-likeprogress up and down the cañons, through the rocky washes and crookeddraws; and now that the road had dropped into the Southwestern Basinit was sickening mesa work, with the fine dust running like waterahead of his wheels or whirling up in fantastic, dancing pillars ofgrit that drove spitefully into his slack, parched mouth and sleepyeyes. 

"It's the goll-dinged monotonosity of it I cain't stand!" he whined, as he drove his boot-heel down on the rasping brake-lever and waitedsullenly for the inevitable bump from the trailer. "Gawd never meantfer a feller tuh do this work. I don't know Him very good, " wailedCassidy, "but I bet He wouldn't deal no such a raw hand. It ain't_human!_"

He frowned heavily at the sky-line of jagged mountains blued withhaze. "They look like a lot of big old alligators--just as if they wasasleep and lyin' with their shoulders half out of water, " he murmuredin gentle, subdued reminiscence. "The darned old no-good things!"

Then, as the bitterness of his lonely life rose up and dulled his mindand soured his tongue, "Why don't yuh get some mineral into yuh?" heyelled with abrupt ferocity. "Why ain't yuh some good tuh a feller?_Zing, zing, zing_--I _hate_ your old heat a-singin' in my ears allthe gosh-blamed time! Why don't yuh _do_ something? Huh? Yuh don'tmake it so's anything kin live. Yuh don't give no water, yuh don'tgive no grass, yuh don't do nothin'! Yuh jest lay there and make_heat!_"

[Illustration: "'I'VE SOLD THEM WHEELERS!'"]

[Illustration: "NEAREST TO THE ROUGH PINE BOX STOOD THE WIDOW, WITHLOWERED EYES"]

Across the mesa the shimmering white surface of a dry lake caught hisangry eye. As he looked, it began to rock gently from side to side. Presently, in a freakish spirit of its own, it curled up at the edges. Later, it seemed to turn into a dimpling sheet of water, cool, sweet, and alluring. 

Cassidy burst into a howl of derision that startled his blacks into ajogging trot: "Oh, yuh cain't fool me, yuh darned old fake!" He shooka huge red fist in defiance of his ancient foe. "I'll beat yuhyet--darn yuh!"

Late that night, a large man with a red face and a sunburned neck onwhich the skin lay in little cobwebs, stumbled in under the lights ofNumber One Commissary Tent. 

"I want my time and I want my money. I ain't a-goin' tuh work _nomore!_ he announced with a displeased frown. 

"Going back home tuh Coloraydo?" asked the youthful clerk. 

"Back home?" repeated Cassidy mechanically. "How--how's that, youngfeller?"

"I asked yuh if yuh were going tuh hit the grit fer home?" the boyrepeated. 

"Aoh!" said Cassidy, and a blank look spread across his countenance. He spoke as if he did not understand. For a while he stood quitestill, unknowingly twiddling the time-check in his thick, fat-cushioned fingers into a moist pink ball. His face grew heavy anddull. It seemed to have been robbed, with a surprising suddenness, ofall the good spirits, all the abounding, virile life, of the momentbefore. It grew to look old and lined under the flickering lamplight, and this was odd, because Cassidy was not by any means an old man. 

For a time the only sound he made was a queer little ejaculation ofsurprise, the only movement a bewildered stare at the boy. Togetherthey were the actions of a child who, in the first numbing moments ofa gashed finger, only gazes at the wound in round-eyed wonder. Cassidyhad begun to remember. 

He remembered that "back home" a man didn't have to live _all_ thetime on sour bread and canned tomatoes; "back home" you didn't have todie of thirst, coming in with day-empty water-barrels to find thespring dried up; "back home" the mountains didn't jiggle up and downin front of you, through glassy waves of heat that rightfullybelonged in a blast-furnace. Things were different--and better--"backhome. "

Cassidy lifted his head and listened. He had heard the sound of water. Half hidden in the brush, a little brook was running by him down adark ravine. Joyously, tumultuously, it churked and gurgled over thesmooth green stones and moss down to the level, and then slipped away, with low, contented murmurings, among the cottonwoods and willows. Cassidy found himself following that brook. It took him down throughfields of dark lucerne. It led him through yellow pasturage, deep withstubble and wild oats. It showed him long-aisled orchards glintingwith fruit in the sunlight. It ushered him into a wide and pleasantvalley. In the distance Cassidy saw a ranch. Near by, with blowsyforelock and careless mane, a shaggy pony stood knee-deep in theriver-sedge. 

"Why, hello, hossy!" whispered Cassidy, with soft surprise. "Why, say!I know yuh!"

A full, warm wind began to sough through the pines on the hillside. Hecould hear it blowing, blowing unendingly, from across the hills. Hisears rang with the whirring sound, as it came singing along with thevox humana chords of a great 'cello, streaming down from the heights, gentle-fingered, but wondrously vast-bodied--booming along with half aworld behind it. Fair in the face it smote him with its resinousbreath, and he felt his lips parting to inhale its fiery tonic--felt, as he used to feel, the magic glow tingling in his veins again andbrightening his eyes with the pure pagan glory of his living. 

And then, very sadly indeed for Cassidy, and in much the same way thatwhisky and he had let it all slip through their fingers long ago, thesound of the brook stilled. The valley, the meadows, the ranch, andthe kind, warm wind faded, one by one. In their stead came the creakand shock of a belated wagon-train pulling into camp. He heard thepanting of laboring horses. He caught the salt reek of sweaty harness. He heard the drivers curse querulously as they jammed down thebrake-levers, tossed the reins away, and clambered stiffly down. 

Cassidy turned a strained, hard face on the boy. "I reckon not, " hesaid sadly, grimly. "I ain't a-goin' home. Nope; I ain't a-goin' noplace that's good. Yuh kin always be sure of that, kid. "

"Oh, now, that's all right. Don't get sore, " soothed the boy. "That'sall right, Cassidy. "

"No, it ain't!" roared Cassidy, angry with the long, hot days andstifling nights, angry with the work and the scanty pay, angry mostof all with himself. "No, it _ain't_ all right!"

[Illustration: "'I HEREBY PRONOUNCE YUH MAN AND WIFE!'"]

As a previously concealed resolve crystallized at last somewhere inhis brain, his voice rasped up a whole octave. 

"Nothin's all right, pardner!" he yelled. "Yuh hear me? Yuh know whatI'm goin' tuh do?" He waved the time-check defiantly above his headand let go one last howl of sardonic self-derision:

"I'm goin' down tuh the Bucket of Blood _tuh get drunk_!"

 * * * * *

The desert town of Ochre, in its more salient points, was not unlike adesert flower, although its makers were far from desiring it to blushunseen. Yesterday it had slept unborn in a nook of the sand-hills, theabiding-place of cat's-claw, mesquit, and flickering lizards. 

To-day it burst, with an almost tropic vigor, into riotous growth. Flamboyant youth, calculating middle age, doddering senility, allthese were there, all treading on one another's heels, to reap and bereaped. To-day a scene of marvelous activity, a maelstrom of bustlingcommissariat and fretting supply-trains, cut by never-endingcounter-currents of hoboes to and from the front, to-morrow it wouldsimmer down into the desuetude of a siding. Thus is vanity repaid. 

Although Cassidy had begun at the "Bucket, " he soon discovered that itpossessed no phonograph, and, possessing a craving for music, he hadremoved himself and the remains of the pink check to where an agedinstrument in "Red Eye Mike's" guttered forth a doubtful plea for one"Bill Bailey" to come home. 

Here he had remained for five fateful, forgetting days. What Mike andMike's friends did to him in that space of time cannot be dwelt upon. Suffice it to say that on the morning of the sixth day the blearysemblance of a man who had slept all night in the sand, alongside of asaloon, awoke to the daylight and a hell of pain. 

By dint of soul-racking exertions it managed to roll to its hands andknees. Then, by slow stages, it pulled itself together, and afterseveral unsuccessful attempts, tottering, stood on its feet. Tents, horses, sky, desert, and sun revolved in a bewildering kaleidoscopebefore his eyes. In the vastness of his skull a point of pain dartedagonizingly back and forth. In his mouth was a taste like unto nothingknown on this earth or in either bourn. 

"I got money yet, " he mumbled dazedly to himself, as was hisconversational wont. "Say! I'm tellin' yuh, I got money yet!"Fumbling, he searched his pockets, but quite to no avail. Sadder yet, a repetition of the search, even to turning his clothes inside out andthen looking anxiously on the sand, produced nothing. With a puzzledlook on his haggard face, he stumbled into Mike's saloon. 

Not at all disconcerted by the bedraggled form that leaned on his barand mouthed disconnectedly, the worthy keeper of the hostel proceededto produce a sheet of paper from the till. 

"I don't savvy what you're talking about at all, " he remarkedingenuously; "but seein' as you've been spendin' a few bucks amongstyour friends here, I'll tell you how you stand. "

"How do I stand?" asked Cassidy thickly. 

Mike laughed in his face. "You don't stand, pardner. You're all in. "

A moment necessarily had to be allowed Cassidy to fathom thiscatastrophe. When the agony had come and passed, he was heard to sighheavily and remark: "Well, I reckon it'll be the old job again. I gotthe outfit yet. "

"Have you, indeed?" mocked Mike, well up to his lay. "I'm glad to haveyou mention it. See here, pardner. " He slapped the sheet of paper flaton the bar, under Cassidy's astonished eyes. "Do you figure this isyour name at the bottom, or don't you?" he demanded in peremptorytones. 

Cassidy frowned and regarded the paper. Then, as the words swam andblurred together in one long, discouraging line, he weakly gave it up. 

"Wot's it say, Mike?" he asked feebly. 

"This here paper says, " responded the other, with the cold, forcefulair of one well within his rights, "that last night you sold me yourteams and your outfit--fer a consideration. Of course, now, I ain'tsayin' just what you done with the consideration I give you. Mebbe youspent it like a gent fer booze, mebbe you was foolish and went to somestrong-arm shack and got rolled. I dunno; I can't say. All I know isthat you got your money and I got the outfit. Savvy?"

Cassidy's face took on a queer, pasty white. His hands clawedineffectively at the bar. 

"Sold you my _outfit_?" he quavered, with an awful break in his voice. "_Sold it_, Mike? Why, how do you figure that?"

"Is that your name?" barked Mike in answer. He thrust the paper out atarm's length and shook it under Cassidy's nose with astonishingferocity. "Just you say one little short word, friend. Is that yourname, or isn't it?"

Cassidy wavered. It was unquestionably his name; whether _he_ hadwritten it there or not was yet to be decided. 

If psychological moments come to the Cassidys, this one felt such athing near him. _Now_ was the time for him to leap in the air andpound wrathfully upon the bar. _Now_ was the instant for him to rushinto the open and call vociferously on his friends. _Now_ was thefraction of a second left for him to reach out his hard knuckles andpin Mike to the wall and tear the paper from his hands. But instead, and with a queer feeling of aloofness from it all, much as if he werethe helpless spectator of activities proceeding in some fantasticdream, he felt the moment thrilling up to him; felt it standobediently waiting; felt himself slowly gathering in response to itsmute query; then felt himself drop helplessly back into a stupid comaof whisky fumes and sodden inertia. 

When he came to, Mike had put the paper back in his till and wasassiduously cleaning up his bar. It was all over. 

Cassidy shifted irresolutely from one foot to the other. A sickeningfeeling of hollowness within him was crying aloud to be appeased byeither food or drink, and his shaking body begged for a place to restitself into tranquillity; but still for a while he stood there, fighting off these yearnings while he gathered his far-strayed wits. Now and then he weakly attempted to catch the other's eye, but as Mikestudiously refused to be caught, Cassidy could only blink owlishly andfumble again with the tangled ends of the skein. Finally, abandoningit all as useless, he turned toward the door, yet arrested his dazedshambling to ask one last question. 

"How's that?" Mike responded vaguely over his shoulder. "Still harpingon that, are you?"

"Did I really sell you them blacks?" ventured Cassidy quaveringly, controlling his voice only with a tremendous effort. "Reelly, truly--did I sell 'em?"

Mike rolled a cigar over in his mouth, with a complacent lick of histongue. "That's what, " he replied laconically. 

Cassidy gulped down something in his throat. He leaned for a momentagainst the door-jamb; his gaunt, hollow-cheeked face quivered withmisery. 

"I mean them black wheelers, Mike. Just them two--them wheelers, " hepleaded. Hesitating a little, as the other deigned no response, heventured weakly on:

"I was figurin', now--of course, I don't mean nothin' by it, Mike, only yuh see how a feller _c'u'd_ figger it--that mebbe--mebbe youmade some mistake in readin' that paper. Yuh see how it could happen. A feller _c'u'd_ make a mistake in readin', now, c'u'dn't he?" Withthis flimsy appeal Cassidy played his last and poorest card. 

In answer the other snapped some ashes from his sleeve, turned hisback, slapped the cash-register shut, and strode masterfully down theroom. "Not this time, pardner. "

Cassidy stumbled out. 

"I've sold them wheelers!" he sobbed under his breath. "Why, it seemslike I was just this minute thinkin' I'd get tuh go and water 'em, andrub 'em down a bit. _Now_ it ain't no use thinkin' about it--not anymore. It ain't me that's goin' tuh do that. I cain't water 'em. Iain't got rights to even lay my hands on 'em! O-h-h!" he shuddered, and agonizedly pulled taut on every tired, aching muscle. "Yuh oughterbe beat up with a club. Yuh oughter get pounded with a rawk. You're arotten, whisky-soaked bum, that's all yuh are now, and yuh oughter bekilled and kicked out in the street!"

Half whining, half crying miserably, he drove himself out of the town, for a mile or more, on the desert, then plodded painfully back again, mauling and beating himself with the bludgeon of his awful self-pity. 

At the foot of a fast-rising "grade" he halted wearily and watched thework. It was well on toward noon by this time, and the sun was blazingdown through a choking pall of dust that hung in the lifeless air. Menwere driving horses to and fro. They were men with weak, deeply linedfaces and shambling gaits. They broke into querulous curses and beattheir animals savagely on ridiculously small pretexts. They handledtheir reins with a uniformly betraying awkwardness. 

Cassidy sized them up and sniffed contemptuously to himself. _He_knew. "That's wot _you_'ll be doing to-morrow, " he muttered. "Durnyour hide, that's all you're good for. That's yuh to-morrow, yuh andthe rest of the 'boes. "

Not knowing what to do with himself now, he drifted back to the townand sat in the scanty shade of a joshua, prepared to commune furtherwith himself. Looking up after a time, his eyes descried in thedistance the figures of two men who were walking toward him. 

"I bet that's Con Maguire, " he murmured. "Yep--him and that old'Arkinsaw. ' They've got their time-checks, tuh; I kin tell the waythey walk. I bet I know wot they're sayin'. Con, he's got a littleranch up tuh Provo, and he's fer makin' right up the line and gettin'that old no-good Arkinsaw to go along and pass up the booze. 

"Poor old Arkinsaw!" mused Cassidy shrewdly. "He's worked three monthssteady for Donovans', drivin' scraper, the poor old slob, and theirchuck is rotten. I'll bet he's terrible glad to get back tuh NumberOne. He's got forty dollars now. I bet he's near crazy. He allerslooks that way when he's got forty dollars, " said Cassidy. 

"Sure I'll go with you, Con, " Arkinsaw was saying. "I always meant togo, reelly, truly I did. You ask any of the fellers back to Donovans'. I was allers savin', 'I'm goin' out home when Con Maguire goes'--and, sure enough, here I am. I'll be to the train the same time as you. We'll go home on the same train, Con; sure we will. " The old manlaughed nervously. His eyes were bright with some strangeexcitement--but half of it was fear. 

"Say, Con, " he whispered hoarsely, "I'll be all right. You jest ketchholt of my arm when we go by; I'll be all right then. Say, Con, " heguttered, in an agony of fear and desperation, "you hear me? Only gitme by that first saloon. "

But the approaching twain had been seen by other eyes than Cassidy's. By some odd fortuity, a phonograph broke into wheezy song as thewayfarers swung down the street. Dice began to roll invitingly acrossthe bars, and from a distant spot came the hollow sound of theroulette-ball. Quite by chance, a man appeared in a doorway, holding aglass of beer. He was seen to drain it, just as they passed. Then henoticed them for the first time. 

"Come in and cool off, boys, " he suggested cordially. "It's all onice. Good, cold lager, boys!"

Under its mask of dust, Arkinsaw's face worked horribly. He stumbled, loitered along the way to fix his shoe, zigzagged from one side to theother, fumbled at his pack, and finally stopped. 

"Say, Con, " he rasped feebly. "Oh, Con! Say, I gotter see a fellerhere. Say!" as his friend looked back at him with disconcerting doubtwritten on every feature. "Say, Con!--reelly, truly I have!"

"Well, hurry up, then, " replied the other, and went on his dogged way. 

The instant his back was turned, the old man obliqued crabwise to theside of the road. Fumbling nervously at his roll of bedding, he threwit off and darted for the saloon, running and stumbling in his haste. But at this point a large, gaunt, red-faced man, bearing a club in onehand, appeared from nowhere in particular and fronted him. 

"G'wan down the road!" said the red-faced man harshly. 

"Why--why, _Cass_!" Arkinsaw bleated surprisedly. "How you did startleme! Why, where did you come from? Yessir!" and he deftly manoeuveredso as to catch a glimpse of the bar over Cassidy's shoulder. "Yousurely startled me bad. Excuse _me_, " he murmured absently; "I gottersee a feller----"

"G'wan down the road!"

"No, no, Cass!" the old man begged, hopping frantically on one foot. "Just a minute. It'll only take me a minute, I tell you. I gotter seea feller. "

"G'wan down the road!"

"Say, Cass! _don't_ treat a feller that way----"

Arkinsaw retreated. Cassidy and the club advanced. Arkinsaw craftilyside-stepped. So did Cassidy. They paused. 

Cassidy leaned on his stick and centered the old man's wavering gaze. "Don't lie, " he said softly. "If yuh lie tuh me, yuh feather-brainedold cockroach, I'll just natch'lly beat your face off! I want yuh tuhgo home; just clamp your mind on that, Sam Meeker! If yuh think you'regoin' tuh throw your money away over that bar, yuh want tuh separateyourself from the idea mighty quick. I won't stand fer foolishness. Goover there and git your bed!"

By this time the old man had calmed down. He looked the other overwith a benevolently crafty eye. 

"Why, what you been doing lately, Cass?" he inquired, with an adroitturn of the conversation. "You don't look as if you were real happy. "

Cassidy winced. Then he hefted the club suggestively. "I've been doin'things _yuh_ won't do!" he said savagely. "There's your bed overthere. Pick it up! Hit the breeze! _Hike!_"

"This yere's a friend of mine, Con, " chortled Arkinsaw delightedly, ashe scrambled up the steps of the swing train a little later. "Heknowed my folks, back home. He's a real kind feller. "

Con nodded and surveyed Cassidy's club with vast appreciation. Thetrain underwent a preliminary convulsion and began to pull out. 

"Good-by!" yelled Cassidy. "Keep sober, yuh brindle-whiskered oldbilly-goat!"

Arkinsaw's straggly beard waved in the air as he stuck his head out ofa window. His worn, furtive old face was riotous with joy. He wasgoing home--_home_! Safe and sober, with forty dollars and a cleanconscience, more than had been his in many a day. 

"You bet I kin!" he bellowed back. "You're all right, Cass!"

Cassidy sniffed and turned again toward the town. "I don't reckon Ic'u'd stand these yere chuck-ranches off fer a meal, " he soliloquized, "not lookin' the way I am. To-morrow's all right; I'll be workin'then. To-day--" He paused and ran his hand over his forehead. "Well, to-day I reckon it'll be Mike's again--if he'll stand fer it. "

And Mike fed him. Cassidy was harmless now. The fact that he asked forfood proved it. Mike knew it; Cassidy knew it. 

The rear of the saloon was partitioned off into a "Ladies' Room, "whose door opened on the alkali flat behind. From thence came themonotonous drone of a murmured conversation. Cassidy triedineffectually to follow it, but the droning of the voices and thesteady hum of the flies around the beer lees on the bar made himsleepy. Outside it was stiflingly hot. Over on the grade the horseswere choking and snorting in the dust, while the shambling-gaited mencursed steadily and heaved at the heavy scrapers. The little patch ofblue in the doorway was twinkling with heat. Far out on the yellowplain, a grotesque-armed joshua lurched from side to side. 

Cassidy felt a hand on his shoulder. "Do you want a drink?" askedMike. "If you do, go in there and earn it. Talk to her. She's in hardluck. "

Cassidy arose obediently, and with not a little timidity ventured toopen the door and peer within. 

"Come in, " said a woman's voice, and Cassidy, not knowing why or whynot, went in. 

"Put your hat on the coffin and have a chair, " said the woman. "I'velooked and looked, and I can't see any table in this room. "

Cassidy shuffled to a seat in a moment of surprise, and lookedguardedly about him. There was, in fact, no table. Indubitably therewas a coffin. 

"That's my husband, " said the woman. "Want to see him?"

"N-n-no, ma'am, " Cassidy stammered hastily. 

The woman nodded appreciatively. "Few does, " she said, "and I guess itwouldn't do yuh much good. What's the matter with yuh? Yuh don't seemright well. "

"No, ma'am, " Cassidy confessed; "I ain't very well to-day. "

The woman smiled a little. There was a pause. "How long have yuh beendrinkin'?" she asked in a gentle voice. 

"'Bout five days now, " said Cassidy, reddening to the tips of his earsand bashfully looking up for the first time. 

She was a short, well-made woman, dressed in black from the hem of hershiny skirt to the long plush bonnet-strings dangling loosely in herlap. Her face was a firm, pleasant oval, quite unlined except near theeyes, where there was a multitude of fine wrinkles such as come fromsquinting across a desert under a desert sun. There was nothingparticularly worth noting about her face, except that it had anexceptionally healthy appearance. But her eyes fascinated Cassidy. They were an uncompromising, snapping black. They seemed brimming overwith vitality. They were eyes that showed a strength of will behindthem only woefully expressible in her woman's voice. They had acompelling quality in their straightforward honesty that forcedCassidy at once to forego the rest of her features. If he ventured toadmire the firm white chin and well-kept teeth, the eyes flashed astern rebuke. If his gaze slipped down to the sleazy, badly fashioneddress, the eyes brought him up with a round turn, slapped him, andreduced him to obedience. If his own flitted curiously to the smoothbrown hair, drawn simply, plainly away from her forehead, hers towedhim mercilessly back. 

"We never drank much down tuh the ranch, " she remarked, with the easydeviance of one who understands another's failings and does not wishto pain him by intruding their own immunity; "and now I s'pose therewon't be hardly any. I'm Sarah Gentry. Yuh know me? We live down tuhWillow Springs. "

Cassidy nodded. _He_ knew Willow Springs and its well-kept ranch. Itwas the only fertile neck of land that ran down to Ochre Desert, anoasis, a veritable paradise of cottonwoods, willows, dark fields ofalfalfa, a capably fenced corral, long lines of beehives, andapple-and olive-trees. 

Cassidy grinned feebly. "I know. I stoled a mushmelon there lastweek. "

"I saw yuh, " said Sarah Gentry quickly, but without a shadow ofmalice. "Your head is tuh red. Yuh better stick tuh grapes at night. "

Cassidy collapsed. 

"My husband died yesterday, from consumption, " she went on, with aneven, steady flow of talk. "And I came in here tuh get a preacher tuhbury him. I heard the railroad was comin' this way, and I figuredChristianity would come clippin' right along behind. But I guess itwon't pull in for quite a spell. It just beats me how the devil_always_ gets the head start. _He_ kin always get in somehow, ridin'the rods, or comin' blind baggage; religion sorter tags behind andwaits for the chair-car. I don't think much of this town, either. Itseems like it was full of nothin' but sand, saloons, beer-bottles, andbums. Are yuh one of 'em?" she inquired, with a sudden thrust thatstartled Cassidy beyond bounds. 

"A _bum_, ma'am?" gasped Cassidy. 

"No; a preacher. "

"I reckon not, " said Cassidy definitely. 

"I didn't know, " said the woman vaguely. "I never saw one. Edgard an'me was married by the county clerk down tuh Hackberry, and he triedtuh kiss me, and Edgard shot him. Those would be mighty unfortunatemanners for a preacher, I reckon. And now I'm all tired out and don'tknow what tuh do. That man outside let me sit down in here, and mademe bring the coffin right inside, --he carried it in himself, --but hedidn't seem tuh know much about preachers, either. If I was a Mormon Is'pose I could divide up the buryin' some, but I'm all alone now. "

In a moment of unreflecting insanity Cassidy opened his mouth. "I'llhelp yuh, ma'am!" he said gallantly. 

"All right, " responded the widowed woman instantly. "Yuh kin lead. "

Cassidy paled perceptibly under his tan. 

"Now don't back out, " she said, "even if yuh do feel sick. Mebbe somewhisky would hearten yuh up. " And she went quickly to the door. 

Cassidy sat still in his chair, making up his mind--about the whisky. 

"There!" said Sarah Gentry, suddenly appearing with a glass which sheset on the coffin. "Looks real good, don't it?"

Cassidy's forehead was damp with perspiration. Inside of him somethingwas clamoring frightfully for the stuff in the glass. Something seemedgnawing at his very heart and soul, threatening and pleading, beggingand insisting, fashioning devilish excuses, promising great things. Cassidy's hand stretched slowly out for the drink--and came back. There was a silence. The woman fixed her large, strong eyes on his. Again he reached out his hand, and his face was strained andunpleasant to look upon. But again he stopped before he took theglass. A horse had whinnied outside. Cassidy shook his head grimly. Putting his toe against the glass, he deftly kicked it into thecorner. "I reckon not, " he said. 

The woman jumped to her feet. 

"Git up!" she said impulsively. "Git up and shake hands. You're a_man_! And now we'll go out and git tuh buryin'. "

A little party of six was assembled in a gulch in the sand-hills. Thecoffin, marked only with a card, lay in a slight depression scoopedout by the wind. 

Nearest to the rough pine box stood the widow, with lowered eyes, butwithout the trace of an expression on her face. Heavy-handed, red-faced, gaunt and grim, Cassidy loomed up beside her. Behind them, in attitudes of more or less perfunctory interest, stood awhite-capped cook from the commissary-tent, who had come out to getaway from the flies, two vague-visaged unknowns from the vastunder-world of hobodom, and a greasy, loose-lipped fireman with adirty red sweater and a contemptuous eye. 

"Go on!" whispered the woman. She threw one of her swift, compellingglances at Cassidy. "Say something!" And Cassidy obeyed; he could nothave refused if he had tried. 

It became at once apparent that he must make no rambling talk. Thehistory of the past five days, while illuminating and diverting, couldnot be calculated to inspire the casual onlooker with religious awe. If aught was to be said, it must, perforce, be meaty and direct. 

Cassidy grasped the irritating fireman firmly by the arm. Fixing himwith a baleful eye, he spoke:

"This yere lady has wanted me to say something tuh yuh about herhusband dyin'. As far as I kin understand, that part is all right. That's what he done. He's dead, all right; there ain't no mistakeabout _that_. Wot I'm askin' _yuh_ is: Was he a _man_? Was he good foranything? Wot did he do when he wasn't workin'? Was he a low, meancuss, always goin' round with bums?"

"How do I know?" asked the fireman, in an aggrieved tone. "Ouch! Say, leggo my arm!"

Cassidy's grip tightened. The fireman groaned dismally and subsided. 

"Judgin' from wot I kin see, I should say he was! I mean he _was_ goodfer something. I should say he was surely a terrible weaver if hecouldn't keep straight, hitched up alongside of the--the lamentedwidow. I don't think any feller could be much if he wasn't. Yuh see, pardner, he had _all the chance in the world_. _He_ didn't need to bejay-hawkin' round, makin' eyes at every red-cheeked biscuit-shooterthat fed him hot cakes. _He_ had a nice ranch and a good wife. Afeller that couldn't be grateful tuh a woman that's treated him asgood as she has to-day, and hauled him clear from Willow Springs tuhgit a Christian burial, and stood around fer him in a hot sun--well, he couldn't be no account _at all_!"

Cassidy paused and spat. "That's the way _I_ look at it. And, "thwarting the restive fireman by a startlingly painful grip on thefleshy part of his arm, "any feller that ain't got as good a wife--anyfeller that ain't got _any_, and lays round drinkin', and foolin' hismoney away on the 'double O, ' and sittin' in tuh stud games withpermiskus strangers, and gettin' ready tuh be a hobo--all I kin sayis, he'd better brace up and try tuh deserve one. A feller that ain'tgot a wife is a no-account loafer and bum, and he ought tuh gitkicked! _This_ man had one, but he went and left her. Even then hedone better than _yuh_ done! That's all. "

"Kin I go now?" queried the fireman smartly. 

"Yuh kin!" responded Cassidy, malevolently, "but I'll see yuh later, young feller. I ain't overfond of yuh. " And he turned away to coverthe coffin with sand, digging it up laboriously and scattering it hereand there with a piece of board. 

"That was a mighty nice talk yuh gave the fireman, " remarked thewoman, during an interval in their labors. "I feel a lot better now. Mebbe the fireman will get married now and brace up. Was he reallydoing all those things yuh said?"

"Some feller was, " answered Cassidy. "I heard about it. "

"And now, " announced the widow, "we'll just make him a good head-boardand stop there. Edgard _might_ have been a good husband, but he didn'ttry overhard. Have yuh got anything written?"

"I ain't got anything but this yere old location notice, " venturedCassidy doubtfully. "I guess, though, I'll just stake out Edgard, thesame as a claim. Then it'll be regular, and there won't nobody touchhim. Of course we won't put up any side centers or corner posts; jesta sort of discovery monument. He'll be safe for three months, allright. "

And so Cassidy, with the nub of a pencil, and using his knee as awriting-desk, duly, and in the manner set forth in the laws of theUnited States, discovered and located Edgard Gentry, age thirty-five, died of consumption, extending fifteen hundred feet in a northerly andsoutherly direction and three hundred feet on either side, togetherwith all his dips, spurs, and angles. 

"Yuh write a nice hand, " murmured the widow pensively, sitting down inthe sand beside him and unwittingly breathing on his neck as he wrote. "Did yuh go tuh school, Mister Cassidy?"

"Yessum, " was the confused answer. "Leastways, part of the time. "

The widow surveyed him with a dreamy look in her fine eyes and pulledthoughtfully at her full lower lip. 

"You're a big man, " she remarked. "How much do you weigh?"

"Over two hundred, " answered Cassidy consciously. 

"And yuh haven't got any home?"--innocently. 

"No, ma'am. "

"What were yuh doing tuh that poor old man to-day?"

The sudden irrelevance of the question startled Cassidy immeasurably. 

"Wot? That little old Arkinsaw man? Oh--nothin'. Did yuh see metalkin' tuh him?"

"I did, " said the woman; "and I also saw yuh poking him up the streetwith a big stick. Do yuh think that was a nice thing for a strongyoung man like yuh?"

"I was--I was just advisin' him, " explained Cassidy thickly. "I----"

"What were yuh hurtin' that old man for?" was the forcefulinterruption. "Did he ever hurt _yuh_ any?"

"Hurt _me_? Old Arkinsaw? No, ma'am; not tuh my knowledge. But----"

"_Never mind that_, " said the woman stonily though the big, strongeyes had a favorable light in their depths. "Yuh tell me why yuh weresticking him in the back. "

"Well--he wanted a drink--that's why, " Cassidy mumbled. 

"Oh!" remarked the woman, with withering comprehension. "And so, because he was tired and thirsty and wanted a drink, yuh poked him. Isee. "

Cassidy grew desperate. "I'm afraid, ma'am, yuh don't rightlyunderstand, " he undertook to explain. 

"Yes, I do, " replied the woman hotly, and burned him with her eyes. Then she turned her back on him, which hurt him a great deal more. 

Cassidy groaned aloud. 

"I believe you're a bully, " goaded the little woman, and showed anattractive, mutinous profile over her shoulder. "Do yuh bully women, too?"

Cassidy did not answer at once. When he did, it was in a low, ratherlifeless voice: "No'm; I don't bother the women-folks much. "

"There, there, now, " soothed the woman, quickly turning to him andputting her hand on his shoulder with a motherly gesture. "Don't gotuh feelin' bad. Don't yuh s'pose I knew all the time why yuh did it?I was glad, too. Just yuh lay down there in the sand and get rested, and tell me all about it. "

And so Cassidy, stretched full length, with his face half hidden inhis arm, mumbled fragmentarily--and told. After it was finished, afterall his misdeeds had been related, and counted over, one by one, heventured to look up. 

The woman's face was grave, but she was smiling. She laid her handgently on his cheek and turned his eyes to hers. 

"But you've quit now?" she stated. 

"I've quit, " answered Cassidy honestly. 

"Well, then, it'll be all right. I reckon it's time for me to be goingnow. Yuh better drive me home. "

 * * * * *

The road to Willow Springs lay straight across the mesa. Here andthere, in the yellow expanse of sand, were patches of green mesquit, where some underground flow came near enough to the surface to slaketheir thirsty roots. Elsewhere the sand shifted noiselessly across theplain, under the touch of the wind, which fashioned innumerable oddlyshaped hummocks, and then gently purred them away again, to heap onothers. 

After they had driven silently for some time, the woman spoke:"There's a man standing in that clump of cat's-claw ahead. Did yuh seehim?"

Cassidy thoughtfully eased up the perspiring team. "I know him, " heanswered, although apparently he had not raised his eyes above thedash-board for a long time. "Name is Tommy. "

"Well, what's Tommy hidin' in those bushes for?" demanded the woman. 

"A feller broke into Number One Commissary last night. "

"Did Tommy do it?"

"No, ma'am--not this time. His partner done it and skipped out. "

"Does Jake think Tommy did it?"

"Yes, ma'am. I see Jake hitchin' up tuh go after him when we startedout. "

There was little said after that until they came abreast of thecat's-claw near the road. Cassidy pulled up. 

"Say, Tommy! Oh, yuh Tommy!" he called persuasively at the silentbushes. "Come, git in here. This lady wants yuh. "

"I guess Jake's a-comin', " replied Tommy, poking his head into viewfrom his thorny retreat. 

"I guess he is, " said Cassidy, and looked over his shoulder at arapidly approaching pillar of dust. "It's a good thing the county paysfor his horse-flesh. " There was a pause. "I reckon you'd better hurrysome, Tommy, " drawled Cassidy. 

"Don't stand there imperiling your life, tryin' tuh guess who I am, "said the widow abruptly. "Get right in here and cover up with alfalfaand them horse-blankets, and lie quiet. I want yuh. "

"What for?" queried Tommy, as he clambered in, being a young man ofdevious thought. 

"For a witness!" said Sarah Gentry unfathomably--for Tommy. 

Cassidy looked puzzled for a moment. Then a slow wave of red creptover his face and crimsoned his ears. He started his horses again tocover his confusion. 

The woman let him think for a moment; then her eyes drew his ownstartled orbs around and enveloped them in a soft light. 

"Yuh know what I mean, Mister Cassidy?"

"Yes, ma'am. "

"Well--shall we?" shyly. 

"Yes, ma'am, " answered Cassidy, and blushed incontinently. 

Behind them a light buggy was being driven over the desert at afurious pace. As it came nearer, the two in the ranch-wagon, with itsconfused huddle of horse-blankets and hay, beneath which lay thetrustful Tommy, could hear the shock of the springs as it bumped fromone chuck-hole to another; but they did not turn their heads. 

"Hello, there, Cass!" shouted the sheriff genially, as he pulled downalongside of them. "How'do, Mis' Gentry! Pretty hot travelin', ain'tit?"

"I s'pose it is--being July, " the little woman replied, with the firsttrace of confusion that Cassidy had seen. "I--I hadn't been noticinglately. "

"I'm in a terrible hurry, " the sheriff continued rapidly. "Some aresayin' young Tommy Ivison come this way, and I want him. I hate tuhgive yuh my dust. Whoa, Dick! Whoa, Pet!" He pulled in his frettingteam with a heavy hand. "I've got tuh get him before he crosses theCalifornia line, so I got tuh fan right along. Gid-ap, there!"

"Wait a minute, Jake. "

"Can't do it, Mis' Gentry. If he's more than a couple of miles ahead, I can't ketch him. What is it I can do for you?"

"Yuh kin marry us two!" said the little woman, with a gulp. 

"_Marry yuh?_" roared the sheriff. "Can't do it, ma'am--not even for afriend. Awful sorry, Mis' Gentry, but I've just _got_ tuh go. " Hejerked the whip from its socket for a merciless slash. 

"_Jake!_" said the little woman commandingly. 

"Ma'am?" said the sheriff in an uncertain tone. 

"Yuh heard what I said?"

"Yes, ma'am; but it ain't regular at _all_. I ain't no justice of thepeace; I ain't got power enough; I ain't got anything--Bible, norstatutes, nor nothing. I couldn't take no fee, either; it wouldn't beright. By Golly!" he exclaimed excitedly, "I bet that's him, up ahead, right now!" and he struck his horses. 

"Whip up!" said the woman to Cassidy, and she stood up in the wagonand held on by the rocking top. 

"Jake Bowerman!" she called across the erratic width that separatedthe rapidly moving vehicles, "if you've got power enough tuh 'restpeople and keep 'em in jail for the rest of their lives, marryin'ain't much worse, and yuh kin do it if yuh try!"

"Yuh ain't got any witness, Mis' Gentry!" bellowed the confused Jake, as a last resort, and touched his horses again. Cassidy let outanother notch, and kept even. The wagons were swaying jerkily fromside to side. 

"Yes, I have!" snapped the woman. "Now, yuh hurry up!"

"Better stand up, Mister Cassidy, " she whispered; "we've got tuh bereal quick!"

"It don't seem hardly regular!" yelled the discomfited sheriff, skilfully avoiding a dangerous hummock and crashing through amesquit-bush which whipped away his hat. "I'll--I'll do it for yuh, Mis' Gentry. I'll marry yuh as tight as I kin; but I can't stopdrivin' for that, and I've forgot a whole lot how it goes. Are yuh allready?"

The desert had changed from its soft, yielding sand to a brown, flatfloor of small stones and volcanic dust, fairly hard and unrutted. Pulling in dangerously close, the sheriff shifted his reins to onehand and faced them. The two wagons were racing neck and neck in acloud of dust, Cassidy handling his lines with skill and growingsatisfaction. From the body of the wagon under him, and quitedistinguishable from the clatter of the horses' feet, came a series ofsharp bumps as the unfortunate Tommy ricochetted from side to side. 

"Do yuh believe in the Constitution of the United States?" bellowedJake. 

"_We do!_" pealed the woman. 

"Do yuh--whoa, there, Pet! Goll darn your hide!--do yuh solemnly swearnever tuh fight no _duels_?"

"What's that?" screamed the woman. 

"He said a 'duel'!" shouted Cassidy in her ear, above the uproar ofthe wheels. "Tell him _no_! We won't fight many duels!"

"No! _No_ duels!" sang the woman. 

"And no aidin' or abettin'?"

"No! No bettin' at all!"

"Nor have any connection with any _duels_ whatsoever?"

The widow looked puzzled. She didn't understand. What had _duels_ todo with solemn marriage?

"It's all in the statutes, all right!" roared the sheriff angrily, asvast portions of the laws of Nevada fled from his agitated mind. 

"Mebbe you're both grand jurors now; I dunno. I think that's the oath. I reckon it's good and bindin', anyhow. " He stood up in his buggy andshook the reins furiously over his horses' backs to escape fromfurther legal entanglements. Leaning back over the folded top, hepointed at them magisterially with his whip. 

"And now, by the grace of God and me, Jake Bowerman, I herebypronounce yuh man and wife!"

With a roar of wheels, bad language, and a cloud of dust, the sheriffvanished in pursuit of the California line and the fleet-footed Tommy. 

Cassidy pulled his horses into a much-needed walk. The little womansat down and felt for her bonnet. 

"_My!_" gasped Mrs. Cassidy, "_that_ was going some! Do yuh reckonwe're really married?"

The team, unheeded, had swung off from the desert into a road made indamper, richer soil. Not far ahead, now, the dark foliage of theWillow Spring ranch rose in cool relief against the grim, sun-reddenedbuttes beyond. Their passenger had some time since dropped quietly offand was walking ahead of the plodding horses. 

As Cassidy looked forward at the quiet fields, and the ranch, and thespring, in the half-circle of willows where the cattle drank, nowgradually dimming in the soft twilight, and then, with an involuntaryturn, at the God-forgotten waste behind him, something melted in hisbreast; something cleared up his mind, and wiped it free of histhoughtless appetites and sins, and made him a strong, clean-heartedman again. He turned to the now quiet, pensive little woman at hisside. He found her looking up at him with trustful, softly shining, all-enveloping eyes. 

"I hope we're married!" said Cassidy gravely. "I reckon we are. Jakewas always a mighty brave man, and what he does, he does so it sticks. But even if we ain't married good enough fer some folks, it's goodenough fer me, for all time. I won't run away, ma'am. No, ma'am--notever!"

"I know!" said the little woman happily. "_I_ know!"

MARY BAKER G. EDDY

THE STORY OF HER LIFE AND THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

BY GEORGINE MILMINE

XIII

TRAINING THE VINE--A STUDY IN MRS. EDDY'S PREROGATIVES AND POWERS

 A Lady with a Lamp shall stand In the great history of the land _Motto upon the cover of the "Christian Science Sentinel"_

At the June communion of the Mother Church, 1895, a telegram from Mrs. Eddy was read aloud to the congregation, in which she invited allmembers who desired to do so to call upon her at Pleasant View on thefollowing day. [1] Accordingly, one hundred and eighty ChristianScientists boarded the train at Boston and went up to Concord. Mrs. Eddy threw her house open to them, received them in person, shookhands with each delegate, and conversed with many. This was thebeginning of the Concord "pilgrimages" which later became soconspicuous. 

After the communion in 1897, twenty-five hundred enthusiastic pilgrimscrowded into the little New Hampshire capital. Although the Scientistshired every available conveyance in Concord, there were not nearlyenough carriages to accommodate their numbers, so hundreds of thepilgrims made their joyful progress on foot out Pleasant Street toMrs. Eddy's home. 

Mrs. Eddy again received her votaries, greeted them cordially, andmade a rather lengthy address. The _Journal_ says that her manner uponthis occasion was peculiar for its "utter freedom from sensationalismor the Mesmeric effect that so many speakers seem to exert, " and addsthat she was "calm and unimpassioned, but strong and convincing. " The_Journal_ also states that upon this occasion Mrs. Eddy wore "a royalpurple silk dress covered with black lace" and a "dainty bonnet. " Shewore her diamond cross and the badge of the Daughters of theRevolution in diamonds and rubies. 

In 1901[2] three thousand of the June communicants went from Boston toConcord on three special trains. They were not admitted to the house, but Mrs. Eddy appeared upon her balcony for a moment and spoke tothem, saying that they had already heard from her in her message tothe Mother Church, and that she would pause but a moment to look intotheir dear faces and then return to her "studio. " The _Journal_comments upon her "erect form and sprightly step, " and says that shewore "what might have been silk or satin, figured, and cut _entraine_. Upon her white hair rested a bonnet with fluttering blue andold gold trimmings. "

The last of these pilgrimages occurred in 1904, when Mrs. Eddy did notinvite the pilgrims to come to Pleasant View but asked them toassemble at the new Christian Science church in Concord. Fifteenhundred of them gathered in front of the church and stood in reverentsilence as Mrs. Eddy's carriage approached. The horses were stopped infront of the assemblage, and Mrs. Eddy signaled the President of theMother Church to approach her carriage. To him, as representing thechurch body, she spoke her greeting. 

The yearning which these people felt toward Mrs. Eddy, and theirrapture at beholding her, can only be described by one of thepilgrims. In the _Journal_, June, 1899, Miss Martha Sutton Thompsonwrites to describe a visit which she made in January of that year tothe meeting of the Christian Science Board of Education in Boston. Shesays:

 "When I decided to attend I also hoped to see our Mother.... I saw that if I allowed the thought that I must see her personally to transcend the desire to obey and grow into the likeness of her teachings, this mistake would obscure my understanding of both the Revelator and the Revelation. After the members of the Board had retired they reappeared upon the rostrum and my heart beat quickly with the thought 'Perhaps _she_ has come. ' But no, it was to read her message.... She said God was with us and to give her love to all the class. It was so precious to get it directly from her. 

 "The following day five of us made the journey to Concord, drove out to Pleasant View, and met her face to face on her daily drive. She seemed watching to greet us, for when she caught sight of our faces she instantly half rose with expectant face, bowing, smiling, and waving her hand to each of us. Then as she went out of our sight, kissed her hand to all. 

 "I will not attempt to describe the Leader, nor can I say what this brief glimpse was and is to me. I can only say I wept and the tears start every time I think of it. Why do I weep? I think it is because I want to be like her and they are tears of repentance. I realize better now what it was that made Mary Magdalen weep when she came into the presence of the Nazarene. "

_Mrs. Eddy's Last Class_

After the pilgrimages were discouraged, there was no possible way inwhich these devoted disciples could ever see Mrs. Eddy. They used, indeed, like Miss Thompson, to go to Concord and linger about thehighways to catch a glimpse of her as she drove by, until she rebukedthem in a new by-law in the Church Manual: "_Thou Shalt not Steal_. Sect. 15. Neither a Christian Scientist, his student or his patient, nor a member of the Mother Church shall daily and continuously hauntMrs. Eddy's drive by meeting her once or more every day when she goesout--on penalty of being disciplined and dealt with justly by herchurch, " etc. 

Mrs. Eddy did her last public teaching in the Christian Science Hallin Concord, November 21 and 22, 1898. There were sixty-one persons inthis class, --several from Canada, one from England, and one fromScotland, --and Mrs. Eddy refused to accept any remuneration for herinstruction. The first lesson lasted about two hours, the secondnearly four. "Only two lessons, " says the _Journal_, "but suchlessons! Only those who have sat under this wondrous teaching can forma conjecture of what these classes were. " "We mention, " the _Journal_continues, "a sweet incident and one which deeply touched the Mother'sheart. Upon her return from class she found beside her plate at dinnertable a lovely white rose with the card of a young lady studentaccompanying on which she chastely referred to the last couplet of thefourth stanza of that sweet poem from the Mother's pen, 'Love. '

 "Thou to whose power our hope we give Free us from human strife. Fed by Thy love divine we live For Love alone is Life, " etc. 

_Mrs. Eddy and the Press_

Mrs. Eddy now achieved publicity in a good many ways, and to suchpublications as afforded her space and appreciation she was able togrant reciprocal favors. The _Granite Monthly_, a little magazinepublished at Concord, New Hampshire, printed Mrs. Eddy's poem "EasterMorn" and a highly laudatory article upon her. Mrs. Eddy then came outin the _Christian Science Journal_ with a request that all ChristianScientists subscribe to the _Granite Monthly_, which they promptlydid. Colonel Oliver C. Sabin, an astute politician in Washington, D. C. , was editor of a purely political publication, the Washington_News Letter_. A Congressman one day attacked Christian Science in aspeech. Colonel Sabin, whose paper was just then making thingsunpleasant for that particular Congressman, wrote an editorial indefense of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy inserted a card in the_Journal_ requesting all Christian Scientists to subscribe to the_News Letter_. This brought Colonel Sabin such a revenue that hedropped politics altogether and his political sheet became areligious periodical. Mr. James T. White, publisher of the _NationalEncyclopaedia of American Biography_, gave Mrs. Eddy a generous placein his encyclopedia and wrote a poem to her. Mrs. Eddy requested, through the _Journal_, that all Christian Scientists buy Mr. White'svolume of verse for Christmas presents, and the Christian SciencePublication Society marketed Mr. White's verses. Mrs. Eddy made apoint of being on good terms with the Concord papers; she furnishedthem with many columns of copy, and the editors realized that herpresence in Concord brought a great deal of money into the town. From1898 to 1901 the files of the _Journal_ echo increasing materialprosperity, and show that both Mrs. Eddy and her church were much moretaken account of than formerly. Articles by Mrs. Eddy are quoted fromvarious newspapers whose editors had requested her to express herviews upon the war with Spain, the Puritan Thanksgiving, etc. 

In the autumn of 1901 Mrs. Eddy wrote an article on the death ofPresident McKinley. Commenting upon this article, _Harper's Weekly_said: "Among others who have spoken [on President McKinley's death]was Mrs. Eddy, the Mother of Christian Science. She issued twoutterances which were read in her churches.... Both of thesediscourses are seemly and kind, but they are materially different fromthe writings of any one else. Reciting the praises of the deadPresident, Mrs. Eddy says: 'May his history waken a tone of truth thatshall reverberate, renew euphony, emphasize human power and bear itsbanner into the vast forever. ' No one else said anything like that. Mother Eddy's style is a personal asset. Her sentences usually havethe considerable literary merit of being unexpected. "

Of this editorial the Journal says, with a candor almost incredible:"We take pleasure in republishing from that old-established andvaluable publication _Harper's Weekly_, the following merited tributeto Mrs. Eddy's utterances, " etc. Then follows the editorial quotedabove. 

[Illustration: _Copyrighted, 1903, by R. W. Sears_ GREETING THEPILGRIMS

MRS. EDDY ON THE BALCONY OF HER CONCORD HOME ADDRESSING THE PILGRIMS IN1903. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH MADE AT THE TIME BY R. W. SEARS]

In the winter of 1898 Christian Science was given great publicitythrough the death, under Christian Science treatment, of the Americanjournalist and novelist, Harold Frederic, in England. Mr. Frederic'sreaders were not, as a rule, people who knew much about ChristianScience, and his taking off brought the new cult to the attention ofthousands of people for the first time. 

Mrs. Eddy and the Peerage

In December, 1898, the Earl of Dunmore, a peer of the Scottish Realm, and his Countess, came to Boston to study Christian Science. They werereceived by Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View, and Lady Dunmore was presentat the June communion, 1899. According to the _Journal_, LadyDunmore's son, Lord Fincastle, left his regiment in India and came toBoston to join his mother in this service, and then returnedimmediately to his military duties. Lady Mildred Murray, daughter ofthe Countess, also came to America to attend the annual communion. Apew was reserved upon the first floor of the church for this titledfamily, although the _Journal_ explains that "the reservation of a pewfor the Countess of Dunmore and her family was wholly a matter ofinternational courtesy, and not in any sense a tribute to their rank. "

Lord Dunmore, at one of the Wednesday evening meetings, discussed thepossibilities of a "Christianly-Scientific Alliance of the twoAnglo-Saxon peoples. " Even after his departure to England, LordDunmore continued to contribute very characteristic Christian Sciencepoetry to the _Journal_. He paid a visit to Mrs. Eddy only a fewmonths before his death in the summer of 1907. 

In 1904 the Earl was present at the convention of the ChristianScience Teachers' Association in London, and sent Mrs. Eddy thefollowing cablegram:

 "London, Nov. 28, 1904. 

 "REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, "Pleasant View, Concord, N. H. 

 "Members of Teachers' Association, London, send much love, and are striving, by doing better, to help you. 

 "DUNMORE. "

To this Mrs. Eddy gallantly replied:

 "Concord, N. H. , November 29, 1904. 

 "EARL OF DUNMORE, AND TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, London, G. B. 

 "Increasing gratitude and love for your lordly help and that of your Association. 

 "MARY BAKER EDDY. "

In these prosperous years the Reverend Irving C. Tomlinson, incommenting in the _Journal_ upon Brander Matthews' statement thatEnglish seemed destined to become the world-language, says: "It may bethat Prof. Matthews has written better than he knew. Science andHealth is fast reaching all parts of the world; and as our text bookmay never be translated into a foreign tongue, may it not be expectedto fulfill the prophet's hope, 'Then will I turn to the people a purelanguage, '" etc. 

In January, 1901, Mrs. Eddy called her directors together in solemnconclave, and charged them to send expressions of sympathy to theBritish government and to King Edward upon the death of the Queen. 

Truly the days of the Lynn shoemakers and the little Broad Streettenement were far gone by, and it must have seemed to Mrs. Eddy thatshe was living in one of those _New York Ledger_ romances which had sodelighted her in those humbler times. Even a less spirited woman thanshe would have expanded under all this notoriety, and Mrs. Eddy, asalways, caught the spirit of the play. A letter written to her son, George Glover, April 27, 1898, conveys some idea of how Mrs. Eddyappeared to herself at this time:

 Pleasant View, Concord, N. H. , April 27, 1898. 

 DEAR SON: Yours of latest date came duly. That which you cannot write I understand, and will say, I am reported as dying, wholly decriped and useless, etc. Now one of these reports is just as true as the others are. My life is as pure as that of the angels. God has lifted me up to my work, and if it was not pure it would not bring forth good fruits. The Bible says the tree is known by its fruit. 

 But I need not say this to a Christian Scientist, who knows it. I thank you for any interest you may feel in your mother. I am alone in the world, more lone than a solitary star. Although it is duly estimated by business characters and learned scholars that I lead and am obeyed by 300, 000 people at this date. The most distinguished newspapers ask me to write on the most important subjects. Lords and ladies, earles, princes and marquises and marchionesses from abroad write to me in the most complimentary manner. Hoke Smith declares I am the most illustrious woman on the continent--those are his exact words. Our senators and members of Congress call on me for counsel. But what of all this? I am not made the least proud by it or a particle happier for it. I am working for a higher purpose. 

 Now what of my circumstances? I name first my home, which of all places on earth is the one in which to find peace and enjoyment. But my home is simply a house and a beautiful landscape. There is not one in it that I love only as I love everybody. I have no congeniality with my help inside of my house; they are no companions and scarcely fit to be my help. 

 I adopted a son hoping he would take Mr. Frye's place as my book-keeper and man of all work that belongs to man. But my trial of him has proved another disappointment. His books could not be audited they were so incorrect, etc. , etc. Mr. Frye is the most disagreeable man that can be found, but this he is, namely, (if there is one on earth) an honest man, as all will tell you who deal with him. At first mesmerism swayed him, but he learned through my forbearance to govern himself. He is a man that would not steal, commit adultery, or fornication, or break one of the Ten Commandments. I have now done, but I could write a volume on what I have touched upon. 

 One thing is the severest wound of all, namely, the want of education among those nearest to me in kin. I would gladly give every dollar I possess to have one or two and three that are nearest to me on earth possess a thorough education. If you had been educated as I intend to have you, today you could, would, be made President of the United States. Mary's letters to me are so misspelled that I blush to read them. 

 You pronounce your words so wrongly and then she spells them accordingly. I am even yet too proud to have you come among my society and alas! mispronounce your words as you do; but for this thing I should be honored by your good manners and I love you. With love to all

 MARY BAKER EDDY. 

 P. S. --My letter is so short I add a postscript. I have tried about one dozen bookkeepers and had to give them all up, either for dishonesty or incapacity. I have not had my books audited for five years, and Mr. Ladd, who is famous for this, audited them last week, and gives me his certificate that they are all right except in some places not quite plain, and he showed Frye how to correct that. Then he, Frye gave me a check for that amount before I knew about it. 

 The slight mistake occurred four years ago and he could not remember about the things. But Mr. Ladd told me that he knew it was only not set down in a coherent way for in other parts of the book he could trace where it was put down in all probability, but not orderly. When I can get a Christian, as I know he is, and a woman that can fill his place I shall do it. But I have no time to receive company, to call on others, or to go out of my house only to drive. Am always driven with work for others, but nobody to help me even to get help such as I would choose. 

 Again, MOTHER. 

[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON GLOVER

MRS. EDDY'S ONLY SON]

While Mrs. Eddy was working out her larger policy she never forgot thelittle things. The manufacture of Christian Science jewelry was at onetime a thriving business, conducted by the J. C. Derby Company, ofConcord. Christian Science emblems and Mrs. Eddy's "favorite flower"were made up into cuff-buttons, rings, brooches, watches, andpendants, varying in price from $325 to $2. 50. The sale of theChristian Science teaspoons was especially profitable. The "Motherspoon, " an ordinary silver spoon, sold for $5. 00. Mrs. Eddy's portraitwas embossed upon it, a picture of Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy'ssignature, and the motto, "Not Matter but Mind Satisfieth. " Mrs. Eddystimulated the sale of this spoon by inserting the following requestin the _Journal_:[3]

 "On each of these most beautiful spoons is a motto in bas relief that every person on earth needs to hold in thought. Mother requests that Christian Scientists shall not ask to be informed what this motto is, but each Scientist shall purchase at least one spoon, and those who can afford it, one dozen spoons, that their families may read this motto at every meal, and their guests be made partakers of its simple truth. "

 "MARY BAKER G. EDDY. 

 "The above-named spoons are sold by the Christian Science Souvenir Company, Concord, N. H. , and will soon be on sale at the Christian Science reading rooms throughout the country. "

Mrs. Eddy's picture was another fruitful source of revenue. Thecopyright for this is still owned by the Derby Company. This portraitis known as the "authorized" photograph of Mrs. Eddy. It was sold foryears as a genuine photograph of Mrs. Eddy, but it is admitted now atChristian Science sales-rooms that this picture is a "composite. " Thecheapest sells for one dollar. When they were ready for sale, in May, 1899, Mrs. Eddy, in the _Journal_ of that date, announced:

 "It is with pleasure I certify that after months of incessant toil and at great expense Mr. Henry P. Moore, and Mr. J. C. Derby of Concord, N. H. , have brought out a likeness of me far superior to the one they offered for sale last November. The portrait they have now perfected I cordially endorse. Also I declare their sole right to the making and exclusive sale of the duplicates of said portrait. 

 "I simply ask that those who love me purchase this portrait. 

 "MARY BAKER EDDY. "

The material prosperity of the Mother Church continued and thecongregation soon outgrew the original building. At the June communionin 1902 ten thousand Christian Scientists were present. In thebusiness meeting which followed they pledged themselves, "withstartling grace, " as Mrs. Eddy put it, to raise two million dollars, or any part of that sum which should be needed, to build an annex. 

In the late spring of 1906 the enormous addition to the MotherChurch--the "excelsior extension, " as Mrs. Eddy calls it--wascompleted, and it was dedicated at the annual communion, June 10, ofthat year. The original building was in the form of a cross, so Mrs. Eddy had the new addition built with a dome to represent a crown--acombination which is happier in its symbolism than in itsarchitectural results. The auditorium is capable of holding fivethousand people; the walls are decorated with texts signed "Jesus, theChrist" and "Mary Baker G. Eddy"--these names standing side by side. 

According to the belief of Mrs. Eddy's followers, every signal victoryof Christian Science is apt to beget "chemicalization"; that is, itstirs up "error" and "mortal mind"--which terms include everythingthat is hostile to Christian Science--and makes them ugly andrevengeful. The forces of evil--that curious, non-existent evilwhich, in spite of its nihility, makes Mrs. Eddy so much trouble--werenaturally aroused by the dedication of the great church building in1906, and within a year Mrs. Eddy's son brought a suit in equity whichcaused her annoyance and anxiety. 

_Suit Brought by Mrs. Eddy's Son_

Among the mistakes of Mrs. Eddy's early life must certainly beaccounted her indifference to her only child, George WashingtonGlover. Mrs. Eddy's first husband died six months after theirmarriage, and the son was not born until three months after hisfather's death--a circumstance which, it would seem, might havepeculiarly endeared him to his mother. When he was a baby, living withMrs. Glover in his aunt's house, his mother's indifference to him wassuch as to cause comment in her family and indignation on the part ofher father, Mark Baker. The symptoms of serious nervous disorder soconspicuous in Mrs. Eddy's young womanhood--the exaggerated hysteria, the anaesthesia, the mania for being rocked and swung--are sometimesaccompanied by a lack of maternal feeling, and the absence of it inMrs. Eddy must be considered, like her lack of the sense of smell, adefect of constitution rather than a vice of character. 

Mrs. Eddy has stated that she sent her child away because her secondhusband, Dr. Patterson, would not permit her to keep George with her. But although Mrs. Eddy was not married to Dr. Patterson until 1853, in1851 she sent the child to live with Mrs. Russell Cheney, a woman whohad attended Mrs. Eddy at the boy's birth. George lived with theCheneys at North Groton, New Hampshire, from the time he was sevenyears old until he was thirteen. During the greater part of this timehis mother, then Mrs. Patterson, was living in the same town. WhenGeorge was thirteen the Cheneys moved to Enterprise, Minnesota, andtook him with them. Mrs. Eddy did not see her son again fortwenty-three years. She wrote some verses about him, but certainlymade no effort to go to him, or to have him come to her. On the whole, her separation from him seems to have caused her no real distress. Theboy received absolutely no education, and he was kept hard at work inthe fields until he ran away and joined the army, in which he servedwith an excellent record. 

After he went West with the Cheneys in 1857, George Glover did not seehis mother again until 1879. He was then living in Minnesota, a man ofthirty-five, when he received a telegram from Mrs. Eddy, dated fromLynn, and asking him to meet her immediately in Cincinnati. This wasthe time when Mrs. Eddy believed that mesmerism was overwhelming herin Lynn; that every stranger she met in the streets, and eveninanimate objects, were hostile to her, and that she must "flee" fromthe hypnotists (Kennedy and Spofford) to save her cause and her life. Unable to find any trace of his mother in Cincinnati, George Glovertelegraphed to the Chief of Police in Lynn. Some days later hereceived another telegram from his mother, directing him to meet herin Boston. He went to Boston, and found that Mrs. Eddy and herhusband, Asa G. Eddy, had left Lynn for a time and were staying inBoston at the house of Mrs. Clara Choate. Glover remained in Bostonfor some time and then returned to his home in the West. 

[Illustration: THE MOTHER CHURCH IN BOSTON

THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, AT THE RIGHT, IS IN THE FORM OF A CROSS, ANDTHE IMMENSE "ANNEX, " WITH ITS DOME, IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT A CROWN, THE TWO BUILDINGS THUS FORMING THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SEAL--THE CROSSAND CROWN]

George Glover's longest stay in Boston was in 1888, when he broughthis family and spent the winter in Chelsea. His relations with hismother were then of a friendly but very formal nature. In the autumn, when he first proposed going to Boston, his plan was to spend a fewmonths with his mother. Mrs. Eddy, however, wrote him that she had noroom for him in her house and positively forbade him to come. Mrs. Eddy's letter reads as follows:

 Massachusetts Metaphysical College. Rev. Mary B. G. Eddy, President. No. 571 Columbus ave. Boston, Oct. 31, 1887

 DEAR GEORGE: Yours received. I am surprised that you think of coming to visit me when I live in a schoolhouse and have no room that I can let even a boarder into. 

 I use the whole of my rooms and am at work in them more or less all the time. 

 Besides this I have all I can meet without receiving company. I must have quiet in my house, and it will not be pleasant for you in Boston the Choates are doing all they can by falsehood, and public shames, such as advertising a college of her own within a few doors of mine when she is a disgraceful woman and known to be. I am going to give up my lease when this class is over, and cannot pay your board nor give you a single dollar now. I am alone, and you never would come to me when I called for you, and now I cannot have you come. 

 I want quiet and Christian life alone with God, when I can find intervals for a little rest. You are not what I had hoped to find you, and I am changed. The world, the flesh and evil I am at war with, and if any one comes to me it must be to help me and not to hinder me in this warfare. If you will stay away from me until I get through with my public labor then I will send for you and hope to then have a home to take you to. 

 As it now is, I have none, and you will injure me by coming to Boston at this time more than I have room to state in a letter. I asked you to come to me when my husband died and I so much needed some one to help me. You refused to come then in my great need, and I then gave up ever thinking of you in that line. Now I have a clerk[4] who is a pure-minded Christian, and two girls to assist me in the college. These are all that I can have under this roof. 

 If you come after getting this letter I shall feel you have no regard for my interest or feelings, which I hope not to be obliged to feel. 

 Boston is the last place in the world for you or your family. When I retire from business and into private life, then I can receive you if you are reformed, but not otherwise. I say this to you, not to any one else. I would not injure you any more than myself. As ever sincerely, M. B. G. EDDY. 

After Mrs. Eddy retired to Pleasant View, neither her son nor hisfamily were permitted to visit her, and, when they came East, theyexperienced a good deal of difficulty in seeing her at all. Mr. Gloverbelieved that his letters to his mother were sometimes answered by Mr. Frye, and that some of his letters never reached his mother at all. Mr. Glover states that he finally sent his mother a letter by express, with instructions to the Concord agent that it was to be delivered toher in person, and to no one else. He was notified that Mrs. Eddycould not receive the letter except through her secretary, CalvinFrye. 

[ILLUSTRATION: MRS. EDDY'S NEW HOME AT CHESTNUT HILL

JANUARY 26, 1908. MRS. EDDY LEFT HER OLD HOME AT CONCORD AND CAME TOHER NEW HOUSE AT NEWTON ON A SPECIAL TRAIN, WITH THREE ENGINES TOINSURE HER SAFE CONDUCT]

January 2, 1907, Mr. Glover and his daughter, Mary Baker Glover, werepermitted a brief interview with Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View. Mr. Glover states that he was shocked at his mother's physical conditionand alarmed by the rambling, incoherent nature of her conversation. Intalking to him she made the old charges and the old complaints:"people" had been stealing her "things" (as she used to say they didin Lynn); people wanted to kill her; two carriage horses had beenpresented to her which, had she driven behind them, would have runaway and injured her--they had been sent, she thought, for thatespecial purpose. 

After this interview Mr. Glover and his daughter went to Washington, D. C. , to ask legal advice from Ex-Senator William E. Chandler. Whilethere Mr. Glover received the following letter from his mother:

 Pleasant View, Concord, N. H. , Jan. 11, 1907. 

 MY DEAR SON: The enemy to Christian Science is by the wickedest powers of hypnotism trying to do me all the harm possible by acting on the minds of people to make them lie about me and my family. In view of all this I herein and hereby ask this favor of you. I have done for you what I could, and never to my recollection have I asked but once before this a favor of my only child. Will you send to me by express all the letters of mine that I have written to you? This will be a great comfort to your mother if you do it. Send all--ALL of them. Be sure of that. If you will do this for me I will make you and Mary some presents of value, I assure you. Let no one but Mary and your lawyer, Mr. Wilson, know what I herein write to Mary and you. With love. 

 Mother, M. B. G. Eddy. 

Mr. Glover refused to give up his letters, and on March 1, 1907, hebegan, by himself and others as next friends, an action in Mrs. Eddy'sbehalf against some ten prominent Christian Scientists, among whomwere Calvin Frye, Alfred Farlow, and the officers of the Mother Churchin Boston. This action was brought in the Superior Court of NewHampshire. Mr. Glover asked for an adjudication that Mrs. Eddy wasincompetent, through age and failing faculties, to manage her estate;that a receiver of her property be appointed; and that the variousdefendants named be required to account for alleged misuse of herproperty. Six days later Mrs. Eddy met this action by declaring atrusteeship for the control of her estate. The trustees named wereresponsible men, gave bond for $500, 000, and their trusteeship was tolast during Mrs. Eddy's lifetime. In August Mr. Glover withdrew hissuit. 

This action brought by her son, which undoubtedly caused Mrs. Eddy agreat deal of annoyance, was but another result of those indirectmethods to which she has always clung so stubbornly. When her sonappealed to her for financial aid, she chose, instead of meeting himwith a candid refusal, to tell him that she was not allowed to use herown money as she wished, that Mr. Frye made her account for everypenny, etc. , etc. Mr. Glover made the mistake of taking his mother ather word. He brought his suit upon the supposition that his mother wasthe victim of designing persons who controlled her affairs--withoutconsulting her, against her wish, and to their own advantage--ahypothesis which his attorneys entirely failed to establish. 

This lawsuit disclosed one interesting fact, namely, that while in1893 securities of Mrs. Eddy amounting to $100, 000 were brought toConcord, and in January, 1899, she had $236, 200, and while in 1907 shehad about a million dollars' worth of taxable property, Mrs. Eddy in1901 returned a signed statement to the assessors at Concord that thevalue of her taxable property amounted to about nineteen thousanddollars. This statement was sworn to year after year by Mr. Frye. 

_Mrs. Eddy's Removal to Newton_

About a month after Mr. Glover's suit was withdrawn, Mrs. Eddypurchased, through Robert Walker, a Christian Scientist real-estateagent in Chicago, the old Lawrence mansion in Newton, a suburb ofBoston. The house was remodeled and enlarged in great haste and at acost which must almost have equaled the original purchase price, $100, 000. All the arrangements were conducted with the greatestsecrecy and very few Christian Scientists knew that it was Mrs. Eddy'sintention to occupy this house until she was actually there in person. 

On Sunday, January 26, 1908, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Eddy, attended by nearly a score of her followers, boarded a specialtrain at Concord. Extraordinary precautions were taken to preventaccidents. A pilot-engine preceded the locomotive which drew Mrs. Eddy's special train, and the train was followed by a third engine toprevent the possibility of a rear-end collision--a precaution neverbefore adopted, even by the royal trains abroad. Dr. Alpheus B. Morrill, a second cousin of Mrs. Eddy and a practising physician ofConcord, was of her party. Mrs. Eddy's face was heavily veiled whenshe took the train at Concord and when she alighted at Chestnut Hillstation. Her carriage arrived at the Lawrence house late in theafternoon, and she was lifted out and carried into the house by one ofher male attendants. 

Mrs. Eddy's new residence is a fine old stone mansion which has beenenlarged without injury to its original dignity. The grounds cover anarea of about twelve acres and are well wooded. The house itself nowcontains about twenty-five rooms. There is an electric elevatoradjoining Mrs. Eddy's private apartments. Two large vaults have beenbuilt into the house--doubtless designed as repositories for Mrs. Eddy's manuscripts. Since her arrival at Chestnut Hill, Mrs. Eddy, upon one of her daily drives, saw for the first time the new buildingwhich completes the Mother Church and which, like the original modeststructure, is a memorial to her. 

There are many reasons why Mrs. Eddy may have decided to leaveConcord. But the extravagant haste with which her new residence wasgot ready for her--a body of several hundred laborers was kept busyupon it all day, and another shift, equally large, worked all night bythe aid of arc-lights--would seem to suggest that even if practicalconsiderations brought about Mrs. Eddy's change of residence, herextreme impatience may have resulted from a more personal motive. Itis, indeed, very probable that Mrs. Eddy left Concord for the samereason that she left Boston years ago: because she felt that maliciousanimal magnetism was becoming too strong for her there. The actionbrought by her son in Concord last summer she attributed entirely tothe work of mesmerists who were supposed to be in control of her son'smind. Mrs. Eddy always believed that this strange miasma of evil had acurious tendency to become localized: that certain streets, mail-boxes, telegraph-offices, vehicles, could be totally suborned bythese invisible currents of hatred and ill-will that had their sourcein the minds of her enemies and continually encircled her. Shebelieved that in this way an entire neighborhood could be madeinimical to her, and it is quite possible that, after the recentlitigation in Concord, she felt that the place had become saturatedwith mesmerism and that she would never again find peace there. 

_Mrs. Eddy at Eighty_

The years since 1890 Mrs. Eddy has spent in training her church in theway she desires it to go, in making it more and more her own, and inissuing by-law after by-law to restrict her followers in their churchprivileges and to guide them in their daily walk. Mrs. Eddy, one mustremember, was fifty years of age before she knew what she wanted todo; sixty when she bethought herself of the most effective way to doit, --by founding a church, --and seventy when she achieved her greatesttriumph--the reorganization and personal control of the Mother Church. But she did not stop there. Between her seventieth and eightieth year, and even up to the present time, she has displayed remarkableingenuity in disciplining her church and its leaders, and adroitresourcefulness and unflagging energy in the prosecution of herplans. 

Mrs. Eddy's system of church government was not devised in a month ora year, but grew, by-law on by-law, to meet new emergencies andsituations. To attain the end she desired it was necessary to keepfifty or sixty thousand people working as if the church were the firstobject in their lives; to encourage hundreds of these to adoptchurch-work as their profession and make it their only chance ofworldly success; and yet to hold all this devotion and energy inabsolute subservience to Mrs. Eddy herself and to prevent any one ofthese healers, or preachers, or teachers from attaining any markedpersonal prominence and from acquiring a personal following. In otherwords, the church was to have all the vigor of spontaneous growth, butwas to grow only as Mrs. Eddy permitted and to confine itself to thetrellis she had built for it. 

_Preaching Prohibited_

Naturally, the first danger lay in the pastors of her branch churches. Mrs. Stetson and Laura Lathrop had built up strong churches in NewYork; Mrs. Ewing was pastor of a flourishing church in Chicago, Mrs. Leonard of another in Brooklyn, Mrs. Williams in Buffalo, Mrs. Stewardin Toronto, Mr. Norcross in Denver. These pastors naturally becameleaders among the Christian Scientists in their respectivecommunities, and came to be regarded as persons authorized to expound"Science and Health" and the doctrines of Christian Science. Such astate of things Mrs. Eddy considered dangerous, not only because ofthe personal influence the pastor might acquire over his flock, butbecause a pastor might, even without intending to do so, give apersonal color to his interpretation of her words. In his sermon hemight expand her texts and infinitely improvise upon her themes untilgradually his hearers accepted his own opinions for Mrs. Eddy's. Thechurch in Toronto might come to emphasize doctrines which the churchin Denver did not; here was a possible beginning of differingdenominations. 

So, as Mrs. Eddy splendidly puts it, "In 1895 I ordained the Bible andScience and Health with Key to the Scriptures, as the Pastor, on thisplanet, of all the churches of the Christian Science Denomination. "That is what Mrs. Eddy actually did. In the _Journal_ of April, 1895, she announced, without any previous warning to them, that herpreachers should never preach again; that there were to be no morepreachers; that each church should have instead a First and a SecondReader, and that the Sunday sermon was to consist of extracts fromthe Bible and from "Science and Health, " read aloud to thecongregation. In the beginning the First Reader read from the Bibleand the Second Reader from Mrs. Eddy's book. But this she soonchanged. The First Reader now reads from "Science and Health" and theSecond reads those passages of the Bible which Mrs. Eddy says arecorrelative. This service, Mrs. Eddy declares, was "authorized byChrist. "[5]

When Mrs. Eddy issued this injunction, every Christian Sciencepreacher stepped down from his pulpit and closed his lips. There wasnot an island of the sea in which he could lift up his voice andsermonize; Mrs. Eddy's command covered "this" planet. Not one voicewas raised in protest. Whatever the pastors felt, they obeyed. Many ofthem kissed the rod. L. P. Norcross, one of the deposed pastors, wrotehumbly in the August _Journal_:

 "Did any one expect such a revelation, such a new departure would be given? No, not in the way it came.... A former pastor of the Mother Church once remarked that the day would dawn when the current methods of preaching and worship would disappear, but he could not discern how.... Such disclosures are too high for us to perceive. _To One alone did the message come. _"

_The "Reader" Restricted_

Mrs. Eddy had no grudge against her pastors; she did not intend thatthey should starve, and many of them were made Readers and werepermitted to read "Science and Health" aloud in the churches whichthey had built and in which they had formerly preached. 

The "Reader, " it would seem, was a safe experiment, and he was so wellhedged in with by-laws that he could not well go astray. His dutiesand limitations are clearly defined:

He is to read parts of "Science and Health" aloud at every service. 

He cannot read from a manuscript or from a transcribed copy, but mustread from _the book itself_. 

He is, Mrs. Eddy says, to be "well read and well educated, " but heshall at no time make any remarks explanatory of the passages which hereads. 

Before commencing to read from Mrs. Eddy's book "he shall distinctlyannounce its full title and give the author's name. "

A Reader must not be a leader in the church. 

Lest, under all these restrictions, his incorrigible ambition mightstill put forth its buds, there is a saving by-law which provides thatMrs. Eddy can without explanation remove any reader at any time thatshe sees fit to do so. [6]

Mrs. Eddy herself seems to have considered this a safe arrangement. Inthe same number of the _Journal_ in which she dismissed her pastorsand substituted Readers, she stated, in an open letter, that herstudents would find in that issue "the completion, as I now think, ofthe Divine directions sent out to the churches. " But it was by nomeans the completion. By the summer of 1902 Septimus J. Hanna, FirstReader of the Mother Church in Boston, had become, without the libertyto preach or to "make remarks, " by the mere sound of his voice, itwould seem, so influential that Mrs. Eddy felt the necessity to limitstill further the Reader's power. Of course she could have dismissedMr. Hanna, but he was far too useful to be dispensed with. So Mrs. Eddy made a new ruling that the Reader's term of office should belimited to three years, [7] and, Mr. Hanna's term then being up, he wasput into the lecture field. Now the highest dignity that any ChristianScientist could hope for was to be chosen to read "Science and Health"aloud for three years at a comfortable salary. 

_Why the Readers Obeyed_

Why, it has often been asked, did the more influential pastors--peoplewith a large personal following, like Mrs. Stetson--consent to resigntheir pulpits in the first place and afterward to be stripped ofprivilege after privilege? Some of them, of course, submitted becausethey believed that Mrs. Eddy possessed "Divine Wisdom"; others becausethey remembered what had happened to dissenters aforetime. Of allthose who had broken away from Mrs. Eddy's authority, not one hadattained to anything like her obvious success or material prosperity, while many had followed wandering fires and had come to nothing. Christian Science leaders had staked their fortunes upon thehypothesis that Mrs. Eddy possessed "divine wisdom"; it was asexpounders of this wisdom that they had obtained their influence andbuilt up their churches. To rebel against the authority of Mrs. Eddy'swisdom would be to discredit themselves; to discredit Mrs. Eddy'swisdom would have been to destroy their whole foundation. To claim anunderstanding and an inspiration equal to Mrs. Eddy's, would have beento cheapen and invalidate everything that gave Christian Science anadvantage over other religions. Had they once denied the Revelationand the Revelator upon which their church was founded, the wholestructure would have fallen in upon them. If Mrs. Eddy's intelligencewere not divine in one case, who would be able to say that it was inanother? If they could not accept Mrs. Eddy's wisdom when she said"there shall be no pastors, " how could they persuade other people toaccept it when she said "there is no matter"? It was clear, even tothose who writhed under the restrictions imposed upon them, that theymust stand or fall with Mrs. Eddy's Wisdom, and that to disobey it wasto compromise their own career. Even in the matter of getting on inthe world, it was better to be a doorkeeper in the Mother Church thanto dwell in the tents of the "mental healers. "

_Mrs. Stetson and Mrs. Eddy_

Probably it was harder for Mrs. Stetson to retire from the pastorshipthan for any one else; indeed, it was often whispered that the pastorswere dismissed largely because Mrs. Stetson's growing influencesuggested to Mrs. Eddy the danger of permitting such powers to hervice-regents. Mrs. Stetson had gone to New York when Christian Sciencewas practically unknown there, and from poor and small beginnings hadbuilt up a rich and powerful church. But, when the command came, shestepped out of the pulpit she had built. She is to-day probably themost influential person, after Mrs. Eddy, in the Christian Sciencebody. Rumors are ever and again started that Mrs. Stetson is not atall times loyal to her Leader, and that she controls her faction forher own ends rather than for Mrs. Eddy's. Whatever Mrs. Stetson'sprivate conversation may be, her public utterances have always beenhumble enough, and she annually declares her loyalty. In 1907 the NewYork _World_ published several interviews with persons who assertedthat they believed Mrs. Eddy to be controlled by a clique of ChristianScientists who were acting for Mrs. Stetson's interests. In June Mrs. Stetson wrote Mrs. Eddy a letter which was printed in the _ChristianScience Sentinel_ and which read in part:

 "Boston, Mass. , June 9, 1907. 

 "MY PRECIOUS LEADER:--I am glad I know that I am in the hands of God, not of men. These reports are only the revival of a lie which I have not heard for a long time. It is a renewed attack upon me and my loyal students, to turn me from following in the footsteps of Christ by making another attempt to dishearten me and make me weary of the struggle to demonstrate my trust in God to deliver me from the 'accuser of our brethren. ' It is a diabolical attempt to separate me from you, as my Leader and Teacher.... 

 "Oh, Dearest, it is such a lie! No one who knows us can believe this. It is vicarious atonement. Has the enemy no more argument to use, that it has to go back to this? It is exhausting its resources and I hope the end is near. You know my love for you, beloved; and my students love you as their Leader and Teacher; they follow your teachings and lean on the 'sustaining infinite. ' They who refuse to accept you as God's messenger, or ignore the message which you bring, will not get up by some other way, but will come short of salvation.... 

 "Dearly beloved, we are not ascending out of sense as fast as we desire, but we are trusting in God to put off the false and put on the Christ. This lie cannot disturb you nor me. I love you and my students love you, and we never touch you with such a thought as is mentioned. 

 "Lovingly your child, "AUGUSTA E. STETSON. "

_The Teachers Disciplined_

Her pastors having been satisfactorily dealt with, the next dangerMrs. Eddy saw lay in her teachers and "academies. " Mrs. Eddy soonfound, of course, that a great many Christian Scientists wished tomake their living out of their new religion; that possibility, indeed, was one of the most effective advantages which Christian Science hadto offer over other religions. In the early days of the church, whileMrs. Eddy herself was still instructing classes in Christian Scienceat her "college, " teaching was a much more remunerative business thanhealing. Mrs. Eddy charged each student $300 for a primary course ofseven lessons, and the various Christian Science "institutes" and"academies" about the country charged from $100 to $200 per student. So long as Mrs. Eddy was herself teaching and never took patients, shecould not well forbid other teachers to do likewise. But after sheretired to Concord, she took the teachers in hand. Mrs. Eddy knew wellenough that Christian Science was propagated and that converts weremade, not through doctrine, but through cures. She had found that outin the very beginning, when Richard Kennedy's cures brought her herfirst success. She knew, too, that teaching Christian Science was amuch easier profession than healing by it, and that the teacherrisked no encounter with the law. Since teaching was both easier andmore remunerative, the first thing to be done in discouraging it wasto cut down the teacher's fee, and to limit the number of pupils whichone teacher might instruct in a year. By 1904 Mrs. Eddy had got theteacher's fee down to fifty dollars per student, and a teacher was notpermitted to teach more than thirty students a year. Mrs. Eddy'spurpose is as clear as it was wise: she desired that no one should beable to make a living by teaching alone. It was healing that carriedthe movement forward, and whoever made a living by Christian Sciencemust heal. From 1903 to 1906 all teaching was suspended under theby-law "Healing better than teaching. "

In the fall of 1895 Mrs. Eddy issued her instructions to the churchesin the form of a volume entitled the "Church Manual of the FirstChurch of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass. " The by-laws hereincontained, she says, "were impelled by a power not one's own, werewritten at different dates, as occasion required. " This book is amongMrs. Eddy's copyrighted works, --a source of revenue, like therest, --and has now been through more than forty editions. Some of theby-laws in the earlier editions are perplexing. 

We find that "Careless comparison or irreverent reference to ChristJesus, is abnormal in a Christian Scientist and prohibited. "[8] It isprobable that no Christian church had ever before found it necessaryto make such a prohibition. 

Again, the by-laws state that "Any member of this church who is foundliving with a child improperly, or claiming a child not legallyadopted, or claiming or living with a husband or a wife to whom theyhave not been legally married, shall immediately be excommunicated, "etc. [9] This seems a strange subject for especial legislation. 

The Manual, however, is chiefly interesting as an exposition of Mrs. Eddy's method of church government and as an inventory of her personalprerogatives. Never was a title more misleadingly modest than Mrs. Eddy's title of "Pastor Emeritus" of the Mother Church. 

_How the Mother Church is Organized_

Next to Mrs. Eddy in authority is the Board of Directors, who werechosen by Mrs. Eddy and who are subject to her in all their officialacts. Any one of these directors can at any time be dismissed _uponMrs. Eddy's request_, and the vacancy can be filled only by acandidate whom she has approved. All the church business istransacted by these directors, --no other members of the church may bepresent at the business meetings, --and if at any time one of themshould refuse to carry out Mrs. Eddy's instructions, or should grumbleabout carrying them out, her request would remove him. The members ofthis board, in addition to their precarious tenure, are pledged tosecrecy; they "shall neither report the discussions of this Board, _nor those with Mrs. Eddy_. "[10]

These directors are Mrs. Eddy's machine; they are her executive self, created by her breath, dissolved at a breath, and committed tosilence. Their chief duties are two--to elect to office whomsoeverMrs. Eddy appoints, and to hold their peace. 

The President of the church is annually elected by the directors, theelection being subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. [11]

The First and Second Readers are elected every third year by thedirectors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval, but she can remove aReader either from the Mother Church or from any of the branchchurches whenever she sees fit and without explanation. [12]

The Clerk and Treasurer of the church are elected once a year by thedirectors, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. [13]

Executive Members: Prior to 1903 these were known as First Members. They shall not be less than fifty in number, nor more than onehundred. They must have certain qualifications (such as residingwithin five hundred miles of Boston), and they must hold a meetingonce a year and special meetings at Mrs. Eddy's call, but they have nopowers and no duties. [14] The manner of their election is especiallyunusual. The by-laws state that a member can be made an ExecutiveMember only after a letter is received by the directors from Mrs. Eddyrequesting them to make said persons Executive Members; and then, Mrs. Eddy adds, "they shall be elected by the _unanimous vote of the Boardof Directors_. "[15]

What, one might ask, is the purpose in having an "executive" bodywhich can do nothing--they are not even allowed to be present at thebusiness meetings of the church--elected by a Board of Directors whohave to elect "unanimously" whomsoever Mrs. Eddy names? Why go throughthe form of "electing" them, when they are simply appointed? Why, indeed, elect the church officers, since, behind this brave showingof boards and bodies, Mrs. Eddy, in reality, simply appoints?

One reason is that Mrs. Eddy likes the play of making boards andcommittees; she loves titles and loves to distribute them. Anotherreason is that her followers are proud to be placed upon these boards, however limited their sphere of action may be. 

_How Mrs. Eddy Controls the Branch Churches_

With the branch churches the case is much the same. Mrs. Eddy startsout bravely by saying that they are to have "local self-government. "But on reading the Manual we find that they are pretty well providedfor. 

A branch church can be organized only by a member of the MotherChurch. [16]

The services of the branch churches are definitely prescribed; theyare to consist of music, Mrs. Eddy's prayer, and oral readings from"Science and Health" and the Bible. 

Mrs. Eddy may appoint or remove--without explanation--the Readers ofthe branch churches at any time. [17]

The branch churches may never have comments or remarks made by theirReaders, either upon passages from "Science and Health" or from theBible. [18]

The branch churches may have lectures only by lecturers whom Mrs. Eddyhas appointed in the usual way--through the "vote" of her Board ofDirectors. [19] And the lecture must have passed censorship. [20]

After listening to such a lecture, the members of the branch churchesare not permitted to give a reception or to meet for socialintercourse. Mrs. Eddy tells them that it will be much better for themto "depart in quiet thought. "[21] (It seems more than probable thatthis by-law was devised for the spiritual good of the lecturer. Mrs. Eddy had no idea that these gentlemen should be fêted or made much ofafter their discourse and thus become puffed up with pride of place. )

Since the branch churches, then, have nothing to say about theirservices, Readers, or lecturers, there seems to be very little leftfor them to do with their powers of local self-government. 

Services in the branch churches, as in the Mother Church, are limitedto the Sunday morning and evening readings from the Bible and "Scienceand Health, " the Wednesday evening experience meetings, and to thecommunion service. (In the Mother Church this occurs but once a year, in the branch churches twice. ) There is no baptismal service, nomarriage or burial service, and weddings and funerals are neverconducted in any of the Christian Science churches. 

_The Publication Committee_

Included in the Mother Church organization are the PublicationCommittee, the Christian Science Publishing Society, the Board ofLectureship, the Board of Missionaries, and the Board of Education, all absolutely under Mrs. Eddy's control. 

The manager of the Publication Committee, at present Mr. AlfredFarlow, is "elected" annually by the Board of Directors under Mrs. Eddy's instructions. His salary is to be not less than $5, 000. ThisPublication Committee is simply a press bureau, consisting of amanager with headquarters in Boston and of various branch committeesthroughout the field. It is the duty of a member of this committee, wherever he resides, to reply promptly through the press to anycriticism of Christian Science or of Mrs. Eddy which may be made inhis part of the country, and to insert in the newspapers of histerritory as much matter favorable to Christian Science as they willprint. In replying to criticism this bureau will, if necessary, paythe regular advertising rate for the publication of their statements. The members of this committee, after having written and publishedtheir articles in defense of Christian Science, are also responsible, says the Manual, "for having the papers containing these articlescirculated in large quantities. " This press agency has been extremelyeffective in pushing the interests of Christian Science, in keeping itbefore the public, and in building up a desirable legendry around Mrs. Eddy. 

_The Publishing Society_

The Christian Science Publishing Society is conducted for the purposeof publishing and marketing Mrs. Eddy's works and the three ChristianScience periodicals, the _Christian Science Journal_, the _ChristianScience Sentinel_, and _Der Christian Science Herold_. It is managedand controlled by a Board of Trustees, appointed by Mrs. Eddy, and thenet profits of the business are turned over semi-annually to thetreasurer of the Mother Church. The manager and editors are appointedfor but one year, and must be elected or reëlected by a vote of thedirectors _and_ "the consent of the Pastor Emeritus, given in her ownhandwriting. " The Manual also states that a person who is not acceptedby Mrs. Eddy as suitable shall _in no manner_ be connected withpublishing her books or editing her periodicals--not a compositor, notthe copy-boy, not the scrubwoman. 

_Christian Science Lectures_

Until 1898 any Christian Scientist could give public talks or lecturesupon the doctrines of his faith, but in January of that year Mrs. Eddyprudently withdrew this privilege. She appointed a Board ofLectureship, carefully selecting each member and assigning each to acertain district. In this work she placed several of her mostinfluential men, among whom was Septimus J. Hanna. Her idea seems tohave been that as itinerant lecturers these men could not build up adangerously strong personal following. These lecturers are electedannually, subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval. Their representativelecture must be censored by the clerk of the Mother Church. The Manualstipulates that these lectures must "bear testimony to the factspertaining to the life of the Pastor Emeritus. "

_Missionaries_

Seven missionaries are elected annually by the Board ofDirectors--Mrs. Eddy's usual way of appointing. Indeed, one finds thatthe elections of these various boards are simply confirmations ofappointments made by Mrs. Eddy; not, certainly, because herappointments need confirmation, but rather because it seems to givethese boards pleasure to vote "unanimously" when they are bidden. Toall intents and purposes the Manual might just as well state thatevery committee and officer is appointed by the Pastor Emeritus, andthe phrase "elected by the Board of Directors" seems used merely forvariety of expression. 

_Board of Education_

The Board of Education consists of three members, the President, Vice-President, and a teacher. Mrs. Eddy is the permanentPresident--unless, says the Manual, she sees fit to "resign over herown signature. " The Vice-President and teacher are elected from timeto time, "subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus. "

_Obligations of the Individual Christian Scientist_

It is not easy to become a member of the Mother Church. In the firstplace, the applicant for admission must read nothing upon metaphysicsor religion except Mrs. Eddy's books and the Bible. In the secondplace, his application must be countersigned by one of Mrs. Eddy'sloyal students, who is made responsible for the candidate's sincerity. There are so many things for which the new member may be expelledafter he is once admitted into the church, that it would seem as if hecan remain there only by very special grace. He is hedged about by anumber of by-laws which seem to relate chiefly to his personalattitude toward Mrs. Eddy. He may not haunt the roads upon which Mrs. Eddy drives. He may not discuss, lecture upon, or debate uponChristian Science in public without especial permission from one ofher representatives. He must not be a "leader" in the church and mustnever be called one. He may read only the Bible and Mrs. Eddy forreligious instruction. He shall not "vilify" the Pastor Emeritus. Heis in duty bound to go to Mrs. Eddy's home and serve her in person forone year if she requires it of him. He may not permit his children tobelieve in Santa Claus--Mrs. Eddy abolished Santa Claus byproclamation in 1904. She brooks no petty rivals. He may not read orquote from Mrs. Eddy's books or from her "poems" without first namingthe author. She says, in explanation of this by-law: "To pour into theears of listeners the sacred revelations of Christian Scienceindiscriminately, or without characterizing their origin and thusdistinguishing them from the writings of authors who think at randomon this subject, is to lose some weight in the scale of rightthinking. "[22]

A Christian Scientist "shall neither buy, sell nor circulate ChristianScience literature which is not correct in its statement, " etc. , Mrs. Eddy, of course, determining whether or not the statement is correct. He "shall not patronize a publishing house or bookstore that has forsale obnoxious books. "

A Christian Scientist may not belong to any club or society, FreeMasons excepted, outside the Mother Church. His connection with theMother Church must be sufficient for all his social and intellectualneeds, and his interest is not to be diverted from its one properchannel. Mrs. Eddy says that church organizations are ample forhim. [23]

It is indicative of Mrs. Eddy's influence over her followers that whenthis by-law was issued, less than twenty inquiries (so her secretaryannounced) were received at Pleasant View. Men resigned from theirpolitical, business, and social clubs, women from their literary andpatriotic organizations, without a murmur and without a question. 

No hymns may be sung in the Mother Church unless they have beenapproved by Mrs. Eddy, and Mrs. Eddy's own hymns must be sung atstated intervals. "If a solo singer in the Mother Church shall eitherneglect or refuse to sing alone a hymn written by our Leader andPastor Emeritus, as often as once each month, and oftener if theDirectors so direct, a meeting shall be called and the salary of thissinger shall be stopped. "

_Supreme Authority_

But far above all these lesser by-laws Mrs. Eddy holds one in whichher supreme authority rests. A mesmerist or "mental malpractitioner"is, of course, to be excommunicated, and "if the author of Science andHealth shall bear witness to the offense of mental malpractice, itshall be considered sufficient evidence thereof. "[24] The accused canmake no defense, has no appeal. If any Christian Scientist offendsMrs. Eddy, if he writes a letter to the _Journal_ and uses a phrasewhich does not please her, if he is too popular in his own community, if it is rumored that he reads upon philosophy or metaphysics, ormedicine, if he in any way wounds her vanity, Mrs. Eddy can expel himfrom the church by a word, without explanation, and he can make noeffort to vindicate himself. In the matter of hypnotism Mrs. Eddy'smere word is enough. She has, she says, an unerring instinct by whichshe can detect hypnotism in any creature:

"I possess a spiritual sense of what the malicious mental practitioneris mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in thehuman mind thoughts, motives, and purposes; and neither mentalarguments nor psychic power can affect this spiritual insight. "[25]

_Actual Size of Mrs. Eddy's Following_

The result of Mrs. Eddy's planning and training and pruning is thatshe has built up the largest and most powerful organization everfounded by any woman in America. Probably no other woman sohandicapped--so limited in intellect, so uncertain in conduct, sotortured by hatred and hampered by petty animosities--has ever risenfrom a state of helplessness and dependence to a position of suchpower and authority. All that Christian Science comprises to-day--theMother Church, branch churches, healers, teachers, Readers, boards, committees, societies--are as completely under Mrs. Eddy's control asif she were their temporal as well as their spiritual ruler. Thegrowth of her power has been extensive as well as intensive. 

In June, 1907, the membership of the Mother Church, according to theSecretary's report, was 43, 876. The membership of the branch churchesamounted to 42, 846. As members of the branch churches are almostinvariably members of the Mother Church as well, there cannot be morethan 60, 000 Christian Scientists in the world to-day, and the numberis probably nearer 50, 000. 

In June, 1907, there were in all 710 branch churches. Fifty-eight ofthese are in foreign countries: 25 in the Dominion of Canada, 14 inGreat Britain, 2 in Ireland, 4 in Australia, 1 in South Africa, 8 inMexico, 2 in Germany, 1 in Holland, and 1 in France. There are also295 Christian Science societies not yet incorporated into churches, 30of which are in foreign countries. [26]

In reading these figures one must bear in mind the fact thattwenty-nine years ago the only Christian Science church in the worldwas struggling to pay its rent in Boston. 

One very effective element in the growth of the church has been thefact that a considerable proportion of Christian Scientists--probablyabout one tenth--make their living by their faith, and their worldlyfortunes as well as their spiritual comfort are in their church; theymust prosper or decline, rise or fall, with Christian Science, andthey prosecute the cause of their church with all their energies andwith entire singleness of purpose. Again, any religion must experiencea great impetus and stimulus from the living presence of its founderor prophet, and when that presence is as effective as Mrs. Eddy's, itis a force to be reckoned with. Furthermore, Christian Science is anovel and sensational presentation of one of the oldest acceptedtruths in human thinking, and converts a few time-worn metaphysicalplatitudes into mysterious incantations which are quite as effectiveby reason of their incoherence and misapplication as because of therelative truths which they originally conveyed. Optimism is the cry ofthe times, and of all the voices which declare it, this is the moststrident and insistent, proclaiming the shortest of all the shortroads to happiness, declaring the secret of a contentment asimpervious of total anaesthesia. 

 [Note: The next article will deal with Mrs. Eddy's book, "Science and Health, " and will complete this history. ]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This communion was originally observed once each quarter and thentwice a year. Since 1899 it has been observed but once a year, on thesecond Sunday in June. No "material" emblems, such as bread and wine, are offered, and the communion is one of silent thought. On Monday thedirectors meet and transact the business of the year, and on Tuesdaythe officers' reports are read. As most members of the branch churchesare also members of the Mother Church, thousands of ChristianScientists from all over the United States visit Boston at this time. 

[2] At the 1898 communion there was no invitation from Mrs. Eddy, buta number of communicants went up to Concord to see her house and tosee her start out upon her daily drive. In June, 1899, Mrs. Eddy cameto Boston and briefly addressed the annual business meeting of thechurch. In 1902 and 1903 there were no formal pilgrimages, althoughhundreds of Christian Scientists went to Concord to catch a glimpse ofMrs. Eddy upon her drive. 

[3] February, 1899. 

[4] Calvin Frye. 

[5] In a notice to the churches, 1897, Mrs. Eddy says:

"The Bible and the Christian Science text-book are our only preachers. We shall now read scriptural texts and their co-relative passages fromour text-book--these comprise our sermon. The canonical writings, together with the word of our text-book, corroborating and explainingthe Bible texts in their denominational, spiritual import andapplication to all ages, past, present and future, constitute a sermonundivorced from truth, uncontaminated or fettered by human hypothesesand authorized by Christ. "

[6] For the text of these by-laws see Christian Science Manual (1904), Articles IV and XXIII. 

[7] Mrs. Eddy stated in regard to this ruling that it was to haveimmediate effect only in the Mother Church, adding: "Doubtless thechurches adopting this by-law will discriminate its adaptability totheir conditions. But if now is not the time the branch churches canwait for the favored moment to act on this subject. "

[8] Church Manual (11th ed. ), Article XXXII. 

[9] Ibid. (3d ed. ), Article VIII, Sec. 5. 

[10] Church Manual (43d ed. ), Article I, Sec. 5. 

[11] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article I, Sec. 2. 

[12] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article I, Sec. 4. Ibid. (11th ed. ), ArticleXXIII, Sec. 2. 

[13] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article I, Sec. 3. 

[14] Formerly the Executive Members were permitted to fix the salariesof the Readers, but in the last edition of the Manual this privilegeseems to have been withdrawn. 

[15] Church Manual (43d ed. ), Article VI. 

[16] Church Manual (43d ed. ), Article XXVIII. 

[17] Ibid. (11th ed. ), Article XXIII. 

[18] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article IV. 

[19] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article XXXIV, Sec. 1. 

[20] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article XXXIV, Sec. 2. 

[21] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article XXXIV, Sec. 4. 

[22] Church Manual (11th ed. ). Article XV. 

[23] Ibid. (43d ed. ), Article XXVI. 

[24] Church Manual (43d ed. ), Article XXII, Sec. 4. 

[25] "Christian Science History, " by Mary B. G. Eddy (1st ed. ), page16. 

[26] In June, 1907, there were 3, 515 authorized Christian Science"healers" in the world; 3, 268 of these are practising in the UnitedStates, 1 in Alaska, 63 in the Dominion of Canada, 5 in Mexico, 1 inCuba, 1 in South Africa, 18 in Australia, 1 in China, 105 in England, 5 in Ireland, 9 in Scotland, 7 in France, 15 in Germany, 4 in Holland, 1 in India, 1 in Italy, 1 in the Philippine Islands, 1 in Russia, 1 inSouth America, 7 in Switzerland. 

[Illustration]

IN CHARGE OF TRUSTY

BY LUCY PRATT

ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC DORR STEELE

There was a dramatic arrival at the Whittier School one Mondaymorning. 

The children were gathered in their class-rooms, looking particularlygood and hopeful just after their morning exercises, and Miss Doanewas on the platform in the Assembly Room, when she became aware of aslight confusion in the outside hall. But, since visitors ofdistinction always came in from that particular hall, Miss Doanemerely waited for whatever special form of distinction this might be. There was a thump on the door, and then, after some slight parleyingand continued confusion on the other side, it opened and two visitorsmade their entrance. One was a very large and rather ancient-lookingcolored man, the other was a very small colored boy. They both lookedsomewhat spent and breathless, and when the man had deposited the boybefore him, with a threatening wave of the stick, he took out a largebandana and wiped the sweat of honest toil from his brow. Miss Doane, somewhat uneasy, approached her visitor. 

"Yer see, Miss, " he explained, with a gesture of triumph toward thesmall heap on the floor, "he's ser bad, I'se jes 'blige whup 'im allde way ter school ter git 'im yere fer sho!"

Miss Doane made some response to the effect that it certainly was anunusual way of making sure that a child came to school, to which hejoined in:

"Ya-as, Miss, ya-as, _Miss_! Cert'nly is so! Jes 'blige drap all mywuk 'n' run 'im clean yere. Now, ain't yer 'shame, boy, fer de ladyter see yer ser bad 'n' hard-haided?"

He was not too ashamed to grumble out an unintelligible answer; but helooked quite disgusted with life in general, and twisted his headaround in all sorts of directions, and sniffed, and rubbed hiscoat-sleeve across his face, and appeared generally ill at ease. 

"What is his name?" questioned Miss Doane. 

"Trusty--Trusty 'is name, " explained the parent. "Trusty Miles. W'ydoan't yer speak up, boy, an' tell de lady yer name?"

Trusty grunted. 

"He doesn't seem very glad to be here, " suggested Miss Doane mildly. 

"No, Miss, dat's de trufe, " agreed the parent cordially, "dat's detrufe! Yer see, he ain't r'ally used ter w'ite folks' school, 'countenallays gwine ter Miss Pauline Smiff's. Yas'm. He ain't r'ally used terw'ite folks, an' he jes seem ter natchelly balk at de idea fum defus. "

"I see, " returned Miss Doane modestly, producing a reader by way oftactful diversion. 

Miss Pauline Smith's ex-pupil looked at it a bit askance, and MissDoane proceeded in a somewhat harrowing attempt to discover and laybare anything in the least suggestive of knowledge--as such. 

"I see, " she concluded finally, when there was positively nothingmore left to discover; "I see. Will you follow me, please?"

With unexpected docility, Trusty turned and, with his eyes fixed on aclosed door toward which Miss Doane led the way, followed, he knew notwhere. 

"Miss North, " began Miss Doane, when the door had opened and closedagain, "Miss North, I have a new pupil for you. "

Miss North tried to look as if this were the most unexpected bit ofgood fortune which could possibly come to her, and glanced around foran appropriate seat. The children looked pleased at the slightdiversion, and Ezekiel, sitting in a corner seat of the front row, looked both pleased and intelligent. 

"Dat's Trusty, " he began smilingly in a low voice to Miss North, "dat's Trusty Miles, Miss No'th"; and, feeling the cheerfulsuperiority of former acquaintance, he beamed delightedly on Trusty. 

"Yes; and I think you may sit right here, " explained Miss North, afterbrief consideration. 

In lack of anything else to do, Trusty accepted the offered seat. 

"And now, " continued Miss North, when the children had once moresettled themselves and Miss Doane had gone back to her waitingvisitor, "we will go on with the lesson. Yes, we had just decided thatwe all had _bodies_. "

Ezekiel glanced at the new pupil, who seemed to be somewhat taken bysurprise at this unexpected development, and was looking curiouslyaround the room with evident hope of disputing the statement. 

"Yes, that is true, is it not, that we all have _bodies?_"

They _all_ looked around rather doubtfully, as if they did not feelquite so sure on this point; but, as no disembodied spirit spoke up indenial of the assertion, it was gradually accepted. 

"Yes; and these bodies have a great many different _parts_, haven'tthey?"

"Yas'm, " came, rather faintly. 

"Why, yes, indeed, " went on Miss North, quite gaily, "a great manydifferent _parts_. Now, what are some of these parts, children? Whocan think?"

There was a moment of tremendous concentration, and then a dozen handswent up. 

"Well, Alphonso Jones--and make a nice sentence, Alphonso. "

"Yer haid is part uv yer body, " stated Alphonso, as though he were notin the habit of being contradicted. 

"Yes, very true. Your head is part of your body. And now, as differentparts of the head, we have--" putting her fingers suggestively to herears----

"Ears!" shouted a tremendous chorus. 

[Illustration: "'I'SE JUS 'BLIGE WHUP 'IM ALL DE WAY TER SCHOOL'"]

"Yes; and--" closing her eyes, and just touching the lids lightly, asthe most delicate hint possible----

"Eyes!" shouted a yet more tremendous chorus. 

"Yes; and now, since the eyes are such a very important part of thehead, let us think how we can take very good _care_ of the eyes. "

This sounded rather complicated, and there was another moment of awfulconcentration. Even Trusty appeared to be thinking warmly on thesubject. 

"Well, Ezekiel, what do you say?"

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no pin, " suggested Ezekiel pleasantly. 

"Why, Ezekiel, certainly not! Of course we shouldn't want to pickholes in them with a pin; but--well, what do you say, Tommy?"

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no needle!" explained Tommy, his faceall aglow with enthusiasm. 

"Why, no, indeed! Of course not--why, of course _not_. But that isn'tjust what I mean, because of course you would never think of doingthat anyway, would you, Tommy?"

Hands were waving madly in all directions now; but when young CharlesSumner Scott raised his with its usual effect of poise and precision, Miss North considered the situation saved. Charles usually saved thesituation. 

"How must we treat the eyes if we want to keep them nice and strong, Charles?"

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no _hat_-pin!" announced Charles. 

"Hands down!" ordered Miss North. 

Hands down, indeed!

"Hezzy Cones, did you hear what I said?"

"Yath'm! Not pick no holthe in 'em wid no _hair_-pin!" shouted Hezzy, not to be walked over so easily, and jubilant at this slightvariation. 

The new pupil had waked up, too. 

"Not pick no holes in 'em wid no _knittin'-needle_!" he sang loudly, in a perfect burst of inspiration. 

This was a stroke of genius, and they all looked around on thenew-comer admiringly, and looked a little doubtful, for a moment, asto whether anything more could be said on the subject. 

Ezekiel fairly radiated at his friend's success. 

[Illustration: "I KIN GET 'EM YERE, EF YER WANTS. "]

"Now, wait, children!" said Miss North, with emphasis amounting almostto severity. "Our answers are getting wild--very wild. And I do notwish to hear anything more about _pins_ or _needles_ or _hat-pins_ or_knitting-needles_. I should like to see you all _very straight_ inyour seats. "

There was a tremendous effort at straightening up, whereupon MissNorth proceeded to make a few valuable suggestions in regard to thetreatment of the eyes. 

"Now, " said Miss North, as if she were propounding a theory of rareand striking originality, "_who_ can tell me another part of thebody?"

The pause was long; they were evidently feeling somewhat sore overtheir last setback. 

"Well?" encouraged Miss North. 

"Yer laigs, " mumbled a stuffy voice from the back of the room. 

"Yes, your legs, Samuel; that is quite right. And perhaps you can tellme what your legs are for, Samuel. But wait; we will _think_ beforeanswering. "

"Ter se' down with, " answered Samuel comfortably. 

"No, Samuel; you evidently did _not_ think; they are for nothing ofthe kind, " returned Miss North shortly. 

Trusty's hand was waving with unmistakable interest. Miss North waspainfully aware that he must be encouraged. 

"Well, Trusty, " she ventured, "what are your legs for?"

"_Ter hole yer feet on!_" shouted Trusty, in a perfect spasm of joyousinterest. 

Miss North essayed to collect her thoughts. 

"Well, hardly, hardly for--_that alone_, are they, Trusty? Tell mewhat else they are for. "

But Trusty failed to find any other use to which he could put thelegs, and Miss North again took the floor; whereupon Trusty's interestimmediately subsided. 

Later on, she attempted, somewhat cautiously, to draw him out oncemore; but the day went on, and not once again did Trusty deign to cometo the front. 

 * * * * *

The next morning Miss Doane was at school early. She had been workingfor some moments at her desk in the Assembly Room, when she becameaware that again an unusual sort of demonstration was taking place inthe outside hall. To the hall Miss Doane went; and there, once more, she was met by the large colored man and the small colored boy. 

"Jes 'blige ter 'ply de same kine o' coaxin', Miss! Whup 'im all deway yere! Ain't I, Trusty?"

Poor Trusty appeared almost too spent even to reply; and Miss Doanelooked at him and suggested that he go to his seat and rest. 

"M-m-m--ain' gwine no seat 'n' res'!" he growled. 

His father intervened: "Yer see, Miss? Yer see? He's de hard-haidedes'chile I'se got, an' dat's de trufe. Come 'long, now, boy; jes come'long, now!" And, without ceremony, Trusty was lifted with a firm handand transported through the Assembly Room to his seat, where he wasdeposited with a thump. 

Miss North looked up in mild surprise. 

"Why, Trusty! Good morning!"

Trusty's response was a thing of conjecture. 

"And so you are back at school again; and aren't you glad, after all, to come back to this nice school?"

"M-m-m--school nuthin'!" was the unexpectedly prompt response. 

"Yer'll fine 'im mighty wearisome, I 'spec', Miss, " put in the parent. "But whup 'im! Dat's all I kin say. Whup 'im _all_ de time; an' me 'n''Mandy'll wuk on 'im nights 'n' mawnin's. "

Miss North looked at the diminutive object but half filling his seat, and caught her breath. 

Another day of alternate gloom and occasional spasmodic interest onTrusty's part, another day of doubts and fears in his behalf on thepart of Miss North. 

That night, just as he was about to scuffle disconsolately behind theothers from the room, picturing, no doubt, some of the joys which wereawaiting him at home, she called him back. Ezekiel stood by her desk, wondering why she had called him, too. 

"Trusty, " she began, "wouldn't you like to come to school to-morrowmorning with Ezekiel?"

Trusty looked up doubtfully, and Ezekiel looked up, not justcomprehending. 

"You live near each other, don't you?"

"No'm, " Ezekiel's tone wavered anxiously. "No'm, we don't live nareeach udder, Miss No'th; Trusty he live clare way _down_ de road. "

He stopped, meditating; then his face seemed to clear somewhat of itsburden of thought. "But I reckon--I kin _git_ 'im yere, ef yer wants, Miss No'th; yas'm, I--I kin git 'im yere, ef yer wants, 'cuz I kin goaf' 'im an' git 'im. Yas'm, I kin ca'y 'im ter school, Miss No'th!"

Trusty looked a bit doubtful as to whether he should entirely fall inwith the plan, and Miss North made haste to readjust herself. 

"No'm, 'tain' no trouble, Miss No'th; no'm. I kin ca'y 'im ter schoolter-morrer, cyan't I, Trusty?"

Trusty still appeared to be doubting heavily; but Ezekiel's assurancescontinued to ring warmly, as they moved on toward the door anddisappeared into the hall. 

 * * * * *

It was still early the next morning when Miss North worked alone inthe school-room. Slowly the door opened. Slowly two small figurespushed their way awkwardly into the room. Miss North looked up. 

"Why, Ezekiel! And Trusty!"

They came in softly, hand in hand, and stood before her desk, Trustypassive, Ezekiel glowing shyly with pride and pleasure. 

"Hyeah's Trusty, Miss No'th, " he explained briefly. 

"I see. Why, how--how very nice! And so nice and early! Why, Trusty, aren't you glad you could get here so early?"

Trusty seemed hardly ready to commit himself just yet, but began tolook shyly pleased, too. Ezekiel, still holding him by the hand, looked down protectingly. 

[Illustration: "TWO SMALL FIGURES PUSHED THEIR WAY INTO THE ROOM"]

"Yas'm, he--he likes ter git yere early; doan't yer, Trusty?"

"Yes, I'm sure he does, " put in Miss North tactfully. "And now, perhaps he would like to help by getting some of the dust out of theseerasers; they aren't very clean this morning. "

His eyes brightened. "Yas'm!"

The two came back looking as if they had been temporarily detained ina flour-barrel. 

"Why, yes, those are very clean; but you seem to be just a littledusty yourselves, aren't you?"

"Yas'm, " agreed Trusty, while Ezekiel brushed him with doubtfulsuccess. "Kin ole Sam'el Smiff dus' 'em?"

"Samuel Smith? I don't think Samuel ever did dust them----"

"'Cuz me 'n' 'Zekiel kin dus' 'em good's dat 'mos' _any_ time; cyan'twe, 'Zekiel?"

By the time that school was ready to begin that morning, there stood astately line of "visitors from the North" across Miss North's room, ready for enlightenment on the Negro Problem. And as Miss North began:"We are having a new month to-day, children; who can tell me what thename of the month is?" the line drew itself up, preparatory to gettingright down to the heart of the matter. 

"What month, class?"

"February!"

"Yes; very good. Is February a short month or a long month?"

There was an unfortunate difference of opinion:

"Short!" "Long!" "Short!" "Long!" "_Short!_" "_Long!_"

"Very well, " joined in Miss North, ready to agree to anything. "Whatdo you say about it, Archelus?"

"Li'l' teeny bit uv a short month, " explained Archelus. "Ain' nolonger'n----"

As Archelus was about to illustrate the length of February with histwo small hands, Miss North waived any further information on thesubject, and went on:

"Yes, a short month. And who can tell me what holiday we have in thismonth?"

There were two or three who promptly arrived at conclusions. Thevisitors were smiling wide smiles of appreciation. 

"Lemuel?"

"Chris'mas!"

"Oh, no; we have just had Christmas. Samuel?"

"Thanksgivin'!"

"Why, no, indeed, Samuel; you are not thinking. William?"

"Washin'ton's Birthday!"

One of the visitors, a rosy-cheeked gentleman with white hair, gavesuch a loud grunt of appreciation at this that Miss North glanced hisway. 

"Can he tell us anything _about_ George Washington?" he questionedsmilingly, in response to Miss North's glance. 

"Oh, I think so. Who can tell me some one thing about GeorgeWashington, children? Hands, please. "

"That little boy, " smiled the rosy-cheeked gentleman; "he seems to begetting so very much interested!"

Heavens! it was Trusty who was getting interested. Miss North glancedat his face, which radiated with delighted intelligence as he fixedhis eyes on the closed coat-closet, and felt a chilling and definiteforeboding. 

"H-m--yes, " she went on evasively, "yes. Ezekiel, can you tellus--something about--" What was the matter? Had _Ezekiel_ forgottenhow to talk? To be sure! His eyes, kindling with interest and pride, were fixed on his friend. 

"No, no! This one, " explained the rosy-cheeked gentleman, his eyesstill resting smilingly on Trusty. "Well, what do you know aboutGeorge Washington, little fellow?"

"_Miss No'th got 'im shet up in de coat-closet!_"

The rosy-cheeked gentleman stepped back a bit, and there was suddenlya rather startled expression on the part of the visitors from theNorth. Somewhat furtively they glanced at the coat-closet, apparentlyexpecting to see the immortal George emerge in person at any moment. Miss North coughed slightly, and looked as if she had known happiertimes. 

"You may be seated, Trusty. "

"She shet 'im in dere fer imperdence!" explained Trusty. 

But just then the door creaked softly, and from the unknown depths ofthe coat-closet a little figure peered anxiously. 

"Mith No'th! Kin I come out now?"

Miss North looked at the small figure, and then at the visitors fromthe North, whereupon they all looked at her; and then suddenly therosy-cheeked gentleman burst out into such unchecked, joyous laughterthat the others all joined in, and the visitors from the North movedon. 

At the same time, there was a thump on the door which opened from theback hall, and a large and ancient colored man advanced into the room. 

[Illustration]

[Illustration: "THAT LITTLE BOY, SMILED THE ROSY-CHEEKED GENTLEMAN"]

"Mawnin', Miss, mawnin'!" he began in loud, cheerful tones. "'Scusin'de privilege o' de interruption, I'se 'blige ax yer kin I borry Trustyfer a li'l' w'ile, 'spesh'ly fer de 'casion?"

Just what the occasion was he did not explain; but Trusty, possiblyreceiving suggestive glimmers of inward light on the subject, andbeing at this particular moment otherwise interested, began to showevidence of unexpected combativeness. 

"M-m-m--I ain' gwine be 'scuse fer no 'casion, " he mumbledcantankerously. 

"Come, now, boy, ya-as, yer is, too!" disagreed the parent, advancingtoward the subject of complication. "Yer see, Miss! Ain't I tole yerhe's de hard-haidedes' chile? Fus I'se 'blige whup 'im school, 'n'nex' I cyan' git 'im 'way ter bless me! Ain't I jes tole yer!" Andagain, with a firm hand, Trusty was lifted and transported across theroom to the open door. Miss North hastily suggested the finalformalities requisite for an excuse, but her voice was quite lostamong the reverberations of a more powerful organ:

"Ain't I jes tole yer so! Ya-as, yer is, too! Ain't I jes tole yer!Come 'long, now; jes come 'long, now!"

They disappeared through the doorway, and then only the finalreverberations came back to them as Trusty was triumphantly exhortedon his way. 

 * * * * *

But the worst of vicissitudes, and the best of them, only wait to giveplace to new ones, and the old days change to new ones and the weeksand the months go on; and, as the oft-repeated act becomes a habit, soit had finally become an unvarying habit for Ezekiel to arrive atschool with Trusty's hand held loosely in his own, while Trustyhimself plodded unresistingly at his side. 

But occasionally there comes a time, too, when the habitual thingfails to happen. 

It was one morning toward the end of May. Miss North had glanced atthe clock, which hovered close to nine, and then she had glancedaround the room at several waiting children, and into the yard, whichwas filling rapidly, and wondered, half passively, why Ezekiel andTrusty had not come. In a quickly changing, drifting undercurrent ofthought, she remembered their first arrival together--just how theyhad looked as they stood, hand in hand, before her desk. Again, sheremembered Trusty as he had looked that first day, just after hisarrival, first sullenly rebelling, and then vibrating, as it were, between a state of absolute indifference and one of suddenly arousedinterest. Strange, how it had grown to be a regular thing for Trustyto be "interested"! She glanced around the room and out to the yardagain, and wondered why they didn't come; and when one of the childrencame in from outside with an excited story of "ole Trusty racin' downde road, an' 'is father after 'im, " she listened. 

"Ole man Miles say Trusty he cyan' come school dis yere day, an'Trusty say he is, an' 'Zekiel say he is, too, an' ole man say heain't, an' Trusty 'n' 'Zekiel say he is, an' start off down de roadjes a-runnin'! An' ole man af' 'em clean all de way yere!"

A moment after this enthusiastic announcement, the school-room doorburst open, and Ezekiel came lurching into the room, half carrying, half dragging Trusty, who was spattered with mud and dirt from head tofoot. 

"_Miss No'th! He say he cyan' come!_" cried Ezekiel. "_He--he say--hecyan' come--no mo'!_" He stumbled against her desk, and Trusty droppedlimply down before him, feebly snatching at Miss North's skirts. 

"He--he--say--I cyan'--come--no mo'!" he whispered in a faint, pantingecho. 

Ezekiel dropped heavily against the desk, his breath catchingconvulsively in his throat. "He--he lock 'im up so he cyan' cometer--ter school!" he choked. "But--T-Trusty he say he--he is, an' hekeep on tellin' 'im he--is--an' he is! An'--an' he jes say--he cyan'come--no--mo'!" His head bumped down between his arms, and he waited, his breath still catching in his throat. "An' I--I tells 'im he--he's'_blige_ ter come! But--'tain'--no--use; he--he--jes lock de do'!An'--an' we jumps outen de winder, an'--an' he cotch T-Trusty 'n' lock'im up 'gin--an'--an' he jumps outen 'gin--'cuz he keeps on tellin''im he--he's--'b-blige ter come ter--ter school! He--he tells 'imhe's--jes--'_b-blige ter come!_"

With hushed faces, the children gazed first at Ezekiel and then atMiss North. With an involuntary movement of the arms, she made amovement toward him. But a small heap of a boy stirred at her feet, and she looked down. A possibility, suddenly realized, seemed to seizehim, and he looked up, clinging to her in helpless terror. 

"Doan't yer let 'im tek me back!" he whispered hoarsely, "so I cyan'git 'way! Doan't yer, Miss No'th! Please doan't yer! 'Cuz--ain't I'blige--ain't I 'blige--s-seem like--some'ow"--Miss North bent down tohear it--"s-seem like--some'ow--t-ter-day--I'se jes--'_blige ter beyere!_"

She heard the faint, choked whisper, and she saw the trembling littlefigure. She saw the other little figure, and then again the faint, choked whisper came sounding up to her ears. But dimly, dimly--justfor the moment--she seemed to hear something else--to see anotherlittle boy, whipped to school by a coarse, brutish man, yet all thewhile helplessly struggling against it. That other little boy--againthe small hands caught at her skirts. 

"Doan't yer let 'im! Will yer, Miss No'th?"

She lifted him from the floor. 

"No--I won't let him, " and she put him gently into his seat. 

Still, with hushed faces, the children gazed wonderingly.... She heldout her arms. 

"Come, Ezekiel!" Was Miss North going to cry?

"Sit down--right here, Ezekiel; you are very--tired!"

He still hung over the desk, and she went up to him between the seats. 

"Eze-kiel! Come! Come--my dear little boy!"

But there was the sound of an opening door, and she turned. 

In the doorway stood a large and ancient-looking colored man, and fora moment he only stood there, breathing laboriously and murmuring instrange, half-audible tones. Then, with sudden unexpected perception, he took in the scene before him. Half mortified, half conciliatory, heturned to Miss North. 

"Jes all completely wrop in dey edjercation!" he explainedingratiatingly, with resigned indulgence. His eyes rested on Trusty. 

"Cert'nly did use ter be de boss o' dat boy! Cert'nly did!" He lookedat Ezekiel and chuckled indulgently. "But look like times is change!Cert'nly is change! Ya-as, suh, I jes natchelly pass de case over teryou!"

He turned around and went out again--and Ezekiel looked up at MissNorth through his tears. 

[Illustration]

FIRST DAYS OF THE RECONSTRUCTION

BY

CARL SCHURZ

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

My travels in the interior of the South in the summer and fall of 1865took me over the track of Sherman's march, which, in South Carolina atleast, looked for many miles like a broad black streak of ruin anddesolation--fences gone, lonesome smoke-stacks, surrounded by darkheaps of ashes and cinders, marking the spots where human habitationshad stood, the fields along the road wildly overgrown by weeds, withhere and there a sickly-looking patch of cotton or corn cultivated bynegro squatters. In the city of Columbia, the political capital of theState, I found a thin fringe of houses encircling a confused mass ofcharred ruins of dwellings and business buildings which had beendestroyed by a sweeping conflagration. 

No part of the South I then visited had, indeed, suffered as much fromthe ravages of the war as South Carolina--the State which was lookedupon by the Northern soldier as the principal instigator of the wholemischief and therefore deserving of special punishment. But even thoseregions which had been touched but little or not at all by militaryoperations were laboring under dire distress. The Confederate money inthe hands of the Southern people, paper money signed by theConfederate government without any security behind it, had by thecollapse of the Confederacy become entirely worthless. Only a fewindividuals of more or less wealth had been fortunate enough to save, and to keep throughout the war, small hoards of gold and silver, whichin the aggregate amounted to little. Immediately after the close ofthe war the people may be said to have been substantially without a"circulating medium" to serve in the transaction of ordinary business. United States money came in to fill the vacuum, but it could not behad for nothing; it could be obtained only by selling something forit, in the shape of goods or of labor. The Southern people, havingduring four years of war devoted their productive activity, aside fromthe satisfaction of their current home wants, almost entirely to thesustenance of their army and of the machinery of their government, andhaving suffered great losses by the destruction of property, had, ofcourse, very little to sell. In fact, they were dreadfullyimpoverished and needed all their laboring capacity to provide for thewants of the next day; and as agriculture was their main resource, upon which everything else depended, the next day was to them ofsupreme importance. 

_The First Crop Without Slaves_

But now the men come home from the war found their whole agriculturallabor system turned upside down. Slave labor had been their absolutereliance. They had been accustomed to it, they had believed in it, they had religiously regarded it as a necessity in the order of theuniverse. During the war a large majority of the negroes had stayedupon the plantations and attended to the crops in the wonted way inthose regions which were not touched by the Union armies. They hadheard of "Mas'r Lincoln's" Emancipation Proclamation in a more or lessvague way, but did not know exactly what it meant, and preferred toremain quietly at work and wait for further developments. But when thewar was over, general emancipation became a well-understood reality. The negro knew that he was a free man, and the Southern white manfound himself face to face with the problem of dealing with the negroas a free laborer. To most of the Southern whites this problem wasutterly bewildering. Many of them, honest and well-meaning people, admitted to me, with a sort of helpless stupefaction, that theirimagination was wholly incapable of grasping the fact that theirformer slaves were now free. And yet they had to deal with thisperplexing fact, and practically to accommodate themselves to it, atonce and without delay, if they were to have any crops that year. 

Many of them would frankly recognize this necessity and begin in goodfaith to consider how they might meet it. But then they stumbledforthwith over a set of old prejudices which in their minds hadacquired the stubborn force of convictions. They were sure the negrowould not work without physical compulsion; they were sure the negrodid not, and never would, understand the nature of a contract; and soon. Yes, they "accepted the situation. " Yes, they recognized that thenegro was henceforth to be a free man. But could not some method offorce be discovered and introduced to compel the negro to work? Itgoes without saying that persons of such a way of thinking laboredunder a heavy handicap in going at a difficult task with a settledconviction that it was really "useless to try. " But even if they didtry, and found that the negro might, after all, be induced to workwithout physical compulsion, they were apt to be seriously troubled bythings which would not at all trouble an employer accustomed to freelabor. I once had an argument with a Georgia planter who vociferouslyinsisted that one of his negro laborers who had objected to a whippinghad thereby furnished the most conclusive proof of his unfitness forfreedom. And such statements were constantly reinforced by furtherassertion that they, the Southern whites, understood the negro andknew how to treat him, and that we of the North did not and neverwould. 

This might have been true in one sense, but not true in another. TheSoutherner knew better than the Northerner how to treat the negro as aslave, but it did not follow that he knew best how to treat the negroas a freeman; and just there was the rub. It was perhaps too much toexpect of the Southern slaveholders, or of Southern society generally, that a clear judgment of the new order of things should have come tothem at once. The total overturning of the whole labor system of acountry, accomplished suddenly, without preparation or generaltransition, is a tremendous revolution, a terrible wrench, well apt toconfuse men's minds. It should not have surprised any fair-mindedperson that many Southern people for a time clung to the accustomedidea that the landowner must also own the black man tilling his land, and that any assertion of freedom of action on the part of that blackman was insubordination equivalent to criminal revolt, and any dissentby the black man from the employer's opinion or taste intolerableinsolence. Nor should it be forgotten that the urgent necessity ofnegro labor for that summer's crop could hardly fail to sharpen thenervous tension then disquieting Southern society. 

_Restless Foot-loose Negroes_

It is equally natural that the negro population of the South should atthat time have been unusually restless. I have already mentioned thefact that during the Civil War the bulk of the slave populationremained quietly at work on the plantations, except in districtstouched by the operations of the armies. Had negro slaves not done so, the Rebellion would not have survived its first year. They presentedthe remarkable spectacle of an enslaved race doing slaves' work tosustain a government and an army fighting for the perpetuation of itsenslavement. Some colored people did, indeed, escape from theplantations and run into the Union lines where our troops were withinreach, and some of their young men enlisted in the Union army assoldiers. But there was nowhere any commotion among them that had inthe slightest degree the character of an uprising in force of slavesagainst their masters. Nor was there, when, after the downfall of theConfederacy, general emancipation had become an established fact, asingle instance of an act of vengeance committed by a negro upon awhite man for inhumanity suffered by him or his while in the conditionof bondage. No race or class of men ever passed from slavery tofreedom with a record equally pure of revenge. But many of them, especially in the neighborhood of towns or of Federal encampments, very naturally yielded to the temptation of testing and enjoying theirfreedom by walking away from the plantations to have a frolic. Manyothers left their work because their employers ill-treated them or inother ways incurred their distrust. Thus it happened that in variousparts of the South the highroads and byways were alive with foot-loosecolored people. 

I did not find, so far as I was informed by personal observation orreport, that their conduct could, on the whole, be called lawless. There was some stealing of pigs and chickens and other pettypilfering, but rather less than might have been expected. More seriousdepredations rarely, if ever, occurred. The vagrants were throughoutvery good-natured. They had their carousals with singing and dancing, and their camp-meetings with their peculiar religious programs. But, while these things might in themselves have been harmless enough underdifferent circumstances, they produced deplorable effects in thesituation then existing. Those negroes stayed away from theplantations just when their labor was most needed to secure the cropsof the season, and those crops were more than ordinarily needed tosave the population from continued want and misery. Violent effortswere made by white men to drive the straggling negroes back to theplantations by force, and reports of bloody outrages inflicted uponcolored people came from all quarters. I had occasion to examinepersonally into several of those cases, and I saw in odious hospitalsnegroes, women as well as men, whose ears had been cut off, or whosebodies were slashed with knives, or bruised with whips or bludgeons, or punctured with shot-wounds. Dead negroes were found in considerablenumbers in the country roads or on the fields, shot to death, orstrung on the limbs of trees. In many districts the colored peoplewere in a panic of fright, and the whites in a state of almost insaneirritation against them. These conditions in their worst form wereonly local, but they were liable to spread, for there was plenty ofinflammable spirit of the same kind all over the South. It lookedsometimes as if wholesale massacres were prevented only by thepresence of the Federal garrisons which were dispersed all over thecountry. 

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL O. O. HOWARD

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN DECEMBER, 1862, JUST AFTER HIS PROMOTION TOMAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS]

_The Freedmen's Bureau_

Indeed, nothing could have been more necessary at that time than theactive interposition of the Federal power between the whites and theblacks of the South, not only to prevent or repress violentcollisions, but to start the former masters and the former slaves onthe path of peaceful and profitable coöperation as employers and freelaborers. This was a difficult task. Northern men who had come to theSouth to purchase or lease plantations enjoyed the great advantage ofhaving money, so that they could pay the wages of their negro laborersin cash, which the negroes preferred. The Southern men, having beenstripped almost naked by the war, had, aside from current sustenance, only prospective payment to offer, consisting mostly of a part of thecrop. While many planters were just and even liberal in the making ofcash contracts, others would take advantage of the ignorance of thenegroes and try to tie them down to stipulations which left to thelaborer almost nothing, or even obliged him to run in debt to hisemployer, and thus drop into the condition of a mere peon, adebt-slave. It is a very curious fact that some of the forms ofcontract drawn up by former slaveholders contained provisions lookingto the probability of a future restoration of slavery. There was, notunnaturally, much distrust of the planters among the negroes, who, inconcluding contracts, feared to compromise their rights as freemen orto be otherwise overreached. To allay that distrust and, in manycases, to secure their just dues, they stood much in need of anadviser in whom they had confidence and to whom they could look forprotection, while, on the other hand, the employers of negro laborstood in equal need of some helpful authority to give the coloredpeople sound instruction as to their duties as freemen and to leadthem back to the path of industry and good order when, with theirloose notions of the binding force of agreements, they broke theircontracts, or indulged themselves otherwise in unruly pranks. 

To this end the "Freedmen's Bureau" was instituted, an organization ofcivil officials who were, with the necessary staffs, dispersed allover the South to see that the freedmen had their rights and to act asintermediaries between them and the whites. The conception was a goodone, and the institution, at the head of which General O. O. Howardwas put, did useful service in many instances. 

Thus the strain of the situation was somewhat relieved by theinterposition of the Federal authority between clashing elements, butby no means as much as was required to produce a feeling of security. The labor puzzle, aggravated by race antagonism, was indeed the maindistressing influence, but not the only one. To the youngerSoutherners who had grown up in the heated atmosphere of the politicalfeud about slavery, to whom the threat of disunion as a means to saveslavery had been like a household word, and who had always regardedthe bond of Union as a shackle to be cast off, the thought of being"reunited" to "the enemy, " the hated Yankee, was distasteful in theextreme. Such sentiments of the "unconquered" found excited andexciting expression in the Southern press, and were largelyentertained by many Southern clergymen of different denominations andstill more ardently by Southern women. General Thomas Kilby Smith, commanding the southern districts of Alabama, reported to me that whenhe suggested to Bishop Wilmer, of the Episcopal diocese of Alabama, the propriety of restoring to the Litany that prayer which includesthe President of the United States, the whole of which he had orderedhis rectors to expurge, the bishop refused, first, upon the groundthat he could not pray for a continuance of martial law, and, secondly, because he would, by ordering the restoration of the prayer, stultify himself in the event of Alabama and the Southern Confederacyregaining independence. 

_Pickles and Patriotism_

The influence exercised by the feelings of the women of the South uponthe condition of mind and the conduct of the men was, of course, verygreat. Of those feelings I witnessed a significant manifestation in ahotel at Savannah. At the public dinner-table I sat opposite a lady inblack, probably mourning. She was middle-aged, but still handsome, andof an agreeable expression of countenance. She seemed to be a lady ofthe higher order of society. A young lieutenant in Federal uniformtook a seat by my side, a youth of fine features and gentlemanlyappearance. The lady, as I happened to notice, darted a glance at himwhich, as it impressed me, indicated that the presence of the personin Federal uniform was highly obnoxious to her. She seemed to growrestless, as if struggling with an excitement hard to restrain. Tojudge from the tone of her orders to the waiter, she was evidentlyimpatient to finish her dinner. When she reached for a dish of picklesstanding on the table at a little distance from her, the lieutenantgot up and, with a polite bow, took it and offered it to her. Shewithdrew her hand as if it had touched something loathsome, her eyesflashed fire, and in a tone of wrathful scorn and indignation shesaid: "So you think a Southern woman will take a dish of pickles froma hand that is dripping with the blood of her countrymen?" Then sheabruptly left the table, while the poor lieutenant, deeply blushing, apparently stunned by the unexpected rebuff, stammered some words ofapology, assuring the lady that he had meant no offense. 

The mixing of a dish of pickles with so hot an outburst of Southernpatriotism could hardly fail to evoke a smile; but the whole scenestruck me as gravely pathetic, and as auguring ill for the speedyrevival of a common national spirit. 

[Illustration: A PHOTOGRAPH OF GENERAL HOWARD, TAKEN AT GOVERNOR'SISLAND IN 1893 AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR GENERAL HOWARD WAS APPOINTEDCHIEF OF THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU]

_The South's Hopeless Poverty_

Southern women had suffered much by the Civil War, on the whole farmore than their Northern sisters. There was but little exaggeration inthe phrase which was current at the time, that the Confederacy, inorder to fill its armies, had to "draw upon the cradle and the grave. "Almost every white male capable of bearing arms enlisted or waspressed into service. The loss of men, not in proportion to the numberon the rolls, but in proportion to the whole white population, was farheavier in the South than in the North. There were not many familiesunbereft, not many women who had not the loss of a father, or ahusband, or a brother, or a friend to deplore. In the regions inwhich military operations had taken place the destruction of propertyhad been great, and while most of that destruction seemed necessary inthe opinion of military men, in the eyes of the sufferers it appearedwanton, cruel, malignant, devilish. The interruption of the industriesof the country, the exclusion by the blockade of the posts of allimportations from abroad, and the necessity of providing for thesustenance of the armies in the field, subjected all classes tovarious distressing privations and self-denials. There were breadriots in Richmond. Salt became so scarce that the earthen floors ofthe smoke-houses were scraped to secure the remnants of thebrine-drippings of former periods. Flour was at all times painfullyscarce. Coffee and tea were almost unattainable. Of the various littlecomforts and luxuries which by long common use had almost becomenecessaries, many were no longer to be had. Mothers had to ransack oldrag-bags to find material with which to clothe their children. Ladiesaccustomed to a life of abundance and fashion had not only to worktheir old gowns over and to wear their bonnets of long ago, but alsoto flit with their children from one plantation to another in order tofind something palatable to eat in the houses of more fortunatefriends who had in time provided for themselves. And when at last thewar was over, the blockade was raised, and the necessaries andcomforts so long and so painfully missed came within sight again, theSouth was made only more sensible of her poverty. It was indeed anappalling situation, looking in many respects almost hopeless. And forall this the Southern woman, her heart full of the mournful memoriesof the sere past and heavy with the anxieties of the present, held the"cruel Yankee" responsible. 

From time to time, traveling from State to State, I reported toPresident Johnson my observations and the conclusions I drew fromthem. Not only was I most careful to tell him the exact truth as I sawit; I also elicited from our military officers and from agents of theFreedmen's Bureau stationed in the South, as well as from prominentSouthern men, statements of their views and experiences, which formeda mighty body of authoritative testimony, coming as it did from men ofhigh character and important public position, some of whom wereRepublicans, some Democrats, some old anti-slavery men, some oldpro-slavery men. All these papers, too, I submitted to the President. The historian of that time will hardly find more trustworthy material. They all substantially agreed upon certain points of fact. They allfound that the South was at peace in so far as there was no open armedconflict between the government troops and organized bodies ofinsurgents. The South was not at peace inasmuch as the differentsocial forces did not peaceably coöperate, and violent collisions on agreat scale were prevented or repressed only by the presence of theFederal authority supported by the government troops on the ground forimmediate action. The "results of the war, " recognized in the South inso far as the restoration of the Union and the Federal Government, were submitted to by virtue of necessity, and the emancipation of theslaves and the introduction of free labor were accepted in name; butthe Union was still hateful to a large majority of the whitepopulation of the South, the Southern Unionists were still socialoutcasts, the officers of the Union were still regarded as foreigntyrants ruling by force. And as to the abolition of slavery, emancipation, although "accepted" in name, was still denounced by alarge majority of the former master class as an "unconstitutional"stretch of power, to be reversed if possible; and that class, theruling class among the whites, was still desiring, hoping, andstriving to reduce the free negro laborer as much as possible to thecondition of a slave. And this tendency was seriously aggravated bythe fact that the South, exhausted and impoverished, stood in the mostpressing need of productive agricultural labor, while the landownersgenerally did not yet know how to manage the former slave as a freelaborer, and the emancipated negro was still unused to the rights andduties of a freeman. In short, Southern society was still in that mostconfused, perplexing, and perilous of conditions--the condition of adefeated insurrection leaving irritated feelings behind it, and of agreat social revolution only half accomplished, leaving antagonisticforces face to face. The necessity of the presence of a restrainingand guiding higher authority could hardly have been more obvious. 

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. SLOCUM

FROM A WAR-TIME PHOTOGRAPH]

_Johnson's Haste for Reconstruction_

During the first six weeks of my travels in the South I did notreceive a single word from the President or any member of theadministration; but through the newspapers and the talk going onaround me I learned that the President had taken active measures toput the "States lately in rebellion" into a self-governingcondition--that is to say, he had appointed "provisional governors";he had directed those provisional governors to call conventions, to beelected, according to the plan laid down in the North Carolinaproclamation, by the "loyal" white citizens, an overwhelming majorityof whom were persons who had adhered to the Rebellion and had thentaken the prescribed oath of allegiance. On the same basis, theprovisional governors were to set in motion again the whole machineryof civil government as rapidly as possible. When, early in July, I hadtaken leave of the President to set out on my tour of investigation, he, as I have already mentioned, had assured me that the NorthCarolina proclamation was not to be regarded as a plan definitelyresolved upon; that it was merely tentative and experimental; thatbefore proceeding further he would "wait and see"; and that to aid himby furnishing him information and advice while he was "waiting andseeing" was the object of my mission. Had not this been theunderstanding, I should not have undertaken the wearisome andungrateful journey. But now he did not wait and see; on the contrary, he rushed forward the political reconstruction of the Southern Statesin hot haste--apparently without regard to consequences. 

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. SLOCUM

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN SHORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH IN 1894]

Every good citizen most cordially desired the earliest practicablereëstablishment of the constitutional relations of the late "rebelStates" to the national government; but, before restoring those Statesto all the functions of self-government within the Union, the nationalgovernment was in conscience bound to keep in mind certain debts ofhonor. One was due to the Union men of the South who had stood true tothe republic in the days of trial and danger; and the other was due tothe colored people who had furnished 200, 000 soldiers to our army atthe time when enlistments were running slack, and to whom we had giventhe solemn promise of freedom at a time when that promise gave adistinct moral character to our war for the Union, fatallydiscouraging the inclination of foreign governments to interfere inour civil conflict. Not only imperative reasons of statesmanship, butthe very honor of the republic seemed to forbid that the fate of theemancipated slaves be turned over to State governments ruled by theformer master class without the simplest possible guaranty of thegenuineness of their freedom. But, as every fair-minded observer wouldadmit, nothing could have been more certain than that the politicalrestoration of the "late rebel States" as self-governing bodies on theNorth Carolina plan would, at that time, have put the wholelegislative and executive power of those States into the hands of menignorant of the ways of free labor society, who sincerely believedthat the negro would not work without physical compulsion and wasgenerally unfit for freedom, and who were then pressed by the direnecessities of their impoverished condition to force out of thenegroes all the agricultural labor they could with the least possibleregard for their new rights. The consequences of all this werewitnessed in the actual experiences of every day. 

[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL E. R. S. CANBY

COMMANDER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LOUISIANA]

_Arming the Young Men of the South_

At last I came again into contact with the President. Late in August Iarrived in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and visited the headquarters ofMajor-General Slocum, who commanded the Department of the Mississippi. I found the General in a puzzled state of mind about a proclamationrecently issued by Mr. W. L. Sharkey, whom President Johnson hadappointed provisional governor of that State, calling "upon thepeople, and especially upon such as are liable to perform militaryduty and are familiar with military discipline, " and more especially"the young men of the State who have so distinguished themselves forgallantry, " to organize as speedily as possible volunteer companies inevery county of the State, at least one company of cavalry and one ofinfantry, for the protection of life, property, and good order in theState. This meant no more nor less than the organization under theauthority of one of the "States lately in rebellion" of a large armedmilitary force consisting of men who had but recently surrenderedtheir arms as Confederate soldiers. 

Two days before my arrival at Vicksburg, General Slocum had issued a"general order" in which he directed the district commanders under himnot to permit within their districts the organization of such militaryforces as were contemplated by Governor Sharkey's proclamation. Thereasons for such action, given by General Slocum in the order itself, were conclusive. While the military forces of the United States sentto the State of Mississippi for the purpose of maintaining order andof executing the laws of Congress and the orders of the War Departmenthad performed their duties in a spirit of conciliation and forbearanceand with remarkable success, the provisional governor, on the allegedground that this had not been done to his satisfaction, and withoutconsulting the department commander, had called upon the lateConfederate soldiers, fresh from the war against the nationalgovernment, to organize a military force intended to be "independentof the military authority now present, and superior in strength to theUnited States powers on duty in the States. " The execution of thisscheme would bring on collisions at once, especially when the UnitedStates forces consisted of colored troops. The crimes and disorder theoccurrence of which the provisional governor adduced as his reason fororganizing his State volunteers had been committed or connived at, asthe record showed, by people of the same class as that to which thegovernor's volunteers would belong. The commanding general, as well asevery good citizen, earnestly desired to hasten the day when thetroops of the United States could with safety be withdrawn, but thatday would "not be hastened by arming at this time the young men of theSouth. "

[Illustration: SENATOR WILLIAM LEWIS SHARKEY

APPOINTED PROVISIONAL GOVERNOR OF MISSISSIPPI BY PRESIDENT JOHNSON]

General Slocum--by the way, be it said, not at all an old anti-slaveryman, but a Democrat in politics--was manifestly right. He showed mereports from his district commanders which substantially anticipatedhis order. But the General was anxious to know whether the Presidenthad authorized or approved Governor Sharkey's action. This he asked meto ascertain, and I telegraphed to President Johnson the followingdespatch:

"General Slocum has issued an order prohibiting the organization ofthe militia in this State. The organization of the militia would havebeen a false step. All I can see and learn in the State convinces methat the course followed by General Slocum is the only one by whichpublic order and security can be maintained. To-day I shall forward bymail General Slocum's order with a full statement of the case. "

_The President Defends Southern Militia_

It is hard to imagine my amazement when, at two o'clock on the morningof September 1, I was called up from my berth on a Mississippisteamboat carrying me from Vicksburg to New Orleans, off Baton Rouge, to receive a telegraphic despatch from President Johnson, to which Icannot do justice without quoting it in full:

 Washington, D. C. , August 30, 1865. To Major-General Carl Schurz, Vicksburg, Mississippi. 

 I presume General Slocum will issue no order interfering with Governor Sharkey in restoring functions of the State Government without first consulting the Government, giving the reasons for such proposed interference. It is believed there can be organized in each county a force of citizens or militia to suppress crime, preserve order, and enforce the civil authority of the State and of the United States which would enable the Federal Government to reduce the Army and withdraw to a great extent the forces from the state, thereby reducing the enormous expense of the Government. If there was any danger from an organization of the Citizens for the purpose indicated, the military are there to detect and suppress on the first appearance any move insurrectionary in its character. One great object is to induce the people to come forward in the defense of the State and Federal Government. General Washington declared that the people or the militia was the Army of the Constitution or the Army of the United States, and as soon as it is practicable the original design of the Government must be resumed and the Government administrated upon the principles of the great chart of freedom handed down to the people by the founders of the Republic. The people must be trusted with their Government, and, if trusted, my opinion is they will act in good faith and restore their former Constitutional relations with all the States composing the Union. The main object of Major-General Carl Schurz's mission to the South was to aid as far as practicable in carrying out the policy adopted by the Government for restoring the States to their former relations with the Federal Government. It is hoped such aid has been given. The proclamation authorizing restoration of State Governments requires the military to aid the Provisional Governor in the performance of his duties as prescribed in the proclamation, and in no manner to interfere or throw impediments in the way of consummating the object of his appointment, at least without advising the Government of the intended interference. 

 ANDREW JOHNSON, Prest. U. S. 

As soon as I reached New Orleans, I telegraphed my reply. ThePresident having apparently supposed that I had ordered General Slocumto issue his order, I thought it due to myself to inform the Presidentthat the order had been out before I saw the General, but that Idecidedly approved of it. 

According to the President's own words, I had understood thePresident's policy to be merely experimental and my mission to bemerely one of observation and report. I had governed myself strictlyby this understanding, seeking to aid the President by reliableinformation, believing that it could not be the President's intentionto withdraw his protecting hand from the Union people and freedombefore their rights and safety were secured. I entreated him not todisapprove General Slocum's conduct and to give me an indication ofhis purposes concerning the Mississippi militia case. 

The next day, September 2, after having seen Major-General Canby, thecommander of the Department of Louisiana, an uncommonly cool-headedand cautious man, I telegraphed again as follows:

"TO THE PRESIDENT: General Canby authorizes me to state that theorganization of local militia companies was tried in his department, but that he found himself obliged to disband them again because theyindulged in the gratification of private vengeance and workedgenerally against the policy of the Government. Sheridan has issued anorder in Texas embracing the identical points contained in GeneralSlocum's order. "

_Criticism and Personal Discomfort_

Thereupon I received on September 6 a telegram simply announcing thereceipt of my "despatch of the 30th ultimo, " probably meaning myletter from Vicksburg; and then nothing more--not a word indicatingthe President's policy, or his wishes, or his approval or disapprovalof my conduct. But meanwhile I had found a short paragraph in a NewOrleans paper telegraphed from Washington, only a few lines, statingthat the President was dissatisfied with me, and that I was especiallyblamed for having written to the newspapers instead of informing him. I believed I saw in this news paragraph an inspiration from the WhiteHouse. Acting upon that supposition, I at once wrote to the President, reminding him that I had not sought this mission to the South, but hadaccepted it thinking that I might do the country some service. Ipointed out to him that the charge that I had reported to thenewspapers instead of to the President was simply absurd; that I hadwritten to the President a series of elaborate reports; and, though Ihad, indeed, written a few letters to a newspaper, that it was wellunderstood by the Secretary of War that I would do this when he madethe arrangements for my journey. The compensation set out for me, Ireminded the President, was a mere War Department clerk's salary, utterly insufficient to cover the expenses incidental to my travels, aside from transportation and subsistence, among which incidentals wasa considerable extra premium on my life-insurance on account of mytravels so far South during the summer, and consequently, as theSecretary of War understood and appreciated, I had to earn somethingin some way to make my journey financially possible. My newspaperletters contained nothing that should have been treated as officialsecrets, but incidents of travel, anecdotes, picturesque views ofSouthern conditions with some reflections thereon, mostly things whichwould not find proper elaboration in official reports--and all thisquite anonymous, so as not to have the slightest official character;and, finally, I wrote, I had a right to feel myself entitled toprotection against such imputations as the newspaper paragraph inquestion contained. 

My first impulse was to resign my mission at once and return home. Butthen I considered that the duty to the public which I had assumedobliged me to finish my work as well as I could, unless I wereexpressly recalled by the President. I would, therefore, at any rate, go on with my inquiries, in expectation of an answer from him to myletter. I was outraged at the treatment I was receiving. I hadundertaken the journey in obedience to an urgent request of thePresident and at serious sacrifice, for I was on the point ofreturning to my Western home when the President called me. My journeyin the South during the hottest part of the year was in the highestdegree laborious and fatiguing, but it was hardly worse than thesweltering nights in the wretched country taverns of thosedays--nights spent in desperate fights with ravenous swarms ofmosquitos. The upshot of it was that, when I arrived at New Orleans, the limits of my endurance were well-nigh reached, and a few dayslater I had a severe attack of the "break-bone fever, " an illnesswhich by the sensations it caused me did full justice to itsill-boding name. I thought I might fight the distemper by leaving NewOrleans and visiting other parts in pursuit of my inquiries. I went toMobile for the purpose of looking into the conditions of southernAlabama, returned to New Orleans, and then ran up Bayou Teche in agovernment tug-boat as far as New Iberia, where I was literally drivenback by clouds of mosquitos of unusual ferocity. At New Orleans Idespatched an additional report to the President, and then, relentlessly harassed by the break-bone fever, which a physicianadvised me I should not get rid of as long as I remained in thatclimate, I set my face northward, stopping at Natchez and Vicksburg togather some important information. 

_The End of an Aristocracy_

At Natchez I witnessed a significant spectacle. I was shown some largedwelling-houses which before the Civil War had at certain seasons beenoccupied by families of the planting aristocracy of that region. Mostof those houses now looked deserted and uncared for, shuttersunhinged, window-panes broken, yards and gardens covered with a rankgrowth of grass and weeds. In the front yard of one of the houses Iobserved some fresh stumps and stacks of cordwood and an old man busycutting down with an ax a magnificent shade-tree. There was somethingdistinguished in his appearance that arrested my attention--finefeatures topped with long white locks; slender, delicate hands;clothes shabby, but of a cut denoting that they had originally beenmade for a person above the ordinary wood-chopper. My companion, aFederal captain, did not know him. I accosted him with the question towhom that house belonged. "It belongs to me, " he said. I begged hispardon for asking the further question why he was cutting down thatsplendid shade-tree. "I must live, " he replied, with a sad smile. "Mysons fell in the war; all my servants have left me. I sell fire-woodto the steamboats passing by. " He swung his ax again to end theconversation. A warm word of sympathy was on my tongue, but Irepressed it, a look at his dignified mien making me apprehend that hemight resent being pitied, especially by one of the victorious enemy. 

At Vicksburg I learned from General Slocum that Governor Sharkeyhimself had, upon more mature reflection, given up the organization ofhis State militia as too dangerous an experiment. 

I left the South troubled by great anxiety. Four millions of negroes, of a race held in servitude for two centuries, had suddenly been madefree men. That an overwhelming majority of them, grown up in thetraditional darkness of slavery, should at first not have been able tograsp the duties of their new condition, together with its rights, wasbut natural. It was equally natural that the Southern whites, who hadknown the negro laborer only as a slave, and who had been trained onlyin the habits and ways of thinking of the master class, should havestubbornly clung to their traditional prejudice that the negro wouldnot work without physical compulsion. They might have concluded thattheir prejudice was unreasonable; but, such is human nature, aprejudice is often the more tenaciously clung to the more unreasonableit is. There was, therefore, a strong tendency among the whites tocontinue the old practices of the slavery system to force the negrofreedmen to labor for them. Thus the two races, whose well-beingdepended upon their peaceable and harmonious coöperation, confrontedeach other in a state of fearful irritation, aggravated by thepressing necessity of producing a crop that season, and embittered byrace antagonism. The Southern whites wished and hoped to be speedilyrestored to the control of their States by the reëstablishment oftheir State governments. To this end they were willing to recognize"the results of the war, " among them the abolition of slavery, inpoint of form. The true purpose was to use the power of the Stategovernments, legislative and executive, to reduce the freedom of thenegroes to a minimum and to revive as much of the old slave code asthey thought necessary to make the blacks work for the whites. 

Now President Johnson stepped in and, by directly encouraging theexpectation that the States would without delay be restored to fullself-control even under present circumstances, distinctly stimulatedthe most dangerous reactionary tendencies to more reckless and banefulactivity. 

_An Ungracious Reception_

This was my view of Southern conditions when I returned from mymission of inquiry. Arrived at Washington, I reported myself at onceat the White House. The President's private secretary, who seemedsurprised to see me, announced me to the President, who sent out wordthat he was busy. When would it please the President to receive me?The private secretary could not tell, as the President's time was muchoccupied by urgent business. I left the anteroom, but called again thenext morning. The President was still busy. I asked the privatesecretary to submit to the President that I had returned from a threemonths' journey made at the President's personal request; that Ithought it my duty respectfully to report myself back; and that Ishould be obliged to the President if he would let me know whether, and if so when, he would receive me to that end. The privatesecretary went in again, and brought out the answer that the Presidentwould see me in an hour or so. At the appointed time I was admitted. The President received me without a smile of welcome. His mien wassullen. I said that I had returned from the journey which I had madein obedience to his demand, and was ready to give him, in addition tothe communications I had already sent him, such further information aswas in my possession. A moment's silence followed. Then he inquiredabout my health. I thanked him for the inquiry and hoped thePresident's health was good. He said it was. Another pause, which Ibrought to an end by saying that I wished to supplement the letters Ihad written to him from the South with an elaborate report giving myexperiences and conclusions in a connected shape. The President lookedup and said that I need not go to the trouble of writing out such ageneral report on his account. I replied that it would be no troubleat all, but that I should consider it a duty. The President did notanswer. The silence became awkward, and I bowed myself out. 

President Johnson evidently wished to suppress my testimony as to thecondition of things in the South. I resolved not to let him do so. Ihad conscientiously endeavored to see Southern conditions as theywere. I had not permitted any political considerations or anypreconceived opinions on my part to obscure my perception anddiscernment in the slightest degree. I had told the truth, as Ilearned it and understood it, with the severest accuracy, and Ithought it due to the country that the truth should be known. 

_Why the President Reversed his Policy_

Among my friends in Washington there were different opinions as to howthe striking change in President Johnson's attitude had been broughtabout. Some told me that during the summer the White House had beenfairly besieged by Southern men and women of high social standing, whohad told the President that the only element of trouble in the Southconsisted of a lot of fanatical abolitionists who excited the negroeswith all sorts of dangerous notions, and that all would be well if hewould only restore the Southern State government as quickly aspossible according to his own plan as laid down in the North Carolinaproclamation, and that he was a great man to whom they looked up astheir savior. It was now thought that Mr. Johnson, the plebeian whobefore the war had been treated with undisguised contempt by theslaveholding aristocracy, could not withstand the subtle flattery ofthe same aristocracy when they flocked around him as humblesuppliants cajoling his vanity. 

I went to work at my general report with the utmost care. Mystatements of fact were invariably accompanied by the sources of myinformation, my testimony being produced in the language of myinformants. I scrupulously avoided exaggeration and cultivated soberand moderate forms of expression. It gives me some satisfaction now tosay that none of those statements of fact has ever been effectuallycontroverted. I cannot speak with the same assurance of my conclusionsand recommendations, for they were matters, not of knowledge, but ofjudgment. 

In the concluding paragraph of my report I respectfully suggested tothe President that he advise Congress to send one or moreinvestigating committees into the Southern States to inquire forthemselves into the actual condition of things before taking final andirreversible action, I sent the completed document to the President onNovember 22, asking him at the same time to permit me to publish it, on my sole responsibility and in such a manner as would preclude theimputation that the President approved the whole or any part of it. Tothis request I never received a reply. 

_Congress and General Grant's Report_

Congress met early in December. At once the Republican majority inboth houses rose in opposition to President Johnson's plan ofreconstruction. Even before the President's message was read, theHouse of Representatives, upon the motion of Thaddeus Stevens ofPennsylvania, passed a resolution providing for a joint committee ofboth houses to inquire into the condition of the "States lately inrebellion, " which committee should thereupon report, "by bill orotherwise, " whether, in its judgment, those States, or any of them, were entitled to be represented in either House of Congress. To thisresolution the Senate subsequently assented. Thus Congress took thematter of the reconstruction of the late rebel States as to its finalconsummation into its own hands. 

On December 12, upon the motion of Mr. Sumner, the Senate resolvedthat the President be directed to furnish to the Senate, among otherthings, a copy of my report. A week later the President did so, but hecoupled it with a report from General Grant on the same subject. Thetwo reports were transmitted with a short message from the Presidentin which he affirmed that the Rebellion had been suppressed; that, peace reigned throughout the land; that, "so far as could be done, "the courts of the United States had been restored, post-officesreëstablished, and revenues collected; that several of those Stateshad reorganized their State governments, and that good progress hadbeen made in doing so; that the constitutional amendment abolishingslavery had been ratified by nearly all of them; that legislation toprotect the rights of the freedmen was in course of preparation inmost of them; and that, on the whole, the condition of things waspromising and far better than might have been expected. He transmittedmy report without a word of comment, but called special attention tothat of General Grant. 

The appearance of General Grant's report was a surprise, which, however, easily explained itself. On November 22 the President hadreceived my report. On the 27th General Grant, with the approval ofthe President, started on a "tour of inspection through some of theSouthern States" to look after the "disposition of the troops, " andalso "to learn, as far as possible, the feelings and intentions of thecitizens of those States toward the general government. " On December12 the Senate asked for the transmission of my report. General Grant'sreport was dated the 10th, and on the 17th it was sent to the Senatetogether with mine. The inference was easily drawn, and it wasgenerally believed that this arrangement was devised by PresidentJohnson to the end of neutralizing the possible effect of my accountof Southern conditions. If so, it was cleverly planned. General Grantwas at that time at the height of his popularity. He was sinceLincoln's death by far the most imposing figure in the popular eye. Having forced the surrender of the formidable Lee, he was by countlesstongues called "the savior of the Union. " His word would go very fartoward carrying conviction. But in this case the discredit whichPresident Johnson had already incurred proved too heavy for even themilitary hero to carry. As to the practical things to be done GeneralGrant's views were not so very far distinct from mine; but PresidentJohnson's friends insisted upon representing him as favoring theimmediate restoration of all "the States lately in rebellion" to alltheir self-governing functions, and this became the generalimpression, probably much against Grant's wish. My report after itspublication as an "executive document" became widely known in thecountry. A flood of letters of approval and congratulation poured inupon me from all parts of the United States. 

[Illustration]

THE FLOWER FACTORY

BY FLORENCE WILKINSON

 _Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one-- Little children who have never learned to play: Teresina softly crying that her fingers ache to-day, Tiny Fiametta nodding when the twilight slips in, gray. High above the clattering street, ambulance and fire-gong beat, They sit, curling crimson petals, one by one, one by one. 

 Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, They have never seen a rose-bush nor a dew-drop in the sun. They will dream of the vendetta, Teresina, Fiametta, Of a Black Hand and a Face behind a grating; They will dream of cotton petals, endless, crimson, suffocating, Never of a wild-rose thicket nor the singing of a cricket, But the ambulance will bellow through the wanness of their dreams, And their tired lids will flutter with the street's hysteric screams. 

 Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one. Let them have a long, long play-time, Lord of Toil, when toil is done! Fill their baby hands with roses, joyous roses of the sun. _

THE SILLY ASS

BY JAMES BARNES

ILLUSTRATION BY ARTHUR COVEY

"Marcia, " called the admiral, tapping lightly on the state-room doorwith the back of his fingernails, "Marcia, my dear, I hope you'rebetter. Come out with me; it's--oh, ah--where's Miss Marcia?"

The door had been opened by the courier maid, whose wilted and forlornappearance was eloquent of her failure to live up to at least one itemin her letter of recommendation. 

"Miss Dorn has gone up to--ze deck, Monsieur. "

"Humph! I didn't see her. When did she go?"

"Since early zis morning, Monsieur, " rejoined the well-recommended onerather despondently. 

Perhaps she might have gone on to say something more, but the admiralstamped down the passageway. The maid looked on her features in theglass much as one might inspect a barometer, drew a weak, despairingbreath, and laid herself down on the sofa again, her relaxed personresponding inertly to the steamer's vibrations. 

Now, Admiral Page Paulding was as sweet-tempered an old sea-dog asever retired from the employ of an ungrateful country; but foggyweather always worked a bit on his nerves--and what hands he had heldthat morning in the smoke-room! As he thumped up the rubber-carpetedstaircase he knew that he was in a thoroughly bad humor, but made uphis mind to conceal it. And there were reasons. When a man has reachedthe age when by all rights he should be a grandfather, and findshimself only a foolish old-bachelor uncle personally conducting ayoung niece of marriageable age and attractive exterior on her firsttrip to Europe, it may well be said: "Of each day learneth heexperience. " Aside from the avuncular privilege of paying bills, hehad known the jealous promptings of a father, indulged in theself-communing suspicions of a mother, and supported smilingly theirritations of a chaperon. The enforced companionship of a couriermaid does not lessen the perplexities of certain situations norlighten the burden of responsibility. 

If the truth be told, the admiral's retirement, this time, from whatmight quite properly be termed active service would be accompanied byno bitter heartburnings and regrets. Rather--yes, many timesrather--would he con a fleet of battle-ships through the tortuousturnings of Smith Island Sound than again personally conduct oneattractive and impulsive young female through the hotel-strewn shoalsof Europe. There was that German baron in Switzerland, that dashingyoung lieutenant of cavalry in Vienna, and that persistentEnglishman--oh, that _persistent_ Englishman!--who turned upeverywhere, and would not be turned down! There was a good deal backof the cablegram the old gentleman had sent Mrs. Dorn, his sister, from Southampton, which had read:

 Sailing _Caronia_, unentangled, on Wednesday. 

"That means only three days more now, " mused the admiral, recallingthese words to himself as he came out on the promenade-deck. He stoodthere a moment, looking about him, hoping for a glimpse of a slimyoung figure. But no sign! His conscience smote him a little. Maybe hehad been somewhat neglectful for the past two days; but then--All atonce he noticed the remarkable change in the weather. 

From a foggy, dreary morning it had grown into a crisp, sparklingafternoon. The long, sweeping seas, the aftermath of some heavy blowto the northward, had subsided. Passengers who had kept to theircabins, or who had huddled in the corners of saloon or library, wereemerging on the decks. Those who had braved the weather rather thanface the close air below looked up, mummy-wise, from their swathingswith hopes of returning appetites. 

It had needed but a short perusal of the passenger-list to show himthat his niece and he had several acquaintances as fellow-travelers onthis homeward and thrice welcome voyage. One of the swaddled objectssuddenly turned and addressed him:

"Looking for Miss Dorn, Admiral?"

"Oh, how d'ye do--Mrs. ----" For the life of him, he couldn't rememberthe lady's name. "Lovely day--er, yes; have you seen Marcia anywhere?"

"Yes; she's been walking up and down here for an hour with VictorMasterson and my----"

"With--what did you say his name was?"

"Victor Masterson. "

"Is he an Englishman?"

"Oh, no; very much of an American, I should say--oh, most amusing andentertaining. My daughter has met him somewhere. I think you will findthe young people up in that direction, playing some game or other. "

The admiral thanked the swaddled lady and strode forward impatiently. All at once he stopped. 

"I wonder, " said he to himself, "if that's the silly ass I squelchedt'other day in the smoke-room; just like Marcia to have picked himout!"

 * * * * *

In the sunniest corner of the promenade-deck a quartermaster had laidthe numbered squares of a shuffleboard. The game was over, but twoyoung people still lingered, leaning against the rail. One was a tall, slender girl with red lips, red cheeks, tan-colored hair, and tanshoes, and the other was a very slight, extremely round-faced youngman whose attire and manners could best be described as "insistent. "He was one of the kind that appears in all weathers without a hat andthat persists in attracting attention to large feet and bony ankles bywearing turned-up trousers, low shoes, and vivid half-hose. At thismoment he was enjoying himself, and so was the girl. 

"Was he large and rather red-faced?" she asked, following up somethingher companion was saying. 

"Yes, with two bunches of iron-gray spinach growing down like this;and he beckoned me over to him and said, 'Young man, you're playingthe clown'; and I said, 'You play you're the elephant, and we'll be acircus. '"

The round-faced one te-heed in a way that was contagious; Miss Dornquite loved him for it. 

"Do that again, " she said. 

"Do what?"

"Make that little squeak. "

He looked at her with mock seriousness. "Oh, please don't! Pleasedon't!" He spoke imploringly. "I am very touchy about my laugh--it'sthe only one I've got, you know. It's quite childish, isn't it? Nevergrew up, you know. " He made the funny little sound again. It was likethe bleating of a toy lamb when its head is twisted. "You know, theyask me how I do it. I don't know; I try to teach other people--theynever seem to get it right. Do you like it?"

Miss Dorn laughed again and looked gratefully at him. 

"Oh, I'm so glad I met you!" she said quite frankly--and then, mischievously: "I'll ask my uncle to forgive you, if you like. "

"Your uncle!"

"Yes, the old gentleman with the--er--spinach. "

If Mr. Masterson was simulating embarrassment, he did it verycleverly: he started to say something once or twice, changed his mindconfusedly, and suddenly, putting the shuffleboard stick under hisarm, began to imitate a guitar. 

Miss Dorn applauded. "Splendid! You should play in the orchestra. "

"Thank you. " He smiled gratefully. "Listen; this is a bassoon. I haveto make a funny face when I do it. "

Miss Dorn clapped her hands. "Great!" she cried. "Oh, simply great!"

"A flute, " introduced Mr. Masterson. 

Miss Marcia chortled. "That's a funnier face than the last, " she said. 

"A cello. "

"Good!"

"A violin, " he announced. 

"Not so good"; she smiled in appreciative criticism. 

"I'll have to practise up on it. But listen to this. I'm all right onthe cornet. "

It did sound like a cornet, even to the tremolo and the tonguing. People were looking up from their steamer-chairs now, and one or twopedestrians had gathered about; Mr. Masterson had an appreciativeaudience. Encouraged, he essayed another effort. He wrinkled hiscomical face and pursed up his lips, starting three or four times, andshaking his head at his failures. The others were watching him much asthey would a catherine-wheel that refused to ignite. At last hebrought forth a puny little sound. 

"I really don't know, " observed the amateur entertainer blandly, "whatthat is. "

Every one burst into roars, and it was at this moment that the Admiralhove in sight round the corner of the deck-house. When Miss Dornlooked up, Mr. Masterson was gone; the crowd, still laughing, wasdwindling; and there stood her uncle. He had on what she termed his"quarter-deck expression. " Before he could speak she had taken him bythe arm. 

[Illustration: "HE COULD HEAR THE CRASH, SEE THE GREAT BOW SINKING"]

"Where have you been, Nuncky dear?" she inquired most sweetly. 

"Looking for you, my dear Marcia. "

"For two whole days?"

"Well--er--yesterday I--er--thought you'd better be left alone, and--er--where did you meet that young man?"

"Oh, Bertha Sands introduced him--he's a dear! You came just a minutetoo late. " Miss Dorn laughed and squeezed her uncle's arm. "He's _so_amusing. You'd _love_ to meet him!"

"That silly ass!" grunted Admiral Paulding. "Not much. He makes my toeitch! I've got a good name for him--'the smoke-room pest. ' He's alwaysdoing card tricks under your unwilling nose, pretending to sit onsomebody's hat, upsetting the dominos! If he can get a laugh out of awaiter, he's perfectly satisfied. I squelched him the other day, I cantell you!"

"What did you do?" Miss Marcia asked the question with mockseriousness. 

"Never mind; but I taught him a lesson. Marcia, my dear, you do pickup the most peculiar acquaintances. "

"But, really, my dear Nuncky, he's so clever, so quick atrepartee--m--m--I'd be afraid! Tell me how you did it. "

"Never mind how; but let me tell you this! That young man would neversay anything sensible if he could help it, and never do anythinguseful, even by accident! And I think that you, my dear Marcia----"

"It's been a perfectly lovely day, " remarked Miss Dorn abstractedly. 

II

As if in sheer perversity, the weather changed early in the evening, and the night that followed was punctuated regularly by the blast ofthe fog-whistle. The next day broke thick and damp, with a wall ofimpenetrable mist shadowing the great vessel to half her length. Overthe tall sides the greasy green of the water could just be seen movingby. The masts and funnels disappeared irregularly overhead. The fogclung to everything; it rimed the rugs and capes of the passengers whofeared the close air of the 'tween-decks and lay recumbent in thesteamer-chairs, and it clung in little pearls to Miss Marcia Dorn'scurly front hair, that seemed to curl all the tighter for the wetting. 

With Mr. Victor Masterson at her side, she was walking up and down thehurricane-deck. His appearance was not quite so spruce or so comicalthis morning; he looked as if he had been dipped overboard. He stilldisdained a hat, and his hair was plastered over his forehead in anuneven, scraggly bang. The weather seemed also to have dampened hisspirits. Miss Dorn found it difficult to lead him away from serioussubjects; his ideas on mental telepathy did not amuse her, nor thefact that he was a fatalist. 

"Oh, I wish you'd do something to make me laugh, " she broke insuddenly. 

"Are you ticklish?" inquired the Silly Ass quite soberly. 

Miss Dorn could not help but titter; she was not at all put out. 

"There!" said Mr. Masterson. "Now, you see, I have done it! Pleasethank me. Now let me go on. You know, there is no doubt that the mindof one person when thinking of----"

"Oh, don't let's think!" Miss Dorn leaned back against the rail, halfhidden from the gangway. "Isn't it dreary, " she said, "this weather?And look at those people all stretched out. I wish we could dosomething to wake them up! The whole ship seems to have theglooms--even the captain; he wouldn't speak a word to me atbreakfast. "

"I could wake 'em up, " said Mr. Masterson emphatically. "I could wakethe whole ship up, and the captain too, and the lootenant, and thequartermaster, and the squingerneer, and the crew of the _Nancy Brig_, if I wanted to--and your Uncle Admiral Elephant here, asleep in thesteamer-chair. "

"Why, sure enough, there he is!" cried Miss Dorn. "He's got theglooms, too; he says he always gets 'em in foggy weather at sea. " Sheturned and touched Mr. Masterson lightly on the arm. "Wake him up!"she said, her eyes twinkling. 

"I hardly dare. "

"Oh, go on! I don't believe you can. How would you do it?"

"How would I do it? Why, just this way. " He crumpled his handstogether and blew between the knuckles of his thumbs a low, resonant, gruffly humming note. 

They were hidden now by the bow of the life-boat and were standingquite close together. They noticed that the figure in thesteamer-chair nearest them had suddenly raised itself a little andthen had sat bolt upright. The old admiral, the mist in his graywhiskers, turned one ear forward and listened attentively. 

The gray wall had grown a little whiter, less opaque; they could seenow the whole length of the ship, out to the lifting stern. 

"Oh, go on, " tempted the girl; "do it again--louder!"

Mr. Masterson looked at her. 

"Oh, _please_ do, " she pleaded; "real loud. I dare you to!"

He slowly raised his hands, the thumb-knuckles to his lips again. There sounded two deep, long-drawn, half-roaring, thrilling notes, forall the world like steam in the cup of a great metal whistle. 

Footsteps, hurried and quick, rushed overhead on the bridge. A hoarsevoice shouted orders. The quartermaster spun the wheel. Now:

"Full speed ahead, the starboard engine! Full speed astern, port!"

"Ay, ay, sir!"

There was the clank-clank of the semaphores, and suddenly twobursting, answering blasts that hid the huge funnels in a cloud offeathery white. 

The admiral in the steamer-chair threw off his wrappings and leaped tothe rail. 

A loud, anxious hail from above: "Lookout, there forward! Can you makeout anything?"

"Oh, see what I've done!" faltered the Silly Ass in a frightenedwhisper. 

Miss Dorn grasped his shoulder. 

There had followed a sudden cry that rose in a diapason of mad fear:

"Vessel ahead! _Star_board your helm, sir! _Star_board your h-e-l-m!"

The helm was already over; the ship was swinging wide. Another quickorder. The second officer leaped again to the semaphores. The hugefabric trembled, racking in every plate, as both engines reversed atfull speed, the screws churning and thundering astern. And now a riftcame in the encircling fog, as if it had been cut by a mighty sword. 

Clear and distinct, not half a cable's length away, wallowed a greatblack shape. The mighty bow swept veering past her quarter, then herstern, and clear of it by no more than thirty yards!

Only those few on deck outside of the weather-cloth saw the sight, andthen for but an instant. Never would they forget it!

Lying low in the water, all awash from the break of hertopgallant-forecastle to the lift of her high poop-deck, the greenseas running under her bridge and about her superstructure, swayed agreat mass of iron and steel of full five thousand tons! Ship withouta soul! A wisp of a flag, upside down, still floated in her slackenedrigging; swinging falls dangled from her empty davits. Then the fogclosed in, and, as a picture on a lantern-slide fades and disappears, she vanished and was gone!

A white-faced boy looked up into Miss Dorn's frightened eyes. Hislips moved, but made no sound. 

On the bridge, the captain had grasped the second officer by the arm. "My God! Fitzgerald, did you see that? It was the _Drachenburg_. "

"Derelict and abandoned! But, by heaven, sir, _she signaled us!_"

The captain turned quickly. "Stop those engines!" he ordered hoarsely. 

The tearing pulses down below ceased their beating; it was as if agreat heart had stopped! The ship, breathless at her own escape, laycalm and quiet in the fog. The only sound was of the greasy waveslapping her high steel flanks. Yet----

Admiral Dorn, still standing beneath the bridge, with both handsgrasping the rail, shivered and drew breath. What might have happenedif----He looked forward. He imagined he could hear the crash, see thegreat bow sinking; he could hear the splintering of the bulk-heads, the screams of the people tumbling up the companionways, the panic andpandemonium, the mad rush for the boats, the horrid, slow subsidence. But it was not to be; the danger had gone by!

Now he remembered having heard that first low whistle before the twothat had signaled so plainly: "_I have my helm to starboard--passingto starboard of you!_" And yet, well did he know that no fires blazedin those dead furnaces, no steam was coming from that rusty, salt-incrusted funnel. It was as if the dead had spoken to warn theliving! He shivered once more, and staggered to the bridge-ladder, holding on and listening. 

Three, four, five times did the _Caronia's_ siren wail out into thestillness. _No reply. _ And then the throbbing pulses took up theirbeat again. 

Down in the corner of the main saloon, filled with chattering people, romping children, and game-playing young folk, who knew not what hadpassed on deck, sat the Silly Ass, the girl close to him. 

"I'll never tell, " she whispered. "What is it you're thinking of?"

The round eyes gazed into hers. "It's a long time since I did, " hesaid. 

"Did what?"

"Prayed! God made me a fool just to do this some day, I guess. " Hisface showed the expression of a grown-up, sobered man. 

On the bridge, the captain and the other officers were talking in low, awe-struck tones. 

[Illustration]

WAR ON THE TIGER

BY W. G. FITZ-GERALD

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM DRAWINGS BY FRANKLIN BOOTH

The _patwari_ salaamed and laid a report on my desk--a thing of mapsand figures that brought the sweat to my face. Fifty-seven killed, sixhundred square miles of rich rice and sugar country demoralized, communications stopped, crops rotting on the ground, nine villagesabandoned, and the shyest of jungle creatures grazing in themarket-place! Tiger and tigress--a bad case. 

When I told a man once that tigers and cobras, between them, made awaywith 25, 000 human beings in India every year, he thought I was joking. "Why, " said he, "surely one fifth of the human race--325, 000, 000, atany rate--is packed into that triangle! Where can the tigers live?"But I underestimated it; there were just 24, 938 killed in 1906 bytigers alone. You can see it yourself in the government records. 

Now, as District Officer, I'm the "father" of two million souls, andresponsible for all things, from murder to measles. But this wasbeyond me. It was a Commissioner's job, backed by the Maharaja. 

The man-eaters, now propitiated as gods, had taken toll of myvillagers for two long years. The people were in abject terror, fornone knew the day, hour, or place of the monsters' next leap. Manywere already resigned to death. "It's written on our foreheads, " theysaid, with gentle misery. Poor devils! Think of the two hundredmillions of them in India oscillating between mere existence andpositive starvation; not living, but just strong enough to crawl alongon the edge of death!

I called the _tahsildar_: "Bring me the record of these tigers. "

A bulky file of horrors, in truth! Here a goatherd was taken; there itwas an old woman gathering sticks in the jungle, or children playingin the village street, or maybe girls going down to the river forwater, laughing joyously, unaware of the great green eyes that watchedthem through the towering stalks of elephant-grass; and last among thevictims came some desperate young men who had faced one of thecreatures with fish-spears. 

[Illustration: "FIRST A MAGNIFICENT YELLOW HEAD EMERGES, THEN THELONG, LITHE BODY"]

It was a difficult country of limitless forest, broken in places bylow hills and by bare sites of the typical village of India. Andapparently from all quarters came the same report, with littlemodification. Here is a specimen:

[Illustration: HOWDAH ELEPHANT TRAINING MADE EASY

HE IS FED WITH "GOOR" OR CRUDE SUGAR BEFORE STARTING ON THE TIGERHUNT]

"As I rode into camp at Bussavanpur to-day, I was met by trackers whotold me the death wail was 'up' in the village. They brought to me awoman with three small children. Her husband was the latest victim. With tearless Hindu apathy she told her story, and I gave her fiverupees. She had to spend half this, according to caste usage, becauseit was said to be the devil in her that had led the yellow devil tohim. The formalities over, she was admitted to the villages of hercaste, and then took me to the tragic scene. A solitary tamarind-treegrew on some rocks near the village; no jungle within three hundredyards; a few bushes on the rock crevices. And close by ran the broadcattle-track into the village. The man had been following the cattlehome in the evening, and must have stopped to knock down sometamarinds with his stick; for this last, with his black blanket andskin cap, still lay where he was seized. Evidently the tigress hadhidden in the rocks, and was upon him in one bound. Dragging hervictim to the edge of a rocky plateau, she leaped down into a fieldand there killed him. The spot was marked by a pool of dried blood. Iwalked for two hours with the trackers, hoping to come on some tracesof the brute or her mate, but without success. "

And so on. Some of the deaths were horrible by reason of the eerysilence that marked them, others because of the mysterious movementsor amazing cunning of the tigers. The comic episodes it were notseemly to dwell upon. But fifty-seven! Nothing for it now but a hurrycall to the Commissioner and the Maharaja for elephants and an army oftiger-hunters, a mobilization of the best _shikaris_ in all India, fora regular campaign against these beasts. 

In fourteen days that army was on the spot, and I enlisted under thebanner of Colonel Howe of the Tenth Hussars. The staff was made up of_shikaris_, and the beaters were of the rank and file. Maps werecalled for and studied, scouts sent far and wide into the theater ofoperations; native reports were sifted and their exaggerationsdiscounted with the skill of long practice. 

[Illustration: LAST WALL OF DEFENSE

THE TIGER-HUNTING ELEPHANTS CLOSE THEIR RANKS TO RECEIVE THE CHARGE]

Tiger war is a science with axioms of its own. First of all come theweather and the water-supply. It's useless to look for tigers in a drycountry, and it's useless to try and find them in the wet season, whenthere is plenty of water everywhere. "Stripes" must be hunted in hotweather, when great heat and the water distribution limit hiswanderings, and when forest leaves have fallen and the dense jungle isthinned out. 

And yet, there are all kinds of problems. For instance, Indian weatheris so erratic that, while there may be water and cover and tigers oneseason, all three will be absent the next. Further, there is markedindividuality among tigers. One will lie in water all day, and neverventure forth till the sun has sunk behind the western hills; anotherprowls boldly by day. Some prey on forest beasts--chiefly the spottedcheetah and sambur-stag; others, again, mark out domestic animals. Andlast comes the tigress with clamorous cubs, who suddenly learns byaccident or impulse that man, hitherto so feared, is in reality theeasiest prey of all. 

We had a front of eighty miles. Naturally we needed a big force; weprobably mustered three hundred, all told. Our base of operations wasa railroad-station twenty miles away, and we doubted at first whetherwe could live on the country, for the terrified people had abandonedall cultivation, and were living on bamboo-seeds and the fleshyblossoms of the mahwa-tree. This was a serious question--this and ourtransport. We had seventy-four elephants, and each ate seven hundredpounds of green stuff or sugar-cane every day; and of camels, bullocks, rude carts, and horses we had hundreds, to say nothing ofthe dozens of buffaloes we carried as live bait for tigers. We shouldneed fodder by the ton, as well as sheep, fowl, goats, game, and milk;grain, too, for the crowds of camp-followers; and canned foods andmedicines--including, not least, the store of carbolic acid forpossible tiger-bites and maulings. The water was to be boiled andfiltered, then treated with permanganate of potash. It was regulararmy equipment, you see. 

I went out myself with the _shikari_ scouts, inspecting jungle-paths, dry river-beds, and muddy margins of pools. They pointed out to me thefirst rudiments in nature's book of signs: first of all the tiger"pug, " and the difference between the footprints of the tiger and thetigress--the male's square, the female's a clear-cut oval. Here thegreat tiger had drunk four days ago. The prints were not clear; inplaces they were obliterated by tracks of bear, deer, and porcupine. 

But clearly we were in a favorite haunt of both man-eaters. The malemust have passed after dawn, for his tracks overlay those of littlequail, which do not emerge until after daybreak. Then yet more signs:muddy pools told mute tales of recent visits; high over the hill thatfell sheer to the valley were specks of vultures, hovering over recentkills. Back to camp we went to report the enemy's presence. 

The next move was the setting out of the live bait--the buffaloes. Twoscore of the slow, ponderous creatures were led out and staked in agreat ring about the tigers, passive outposts about the enemy, inviting their attack--an attack sure to come during the night. Thenwe went back again to wait. 

[Illustration: SLAYER OF SEVENTY-SIX NATIVES LAID LOW AT LAST

HE AND HIS MATE RAVAGED A TRACT OF COUNTRY FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTYSQUARE MILES IN EXTENT]

Meanwhile, during the time while scouts were reconnoitering the enemy, the rank and file had been offering sacrifices to their gods. TheMoslems were less tiresome than the Hindus in this respect. Theymerely went in a body to the snow-white _zariat_ (saint-house) on thehill, and offered up a goat. But the Brahman deity had to bepropitiated, lest all our plans go down to defeat. This god dwelt in ajungle, attended by an old _jogi_ smeared with wood-ashes and streakedwith paint. Another goat was slain here. The beast was made to bowcomically three times before the hideous image in the shrine, and thenhis throat was cut. Victory was now sure. The pious preliminarieswere finished, and then arrived at last the day of battle--the scenesof which you never forget. 

 * * * * *

We are up and out at dawn, riding about the wide circle of thetethered buffaloes. A delicate business, this. As we draw near thefirst one, with infinite caution, we inspect the site through strongbinoculars. A flick of the ear, a whisk of the tail because of flies, show that No. 1 is still alive. We water and feed the beast with freshgrass, and then leave him. But our next place of call lookssuspicious, even from afar. A crow is cawing in a tree, and looks withbeady eyes below. Dark vulture-specks are wheeling in the blue. Andsee! Tiger-marks in the dust, both square and oval! The dread couplehave been here--early in the night, evidently, for over their"pug"-marks lies the trail of porcupines and other nocturnal beasts. Sure enough, the big buffalo is gone, leaving only a broken rope-end, a few splashes of blood, and the labored trail of a heavy body. Strategy is ended now, and tactics begin. 

We gallop back to camp and give the alarm. The huge battle-line isready. Long rows of giant tuskers stand with swaying heads, each withhis howdah beside him--towering brutes such as the old kings of Asiarode into battle, to the terror of their enemies. The herds ofdisdainful camels are kneeling in roaring protest against the camploads. From all quarters scouts have reported the enemy. Our army, horse and foot, elephants and camels, will march in an hour--asstrange a sight and as strange a work as may be witnessed in the worldto-day. 

Watch each elephant kneel and come prone for his big hunting-tower. There are five men to each elephant, one at his head, four to haul thegear and make fast. The deft skill, the swiftness and silence, showthe veteran in the enemy's country. Every man knows his work and knowsthe officer above him; and each officer, too, knows just what isexpected of him--from the lowest up to the colonel himself, a finefigure, tall, erect, white-haired, an adept in tiger-lore, with ahundred and fifty skins in his bungalow. 

[Illustration: TIGRESS ALSO IS SLAIN

THE BODY BORNE BACK TO CAMP ON ONE OF THE PAD-ELEPHANTS]

Twelve mounted sahibs gallop this way and that, collecting _shikaris_and beaters. Native officers distribute fire-works and tom-toms, rattles and flint-locks and torches. The _mot d'ordre_ is: "Kickup----at the right time. "

There is a brief, businesslike interview in old Howe's tent. "Thetigers, " he says in a matter-of-fact way, as though dismissing school, "shall be inclosed in a triangle, of which the apex shall be ourselvesand the elephants. You will draw lots for positions among yourselves. The bases of the triangle shall be the beaters, and the flanks thestops posted up trees, who shall see that the tigers do not turn andbreak out of the beat. You will please be alert, with rifles cockedand barrels and cartridges examined beforehand. There must be no unduenoise or haste. Remember, the clink of a finger-ring on a barrel orthe gleam of the sun on a bright muzzle may turn them. That's all, gentlemen. "

We troop out to distribute rifles to the sepoys, who are supposed toprotect the unarmed beaters. Some of us ride off for miles into thejungle to the base of the fateful triangle. Others visit the"stops"--keen-eyed _shikaris_, perched like crows in the bigsal-trees. 

Then hark--a shot! It travels like fire, and is answered by a faintuproar. The beat has begun. We dismount from our elephants for asteady shot, leaving them behind us in a huge semicircle. Some of themscent danger, and twirl delicate trunks high in the air. They have"been there" before! The mahouts sit motionless as bronzefigures--superb fellows, deeply learned in jungle-lore. The triangle'sapex and flanks are in absolute silence, but the base is fiendish withuproar. Two hundred men are yelling and cursing, roaring and singing, beating pots and pans, tom-toms and gongs. 

Hearts beat a little faster. We look at one another anxiously andwhisper, "Is the beat empty?" It would seem so, for the cunning brutesgive no sign. Yet they must be driven forward if they are there. Ha! aslender sal-tree to the left shakes with excitement. A turbaned headshoots out of its branches, with a sudden sound of hand-clapping andshouting. One of the stops has seen a stirring in the high yellowgrass. The tigers are in the living net!

I call to my side Hyder Ali, my gun-bearer, a lean Pathan from theKhyber Pass. 

"You have my . 303?"

He nods and smiles. At that moment I hear a heavy footfall, as of somegreat beast, on the thick dry leaves. The high grass parts. First amagnificent yellow head emerges, infinitely alert; then the long, lithe body, a picture of supple grace and immense strength. A superbspectacle the creature presents, with his lovely coat gleaming in thehot sun. But the din is drawing near. Down goes the massive head;wide, cruel lips draw back, and four long primary fangs are bared in agruff roar. Then he dashes forward for cover. But too late; I havedrawn a bead on his rippling shoulder and fired. 

He is down, fighting and biting at he knows not what; and his roarsrise high above the wild pandemonium of the beaters. 

But my shot has not killed. I give the alarm, and we put scouts uptrees to direct the ticklish pursuit along the bloody trail. We driveherds of buffaloes into the long grass and brush to drive out thewounded tiger. Our general himself takes charge, with few words andsure tactics. 

"We've got his mate, " he says grimly. "I put her on a pad-elephant andsent her back to camp. "

It is growing dark. I hear the sambur-stag belling from themountain-side, and the monotonous call of the coël, or Indian cuckoo. Afar a peacock calls from a ruined tomb, and through all the jungleconcert runs the continuous screech of the cicada. 

A loud signal from a treed scout suddenly tells us my tiger islocated. Relentlessly, foot by foot, the man-eater is tracked. We areguided always by the scouts in the trees; for that terriblebamboo-like grass swallows even elephants, swaying noisily to theirmoving bulk. At length we emerge in a little clearing; and even as weglance around, the stalks part harshly, and the tiger leaps forth atan unarmed beater, burying fangs in a soundless throat. An awfulsight!

A dozen rifles roar too late to save the poor wretch. We pick upvictim and tiger and heave them on a pad-elephant. And then back tocamp. 

[Illustration]

THE RADICAL JUDGE

BY ANITA FITCH

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR G. DOVE

Often when, arm in arm with black Double-headed Pete, the RadicalJudge went by the paling fence, Hope Carolina said to herself:

"W'en he comes all lonely, jus' by his own self, I'll frow a rock athim. Yes, sholy!"

Unconscious of the danger that lurked in future ambush, the greatpolitician would pass on, the rear view of his little stiff, quicklystepping figure showing a high silk hat and the parted tails of abroadcloth coat, which in front buttoned importantly at the waist. Dressed with exactly the same splendor, even to the waist-buttoning ofthe coat, the huge negro towered a full head taller than his hated, feared, and brilliant intimate. 

In that secret, mysterious way which was a feature of the troubloustimes, both were recognized targets for other missiles than stonesflung by dimpled baby hands. 

 * * * * *

It was an educating period for small maids of six, that long-ago timeof bitter party hatred. Though only a short half-dozen years crownedher fair cropped head, and she lisped still in an adorable baby way, Hope Carolina was very wise--"monstrous wise, " the black people said. She did not understand the meaning of "renegade" exactly, --the RadicalJudge was a renegade too, --but she knew all about Reconstruction. Itwas what made _them_, the black people, so sassy, and your own darlingfamily wretched. 

[Illustration: "'WADICAL!'"]

She knew, too, that Radical judges always wore chain shirts undertheir white ones, because they were afraid; and that they carriedknives, oh, mighty big ones, forever up their sleeves, to show inbar-rooms sometimes to Uncle John when anybody talked too loudly ofrenegades and turn-coats. Then, too, and worst of all, they got richin a single night and took beautiful homes from dear Prestons andlived in them themselves. The beloved Prestons, so nobly proud intheir fallen fortunes, --so right and proper in their politics, --hadonce owned all the lovely grounds alongside the bald yard thatinclosed the child's own hired house; grounds where peacocks were asmuch at home as in story-books--peacocks with tails more ravishingthan fly-brushes; where magnolia-trees flung down big scented petalsas fascinating as sheets of letter-paper, and tall poplars stood likeangels with half-closed wings against the sky. And with her owntear-filled eyes Hope Carolina had seen the exiled ones depart fromthis paradise crying, ah, so bitterly; turning back, as the breakingheart turns, for long, last, kissing looks. And now the Radical Judgelived there--the bad Radical Judge _who went locked-arms withniggers_; lived there with the wife who took things to forget, and thelittle crippled child who had never walked in her life becausesomebody had let her fall long ago. 

[Illustration: "AN UNTIDY MIDGET FOLLOWING CLOSELY AT HIS HEELS"]

Hope Carolina could never go over again and make brown writing markson the sweet magnolia petals. She could never steal suddenly throughthe boxwood hedge which hid the paling fence at that side of the hiredyard, and frighten the peacocks so that they would spread their tailsproudly. Everything belonged to the Radical Judge, even the old yellowsatin sofas in the parlor, on which negroes sat now. And besides, nomatter how poor they were, Democrat families never had anything to dowith Radical families. They only threw "rocks" at them--safely frombehind fences. 

One day the pile of stones near the broken paling fence seemedsplendidly high. They were muddy too, splendidly muddy, for it hadrained in the night, and Hope Carolina had gouged the last ones out ofthe wet dirt with a sharp stick. She had even intentionally kept nicepats of earth around some; and directly, with the enemy approaching inthe lonely way desired, there she was "scrouged" behind the palingfence, as Robert Lee Preston scrouged when he threw stones atRadicals. The brisk heels clicked nearer--passed; and then, with afine sweep of a fat arm, a loud "ooh, ooh, ooh, " she let fly thedeadly missile. 

The effect of it was magical. The enemy leaped as if the long-expectedbullet had indeed pierced his chain armor; for the stone, perhaps thetiniest in Democracy's fort, had neatly nipped his stiff back. But thedark frown he turned toward her changed instantly. A slow smile, andthen laughter--the doting laughter of the child-lover, to whom eventhe naughtiest phases are dear--replaced it. And, indeed, HopeCarolina did seem a sweet and comical figure in her low-necked, short-sleeved calico, with her brass toes hitched in the paling fencesomehow, and her cropped head rising barely above it. Excitement, too, had lent a warmer pink to her apple cheeks, and her blue eyes werelike deep and hating stars. 

"Oh, you bad baby!" he called in a moment, plainly ravished with thenature of his would-be assassin. He knew why the stone had come--onlytoo well. "You hateful little Democrat!"

Hope Carolina fired up furiously at that. "Wadical!" she called back, her voice tremulous with rage. And then, deliberately, "Wenegade!Seef!" fell from her pouting baby lips. 

A change came over the Radical Judge's face. It did not smile anylonger; and yet, somehow--_somehow_--it did not seem exactly angry. Hecame a step nearer the paling fence. 

"Little girl, " he began softly, pleadingly, almost prayerfully. Butthe thrower of stones waited to hear no more. As he came nearer, almost near enough to touch, holding her with dumb eyes so differentfrom those she had expected, she fired another shot--it seemed just tofly out of her hand--and ran. 

As she scrambled up the high house steps, which went rented-fashion inFairville, from the ground to the second story, she remembered theblack splotch it had made on his white shirt; and then she rememberedanother thing--the chain one underneath, to keep away rocks andbullets and everything. Ah, if he hadn't worn that she might havekilled him; and then all the trouble in dear South Carolina would beover forever and ever, amen. 

As she sat in her high-chair at supper, eating hot raised corn-breadand sugar-sweet sorghum, it seemed a dreadful thing that she hadn'treally done it; and directly, when a blue-eyed, full-breasted goddess, known in the hired house as Ma and Miss Kate, looked meaningly acrossthe table, she sighed profoundly. 

The fair lady, whose beauty was clouded by a deep sadness, turned soonto the third sitter at the table, a tall, lank gentleman of perhapsthirty-five, who, with dark, brooding eyes and a serious limp, hadjust entered. He was the redoubtable Uncle John, of loud and fearlessopinion; and, if the bar-room bowie had missed him, a stray Radicalbullet had been more successful. A political fight in the railroadturn-table, some months ago, had been the scene of this heartbreakingaccident. "And all through the war without a scratch!" Ma had sobbedout to Mrs. Preston when speaking of that bullet, still in thelong-booted leg now under the table. 

Directly Hope Carolina forgot the reproof of mother eyes anent thetable manners of well-brought-up children. She began listeningattentively; for that was how, listening when Ma and Uncle Johntalked, she had acquired all her deep knowledge of men and things. Forin this close domestic circle all the lurid happenings of the timeswere touched upon: more fights in the turn-table; barbecues, blackenemy barbecues--at which the bad Radical Judge stood on stumps, withhis blacked shoes Close together and his beaver hat off, as if he weretalking, _truly_, to white people; where negroes, poor, pitiful, hungry, corn-field negroes, were bought with scorched beef and badwhisky to vote any which way. Even the price of bacon, the woefulrises in the corn-meal market, were discussed here--all the poignantthings, indeed, which, as has been seen, had inspired Hope Carolina'sown poignant and beautiful name. 

Now they were speaking of Double-headed Pete, sweet, sorry Ma and goodUncle John, who must limp forever because he hadn't worn chain thingsunderneath. Pete was feeling the oats of his new office, Uncle Johnsaid, and Ma said back, "To think!" and looked at Uncle John as if shewere sorry for him. 

Hope Carolina sat very quietly, but she was thinking hard. She knewPete: he was a bad, bad nigger; and though he locked arms with whiteRadicals, and got a big, big salary, he could only put crosses insteadof names at the bottom of the important papers. It seemed a strangething that anybody who couldn't write names should get big salaries, when Uncle John, who did heavenly writing, couldn't get any at all. Then, along with everything else, there was Pete's maiden speech onthe court-house steps--oh, a terrible maiden speech!

"_De white man is had his day. _"

Whether there was any more of it Hope Carolina did not ask herself. That was enough, for folks looked tiptoe if you only spoke Pete'sname. 

Directly, thinking over it all, Hope Carolina said earnestly toherself, "Maybe I'd better put 'em back, " meaning the two thrownstones. It looked, yes, truly, as if she would have to kill Pete, too;so her arsenal for destruction must not lack ammunition. It mustrather flow over than fall short. 

But a liberal allowance of hot corn-bread and sorghum are notconducive to murderous zeal. Slowly, almost painfully, the child gotdown from her high-chair. She went faster down the steep house steps;but as she neared the stone fort by the paling fence she halted, allbut paralyzed by the audacity which was being committed under her veryeyes. 

Somebody was stooping down outside the fence, with a hand through thebroken place, putting something--_two round, pinky somethings!_--ontop of the stone fort, putting them exactly where the two spent shotshad been. 

[Illustration: "HOPE CAROLINA, FROM HER MARVELOUS BED, COULD SEEEVERYTHING THAT WAS GOING ON IN THE RADICAL JUDGE'S GARDEN"]

[Illustration: "FOREVER TURNING BACK TO KISS HIM, WITH HER HANDS FULLOF FLOWERS, AND WITH THE PEACOCKS TRAILING BESIDE"]

"Oh!" ejaculated Hope Carolina; and, reaching the fence with a rush, she stared down lovingly. For they were peaches, real, live, humanpeaches--the kind that you buy for five cents apiece, which was agreat price in the hired house. 

The form outside the fence straightened up then, and two oldish grayeyes looked over it into hers--the Radical Judge's eyes. "No morestones, please, " they seemed to say, with a trace of embarrassment atbeing caught. 

Hope Carolina nodded back with a lovely courtesy, as if to say inreturn: "Sholy not. "

For this was no moment for politics. Besides, something in thewatching eyes--a wistful something which spoke louder than words--hadawakened all the lady in her; and there was more of it, I can tellyou, than you may be inclined to believe. 

Silently, with eyes still meeting eyes, they stood there for a moment;the great Radical almost shrinkingly, the fiery little Democrat with anew, sweet feeling which made her seem, for the instant, the bigger, stronger one of the two. Then, still silent, he was gone; andsnatching the peaches with another ecstatic "Oh!" Hope Carolina didthe thing she had dumbly promised. She kicked down the stone fort. 

After she was in bed, she explained the deed to herself; for there, with reflection, had come some of the pangs that must pierce thebreast of the traitor in any decent camp. You can't take peaches andthrow stones too, no, not even if Democrats would almost want to hangyou for not doing it!

She had come to the pits by now, and these, after more rapturoussuckings, she put under her pillow for planting; for when you are sixyou plant everything. She did not know that another and more wonderfulseed had already put forth a green shoot in her own so piteouslyhardened little heart. 

Hope Carolina slept in a marvelous bed, almost the only thing ofvalue, in fact, left in the hired house. Ma would not use it herself, she told dear friends, because of its memories; but as the child ofthe house had no recollections of other times, it seemed to her alwaysa downy and restful nest. There were carved pineapples at the top ofthe high mahogany posts, and four more at the bottom of them; and whenHope Carolina lay in it in the morning, she could see everything thatwas going on in the Radical Judge's garden--that lovely paradise ofpeacocks and poplars and magnolias which had once been the dearPrestons'. 

Sometimes, even before the truce of peaches, she had felt a littleregret that the decencies barred out all acquaintance with Radicalfamilies. For always on the hot mornings--long, long before it wastime for her to get up--there were the Radical Judge and the littlecrippled Grace going about among the shrubs and flowers as if theywere the nicest people. And always the little pale, laughing childpresented a very pretty picture in the wheeled chair, which her fatherpushed so patiently; forever turning back to kiss him, with her handsfull of flowers, and with the peacocks trailing beside as if they hadforgotten the dear Prestons entirely. 

Then, the Radical Judge seemed to know bushels and bushels offairy-stories; and when they came near the boxwood hedge, HopeCarolina would sometimes hear him begin a new one. They always beganin the right way, "Once upon a time, " and that seemed very remarkable, for how could a Radical Judge know the right sort of fairy-stories?

When they moved away again, the child in the enemy house would feelher throat gulp sometimes. She knew it was wrong, but oh, she wouldhave loved to hear the end!

One morning, weeks and weeks after the peaches, when the peacocks hadbeen gone for days, --they made too much noise, Hope Carolinaknew, --when all the empty, sunburned garden seemed to say weepingly, "There will be no more fairy-tales, " she woke with the morning star, and, sitting bolt up in bed, blinked wonderingly, a little painfully, in the direction of the Radical Judge's front door. It was too dark tosee the knob yet, but she knew the thing must be there, the long, angelically sweet drop of white ribbon and flowers--the poetic andwistful mourning which is only hung for little dead children. 

A great doctor had come down from Baltimore and gone again; and theRadical Judge's wife was still taking things to forget. 

 * * * * *

The heart of six is full of mystery. All that first morning, with apiteous earnestness, a piteous heartlessness, Hope Carolina playedfuneral in the front yard, in the place where the stone fort had oncebeen and where the peach-pits were now planted. Every now and then shewould stop patting the little mounds of earth--mounds of earth coveredwith sweet flowers, in a place as beautiful as any garden, were thechief thing in her idea of funerals--and, standing tiptoe, she wouldstare over the paling fence, hoping the Radical Judge would come by. At last, late in the forenoon, her dogged vigilance was rewarded; andin a moment, bonnetless, an untidy midget in low-necked pink calicowhich even had a hole behind--there she was out of the gate, followingclosely at his heels. She couldn't tell exactly why she followed him;she only knew she wanted to--perhaps to see if he thought, too, aseverybody said, that the little crippled Grace was better off up inthe sky. She fancied maybe he didn't, he was so different, somehow--not like the old, fierce Radical Judge at all. And whenreally nice white gentlemen--_Democrats_, who had never noticed himbefore--stood respectfully aside with _their_ beaver hats off, hewalked still down the middle of the dirt sidewalk, and did not seem tosee them at all. 

[Illustration: "IT WAS THE QUAINT CUSTOM AT FUNERALS IN FAIRVILLE TOFOLLOW MOURNERS IN LINE FROM THE GRAVE"]

Once when her brass-toed shoe kicked his heel by the railroad, --alongwhich, the littlest distance away, was the historic spot where UncleJohn had got the bullet, --she said "Thank you" aloud. 

She meant it for the peaches, for she had just remembered that itwasn't very polite not to thank people for things. But still he seemednot to see, not to hear; and directly, in this blind, groping way, asif he were falling to pieces somehow, there he was turning into MissSally and Miss Polly Graham's store, where they only sold lady things. 

Hope Carolina waited outside, openly and shamelessly watching to seewhat he was going to do. She never peeped secretly; that wouldn't berespectable. 

In a minute she said, "Oh!" her eyes stretched wide with delightedwonder; for he was _buying_ lady things--fairy lace, shimmering satin, narrow doll-baby ribbon, as lovely as heaven! When he went out, quickly, as if he were almost running, Hope Carolina still waited, wondering what Miss Sally and Miss Polly, the two old-maid sisters, who were Democrats and very nice people themselves, were going to dowith the splendor which still lay upon the counter. 

But they did not tell. They told something else--a thing so full ofwonder, so dreadful, that, with another exclamation, one which drewfour astonished maiden eyes to her suddenly blanched cheeks, the childtook to her heels and fled as if pursued by a thousand terrors. 

She thought of it all the time she was eating more hot corn-bread andsorghum at dinner--the thing Miss Sally and Miss Polly Graham had saidto each other; the thing which seemed so new, so strange, so _loudand awful_, like the hellfire things Baptist ministers talked about. 

Then, after supper, she fell asleep in the pineapple bed, stillthinking of it; and all the next day, still playing funeral by thepaling fence, she thought of it again. And that night, when once moreshe lay in the pineapple bed, there it was again, the strange loudthing Miss Sally and Miss Polly Graham had said to each other--said ina soft, _crying_ way. 

All at once she had a waked-up feeling; she sat bolt upright in bedand thought, "Comp'ny. " There were voices coming across the passagewayfrom the parlor. A light streamed, too; and when she stood faintlybathed in its glow, she saw that Mrs. Preston was there--Mrs. Preston, in the deep mourning she had vowed never to put off as long as herbeloved State lay with her head in the dust. But something in her lapbrightened it now, this shabby, soldier-widow black: a slim cross, divine with green and white, as daintily delicate, with its tremulousmyrtle stars, as had been the lady things in Miss Sally and Miss PollyGraham's store. 

Mrs. Preston was saying that she was going to send it "anonymously. "Then she asked Ma if she knew that _he_ had had to attend to all thearrangements himself. "Even the dress, " went on Mrs. Preston, crying alittle; and Uncle John coughed in the deep, growly way gentlemenalways cough when they are ashamed to cry themselves. 

Then they all began talking about funerals, saying to each other theywould like to go, but how _could_ they? Uncle John saying at last, with more of the growly, coughy way, that no, no, they "couldn't flouthim. "

It would be more cruel, far, far more cruel, said Uncle John, than tostay away. Besides, --didn't the ladies know?--it was private. "Though, " the speaker went on, his worn, somber face lighting up withsomething like a gleam of comfort, "I reckon that was to keep thoseother white hounds away as well as the rest of us. "

Ma nodded. They weren't gentlemen-born, as he was, she sighed--"bornto Southern best. " And then, with a "Poor wretch--poor, proud, degraded wretch!" she handed out the thing she had been making--awhite rosette as beautiful as any rose--and told Mrs. Preston to putit "there, " touching the myrtle cross with fingers kissing-soft. 

But Mrs. Preston only said back, "He's refused even the minister!" andseemed more unhappy, oh, mighty unhappy. 

Hope Carolina gasped with the wonderment of it all. How funny itseemed, how dreadfully funny, that everybody had forgotten everythingjust because a child had gone up into the sky: Uncle John the bullet, and Mrs. Preston the lost paradise next door, and Ma the barbecuespeeches that made niggers vote any which way--all, all that Radicalshad ever done to them!

After a while one of the voices spoke again--whose, Hope Carolinacould never tell:

"_Think, there won't be a white face there!_" And then, after a pause, another voice:

"_No, not one!_"

Hope Carolina jumped in bed, trembling. 

Presently Mrs. Preston went, and then everybody else went to bed. Butstill Hope Carolina trembled. For that was exactly what Miss Polly andMiss Sally Graham had said--_about the white face_. 

After a while she knew. It meant, oh, the mightiest, biggest disgraceon earth not to have white people at your funerals. They went to blackfunerals, even--_good_ black funerals. 

"Oh!" moaned Hope Carolina suddenly, loud enough for everybody tohear. But she cried silently. It was a way she had. 

She cried again in the night, too--so loudly everybody did hear; butthe dream mother who came and loved her, putting her head on the dearplace, drove away all the lumps in her throat. After that the dark wasstill like the dear place, and like arms around her, too. 

She had forgotten the dream mother when breakfast came; but she hadn'tforgotten the other thing--the thing about the white face. 

Ma said anxiously once to Uncle John, "Do you think she can be sick, brother?" and Uncle John shook his head, though he knew, too, of thetearful night. 

Hope Carolina sat very still, not seeming to hear even when Maannounced that the funeral was at nine o'clock. She ate her breakfastlike a ravenous cherub, smiling silently, mysteriously, whenever hermother looked at her with adoring eyes. Sometimes these dear, watchingeyes, as blue as jewels, set wide apart under a low brow crowned withwaved, satin-bright brown hair, filled slowly. But the darling child, who had certainly proved her excellent condition, only grinned backsweetly. All Hope Carolina was thinking of was that she had a_hole_--she was still wearing the soiled pink calico--and that herfrilled white apron was mussed, and that shoe-strings wouldn't tiegood. In the tarnished gilt-framed mirror behind Ma's lovely head shecould see her own. _That_ was all right; beautiful! She had doused itwith water, the round baby poll, and plastered the short hair smooth, so that under this close, shining cap her apple cheeks seemed fresherthan ever. 

Ma kissed them in passing, going then swiftly, with her eyes closedtight lest she herself should see, to shut windows on _that_ side ofthe house. Hope Carolina knew. Children mustn't look out of windowswhen funerals were going on. They mustn't play in the yard, either, till after they were over. 

The big clock in the corner ticked, ticked, ticked, seeming to sayalways, "Hurry up, hurry up. " And then--it was the longest, longestwhile afterward--Ma called from another room that Hopey (it was thefoolish home name) could go and play in the yard now, for it was nineo'clock. 

"Quite half-past, darling, " went on the liquid Southern voice, stilltremulous with emotion, still with the yearning anxiety for its ownthat the death of any child of kindred age brings to the motherbreast. But there was no answer, and for a very good reason. 

Down the long clay road which led from living and now pityingFairville to the little cemetery where slept its quiet dead, HopeCarolina was running. 

 * * * * *

A mile and a half is a long way for a wee fat maiden to go when theAugust sun is beating down upon bare heads and necks, and red clayroads spread sun-baked ruts and furrows as sharp as knives. As manytimes as her years, Hope Carolina fell by the way; oftener, indeed. But the good folk in the scattered blind-closed houses along theway--who, too, a half-hour ago had whispered tremulously, "There won'tbe a white face"--saw no sign of tears. 

"It's only Hope Carolina, " called somebody, and other watcherslaughed; for all knew the wandering ways of this wise and fearlesschild. 

And so, stumbling, falling, struggling to her feet again, --wiping awayblood once, even, with impatient hand, --on, on the little figure inpink and white had gone, a brave and storm-driven flower in the cruelroad. And at last there were the shining crosses and columns of thedead. One inclosure, radiant with more magnolias and angel poplars, more stately and wonderful than all the rest, was the dear Prestonplot. 

The child, who had paused anxiously at the open gate, sighed, sighedwith immense relief, to see it still without the sacrilege of Radicalinvasion. He hadn't taken _that_, too! Then, a step farther, shestopped again. The red clayey place he had taken had neither fence norflowers. Only a tree grew near his place, a great solitary pine, withthe low wailing of whose softly swaying needles singing was mingled. 

A single person was singing--a single _black_ person. She knew by thesoft mellow roll of the voice, the sweet, oh, honey-sweet sound of thehymn words, which she herself had sung many times at the BaptistSunday-school, where she had to go when there was no Episcopalminister. The great figure towering above the tiny, dusky group, withbare woolly head and working, apelike face uplifted to the sky, tookon a new grandeur. 

But only for a moment did she think of Pete, so marvelously changed. The hymn was ending--they were a long way past the dear line, _Safe onhis gentle breast_. 

Now they were moving, the little "crowd of mo'ners over yonder, "--allblack it looked, house-servants mostly, --and quickly, with abreathless fear of being too late, she rushed forward and thrust herhead between the singer and a sobbing petticoated figure beside him. 

Then she drew back smiling, smiling divinely. 

The grief-stricken eyes at the other side of the little grave--a graveheaped with Radical roses, sweet with one Democrat myrtle cross--hadseen it, _the white face_. 

"You go fust, honey, jus' behin' him, " Pete whispered, as, trudgingvaliantly along with the rest, Hope Carolina passed out of thecemetery gate. 

It was the quaint custom at funerals in Fairville, especially funeralswith negroes, to follow mourners in line from the grave as well as toit. What had been begun through a lack of sidewalks had been continuedas a ceremony of passionate respect. 

Pete bent soft, wet, grateful eyes upon her, pushing her close behindthe one carriage as he spoke--eyes as dear and tender as any oldnigger eyes Hope Carolina had ever looked into. All at once sheunderstood: Pete, bad Pete, loved the Radical judge. 

She nodded comprehendingly, including all the other black faces--whichseemed to look toward her, too, with a doglike gratitude--in herflashing smile. 

"Of course!"

 * * * * *

So it came to pass that Fairville's terrible prophecy was falsified. In his darkest hour the Radical Judge was not forsaken of all hisrace; still unconscious of fatigue and hurt in the cruel clay road, the little white Democrat, who had toiled this hard way before, ledand redeemed the funeral procession of his child. 

POVERTY AND DISCONTENT IN RUSSIA

BY GEORGE KENNAN

In an address delivered in New York City on the 14th of January, 1908, Paul Milyukov, historian, statesman, and leader of the ConstitutionalDemocratic party in the third Russian Duma, after reviewingdispassionately, from a liberal point of view, the unsuccessfulattempt at revolution in the great empire of the north, summed up, inthe following words, his conclusions with regard to the presentRussian situation:

"The social composition of the future Russia is now at stake; the fateof future centuries is now being determined"; but, "wherever we turnor look, we meet only with new trouble to come, nowhere with any hopefor conciliation or social peace. This, I am afraid, is not themessage that you expected from me, and I should be much happier myselfif I could answer your wish for information with words of hope, andwith the glad tidings that quiet and security have returned to Russia;but I am here to tell you the truth. "

Americans who have not followed closely the sequence of events inRussia since October, 1905, may feel inclined to ask, "Why should Mr. Milyukov take such a pessimistic view of the future, when his countryhas not only a representative assembly, but an imperial guaranty ofpolitical freedom and 'real inviolability of personal rights'?" Theanswer is not far to seek. A representative assembly that has nopower, and an imperial guaranty that affords no security, do notencourage hopeful anticipations. Russia has never had a representativeassembly, in the Anglo-Saxon meaning of the words; and as for theimperial guaranty of political freedom, it was written in water. 

Twenty-seven months ago, when Count Witte reported to Nicholas II. That Russia had "outgrown its governmental framework, " and when theCzar himself, recognizing the necessity of "establishing civil libertyon unshakable foundations, " directed his ministers to give the countrypolitical freedom and allow the Duma to control legislation, thereseemed to be every reason for believing that the crisis had passed andthat the people's fight for self-government had been won; but, unfortunately, the unstable Czar, who would run into any mold, butwould not keep shape, did not adhere to his avowed purpose for asingle week. In the words of a Russian peasant song:

 The Czar promised lightly to go, And made all his plans for departing; Then he called for a chair, And sat down right there, To rest for a while before starting. 

Not even so much as an attempt was made to carry the "freedommanifesto" into effect, and before the ink with which it was writtenhad fairly had time to dry, the rejoicing people, who assembled withflags and mottos in the streets of the principal cities to celebratethe dawn of civil liberty, were attacked and forcibly dispersed by thepolice, and were then cruelly beaten or mercilessly slaughtered byadherents of a national monarchistic association, hostile to themanifesto, which called itself the "Union of True Russians. "[27]According to the conservative estimate of Mr. Milyukov, these "trueRussians, " with the sympathy and coöperation of the police, killed orwounded no less than thirteen thousand other Russians, whom theyregarded as not "true, " in the very first week after the freedommanifesto was promulgated. One not familiar with Russian conditionsmight have supposed that the Czar would use all the force at hiscommand to stop these murderous "pogroms" and to punish the police andthe "true Russians" who were responsible for them; but he seems tohave regarded them as convincing proof that all true Russians wouldrather have autocracy than freedom, and, instead of insisting uponobedience to his manifesto and punishing those who resorted towholesale murder as a means of protesting against it, he not onlyallowed the slaughter to go on, but, a few months later, showed hissympathy with the "true Russians" by telegraphing to their presidentas follows:

"Let the Union of the Russian People serve as a trustworthy support. Iam sure that all true Russians who love their country will unite stillmore closely, and, while steadily increasing their number, will helpme to bring about the peaceful regeneration of our great and holyRussia. "[28]

Disappointed at the Czar's failure to stand by his own manifesto, andexasperated by the murderous attacks of the Black Hundreds upondefenseless people in the streets, the Social Democrats, the SocialRevolutionists, and the extreme opponents of the government generallyresorted to a series of armed revolts, which finally culminated in thebloody barricade-fighting in the streets of Moscow in December, 1905. Taking alarm at these revolutionary outbreaks, and yielding to thereactionary pressure that was brought to bear upon him by theultra-conservative wing of the court party, the Czar abandoned thereforms which he had declared to be the expression of his "inflexiblewill, "[29] and permitted his governors and governors-general to "putdown sedition" in the old arbitrary way, with imprisonment, exile, theCossack's whip and the hangman's noose. 

Long before the meeting of the first Duma the freedom manifesto hadbecome a dead letter; and in July, 1906, when Mr. Makarof, theAssociate Minister of the Interior, was called before the Duma toexplain the inconsistency between the "inflexible will" of the Czar, as expressed in the freedom manifesto, and the policy of theadministration, as shown in a long series of arbitrary and oppressiveacts of violence, he coolly said that while the freedom manifesto"laid down the fundamental principles of civil liberty in a generalway, " it had no real force, because it did not specifically repeal thelaws relating to the subject that were already on the statute-books. He admitted that governors-general were still arresting withoutwarrant, exiling without trial, suppressing newspapers without ahearing, and dispersing public meetings by an arbitrary exercise ofdiscretionary power; but he maintained that in so doing they were onlyobeying imperial ukases which antedated the freedom manifesto andwhich that document had not abrogated. In all provinces, he said, where martial law had been declared, or where it might in future bedeclared, governors and governors-general were not bound by theacademic statement of general principles in the October manifesto, butwere free to exercise discretionary power under the provisions ofcertain earlier decrees relating to "reinforced and extraordinarydefense. " These decrees, until repealed, were the law of the land, andthey authorized and sanctioned every administrative measure to whichthe interpellations related, freedom manifestos to the contrarynotwithstanding. [30]

The Czar's abandonment of the principles set forth in the freedommanifesto of October 30, 1905, put an end to what Mr. Milyukov hascalled "the ascending phase" of the Russian liberal movement. CountWitte, who had persuaded the Czar to sign the manifesto, was forced toretire from the Cabinet, and the new government, taking courage fromthe apparent loyalty of the army and the successful suppression ofsporadic revolutionary outbreaks in various parts of the empire, returned gradually to the old policy of ruling by means of"administrative process, " under the sanction of "exceptional" or"temporary" laws. 

In July, 1906, when P. A. Stolypin was appointed Prime Minister, andwhen the first Duma was dissolved in order to prevent it from issuingan address to the people, the government abandoned even the pretenseof acting in conformity with the principles laid down in the freedommanifesto, and boldly entered upon the policy of reaction andrepression that it has ever since pursued. It now finds itselfconfronted by social and political problems of extraordinarydifficulty and complexity, which are the natural and logical resultsof long-continued misgovernment or neglect. With the sympatheticcoöperation of a loyal and united people, these problems might, perhaps be solved; but in the face of the almost universal discontentcaused by the Czar's return to the old hateful policy of arbitrarycoercion and restraint, it is almost impossible to solve them, oreven to create the conditions upon which successful solution of themdepends. 

Among the most serious and threatening of these problems is thatpresented by the steady and progressive impoverishment of the people. Russian political economists are almost unanimously of opinion thatthe condition of the agricultural peasants has been growing steadilyworse ever since the emancipation. [31] As early as 1871, thewell-known political economist Prince Vassilchikof estimated thatRussia had a proletariat which amounted to five per cent. Of the wholepeasant population. In 1881, ten years later, the researches of Orlofand other statisticians from the zemstvos showed that this proletariathad increased to fifteen per cent. , and it is now asserted bycompetent authority that there are more than twenty million people inEuropean Russia who are living from hand to mouth, that is, whopossess no capital and have not land enough to afford them a properallowance of daily bread. [32] Four years ago, the Zemstvo Committee onAgricultural Needs in the "black-soil" province of Voronezh reportedthat in that thickly populated and once fertile part of the empire thenet profits of the peasants' lands barely sufficed to pay their directtaxes. Of the 28, 295 families in the district, only 14, 328 had landenough to supply them with the necessary amount of food, while 13, 967were chronically underfed. Seven thousand nine hundred andninety-seven families were unable to pay their taxes out of the netproceeds of their lands, even when they half starved themselves on adaily allowance of one pound and a third of rye flour per capita. [33]One might have expected the government to do something for the reliefof a population suffering from such poverty as this, but, instead ofaiding the sufferers, it punished the persons who called attention tothe distress. One member of the Voronezh District Committee, Dr. Martinof, was exiled to the subarctic province of Archangel; two, Messrs. Shcherbin and Bunakof, were arrested and put under policesurveillance; and two more, Messrs. Bashkevich and Pereleshin, wereremoved from their positions in the zemstvo and forbidden thenceforthto hold any office of trust in connection with public affairs. [34]

If the janitor of a tenement-house should notify the owner of theexistence of a smoldering fire in the basement, and if the owner, instead of taking measures to extinguish the fire, should have thejanitor locked up for giving information that might alarm the tenantsand "unsettle their minds, " we should regard such owner as anextremely irrational person, if not an out-and-out lunatic; and yet, this is the course that the Russian government has been pursuing forthe past quarter of a century. Again and again it has closedstatistical bureaus of the zemstvos, and in some cases has burnedtheir statistics, simply because the carefully collected materialshowed the existence of a smoldering fire of popular distress anddiscontent in the basement of the Russian state. Now that thelong-hidden fire has burst into a blaze of agrarian disorder, thegovernment is trying to smother it with bureaucratic measures ofrelief, or to stamp it out with troops, military courts, and punitiveexpeditions; but the action comes too late. The economic distresswhich a quarter of a century ago was mainly confined to a fewdistricts or provinces has now become almost universal. Long beforethe beginning of the recent agrarian disorders in the centralprovinces, a prominent Russian senator, who made an official tour ofinspection and investigation in that part of the empire, described thecondition of the peasants as follows:

"Among the indisputable evidences of progressive impoverishment amongthe peasants are the decreasing stocks of grain in the villagestorehouses, the deterioration of buildings, the exhaustion of thesoil, the destruction of forests, the arrears of taxes, and thestruggle of the people to migrate. In almost every village thepenniless class is constantly growing, and, at the same time, there isa frightfully rapid increase in the number of families that arepassing from comparative prosperity to poverty, and from poverty to acondition in which they have no assured means of support. "

Scores if not hundreds of statements like this were made by theliberal provincial press, or by the district and provincial committeeson agricultural needs; but, when the government paid any attention tothem at all, it merely suspended or suppressed the newspapers for"manifesting a prejudicial tendency, " or punished the committees for"presenting the condition of the people in too unfavorable a light. "

[Illustration: PAUL MILYUKOV

CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC LEADER IN THE THIRD DUMA]

A fair measure, perhaps, of the economic condition of a country is theearning capacity of its inhabitants, and, tried by this test, Russiastands far below the other civilized states of the world. According toa report made by S. N. Prokopovich to the Free Economic Society of St. Petersburg on May 2, 1907, the average annual income of the populationper capita, in the United States and in various parts of Europe, is asfollows:[35]

 Country Average income per capita

 United States $173. 00 England 136. 50 France 116. 50 Germany 92. 00 Servia and Bulgaria 50. 50 Russia 31. 50

It thus appears that the average American family earns nearly sixtimes as much as the average Russian family, and that even in suchcomparatively backward and undeveloped parts of Europe as Servia andBulgaria the average income of the population per capita is nearlytwice that of Russia. 

Another test of the economic condition of a country is its rate ofmortality, taken in connection with the provision that it makes forthe medical care and relief of its people. The death-rate ofRussia--37. 3 per thousand--is higher than that of any other civilizedstate, and, according to a report made by Dr. A. Shingaref to thePiragof Medical Congress in Moscow in May, 1907, the health of thepopulation is more neglected than in any other country in Europe. Thefigures by which he proved this are as follows:[36]

 Great Britain has one doctor to every 1, 100 persons France " " " " " 1, 800 " Belgium " " " " " 1, 850 " Norway " " " " " 1, 900 " Prussia " " " " " 2, 000 " Austria " " " " " 2, 400 " Italy " " " " " 2, 500 " Hungary " " " " " 3, 400 " Russia " " " " " 7, 930 "

In connection with this report it may be noted that while Russia hasonly one physician to eight thousand people, there is one policeman toevery nine hundred and one soldier to every one hundred and twelve. 

This lack of physicians in Russia is mainly due to the extreme povertyof the mass of the people and their absolute inability to pay formedical attendance and care. With an earning capacity of only $31. 50per capita, or $189. 00 per annum for a family of six, and with taxesthat cut deeply into even this small revenue, the Russians cannotafford doctors. Shelter, food, and clothing they must have; butmedical attendance is a luxury that may be dispensed with. 

One of the principal causes of the impoverishment of the agriculturalpeasants in Russia is the insufficiency of their farm allotments. Whenthe serfs were emancipated about forty-five years ago, they were notgiven land enough to make them completely independent of the landedproprietors, for the reason that the latter had to have laborers tocultivate their estates, and it was only in the emancipated class thatsuch laborers could be found. Since that time the peasant populationhas nearly doubled, and an allotment that was originally too smalladequately to support one family now has to support two. Thisincreasing pressure of the growing population upon the land might havebeen met, perhaps, as it has been met in Japan, by intensivecultivation; but such cultivation presupposes education, intelligence, and adoption of improved agricultural methods; and the Russiangovernment never has been willing to give its peasant class even theelementary instruction that would enable it to read and thus toacquire modern agricultural knowledge. In 1897, more than thirty yearsafter the emancipation, the Russian percentage of illiteracy was stillseventy-nine, and on January 1, 1905, only forty-two per cent. Of thechildren of school age were attending school, as compared withninety-five per cent, in Japan. [37] Intensive cultivation, moreover, involves high fertilization and the use of modern agriculturalimplements. The Russian peasants do not own live stock enough tosupply them with the quantity of manure that intensive cultivationwould require, --millions of them have no farm-animals at all, --and, with their earning capacity of only $31. 50 a year per capita, theycannot afford to buy modern plows and improved agricultural machinery. If there were diversified industries in Russia, the agriculturalpeasants who are unable to maintain themselves on their insufficientallotments might find work to do in mills or factories; but Russia isnot a manufacturing country, and her industrial establishments furnishonly two per cent. Of her population with employment. 

[Illustration: P. A. STOLYPIN

PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR]

Unable to get a living from their small and comparatively unproductivefarms, and equally unable to find work elsewhere, the peasants clamorloudly for more land; and when, as the result of a bad harvest, their situation becomes intolerable, they are seized with a sort ofberserker madness and break out into fierce bread riots, whichfrequently end in regular campaigns of pillage and arson. In 1905 theyattacked and plundered the estates of more than two thousand landedproprietors and inflicted upon the latter a loss of more than$15, 000, 000. The disorder extended to one hundred and sixty-onedistricts and covered thirty-seven per cent. Of the area of EuropeanRussia. 

Such alarming evidences of wide-spread distress and discontentnaturally forced the agrarian question upon the attention not only ofthe government but of the people's representatives in parliament. TheConstitutional Democrats in the first Duma proposed to obtain moreland for the common people by following the example set by AlexanderII. When he emancipated the serfs, namely, by expropriating in part, and at a fixed price, the estates of the nobility, and selling theland thus acquired to the peasants upon terms of deferred paymentextending over a long time. The government of Nicholas II. , however, would not listen to this proposition, and the Stolypin ministry is nowtrying to satisfy the urgent need of the peasants by selling to themland that belongs to the state or the crown; by making it easier forthem to buy land through the Peasants' Bank; and by facilitatingemigration to Siberia, where there is supposed to be land enough forall. None of these measures, however, seems likely to afford more thanpartial and temporary relief. Most of the state and crown land inEuropean Russia is not suitable for cultivation, or it is situated innorthern provinces where agriculture is unprofitable on account ofextremely unfavorable climatic conditions. According to ProfessorMaxim Kovalefski, the crown lands of European Russia comprise about22, 000, 000 acres. Of the 4, 933, 000 acres that are arable and welllocated, 4, 420, 000 acres are already leased to the peasants upon termsthat are quite as favorable as they could hope to obtain by purchase, and the remaining 513, 000 acres would afford them no appreciablerelief. In order to give them the same per capita allowance of landthat they had at the time of the emancipation, it would be necessaryto add about 121, 000, 000 acres to their present holdings, and no suchamount of arable state or crown land is available. [38]

From the operations of the Peasants' Bank little more is to beexpected. In the twenty years of its history it has bought about17, 000, 000 acres from landed proprietors, but has disposed of only3, 600, 000 acres to peasant communes. The rest it has sold toassociations or land-speculating companies. The extreme need of thepeople, moreover, has so forced up the price of land in the black-soilbelt as to make acquisition of it by the poorer class of peasantsalmost impossible. Between November 16, 1905, and August 31, 1906, thebank bought about 5, 000, 000 acres from landed proprietors, at anaverage price of $23. 30 per acre, and resold it on bond and mortgageto individuals, companies, or peasant communes at an average rate of$24. 44 per acre. Comparatively little of this land, however, went intothe possession of the class that needed it most. The 4, 997 peasantfamilies in the district of Voronezh, who can make both ends meet onlyby limiting themselves to a per capita allowance of a pound and athird of rye flour a day, are not financially able to buy land at$24. 44 per acre, and this is the economic condition of hundreds ofthousands of families in the central provinces. [39]

Emigration to Siberia might have lessened the pressure of the growingpopulation upon the land if it had been resorted to in time; but thegovernment repeatedly put restrictions upon it, through fear that, ifunchecked, it might result in depriving the landed proprietors ofcheap labor. Count Dmitri Tolstoi, while Minister of the Interior, openly opposed it, and at one time the Russian periodical press wasnot allowed even to discuss it. When at last it was permitted, thebureaucracy managed it so badly, and paid so little attention to thedistribution and proper settlement of the emigrants in Siberia, thatnearly nineteen per cent. Of them returned, practically ruined, totheir old homes in European Russia. In the ten years from 1894 to1903, 52, 000 out of 304, 000 emigrants came back from the crown landsin the Altai, one of the best parts of Siberia; and in the years 1901and 1902 the percentages of returning emigrants were 53. 9 and 68. 1. Inother words, more than half of the peasants who made a journey offifteen hundred miles to the Altai came back simply because they couldnot satisfactorily establish themselves in the country where they hadhoped to find more land and better conditions of life. [40]

If the government fails to relieve the land famine by selling its ownland reserves, by making loans to the people through the Peasants'Bank, or by promoting emigration to Siberia, it will find itselfthreatened by two very serious dangers. On the one hand, thediminishing power of the peasants to pay taxes will ultimately affectthe national revenue and impair the revenue of the state; and, on theother hand, the discontent and exasperation of the great class fromwhich soldiers are drawn will sooner or later infect the army andlessen the power of the autocracy to enforce its authority. Thegovernment is now drafting about 460, 000 recruits a year, and theseconscripts not only share the feelings of the peasantry as a whole, but belong largely to the very class that has recently been in revolt. Tens of thousands of them either participated in or sympathized withthe agrarian riots of 1905-6; and not a few of them, remembering howthe troops were then sent against them, solemnly promised theirfellow-villagers, when they joined the colors, that they would neverfire upon their brothers, even if ordered to do so by the Czarhimself. An army of this temper is a weapon that may become verydangerous to its wielders; and if the discontent and hostility of thepeasants continue to increase with increasing impoverishment, and ifthe hundreds of thousands of fresh recruits carry their discontent andhostility into their barracks, the government may have to deal withmutinies and revolts much more serious than those of Cronstadt, Sveaborg, and the Crimea. Certain it is that an army is not likely toremain loyal when there is wide-spread disaffection in the populationfrom which it is drawn; and in the present condition, temper, andattitude of the peasants we may find reasons enough for the "troubleto come" that Mr. Milyukov predicts. 

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Otherwise known as the "Black Hundreds. " This reactionary andterroristic organization impudently pretended to represent the "trueRussian people"; but in the election for the third Duma, when it hadall the encouragement and help that the bureaucracy could give, it wasable to send to the electoral colleges only 72 electors out of a totalnumber of 5, 160. It was composed mainly of the worst elements of thepopulation, and derived all the power that it had from the supportgiven to it by the bureaucracy and the police. Without such support itwould have been stamped out of existence in a week by the liberals, revolutionists, and Jews, who were the chief objects of its attacks. 

[28] This was the reply of the Czar to a telegram from the Union ofTrue Russians thanking him for dissolving the second Duma andarresting fifty-five of its members on a charge of treason. Eight ofthese representatives of the people were afterward sentenced to fiveyears of penal servitude, nine to four years of penal servitude, andten to exile in Siberia as forced colonists. (_Russian Thought_, St. Petersburg, December, 1907, p. 216. )

When Mr. Milyukov returned to St. Petersburg after the delivery of histemperate and dispassionate address in New York, the handful of "trueRussians" in the third Duma attacked him with violent and insultingabuse, and Mr. Vladimir Purishkevich, one of their most influentialleaders, said to him in open session: "You are a poltroon and traitor, in whose face I would willingly spit!" Such is the spirit of the "trueRussians" whom the Czar has asked to help him in bringing about "thepeaceful regeneration of our great and holy Russia. "

[29] The freedom manifesto of October 30, 1905, begins with the words:"We lay upon Our Government the duty of executing Our inflexible willby giving to the people the foundations of civil liberty in the formof real inviolability of personal rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of public assembly, and freedom oforganized association. "

[30] Stenographic report of the proceedings of the first Russian Duma, St. Petersburg, July 17, 1906. A large part of the Russian Empire hasbeen under martial law ever since the assassination of Alexander II. In 1906 it was in force in sixty-four of the eighty-seven Russianprovinces. 

[31] Upon the shoulders of the peasants the whole framework of theRussian state rests. When the latest census was taken, in 1897, thepeasants numbered 97, 000, 000 in a total population of 126, 000, 000. Since that time the population has increased to 141, 000, 000, and therelative proportion of peasants to other classes has grown largerrather than smaller. (Report of the Russian Statistical Department. St. Petersburg, August, 1905. )

[32] It is this part of the population that begins to suffer from lackof food when, for any reason, there is complete or partial failure ofthe crops. Twenty million people, in twenty-two provinces, werereduced to absolute starvation by the famine of 1906, and were keptalive only by governmental relief on a colossal scale. Famine ispredicted again this year in the provinces of Kaluga, Tula, Tambof, Samara, Saratof, Viatka, Poltava, and Chernigof. In the province lastnamed the peasants were already mixing weeds with their rye flour inNovember, 1907. (_Nasha Zhizn_, St. Petersburg, May 23. 1906; _RussianThought_, St. Petersburg, December, 1907, p. 217. )

[33] Report of the Zemstvo Committee on Agricultural Needs in theDistrict of Voronezh, Stuttgart, 1903. This report was published inpamphlet form abroad, because the censor would not allow it to beprinted in Russia. 

[34] Report of the Zemstvo Committee on Agricultural Needs in theDistrict of Voronezh, pp. 33, 34, Stuttgart, 1903. 

[35] _Russian Thought_, St. Petersburg. June, 1907, p. 169. 

[36] _Russian Thought_, St. Petersburg, June, 1907, p. 124. 

[37] Report of the Russian Statistical Department, 1905; and Report tothe Council of Ministers on the state of schools, _Strana_, St. Petersburg, August 23, 1906. 

[38] _Strana_, edited by Professor Maxim Kovalefski, St. Petersburg, October 7 and 10, 1906. 

[39] _Tovarishch_, St. Petersburg, August 26, 1906. 

[40] V. Polozof, in _Strana_, St. Petersburg, October 18, 1906. 

[Illustration]

"THE HEART KNOWETH"

BY CHARLOTTE WILSON

 Sometimes my little woe is lulled to rest, Its clamor shamed by some old poet's page-- Tumult of hurrying hoof, and battle-rage, And dying knight, and trampled warrior-crest. Stern faces, old heroic souls unblest, Eye me with scorn, as they my grief would gage, A mere child, schooled to weep upon the stage, Tricked for a part of woe and somber-drest. "Lo, who art thou, " they ask, "that thou shouldst fret To find, forsooth, one single heart undone? The page thou turnest there is purple-wet With blood that gushed from Caesar overthrown! Lo, who art thou to prate of sorrow?" Yet, This little woe, it is my own, my own!

IN THE DARK HOUR

BY PERCEVAL GIBBON

The house overlooked the starlit bay, nearly ringed with a sparsefence of palms, and on its roof, a little scarlet figure on the whiterugs, Incarnacion sat waiting till Scott should come. Below her, thereeking city was hushed to a murmur, through which there sounded fromthe Praca a far throb of drums and pipe-music; and overhead the skywas a dome of velvet, spangled with a glory of bold stars. Save to theeast, where the blank white walls of the house overlooked the water, there was on all sides a shadowy prospect of parapets, for in Superbanthe houses are close together and folk live intimately upon theirroofs. As she sat, Incarnacion could hear a voice that quavered andchoked as some stricken man labored with his prayers against theplague that was laying the city waste. Through all Superban suchpetitions went up, while daily and nightly the tale of deaths mountedand the corpses multiplied faster than the graves. 

Incarnacion lit herself a cigarette, tucked her feet under her, andwondered why Scott did not come. But her chief quality was serenity;she did not give herself over to worry, content to let all problemssolve themselves, as most problems will. She was a wee girl, preserving on the threshold of sun-ripened womanhood the soft andpathetic graces of a docile child. Her scarlet dress left her warmarms bare and did not trespass on the slender throat; she had all thecharm of intrinsic femininity which comes to fruit so early in theclimate of Mozambique and fades so soon. It was this, no doubt, thathad taken Scott and held him; gaunt, harsh, direct in his purposes ashe was quick in his strength, with Incarnacion he found scope for thetenderness that lurked beneath his rude forcefulness. 

He came at last. She heard his step on the stair, cast her cigarettefrom her, and sprang to meet him with a little laugh of delight. Hetook her in his arms, lifting her from her little bare feet to kissher. 

"O-oh, Jock, you break me, " she gasped, as he set her down. "You arestrong like a bull. What you bin away so long?"

He smiled at her gravely as he let himself down on her rugs and put along arm round her. "Did you want me, 'Carnacion?" he asked. 

"Me? No, " she answered, laughing; "I don' want you, Jock. You go awaytwenty--thirty--days; I don' care. Ah, Jock!"

He pressed her close and kissed the crown of her dark head gently. Hisstrong, keen-featured face was very tender, for this small woman ofthe old tropics was all but all the world to him. "You're a littlerip, " he said, as he released her. "Make me a cigarette, 'Carnacion. I've found the boat. "

She looked up quickly, while her deft fingers fluttered about the drytobacco and the paper. "You find him, Jock?" she asked. 

He nodded. "Yes, I've found it, " he answered. "She's in a creek, aboutsix miles down the bay. A big boat, too, with a pretty little cabinfor you to twiddle your thumbs in, 'Carnacion. She's pretty clean, too; I reckon the old chap must have been getting ready to clear outin her when he dropped. It's a wonder nobody found her before. "

Incarnacion sealed the cigarette carefully, pinched the loose endsaway, kissed it, and put it in his mouth. "Then, " she saidthoughtfully, "you take me away to-morrow, Jock?"

He frowned; he was shielding the lighted match in both hands, and itshowed up his drawn brows as he bent to light the cigarette. "I don'tknow, " he said. "You see, 'Carnacion, there's a good many things Ican't do, and sail a boat is one of 'em. I haven't got a notion how toset about it, even. I don't know the top end of a sail from thebottom. "

"You make a Kafir do it?" suggested Incarnacion. 

He smiled, a brief smile of friendship. "That would do first-rate, " heexplained; "only, you see, there's no Kafirs, kiddy. Every nigger thathad ever seen a boat was snapped up a week ago, when the big flit washappening. That dead-scared crowd that cleared out then took everysingle sailorman to ferry 'em down the coast--white, black, andpiebald. And the plain truth of it is, 'Carnacion, I've been up anddown this old rabbit-warren of a city since sun-down, looking for asailor, an' the only one I could hear of I found--in the dead-house. "

He spat at the parapet upon the memory of that face, where the plaguehad done its worst. 

"So, " remarked Incarnacion gaily. "Then we stop, Jock; we stop here, eh?"

"There'll be something broken first, " retorted Scott. "It's allbloomin' rot, Incarnacion; you can't have a town this size without aman in it that can handle a boat--a seaport, too. It isn't sense. Itdon't stand to reason. "

"There was the Capitan Smeeth, " suggested Incarnacion helpfully. 

"Just so, " said Scott; "there was. He's dead. "

Incarnacion crossed herself in silence, and they sat for a whilewithout speaking. From the Praca the music was still to be heard; someprocession to the great church was in progress, to pray for aremission of the scourge. Over the line of roofs there was a dull glowof the watch-fires in the streets; where they sat, Scott and the girlcould smell the pitch that fed them. And, over all, an unseen sick mangabbled his prayers in a halting monotone. A quick heat of wrath litin Scott as his thoughts traveled around the situation; forIncarnacion sat with her head bowed, playing with her toes, and theever-ready terror lest the plague should reach her moved in his heart. He had been away from Superban when the plague arrived, and though hehad come in on the first word of the news, he had been too late tofind a place for her on the ships that fled down the coast from thepest. And now that he had found a boat, there was no one to sail her;in all that terror-ridden city, he could find no man to hold thetiller and tend the sheet. 

"You're feeling all right, eh, 'Carnacion?" he asked sharply. 

She turned to him, smiling at once. "All right, " she assured him. "An'you, Jock--you all right, too?"

"Fit as can be, " he answered, fingering her hair where it was smoothand short behind her ear. 

"You see, " she said. "It is the plague, but the plague don't come forus, Jock. "

"That's right, " he said. "You keep your courage up, little girl, an'we'll be married in Delagoa Bay. "

He rose to his feet. "Kiss me good night, 'Carnacion, " he said. "I'mbusy these days, an' I can't stop any longer. "

She kissed him obediently, giving her fresh lips frankly and eagerly;and Scott came out to the narrow lane below with the flavor of themyet on his mouth and new resolution to pursue his quest for a sailor. 

He moved on to the Praca, where the stridency of the music stillpersisted. Great fires burned at every entrance to the square, so thatbetween them a man walked in the midst of leaping shadows, as thoughhis feet were dogged by ghosts. The tall houses around the place wereblind with shuttered windows; from their balconies none watched thecrowd before the great doors of the church. Here a priest stood in acart, with a great cross in his hand. His high voice, toneless andflat, echoed vainly over the heads of the throng, where some knelt ina passion of prayer, but most stood talking aloud. Through the doorsthe lights on the altar were to be seen in the inner gloom, sparklingfrom the brass and golden accouterments of the church. Scottshouldered a road through the crowd, scanning faces expertly. To a bigbrown man with empty blue eyes he put the question:

"Can you sail a boat?"

The man stared at him. "Have you got one?" he asked. 

"Can you?" repeated Scott. "Do you know anything about sailing aboat?"

"No, " said the other; "but----"

Scott pushed on and left him. In the church, his heart leaped at sightof a man in the clothes of a Portuguese man-o'-war's-man, asleep by apillar--a little swarthy weed of a man. He woke him with a kick, onlyto learn, after further kicks, that the man was a stoker and knew aslittle about boats as himself. At the door of a confessional layanother man in the same uniform. A kick failed to wake him, and Scottbent to shake him. But the hand he stretched out recoiled; the plaguehad been before him. 

In that time men knew no difference between day and night, for deathknew none, and the traffic of the close, twisted streets never lulled. The blatant cafés were ablaze with lamps, and in them the tables werecrowded and the fiddles raved and jeered. In one Scott found a chairto rest in, and sat awhile with liquor before him. He had carried hissearch from the shore to the bush, through all the town, and to noend. Now, mingled with his resolution there was something ofdesperation. He sat heavily in thought, his glass in his hand; andwhile he brooded, unheeding, the café roared and clattered about him. To his right, a group of white-clad officers chatted over a languidgame of cards; at his left, a forlorn man sang dolorously to himself. Others were behind. From these last, as he sat, a word reached himwhich woke him from his preoccupation like a thrust of a knife. He satwithout moving, straining his ears. 

"De ole captain, he die, " said some one; "but hees boat, she lie on demud now. "

"An' ye know where she is?" demanded another voice, a deeper one. 

"Yais, " the first speaker replied. He had a voice that purred inundertones, the true voice of a conspirator. 

There was a sound of a fist on the table. "Good for you, " said thedeeper voice. "We'll get away by noon, then. "

Scott carried his glass to his lips and drained it; then he rosedeliberately in his place and commenced to thread his way out betweenthe tables. He had to pause to pay the waiter for his drink when hewas a yard or two away; he gave the man an English sovereign, andthus, while change was procured, he could stand and look at the ownersof the voices. They paid him no attention; he was unsuspected. One ofthe men he knew, a tall Italian with a heavy, brutal face, aknife-fighter of notoriety and a bully. The other was a square, humpyman, half of whose face was jaw. Not men to put in the company oflittle Incarnacion, either of them; Scott's experience of the Coastspared him any doubts about that. It would be easy, of course, tosettle the matter at once--simply to step up and let his knife intothe Italian, under the neck, where he sat. At that season and in thatplace it was an almost obvious remedy; but it would not be less than aweek before he could get clear of the jail, and in that time any onemight find the boat. 

He grasped his change and went out. There was only one thing to do: hemust go to the creek where the boat was, and lie in wait for themthere. "Nobody'll miss 'em, " he said to himself; "and there'scrocodiles in that creek, all handy. "

He struck across the Praca again, between the fires, and down an alleythat would lead him to the beach. The voice of the priest in the cartseemed to pursue him till he outdistanced it, and he pressed onbriskly. His way was between tall, dark houses; the path lay at theirfeet, narrow and tortuous, like some remote cañon. Here was no light, save when, at the turn of the way, a star swam into view overhead, pale and cold, and bright as a lantern. Indistinct figures passed himsometimes; when one came into sight, he would move close to the wallwith a hand on his knife, and the two would edge by one anotherwatchfully and in silence. 

He was almost clear and could smell the sea, when he came round acorner and met some four or five white figures in the middle of theway, sheeted like ghosts and walking in silence. There was not a spaceto avoid them, and he stopped dead for them to approach and speak--or, if that was the way of it, to attack. Some of the others stopped too, but one came on. Scott marked that he walked with a shuffle of hisfeet, and made out, by the starlight, that his sheet clung about himas though it were wet. And, at the same time, he noticed some faintodor, too vague to put a name to, but sickly and suggestive ofhospitals. 

"Go with God, " said the figure, when it was close to him. The wordswere Portuguese, but the inflection was foreign. 

"Are you English?" demanded Scott sharply. 

The other had halted a man's length from him. "Ay, " he said, "I'mEnglish. "

"Well, " said Scott, making to move on, but pointing to where the otherwhite figures were waiting in a group near by, "what are those chapswaiting for?"

"They'll not hurt you, " answered the other. He mumbled a little whenhe spoke, like a man with a full mouth. 

"Anyhow, " said Scott, "they'd better pass on; I prefer it that way. Superban's not London, you know. "

There came a laugh from the sheet that covered the man's head, shortand harsh. "If it was, " he said, "you'd not be meeting us, me lad. "

"Who are you?" demanded Scott. Some quality in the man--his manner ofspeech, the tone of his laugh, or that faint, unidentifiabletaint--made him uneasy. 

"Me?" said the man. "Well, I'll tell you. I'm Captain John Crowder, Iam--what's left of me, and that's a sick soul inside a dead body. Andthem"--he made a motion toward the waiting ghosts--"them's my crewthese days. We're the chaps that fetches the dead, we are. "

Scott peered at him eagerly, and stepped forward. 

The other avoided him by stepping back. "Not too near, " he said. "Itain't sense. "

"Captain, you said?" asked Scott. "Er--not a ship-captain, you mean?"

"Ay, I'm a ship-captain right enough, " was the answer; "and in myday----"

Scott interrupted excitedly. "See here, " he said. "I've got a boat, and I want a man to sail her to Delagoa Bay. I'll pay; I'll pay you alevel hundred to start by nine in the morning, cash down on the deckthe minute you're outside the bar. What d'you say to it?"

The sheeted man seemed to stare at him before he answered. "You're onthe run, then?" he mumbled at last. "You're dodging the plague, eh?"

"Yes, " said Scott. "A level hundred, an' you can have the boat aswell. "

"Man, you must be badly scared, " said the other. "What's frightenedyou? Are you feared you'll die?"

"Go to blazes, " retorted Scott. "Will you come or won't you?"

The man laughed again, the same short cackle of mirth. 

"Listen, " urged Scott, wiping his forehead. "I've got a--er--I've gota girl. You say I'm scared. Well, I am scared; every time I think ofher in this plague-rotten place, I go cold to the bone. Is it moremoney you want? You can have it. But there's no time to lose; I'm notthe only one that knows about the boat. "

"A girl. " The other repeated the word, and then stood silent. 

"Curse it!" cried Scott, "can't you say the word? Will you come, man?"

"It wouldn't do, " said the sheeted man slowly. "You're fond of her, eh? Ay, but it wouldn't do. Any other man 'u'd suit ye better, melad. "

"There's no other man, " said Scott angrily. "In all this blasted townthere's no man but you. I've been through it like a terrier under arick. And I'll tell you what. " He took a step nearer; in his pockethis hand was on his knife. "You can have a hundred and fifty, " hesaid, "and the boat, if you'll come. An' if you won't, by the HolyIron, I'll cut your bloomin' throat here where you stand. "

The other did not flinch from him. "Ay, an' you'll do that?" he said. "I like to hear you talk. Lad, do you know what fashion o' men it isthat serve the dead-carts? Do ye know?" he demanded, seeming to clearhis voice with an effort of the obstacle that hampered his speech. 

"What d'you mean?" cried Scott. 

"Look at me, " bade the man, and drew back the sheet from his face. Thestarlight showed him clear. 

Scott looked, while his heart slowed down within him, and bowed hishead. 

"And shall I steer your girl to Delagoa Bay?" the other asked. 

"Yes, " said Scott, after a pause. "There's nobody else, leper or not. "

"Ah, well, " said the leper, with a sigh, "so be it. "

Scott fought with himself for mastery of the horror that rose in himlike a tide of fever, and when the leper had put back the sheet andstood again a figure of the grave, he told him of the boat and howothers knew of it besides himself. In quick, panting sentences he badehim get forthwith to the creek where the boat lay, directing him to itthrough the paths of the night with the sure precision of a mantrained to the trek. He himself would go and fetch Incarnacion andbeat up some provisions, and thus they might get afloat before theItalian and his mate came on the scene. 

"It's every step of six miles, " Scott explained. "Are you sure you canwalk it?"

The leper nodded under his hood. "I'll do it, " he said. "And ifthere's to be a fight, I'm not so far gone but what--" He broke offwith a short spurt of laughter. "It'll be something to feeldeck-planks under me again, " he said. 

"Then let's be gone, " cried Scott. 

"Wait. " The captain that had been stayed him. "There's just this, matey. Have a shawl or the like on your girl's shoulders. They wear'em, you know. An' then, when you come in sight o' me, you can rig itover her head an' all. For it's--it's truth, no woman should set eyeson the like o' me. "

"I'll do it, " said Scott. "You're a man, Captain, anyhow. "

"I was, " said the other, and turned away. 

Scott had a dozen things to do in no more than a pair of hours. Theywere not to be done, but he did them. A couple of donkeys wereprocured without difficulty; he knew of a stable with a flimsy door. Arevolver, his own small odds and ends, all his money, and such food ashe could lay hands on--by rousing reluctant storekeepers with outcriesand expediting commerce with violence--were got together. ThenIncarnacion must be fetched. She came at once, smiling drowsily, witha flush of sleep on her little ardent face and all her belongings in abundle no bigger than a hat-box. But, with all his urgency, theeastern sky was stained with dawn before he was clear of the town, bludgeoning the donkeys before him, with the gear on one andIncarnacion laughing and crooning on the other. 

The beach stretched in a yellow bow on either hand, fringed with bushand palms, receding to where the ultimate jaws of the bay stood blackand thin against the sunrise. Once upon it, they could be seen bywhoever should look from the town, and there was peremptory occasionfor haste. Scott had counted on forcing the journey into a little overan hour, but he was not prepared for the eccentricities of a packadjusted on a donkey's back by an amateur. There is no art in theworld more arbitrary than that of tying a package on a beast. It mustbe done just so, with just such a hitch and such an adjustment of theburden, or one's rope might as well be of sand. These refinements wereoutside Scott's knowledge, and he had not gone far before he saw hisbags and bundles clear themselves and tumble apart. There was a haltwhile he picked them up and lashed them on the ass anew. Again andagain it happened, till his patience was raw; and all the time thesteady sun swarmed up the sky and day grew into full being. 

Incarnacion sat serenely in her place while these troubles occupiedhim, smoking her cigarette and looking about her. He was involved inan effort to jam the pack and the donkey securely in one overwhelmingintricacy of knots when she called to him. 

"Jock, " she said. 

"Yes, what's up?" he grunted, hauling remorselessly on a line with aknee against the ass's circumference. 

"A man, " she said placidly. "He come along, too, behin' us. "

"Eh? Where?" he demanded, putting a last knot to the tediousstructure. 

Incarnacion pointed to the bush. "I see him poke out hees head twotimes, " she explained. 

Scott passed his hand behind him to his revolver, and stared withnarrow eyes along the green frontier at the bush. He could seenothing. 

"A big man, 'Carnacion?" he asked. "Mustaches? Black hair?"

She nodded and lit another cigarette. "You know him, Jock?"

"I know him, " he answered, and drove the donkeys on, thwacking thepack-ass cautiously for the sake of the load. 

It was an anxious passage then, on the open beach. The men whofollowed had the cover of the shrubs; theirs was the advantage tochoose the moment of collision. They could shoot at him from theirconcealment and flick his brains out comfortably before he could seteyes on them; or they could shoot the donkeys down, or put a bulletinto Incarnacion where she rode, quiet and regardless of all. Heflogged the beasts on to a trot with a hail of blows, and ran up intothe bush to take an observation. 

His foot was barely off the sand of the beach when a shot sounded, andthe wind of the bullet made his eyes smart. Invention was automatic inhis mind. At the noise, he fell forthwith on his face, crashing acrossa bush, so that his head was up and his pistol in reach of his hand. Thus he lay, not moving, but searching through half-closed eyes themaze of green before him. He heard the rustle of grass, and preparedfor action, every nerve taut; and there came into sight the bigItalian, smiling broadly, a Winchester in his hand. 

In Scott's brain some nucleus of motion gave the signal. With a singlemovement, his knee crooked under him and he swung the heavy revolverforward. A howl answered the shot, and he saw the Italian blunderagainst a palm, drop his rifle, and scamper out of sight. Firingagain, Scott dashed forward and picked up the Winchester, while fromin front of him the Italian or his companion sent bullet after bulletabout his ears. It was enough of a victory to carry on with, forIncarnacion would have heard the shots and might come back to him; sohe turned and ran again, and caught her just as she was dismounting. 

It was a race now. He silenced the girl's questions sharply, andthumped the donkeys to a canter, running doggedly behind them with hisstick busy. In the bush, too, there was the noise of hurry; he heardthe crash of feet running, and twice they shot at him. ThenIncarnacion gasped, and held up her cloak to show him a hole throughit; but she was not touched. He swore, but did not cease to flog andrun. The strain told on him; his legs were water, and the sweat stoodon his face in great gouts; and, to embitter the labor, suddenly therewas a shout from ahead. The men had passed him, and he saw the Italianshow himself with a gesture of derision, and disappear again before hecould aim. 

"They'll kill the leper, " he thought, "and they'll get the boat. Butthey'll not get out. I'll be on my belly in the bush then, with this. "And he patted the stock of the Winchester. 

"You bin shoot a man, Jock?" asked Incarnacion, as the desperate paceflagged. 

"Not yet, " he answered grimly; "but there's time yet, 'Carnacion. "

Already he could see, through the slim palms, the straight mast of theboat against the sky, with its gear about it, not a mile away. Hecocked his ear for the shot that should announce its capture and theend of the leper. 

"Ai, hear that!" exclaimed Incarnacion. 

It was a sound of screams--cries of men in stress, traveling thinlyover the distance. Scott checked at it as a horse checks at a snake inthe road, for the cries had a note of wild terror that daunted him. 

"You frightened, Jockie?" crooned Incarnacion. "See, " she said, lifting her hand over him, "I make the cross on you. "

"It's the confounded mysteriousness that gets me, " said Scott, wipinghis forehead. "Here, get on, you beasts. We'll have to take a look at'em, anyhow. "

He strode on between the animals, the rifle in the crook of his arm, ready for use, and all his senses alert and vivacious. Day was broadabove them now and bitter with the forenoon heat. At their side thebay was rippled with a capricious breeze, and in all the far prospectof earth and sea none moved save themselves, detached in a hauntingsignificance of solitude. 

"Ah!" He stopped short and jerked the rifle forward. In the bush aheadthere was a movement; for an instant he saw something white flashamong the palms, and then the Italian burst forth and came towardthem, running all at large, with head down and jolting elbows. He ranlike a man hunted by crazy fears, and did not see Scott till he waswithin twenty yards. 

"Halt, there, Dago, " ordered Scott, and brought the butt to hisshoulder. 

The Italian gasped and blundered to his knees, turning on Scott aglazed and twitching face. 

"For peety, for peety!" he quavered. 

"Draw that shawl over your face, 'Carnacion, " said Scott, withoutturning his head. "Can you see now?"

"No, " she answered. 

He fired, and the Italian sprawled forward on his face, plowing up thesand with clutching hands. 

"Keep the shawl over your eyes, 'Carnacion, " directed Scott, and soonthey came round a palm-bunch and were on the bank of the creek, wherea fifteen-ton cutter lay on the mud. A plank lay between her deck andthe shore, and, as they came to it, the captain hailed them from thecockpit. 

"Come aboard, " he said. "All's ready. "

Scott picked Incarnacion up in his arms, wound another fold of theshawl about her face, and carried her aboard. He set her down on thesettee in the cabin, released her head, and kissed her fervently. "Nowmake yourself comfy here, little 'un, " he said; "for here you staytill we make Delagoa. "

He helped her to dispose herself in the cabin, showed her itsarrangements, and saw her curious delight in the little space-savingcontrivances. Then he went out, closing the door behind him. It didnot occur to him to render her any explanations; what Scott did wasalways sufficient for Incarnacion. 

Again on deck, he found the swathed leper busy, and started when hesaw, along the banks of the creek, a gang of shrouded figures at workwith a hawser. 

"My crew, " said the captain. "They're to haul us off the mud. "

"Then, " said Scott, "it was them----"

The leper laughed. "Ay, they ran from us, " he said. "They ran from thelazaretto-hands. The one we caught, we put him overside for thecrocodiles; an' you got the other. "

"They chased him?" asked Scott, trembling with the thought. 

"Ay, " said the leper; "they uncovered their faces and they chased. Yeheard the squealing?"

He broke off to oversee his gang. "Make fast on that stump!" hecalled. In spite of the disease that blurred his speech, there was theauthority of the quarter-deck in his voice. "Now, all hands tally onand walk her down. " And the silent lepers in their grave-clothesranged themselves on the rope like the ghosts of drowned seamen. 

When the mainsail filled and the cutter heeled to the breeze, pointingfair for the bar, the leper looked back. Scott followed his glance. Onthe spit by the mouth of the creek stood the white figures in a littlegroup, lonely and voiceless, and over them the palms floated againstthe sky like tethered birds. 

"There was some that was almost Christians, " said the captain;"they'll miss me, they will. " And after a pause he added: "And I'll bemissing them, too; for they was my mates. "

There were six days of sailing ere the captain made his landfall, andthey stood off till evening. Then he put in to where the sea shelvedeasily on a beach four or five miles south of the town, and it wastime to part. 

"You can wade ashore, " said the leper. 

Scott opened the doors of the little cabin. On the settee Incarnacionlay asleep, her dark hair tumbled about her warm face. He was about towake her, but stayed his hand and drew back. "You can look, " he saidto the leper in a whisper. 

The shrouded man bent and looked in; Scott marked that he held hisbreath. For a full minute he stared in silence, his shoulders blockingthe little door; then he drew back. 

"Ay, " he murmured, "it's like that they are, lad; and it's grand to bea man--it's grand to be a man!"

Scott closed the doors gently. "If ever there was a man, " he began, but choked and stopped. "What will you do now?" he asked. 

"Oh, I'll just be gettin' back, " said the leper. "You see, there'sthem lads--my crew. It was me made a crew of 'em in that lazaretto. They was just stinking heathen till I come. An' I sort of miss 'em, Ido. "

"Will you shake hands?" said Scott, torn by a storm of emotions. 

The leper shook his head. "You've the girl to think of, " he said. "Butgood luck to the pair of ye. Ye'll make a fine team. "

Half an hour later Scott and Incarnacion stood together on the beachand watched the cutter's lights as she stood on a bowline to seaward. 

"Kiss your hand to it, darling, " said Scott. 

"I bin done it, " answered Incarnacion. 

[Illustration: The Audrey Arms Oxbridge Middlesex

Miss Terry's country cottage from 1887 to 1890]

"OLIVIA" AND "FAUST" AT THE LYCEUM[41]

BY ELLEN TERRY

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM DRAWINGS BY ERIC PAPE ANDHARRY FENN

The first night of "Olivia" at the Lyceum was about the only_comfortable_ first night that I have ever had! I was familiar withthe part, and two of the cast, Terriss and Norman Forbes, were thesame as at the Court, which made me feel all the more at home. Henryleft a great deal of the stage-management to us, for he knew that hecould not improve on Mr. Hare's production. Only he insisted onaltering the last act, and made a bad matter worse. The division intotwo scenes wasted time, and nothing was gained by it. _Never_obstinate, Henry saw his mistake and restored the original end after atime. It was weak and unsatisfactory, but not pretentious and bad, like the last act he presented at the first performance. 

We took the play too slowly at the Lyceum. That was often a faultthere. Because Henry was slow, the others took their time from him, and the result was bad. 

The lovely scene of the vicarage parlour, in which we used aharpsichord, and were accused of pedantry for our pains, did not lookso well at the Lyceum as at the Court. The stage was too big for it. 

The critics said that I played Olivia better at the Lyceum, but I didnot feel this myself. 

At first Henry did not rehearse the Vicar at all well. One day, whenhe was stamping his foot very much as if he were Mathias in "TheBells, " my little Edy, who was a terrible child _and_ a wonderfulcritic, said:

"Don't go on like that, Henry. Why don't you talk as you do to me andTeddy? At home you _are_ the Vicar. "

The child's frankness did not offend Henry, because it wasilluminating. A blind man had changed his Shylock; a little childchanged his Vicar. When the first night came, he gave a simple, lovable performance. Many people now understood and liked him as theyhad never done before. One of the things I most admired in it was hissense of the period. 

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS "OLIVIA"

FROM A DRAWING BY ERIC PAPE]

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

ELLEN TERRY AS OLIVIA]

In this, as in other plays, he used to make his entrance in the _skin_of the part. No need for him to rattle a ladder at the side to get upexcitement and illusion, as another actor is said to have done. Hewalked on and was the simple-minded old clergyman, just as he hadwalked on a prince in "Hamlet" and a king in "Charles I. "

A very handsome woman, descended from Mrs. Siddons and looking exactlylike her, played the Gipsy in "Olivia. " The likeness was of no use, because the possessor of it had no talent. What a pity!

_"Olivia" a Family Play_

"Olivia" has always been a family play. Edy and Ted walked on thestage for the first time in the Court "Olivia. " In later years Tedplayed Moses, and Edy made her first appearance in a speaking part asPolly Flamborough, and has since played both Sophia and the Gipsy. Mybrother Charlie's little girl, Beatrice, made her first appearance asBill, a part which her sister Minnie had already played; my sisterFloss played Olivia on a provincial tour, and my sister Marion playedit at the Lyceum when I was ill. 

I saw Floss in the part, and took from her a lovely and sincere bit of"business. " In the third act, where the Vicar has found his erringdaughter and has come to take her away from the inn, I alwayshesitated at my entrance, as if I were not quite sure what receptionmy father would give me after what had happened. Floss, in the samesituation, came running in and went straight to her father, quite sureof his love, if not of his forgiveness. 

I did _not_ take some business which Marion did on Terriss'suggestion. Where Thornhill tells Olivia that she is not his wife, Iused to thrust him away with both hands as I said "Devil!"

"It's very good, Nell, very fine, " said Terriss to me, "but, believeme, you miss a great effect there. You play it grandly, of course, butat that moment you miss it. As you say 'Devil!' you ought to strike mefull in the face. "

"Oh, don't be silly, Terriss, " I said. "Olivia is not a pugilist. "

Of course I saw, apart from what was dramatically fit, what wouldhappen!

However, Marion, very young, very earnest, very dutiful, anxious toplease Terriss, listened eagerly to the suggestion during anunderstudy rehearsal. 

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

HENRY IRVING AS THE VICAR]

"No one could play this part better than your sister Nell, " saidTerriss to the attentive Marion, "but, as I always tell her, she doesmiss one great effect. When you say 'Devil! hit me bang in the face. "

"Thank you for telling me, " said Marion gratefully. 

"It will be much more effective, " said Terriss. 

It _was_. When the night came for Marion to play the part, she struckout, and Terriss had to play the rest of the scene with a handkerchiefheld to his bleeding nose!

_Ellen Terry and Eleanora Duse_

I think it was as Olivia that Eleanora Duse first saw me act. She hadthought of playing the part herself sometime, but she said: "_Never_now!" No letter about my acting ever gave me the same pleasure as thisfrom her:

 "MADAME: With Olivia you have given me pleasure and pain. _Pleasure_ by your noble and sincere art--_pain_ because I feel sad at heart when I see a beautiful and generous woman give her soul to art--as you do--when it is life itself, your heart itself, that speaks tenderly, sorrowfully, nobly beneath your acting. I cannot rid myself of a certain melancholy when I see artists as noble and distinguished as you and Mr. Irving. Although you are strong enough (with continual labor) to make life subservient to art, I, from my standpoint, regard you as forces of nature itself, which should have the right to exist for themselves instead of for the crowd. I would not venture to disturb you, Madame, and moreover I have so much to do that it is impossible for me to tell you personally all the great pleasure you have given me, because I have felt your heart. Will you believe, dear Madame, in mine, which asks no more at this moment than to admire you and to tell you so in any manner whatsoever. 

 "Always yours, "E. Duse. "[42]

It was worth having lived to get that letter!

[Illustration: _From a drawing by the Marchioness of Granby_

H. BEERBOHM TREE WHO PLAYED WITH ELLEN TERRY IN "THE AMBER HEART"]

"_Faust_"

A claptrappy play "Faust" was, no doubt, but Margaret was the part Iliked better than any other--outside Shakespeare. I played itbeautifully sometimes. The language was often very commonplace, notnearly as poetic or dramatic as that of "Charles I. , " but thecharacter was all right--simple, touching, sublime. The Garden Scene Iknow was a _bourgeois_ affair. It was a bad, weak love-scene, butGeorge Alexander as Faust played it admirably. Indeed, he always actedlike an angel with me; he was so malleable, ready to do anything. Hewas launched into the part at very short notice, after H. B. Conway'sfailure on the first night. Poor Conway! It was Coghlan as Shylock allover again. 

[Illustration: ELEANORA DUSE WITH LENBACH'S CHILD

FROM THE PAINTING BY FRANZ VON LENBACH]

Conway was a descendant of Lord Byron, and he had a look of the_handsomest_ portraits of the poet. With his bright hair curlingtightly all over his well-shaped head, his beautiful figure, andcharming presence, he created a sensation in the eighties almost equalto that made by the more famous beauty, Lily Langtry. As an actor hebelonged to the Terriss type, but he was not nearly as good asTerriss. 

Henry called a rehearsal the next day--on Sunday, I think. The companystood about in groups on the stage, while Henry walked up and down, speechless, but humming a tune occasionally, always a portentous signwith him. The scene set was the Brocken scene, and Conway stood atthe top of the slope, as far away from Henry as he could get! Helooked abject. His handsome face was very red, his eyes full of tears. He was terrified at the thought of what was going to happen. As forHenry, he was white as death, but he never let pain to himself (orothers) stand in the path of duty to his public, and his public hadshown that they wanted another Faust. The actor was summoned to theoffice, and presently Loveday came out and said that Mr. GeorgeAlexander would play Faust the following night. 

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

ELLEN TERRY AS ELLALINE IN "THE AMBER HEART"

FROM THE COLLECTION OF MISS FRANCES JOHNSTON]

_George Alexander and the Barmaids_

Alec had been wonderful as Valentine the night before, and as Faust hemore than justified Henry's belief in him. After that he never lookedback. He had come to the Lyceum for the first time in 1882, an unknownquantity from a stock company in Glasgow, to play Caleb Decie in "TheTwo Roses. " He then left us for a time, returned for "Faust, " andremained in the Lyceum Company for some years, playing all Terriss'parts. 

Alexander had the romantic quality which was lacking in Terriss, butthere was a kind of shy modesty about him which handicapped him whenhe played Squire Thornhill in "Olivia. " "Be more dashing, Alec!" Iused to say to him. "Well, I do my best, " he said. "At the hotels Ichuck all the barmaids under the chin, and pretend I'm a dog of afellow, for the sake of this part!" Conscientious, dear, delightfulAlec! No one ever deserved success more than he did, and used itbetter when it came, as the history of St. James' Theatre under hismanagement proves. He had the good luck to marry a wife who was cleveras well as charming, and could help him. 

The original cast of "Faust" was never improved upon. What Martha wasever so good as Mrs. Stirling? The dear old lady's sight had failedsince "Romeo and Juliet, " but she was very clever at concealing it. When she let Mephistopheles in at the door, she used to drop her workon the floor, so that she could find her way back to her chair. Inever knew why she dropped it--she used to do it so naturally, with astart, when Mephistopheles knocked at the door--until one night whenit was in my way and I picked it up, to the confusion of poor Mrs. Stirling, who nearly walked into the orchestra. 

_"Faust" a Paradoxical Success_

"Faust" was abused a good deal--as a pantomime, a distorted caricatureof Goethe, and a thoroughly inartistic production. But it proved thegreatest of all Henry's financial successes. The Germans who came tosee it, oddly enough, did not scorn it nearly as much as the Englishwho were sensitive on behalf of the Germans, and the Goethe Societywrote a tribute to Henry Irving after his death, acknowledging hisservices to Goethe!

It is a curious paradox in the theatre that the play for which everyone has a good word is often the play which no one is going to see, while the play which is apparently disliked and run down has crowdedhouses every night. 

Our preparations for the production of "Faust" included a delightful"grand tour" of Germany. Henry, with his accustomed royal way of doingthings, took a party which included my daughter Edy, Mr. And Mrs. Comyns Carr, and Mr. Hawes Craven, who was to paint the scenery. Webought nearly all the properties used in "Faust" in Nuremberg, andmany other things which we did not use, that took Henry's fancy. Onebeautifully carved escutcheon, the finest armorial device I ever saw, he bought at this time, and presented it in after years to the famousAmerican connoisseur, Mrs. Jack Gardner. It hangs now in one of therooms of her palace at Boston. 

It was when we were going in the train along one of the most beautifulstretches of the Rhine that Sally Holland, who accompanied us as mymaid, said: "Uncommon pretty scenery, dear, I must say!"

When we laughed uncontrollably, she added: "Well, dear, _I_ think so!"

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by the London Stereoscopic Co. _

HENRY IRVING AS MEPHISTOPHELES IN "FAUST"

FROM THE DRAWING BY BERNARD PARTRIDGE]

_Irving on Long Runs_

During the run of "Faust" Henry visited Oxford, and gave his addresson "Four Actors" (Burbage, Betterton, Garrick, Kean). He met there oneof the many people who had recently been attacking him on the groundof too long runs and too much spectacle. He wrote me an amusingaccount of the duel between them:

"I had supper last night at New College after the affair. A. Wasthere, and I had it out with him--to the delight of all. 

"'_Too much decoration_' etc. , etc. 

"I asked him what there was in Faust in the matter of appointments, etc. , that he would like left out. 

"Answer--nothing. 

"'Too long runs. '

"'You, sir, are a poet, ' I said. 'Perhaps it may be my privilege someday to produce a play of yours. Would you like it to have a long runor a short one?' (Roars of laughter. )

"Answer: 'Well, er, well, of course, Mr. Irving, you--well--well, ashort run, of course, for _art_, but----'

"'Now, sir, you're on oath, ' said I. 'Suppose that the fees wererolling in £10 and more a night--would you rather the play were afailure or a success?'

"'Well, well, as _you_ put it, I must say--er--I would rather my playhad a _long_ run!'

"A. Floored!

"He has all his life been writing articles running down good work andcrying up the impossible, and I was glad to show him up a bit!

"The Vice-Chancellor made a most lovely speech after the address--aneloquent and splendid tribute to the stage. 

"Bourchier presented the address of the 'Undergrads. ' I never saw ayoung man in a greater funk--because, I suppose, he had imitated me sooften!

"From the address: 'We have watched with keen and enthusiasticinterest the fine intellectual quality of all these representations, from Hamlet to Mephistopheles, with which you have enriched thecontemporary stage. To your influence we owe deeper knowledge and morereverent study of the master mind of Shakespeare. ' All very niceindeed!"

_Irving's Mephistopheles_

I never cared much for Henry's Mephistopheles--a twopence colouredpart, anyway. Of course he had his moments, --he had them in everypart, --but they were few. One of them was in the Prologue, when hewrote in the student's book, "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good andevil. " He never looked at the book, and the nature of the _spirit_appeared suddenly in a most uncanny fashion. 

Another was in the Spinning-wheel Scene, when Faust defiesMephistopheles, and he silences him with "_I am a spirit_. " Henrylooked to grow a gigantic height--to hover over the ground instead ofwalking on it. It was terrifying. 

[Illustration: _From the collection of Robert Coster_

ELLEN TERRY

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ABOUT 1885, THE YEAR IN WHICH "OLIVIA" AND"FAUST" WERE PRODUCED AT THE LYCEUM]

I made valiant efforts to learn to spin before I played Margaret. Myinstructor was Mr. Albert Fleming, who, at the suggestion of Ruskin, had recently revived hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the north ofEngland. I had always hated that obviously "property" spinning-wheelin the opera and Margaret's unmarketable thread. My thread alwaysbroke, and at last I had to "fake" my spinning to a certain extent, but at least I worked my wheel right and gave an impression that Icould spin my pound of thread a day with the best!

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

ELLEN TERRY'S FAVOURITE PHOTOGRAPH AS OLIVIA

FROM THE COLLECTION OF MISS EVELYN SMALLEY]

Two operatic stars did me the honour to copy my Margaret dress--MadameAlbani and Madame Melba. It was rather odd, by the way, that manymothers who would take their daughters to see the opera of "Faust"would not bring them to see the Lyceum play. One of these mothers wasPrincess Mary of Teck, a constant patron of most of our plays. 

Other people "missed the music. " The popularity of an opera will oftenkill a play, although the play may have existed before the music wasever thought of. The Lyceum "Faust" held its own against Gounod. Iliked our incidental music to the action much better. It was takenfrom Berlioz and Lassen, except for the Brocken music, which was theoriginal composition of Hamilton Clarke. 

_"Faust's" Four Hundred Ropes_

In many ways "Faust" was our heaviest production. About four hundredropes were used, each rope with a name. The list of properties andinstructions to the carpenters became a joke among the theatre staff. When Henry first took "Faust" into the provinces, the head carpenterat Liverpool, Myers by name, being something of a humorist, copied outthe list on a long, thin sheet of paper which rolled up like a royalproclamation. Instead of "God save the Queen, " he wrote at the foot, with many flourishes:

"God help Bill Myers!"

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS OLIVIA AND HENRY IRVING AS THE VICAR INWILLS' PLAY "OLIVIA"

FROM A DRAWING BY ERIC PAPE]

The crowded houses at "Faust" were largely composed of "repeaters, " asAmericans call those charming playgoers who come to see a play againand again. We found favour with the artists and musicians, too, evenin "Faust"! Here is a nice letter I got during the run (it _was_ along one) from that gifted singer and good woman, Madame AntoinetteSterling:

 "My dear Miss Terry, "I was quite as disappointed as yourself that you were not at St. James' Hall last Monday for my concert.... Jean Ingelow said she enjoyed the afternoon very much.... 

 "I wonder if you would like to come to luncheon some day and have a little chat with her, but perhaps you already know her. I love her dearly. She has one fault--she never goes to the theatre. Oh, my! What she misses, poor thing, poor thing! We have already seen Faust twice, and are going again soon, and shall take the George Macdonalds this time. The Holman Hunts were delighted. He is one of the most interesting and clever men I have ever met, and she is very charming and clever, too. How beautifully plain you write! Give me the recipe. With many kind greetings, "Believe me, sincerely yours, "ANTOINETTE STERLING MACKINLAY. "

In "Faust" Violet Vanbrugh "walked on" for the first time. 

My girl Edy was an "angel" in the last act. This reminds me that Henryone Valentine's Day sent me some beautiful flowers with this littlerhyme:

 White and red roses, Sweet and fresh posies: One bunch, for Edy, _Angel_ of mine-- Big bunch for Nell, my dear Valentine. 

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS MARGUERITE IN "FAUST"

FROM A DRAWING BY ERIC PAPE]

Henry Irving has often been attacked for not preferring Robert LouisStevenson's "Macaire" to the version which he actually produced in1883. It would have been hardly more unreasonable to complain of hisproducing "Hamlet" in preference to Mr. Gilbert's "Rosencrantz andGuildenstern. " Stevenson's "Macaire" may have all the literary qualitythat is claimed for it, although I personally think Stevenson was onlymaking a delightful idiot of himself in it! Anyhow, it is frankly aburlesque, a skit, a satire on the real "Macaire. " The Lyceum was_not_ a burlesque house! Why should Henry have done it?

It was funny to see Toole and Henry rehearsing together for "Macaire. "Henry was always _plotting_ to be funny. When Toole, as Jacques Strop, hid the dinner in his pocket, Henry, after much labour, thought of hishiding the plate inside his waistcoat. There was much laughter lateron when Macaire, playfully tapping Strop with his stick, cracked theplate, and the pieces fell out! Toole hadn't to bother about suchsubtleties, and Henry's deep-laid plans for getting a laugh must haveseemed funny to dear Toole, who had only to come on and say "Whoop!"and the audience roared. 

Henry's death as Macaire was one of a long list of splendid deaths. Macaire knows the game is up and makes a rush for the French windowsat the back of the stage. The soldiers on the stage shoot him beforehe gets away. Henry did not drop, but turned round, swaggeredimpudently down to the table, leaned on it, then suddenly rolled over, dead. 

Henry's production of "Werner" for one matinée was to do some one agood turn, and when Henry did a good turn he did it magnificently. Werehearsed the play as carefully as if we were in for a long run. Beautiful dresses were made for me by my friend Alice Carr, but whenwe had given that one matinée they were put away for ever. The playmay be described as gloom, gloom, gloom. It was worse than "The IronChest. "

While Henry was occupying himself with "Werner" I was pleasing myselfwith "The Amber Heart, " a play by Alfred Calmour, a young man who wasat this time Wills' secretary. I wanted to do it, not only to helpCalmour, but because I believed in the play and liked the part ofEllaline. I had thought of giving a matinée of it at some othertheatre, but Henry, who at first didn't like my doing it at all, said:"You must do it at the Lyceum. I can't let you, or it, go out of thetheatre. "

So we had the matinée at the Lyceum. Mr. Willard and Mr. Beerbohm Treewere in the cast, and it was a great success. For the first time Henrysaw me act--a whole part and from the "front, " at least, for he hadseen and liked scraps of my Juliet from the "side. " Although he hadknown me such a long time, my Ellaline seemed to come quite as asurprise. "I wish I could tell you of the dream of beauty that yourealised, " he wrote after the performance. He bought the play for me, and I continued to do it "on and off, " in England and in America, until 1902. 

Many people said that I was good, but that the play was bad. This washard on Alfred Calmour. He had created the opportunity for me, and fewplays with the beauty of "The Amber Heart" have come my way since. "Hethinks it's all his doing!" said Henry. "If he only knew!" "Well, that's the way of authors!" I answered. "They imagine so much moreabout their work than we put into it that although we may seem to theoutsider to be creating, to the author we are, at our best, only doingour duty by him!"

Our next production was "Macbeth"; but meanwhile we had visitedAmerica three times. In the next chapter I shall give an account of mytours in America, of my friends there; and of some of the impressionsthat the vast, wonderful country made on me. 

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[41] _Copyright, 1908, by Ellen Terry_ (_Mrs. Carew_)

[42] Madame: Avec Olivia vous m'avez donné bonheur et peine. _Bonheur_par votre art qui est noble et sincère--_peine_ car je sens tristesseau coeur de voir une belle et généreuse nature de femme, donner sonâme à l'art--comme vous le faites--quand c'est la vie même, votrecoeur même, qui parle tendrement, douleureusement, noblement sousvotre jeu. Je ne puis pas me débarrasser d'une certaine tristessequand je vois des artistes si nobles et hauts tels que vous etMonsieur Irving. Si vous deux vous êtes si fortes de soumettre (avecun travail continuel) la vie à l'art, moí de mon coin, je vous regardecomme des forces de la nature même qui auraient droit de vivre poureux-mêmes et pas pour la foule. Je n'ose pas vous déranger, Madame, etd'ailleurs j'ai tant à faire aussi, qu'il m'est impossible de vousdire de vive voix tout le grand plaisir que vous m'avez donnée, maisparce que j'ai senti votre coeur. Veuillez, chère madame, croire aumien qui ne demande pas mieux dans cet instant que vous admirer etvous le dire tant bien que mal d'une manière quelconque. 

Bien à vous, E. Duse. 

THE LIE DIRECT

BY

CAROLINE DUER

Two men went up into the sanctum sanctorum of the Quill Drivers' Clubto lunch. The younger was a writer of fiction and the elder aclergyman, his friend and guest, by chance encountered on a rare visitto town. 

They were evidently absorbed in discussion when they sat down, for thehost hardly interrupted himself long enough to give the briefest oforders to the attendant waiter before he leaned forward across thetable and resumed eagerly: "Let the critics rage furiously together ifthey will"--referring to a controversy excited by one of his latestories. "The thing is going to stand! I believe, and I'll go bailthere's no reasonable person who doesn't believe, that falsehood isjustifiable, and more than justifiable, on many occasions. "

"Only everybody will differ as to the occasions, " put in theclergyman, the humor in the corners of his eyes counterbalanced by thegraveness of the lines about his mouth. 

"I'll go further than that, " continued the writer, striking his handon the table impressively. "In the circumstances as I described them Iwon't call it falsehood! I agree with whoever it was who said that onelied only when one intentionally deceived a person who had a right toknow the truth. "

"And suppose, " said the clergyman, with sudden earnestness, "theknowledge of the truth would be cruel, painful, harmful even, to theperson who had the right to it. What then? Would you still owe it tohim, or not?"

"Why, then, of course, I wouldn't tell it, " answered the other. "Youmight call it what you liked. I suppose it would be a passive lie, ifyou're particular about its front name; but there have been lots offine ones, actively and passively told, since the world began. "

"Fine?" echoed the clergyman thoughtfully. "I wonder!"

"Fitting, proper, expedient, " amended the writer impatiently. 

"Fitting, proper, expedient, " repeated the clergyman--"even when theresult appeared to justify it. I--wonder!"

He sank into a reverie so profound that the younger man had to callhis attention to the fact that food was being offered to him; and thenhe helped himself mechanically, as if his mind had drifted too far tobe immediately recalled to material things. 

"I wonder!" he said again vaguely, his eyes, sad and thoughtful, fixedupon distance. 

"I was once, you see, " he went on, making a sudden effort and lookinghis companion in the face with a directness that was almostdisconcerting. "I was once involved in a case where such a lie hadbeen told, and I--well, I am inclined, if you have no objections, totell you the whole story and let you judge. 

"Some years ago I broke down from over-work and worry, and was orderedaway for my health. I chose to travel about my own country, and at ahotel in a certain place where many people go to recover fromimaginary ailments I met a man who was being slowly crippled foreverby a real and incurable one. His place at the table was next to mine, and every day he was brought in, in his wheeled chair, from thesunniest corner of the piazza, fed neatly and expeditiously by hismanservant (his own hands were almost useless), and fetched awayagain. During the meal when I first sat beside him we entered intoconversation, and I found him so cultivated, charming, and humorous acompanion that for the rest of my stay I neglected no opportunity ofindulging myself in his society. "

"Of course it was no indulgence at all to him, " said the writer, whoseaffectionate regard for his friend was one of long standing. 

"I hope so, " answered the other, "and, indeed, I had every reason tosuppose that the liking which sprang up between us was no less on hisside than on my own. We were mutually attracted in spite of, orperhaps _because_ of, our fundamental differences in disposition, opinions, beliefs; though no Christian could have borne afflictionwith a braver patience than he--the braver in that he did not look toa hereafter for comfort. "

"A continuous powder and no jam to come, " threw in the writer, withthe glare of battle in his eye, for he also had opinions and beliefsat variance with those of his companion. "There are a good many of uswho have to face that. "

"Not many in worse case than he, " returned the clergyman gently, declining to be drawn into discussion. "But although the use of hislimbs was denied him, he took a keener delight than any man I haveever known in the compensations that his mind, through books, and hissenses, through contact with the outer world, brought him. Beauty ofcolor and form, beauty in nature, beauty in people, was an exquisitepleasure to him, and music an intense--I had almost said a sacredpassion. He drank in lovely sights and sweet sounds with an almostpainful appreciation, and I remember well his telling me in hiswhimsical way--it was during one of the last conversations I had withhim before my departure--that, travel about as I would with my mereautomatic arms and legs, I could never overtake such happiness as hedid on the wings of harmony. 

"We corresponded, from time to time, for a year or two, I in the usualmanner and he by means of dictation to his servant, who was an earnestif somewhat poor performer on the type-writer. But gradually thethread of our intercourse was broken in some way and our lettersceased. "

"I've always said that nothing but community of interests preservedfriendship, " declared the writer sententiously, "with the exception, of course, of our own. "

"I was surprised, therefore, " went on the clergyman, "to receive abouteighteen months ago a brief note telling me that a great sorrow and agreat joy had come into his life almost simultaneously, and begging meto go to him, if he might so far trespass upon our acquaintance, as hehad 'matters about which it behooved a man'--I am repeating hiswords--'to consult another wiser than himself. ' I started at once. Ittook me all day to accomplish the journey, and it was early eveningwhen I arrived at the little station he had mentioned as the placewhere he would send somebody to meet me. I found the carriage withoutdifficulty, and was driven for some five miles through the beautifulautumn woods. 

"It was a low, square, comfortable-looking paper-weight of a house, "he went on after a moment, "beaming welcome from an open front door, where my friend's confidential servant stood waiting for me. Heconducted me at once to my room, saying that dinner would be served assoon as I could make myself ready and join his master in the library. This I made haste to do. I found my friend in his wheeled chair, neara cheerfully crackling fire in a delightful room lined with books fromits scarlet-carpeted floor to its oak-beamed ceiling. He welcomed mewarmly and yet with a certain constraint, and I felt--it might havebeen some subtle thought-transference--that the thing he had it in hismind to discuss with me was one which only an extremity of troublewould have induced him to discuss with any man. 

"Dinner was announced almost before our first greetings were over, andan excellent dinner it was--cooked by an old woman who, he declared, had virtually ruled him and the house ever since he could remember, and waited upon by the man, who also attended to his master's peculiarneeds with the utmost swiftness and dexterity. The household, Isubsequently learned, consisted of only these two, an elderlyhousemaid, and the white-haired coachman who had driven me from thestation. 

"'Why they stay with me in this out-of-the-way place, without agrumble, all the year round, I can't see, ' said my host, after ourmeal was over and we were once more alone in the library. 'And, by theway, ' he added, turning his face toward me suddenly, --I don't knowwhether I have mentioned that he had a particularly handsomeface, --'apropos of seeing, what I have not seen before I shall have nofurther chance of informing myself about now, for I have become, inthese last six months, completely blind. '

"The unexpected horror of the announcement, the shock of it, left mefor the moment speechless. But I looked at him and saw, what I supposeI might in a more direct light have noticed before, that his eyes hadthe dull, dumb stare of blindness. Before the inarticulate sound ofpity I made could have reached him, he continued:

"'I used to tell myself, quite sincerely, I think, that as long as Ihad an eye or an ear left I'd not waste my time envying any other man. Nature seems to have been afraid I'd see too much, so she has cut offmy powers of vision. That is the great sorrow that has come to me. Thegreat joy, if I may accept it (and it is about that that I have beendriven by my conscience to consult you), is that I have found--orperhaps, as that suggests a certain amount of activity on my part, I'd better say _Fate_ has found for me--here, living at my very gates, a woman who loves me!'

"He appeared to dread interruption, for he went on hurriedly:'Extraordinary, isn't it? But let me tell you how it happened. I've agarden out there to the south, and last summer, soon after this thingfirst came upon me, I used to have myself wheeled there and left inthe shade for hours to think things out where I could feel light andcolor and fresh air about me. On the other side of my wall is hercottage, and one day she began to play, play like an angel. You knowhow that would move me. I sent a note to her telling her that a blindbeggar had been lifted into heaven for a little while by her music, and would be glad if, of her clemency, he might sometimes be so liftedagain. After that she played to me every day, and so, she beingalone--for her mother, it seems, had died early in the spring, soonafter they came--and I being lonely, we gradually drifted into--Oh, Iknow it's monstrous!' he exclaimed, breaking off in his recital, andevidently afraid of the mental recoil he suspected in me, 'monstrousto consider that a beautiful young woman should bear the name, even, of wife to me; but she is very poor, and now entirely desolate. I am, comparatively speaking, well off, and I cannot live long! I shall atleast leave her better able to fight the world. You'll think I coulddo that, I suppose, in any event, for a man such as I am--a sightlesshead in command of a body that cannot move hand or foot--might _will_what he pleased to any woman without exciting adverse comment; but Iask you, haven't I the right to allow myself the happiness of her nearcompanionship for whatever time it may be before I die? It seems to methat I have, since, instead of shrinking from me, she loves me, and iswilling, indeed, --bless her wonderful heart for it, --_wilful_ to marryme. What time is it?' he cried abruptly, turning his blank eyes towardthe clock on the mantelpiece. 

"'Five minutes before nine, ' I answered. 

"'She will be here directly, ' he said. 'I had a piano of my mother'sput in order and moved in here as soon as the garden grew too cold forme. She comes every evening to play to me. You will see her with me, and alone if you like, and to-morrow you must tell me, man to man, what you think I ought or ought not to do. She knows that I was towrite and put the case before you, but she will be surprised to findyou here. '

"'I will do my best, ' said I, infinitely moved, 'to make friends withher. '

"'I wish I could tell what you are thinking now!' he cried out withsudden passion, and then, before I could reply, he said, 'Hush! I hearher in the hall. '

"All the excitement died out of his face, leaving it white and drawn, but peaceful. I had heard nothing. 

"'She's coming, ' he whispered, 'and she'll be so embarrassed, poor, pretty soul. She thinks it's of no account, her being pretty, but Itell her that, blind as I am, I think I _feel_ the atmosphere of herbeauty, and if she were plain she would not please me so. '

"As he spoke the curtains in front of the doorway parted. My eyes, lifted to the height of fair tallness they expected to encounter, looked for an instant upon vacancy. Then they dropped to meet those ofa grotesque and piteous little hunchback, whose agonized gaze cried tome, as did the hitching of her poor shoulders and the sudden tremblingflutter of her hands to her mouth: 'For God's sake, don't betray me!'

"He leaned his head a little on one side, listening to the silence. Then he said to me, laughing: 'Is she as charming as all that? Or doyou refrain from speech for fear of alarming her?'

"She stood quite still, her sharp-featured, tragic face, with its haloof reddish hair, raised toward mine, and her expression imploring, pleading, mutely compelling me. 

"I had to answer his question. 

"'Both, ' I said. 

"As I finished he called to her: 'I always knew you were lovely, Rica, but this is a real tribute--the dumbness of admiration!'

 * * * * *

"She told me later that he had fantastically described her to herselfafter hearing her play, at the same time dwelling upon the happinessit was to him to think of her so. She had longed to make heraffliction known to him, but for his own sake had not dared. 

"'No one here will undeceive him unless you bid them, ' she said, 'andyou will not be so cruel! What has he left in life but this illusion?What have I but my love for him?'

"And she did love him! I had seen tenderness and pity leap from hereyes whenever they turned in his direction, and he--What should a manhave done?" ended the clergyman. 

The writer shook his head. "What did you do?" he asked ratherhoarsely. 

"I married them, " answered the other simply. 

THE WAYFARERS

BY

MARY STEWART CUTTING

AUTHOR OF "LITTLE STORIES OF COURTSHIP, " "LITTLE STORIES OF MARRIEDLIFE, " ETC. 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALICE BARBER STEPHENS

XV

"Lois, would you mind very much if we didn't move into the new house, after all?"

"Not move into the new house! What do you mean? I thought it would befinished next week. "

"It means that I shall not be able to increase my living expenses thisyear, " said Justin. 

Husband and wife were sitting on the piazza, in the shade of thepurple wistaria-vines, on a warm Sunday afternoon, a month afterDosia's return. From within, the voices of the children soundedpeacefully over their early supper. 

The afternoon, so far, had savored only of domestic monotony, with noforeshadowing of events to come. Dosia was out walking with GeorgeSutton, and the people who might "drop in, " as they often did onSundays, had other engagements to-day. Lois, gowned in lavendermuslin, had been sitting on the piazza for an hour, trying to readwhile waiting for Justin to join her. She had counted each minute, butnow that he was there, she put down her book with a show of reluctanceas she said:

"Why didn't you tell me before? I gave the order for the window-shadesyesterday when I was in town--that was what I wanted to talk to youabout this afternoon. You have to leave your order at least two weeksbeforehand at this season of the year. "

"You can countermand it, can't you?"

"I suppose I'll have to--if we're not to move into the house, " saidLois in a high-keyed voice, with those tiresome tears coming, asusual, to her eyes. She felt inexpressibly hurt, disappointed, fooled. "I thought you said you were having so many orders lately. Does themoney _all_ have to 'go back into the business, '" she quotedsardonically, "as usual? I think there might be some left for your ownfamily sometimes. I'm tired of always going without for the business. "It was a complaint she had made many times before, but in each freshpang of her resentment she felt as if she were saying it for the firsttime. 

"We have orders, I'm glad to say, but we've had one big setbacklately, " he answered. 

He knew, with a twinge, that she had some reason on her side. The veryeffort for success was meat and drink to him; he cared not what elsehe went without, so the business grew. But she _might_ have had alittle more out of it as they went along, instead of waiting for thegrand climax of undoubted prosperity. A little means so much to a wifesometimes, because it means the recognition of her right. 

"I've been in a lot of trouble lately, Lois, though I haven't talkedabout it, " he continued, with an unusual appeal in his voice. Theblasting fact of those returned machines had been all he could copewith; he had been tongue-tied when it came to speaking about it--thewhirl and counter-whirl in his brain demanded concentration, notdiffusion and easy words to interpret. But now that he had begun tosee his way clear again, he had a sudden deep craving for theunreasoning sympathy of love. 

"I waited until the last possible moment to tell you, in hopes that Ishouldn't have to, Lois. Anyway, Saunders is going to put up a coupleof houses for next year that you'll like much better, he says. "

"Oh, it will be just the same next year; there'll always besomething, " said Lois indifferently, getting up and going into thehouse. 

He was bitterly hurt, and far too proud to show it. He could havecounted on quickest sympathy from her once; he knew in his heart thathe could call it out even now if he chose, but he did not choose. Ifhis own wife could be like that, she might be. 

"Papa dear, I love you so much!"

He looked down to see his little fair-haired girl, white-ruffled andblue-ribboned, standing beside him a-tiptoe in her little white shoes, her arms reached up to tighten instantly around his neck as he bentover. 

"Zaidee, my little Zaidee, " he said, and, lifting her on his knee, strained her tightly to him with a rush of such passionate affectionthat it almost unmanned him for the moment. She lay against his heartperfectly still. After a few moments she put her small hand to hislips, and he kissed it, and she smiled up at him, warm and secure--hislittle darling girl, his little princess. Yet, even in that joy of hischild, he felt a new heart-hunger which no child love, beautiful as itwas, could ever satisfy, any more than it could satisfy theheart-hunger of his wife. 

She had begun, since the ball, to go around again as usual, and thehouse looked as if it had a mistress in it once more, though theatmosphere of a home was lacking. She was languid, irritable, andunsmiling, accepting his occasional caresses as if they made littledifference to her, though sometimes she showed a sort of fierce, passionate remorse and longing. Either mood was unpleasing to him: itcontained tacit reproach for his separateness. Then, there were stilloccasionally evenings when he came home to find her windows darkenedand everything in the household upset and forlorn; when every footfallmust be adjusted to her ear--that ear that had strained and ached forhis coming. Her whole day culminated in that poor, meager half-hour inwhich he sat by her, and in which her personality hardly reached himuntil he kissed her, on leaving, with a quick, remorseful affection atbeing so glad to go. 

The typometer disaster had proved as bad as, and worse than, he hadfeared, but he was working retrieval with splendid effort, calling allhis personal magnetism into play where it was possible. He hadborrowed a large sum from Lanston's, --a young private banking firm, glad at the moment to lend at a fairly large interest for a term ofmonths, --holding on to the dissatisfied customers and creating newdemand for the machine, so that the sales forged ahead of Cater's, with whom there was still a good-natured we-rise-together sort ofrivalry, though it seemed at times as if it might take a sharper edge. Leverich's dictum regarding Cater embodied an extension of the policyto be pursued with minor, outlying competitors: "You'll have to forcethat fellow out of business or get him to come into the combine. "

Leverich again smiled on Justin. Immediate success was the pricedemanded for the continuance of a backing. There was just a little ofthe high-handed quality in his manner which says, "No more nonsense, if you please. " That morning after the ball had shown Justin the fangsthat were ready, if he showed symptoms of "falling down, " to shake himratlike by the neck and cast him out. 

"Papa dear, papa dear! There's a man coming up the walk, my papadear. "

"Why, so there is, " said Justin, rising and setting the child downgently as he went forward with outstretched hand, while Loissimultaneously appeared once more on the piazza. "Why, how are you, Larue? I'm mighty glad to see you back again. When did you get home?"

"The steamer got in day before yesterday, " said the newcomer, shakinghands heartily with host and hostess. He was a man with a dark, pointed beard and mustache, deep-set eyes, and an unusually pleasantdeep voice that seemed to imply a grave kindliness. His glancelingered over Lois. "How are you, Mrs. Alexander? Better, I hope?Which chair shall I push out of the sun for you--this one?"

"Yes, thank you, " responded Lois, sinking into it, with her billows oflilac muslin and her rich brown hair against the background of greenvines. "Aren't you going to sit down yourself?"

"Thank you, I've only a minute, " said the visitor, leaning against oneof the piazza-posts, his wide hat in his hand. "I'm out at my place atCollingwood for the summer, and the trains don't connect very well onSunday. I had to run down here to see some people, but I thought Iwouldn't pass you by. "

"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Lois. 

"Very pleasant, " rejoined Mr. Larue, without enthusiasm. "Oh, by theway, Alexander, I heard that you were inquiring for me at the officelast week. Anything I can do for you?"

"Have you any money lying around just now that you don't know what todo with?" asked Justin significantly. 

Mr. Larue's dark, deep-set eyes took on the guarded change which themention of money brings into social relations. 

"Perhaps, " he admitted. 

"May I come around to-morrow at three o'clock and talk to you?"

"Yes, do, " said the other, preparing to move on. "Please don't get up, Mrs. Alexander; you don't look as well as I'd like to see you. "

"Oh, I'm all right, " said Lois. 

"You must try and get strong this summer, " said Mr. Larue, his eyesdwelling on her with an intimate, penetrating thoughtfulness before heturned away and went, Justin accompanying him down the walk, Zaideedancing on behind. Lois looked after them. At the gate, Mr. Larueturned once more and lifted his hat to her. 

A faint, lovely color had come into Lois' cheek, brought there by thepowerful tonic which she always felt in Eugene Larue's presence. Shefelt cheered, invigorated, comforted, by a man with whom she hadhardly talked alone for an hour altogether in their whole five years'acquaintance. He had a way of taking thought for her on the slightestoccasion, as he had to-day: he knew when she entered a room or leftit, and she knew that he knew. 

It was one of those peculiar, unspoken sympathetic intimacies whichexist between certain men and women, without the conscious volition ofeither. His glance or the tone of his voice was a response to hermood; he saw instinctively when she was too warm or too cold, orneeded a rest. Her husband, who loved her, had no such intuitions; hehad to be told clumsily, and even then might not understand. Yet shehad not loved him the less because she must beat down such littlebarriers herself; perhaps she had loved him the more for it--he wasthe man to whom she belonged heart and soul: but the barriers were afact. She had an absolute conviction that she could do nothing thatEugene Larue would misunderstand, any more than she misunderstood herinvoluntary attraction for him. Above all things, he reverenced her ashis ideal of what a wife and mother should be. He would have given allhe possessed to have the kind of love which Justin took as a matter ofcourse. 

Eugene Larue had been married himself for ten years, for more thanhalf of which time his wife, whom Lois had never seen, had livedabroad for the further study of music, an art to which she waspassionately devoted. If there had been any effort to bring a hint ofscandal into the semi-separation, it had been instantly frowned away;there was nothing for it to feed on. Mrs. Larue lived in Dresden, under the undoubted chaperonage of an elderly aunt and in the constantpublicity of large musical entertainments and gatherings. Shesometimes played the accompaniments of great singers. Her husband wentover every spring, presumably to be with her, living alone for thegreater part of the year at his large place at Collingwood. Neitherwas ever known to speak of the other without the greatest respect, and questions as to when either had been "heard from" were usual andin order; it was always tacitly taken for granted that Mrs. Larue'sexpatriation was but temporary. 

But Lois knew, without needing to be told, that he was a man who hadsuffered, and still suffered at times profoundly, from having all thetenderness of his nature thrown back upon itself, without reference tothat sting of the known comment of other men: "It must be pretty toughto have your wife go back on you like that. " In some mysterious way, his wife had not needed the richness of the affection that he lavishedon her. If her heart had been warmed by it a little when she marriedhim, it had soon cooled off; she was glad to get away, and he hadproudly let her go. 

Lois smiled up at Justin with sudden coquetry as he mounted the porchsteps, but he only looked at her absently as he said:

"There seems to be a shower coming up. Dosia's hurrying down the road. I think I'd better take the chairs in now. "

XVI

Dosia had come back from the Leverichs' to a household in which herpresence no longer made any difference for either pleasure orannoyance. She came and went unquestioned, practised interminably, andspent her evenings usually in her own room, developing a hungrycapacity for sleep, of which she could not seem to have enough--sleep, where all one's sensibilities were dulled and shame and tragedyforgotten. She had, however, rather more of the society of thechildren than before, owing to their mother's preoccupation. Nothingcould have been more of a drop from her position as princess andlady-of-love in the Leverich domicile, where she had been the centerof attraction and interest. Everything seemed terribly unnatural here, and she the most unnatural of all--as if she were clinging temporarilyto a ledge in mid-air, waiting for the next thing to happen. 

Lois had really tried to show some sympathy for the girl, but was heldback by her repugnance to Lawson, which inevitably made itself felt. She couldn't understand how Dosia could possibly have allowed herselfto get into an equivocal position with such a man--"really not agentleman, " as she complained to Justin, and he had answered with thevague remark that you could never tell about a girl; even in itsvagueness the reply was condemning. 

The people whom Dosia met in the street looked at her with curiouslyquestioning eyes as they talked about casual matters. Mrs. Leverichbowed incidentally as she passed in her carriage, where anothervisitor was ensconced, a blonde lady from Montreal, in whom herhostess was absorbed. 

Dosia had been twice to see Miss Bertha, with a blind, desultorycounting on the sympathy that had helped her before; but she had beenunfortunate in the times for her visits. On the first occasion Mrs. Snow, with majestic demeanor and pursed lips, had kept guard; and onthe second the whole feminine part of the family were engaged, inweird pinned-up garments, in the sacred rite of setting out theinnumerable house-plants, with the help of a man hired semiannually, for the day, to set out the plants or to take them in. Callers are avery serious thing when you have a man hired by the day, who must belooked after every minute, so that he may be worth his wage. As Mrs. Snow remarked, "People ought to know when to come and when not to. "Dosia got no farther than the porch, and though Miss Bertha asked herto come again, and gave her a sprig of sweet geranium, with a kindlittle pressure of the hand, she was not asked to sit down. 

Your trouble wasn't anybody else's trouble, no matter how kind peoplewere; it was only your own. Billy Snow, who had always been herdevoted cavalier, patently avoided her, turning red in the face andgiving her a curt, shamefaced bow as he went by, having his ownreasons therefor. It would have hurt her, if anything of that kindcould have hurt her very much. But Dosia was in the half-numbcondition which may result from some great blow or the fall from agreat height, save for those moments when she was anguished suddenlyby poignant memories of sharpest dagger-thrusts, at which her heartstill bled unbearably afresh, as when one remembers the sufferings ofthe long-peaceful dead which one must, for all time, be terriblypowerless to alleviate. 

Mr. Sutton alone kept his attitude toward her unchanged. He sent hergreat bunches of roses, that seemed somehow alive and comfortinglyakin when she buried her face in them. He had come to see her everyweek, though twice she had gone to bed before his arrival. If hisattitude was changed at all, it was to a heightened respect andinterest and solicitude. It might be that in the subsidence of otherclaims Mr. Sutton, who had a good business head, saw an occasion ofprofit for himself which he might well be pardoned for seizing. Herequired little entertaining when he called, developing an unsuspectedfaculty for narrative conversation. 

Foolish and inane in amatory "attentions" to young ladies, George wasno fool. He had a fund of knowledge gained from the observation ofcurrent facts, and could talk about the newsboys' clubs, or thecondition of the docks, or the latest motor-cars and ballooning, orthe practical reasons why motives for reform didn't reform; and thetalk was usually semi-interesting, and sometimes more--he had thepersonal intimacy with his topics which gives them life. Dosia beganto find him, if not exciting, at least not tiring; restful, indeed. She began genuinely to like him. He took her thoughts away fromherself, while obviously always thinking of her. 

This Sunday afternoon Dosia--modish and natty in her shortwalking-skirt and little jacket of shepherd's check, and a clumpy, black-velveted, pink-rosed straw hat--walked companionably beside thesquare-set figure of George up the long slope of the semi-suburbanroad. Dosia had preferred to walk instead of driving. There was astrong breeze, although the sun was warm; and the summerish waysidetrees and grasses had inspired him with the recollection of a countryboy's calendar--a pleasing, homely monologue. He was, however, nevertoo occupied with his theme to stoop over and throw a stone out of herpath, or to hold her little checked umbrella so that the sun shouldnot shine in her eyes, or to offer her his hand with old-fashionedgallantry if there was any hint of an obstacle to surmount. The waywas long, yet not too long. They stopped, however, when they reachedthe summit, to rest for a while. 

As they stood there, looking into the distance for some minutes, Dosiawith thoughts far, far from the scene, George Sutton's voice suddenlybroke the silence:

"I had a letter from Lawson Barr yesterday. "

Dosia's heart gave a leap that choked her. It was the first time thatanybody had spoken his name since he left. She had prayed for himevery night--how she had prayed! as for one gone forever from anyother reach than that of the spirit. At this heart-leap ... Fear wasin it--fear of any news she might hear of him; fear of the slightingtone of the person who told it, which she would be powerless toresent; fear of awakening in herself the echo of that struggle of thepast. 

"He's at the mines, isn't he?" she questioned, in that tone which shehad always striven to make coolly natural when she spoke of him. 

"Yes; but I don't believe he's working there yet. He seems to bemostly engaged in playing at the dance-hall for the miners. Soundslike him, doesn't it?"

"Yes, " assented Dosia, looking straight off into the distance. 

"I call it hard luck for Barr to be sent out there, " pursued Mr. Sutton. "It's the worst kind of a life for him. He's an awfully cleverfellow; he could do anything, if he wanted to. I don't know any man Iadmire more, in certain ways, than I do Barr. "

Sutton spoke with evident sincerity. Lawson's clever brilliancy, hissocial ease and versatility and musical talent, were all what hehimself had longed unspeakably to possess. Besides, there was a deeperbond. "I've known him ever since he was a curly-headed boy, longbefore he came to this place, " he continued. 

"Oh, did you?" cried Dosia, suddenly heart-warm. With a flash, somewords of Mrs. Leverich's returned to her--"Mr. Sutton brought Lawsonhome last night. " So that was why! Her voice was tremulous as she wenton: "It is very unusual to hear any one speak as you do of Mr. Barr. Everybody here seems to look down on--to despise him. "

"Oh, that sort of talk makes me sick, " said George, with an unexpectedcrude energy. His good-natured face took on a sneering, contemptuousexpression. "Men talking about him who----" He looked down sidewise atDosia and closed his lips tightly. No man was more respectable thanhe, --respectability might be said to be his cult, --yet he lived indaily, matter-of-fact touch with a world of men wherein "ladies" werea thing apart. No man was ever kept from any sort of confidence by thefact of George Sutton's presence. His feeling for Barr and tolerationof his shortcomings were partly due to the fact that George himselfhad also been brought up in one of those small, dull country towns inwhich all too many of the cleanly, white, God-fearing houses have nohome in them for a boy and his friends. 

"If Lawson had had money, everybody would have thought he was allright, " he asserted shortly. "Perhaps we'd better be going home; itlooks as if there was a shower coming up. Money makes a lot ofdifference in this world, Miss Dosia. "

"I suppose it does; I've never had it, " said Dosia simply. 

"Maybe you'll have it some day, " returned Mr. Sutton significantly. His pale eyes glowed down at her as they walked back along the roadtogether, but the fact was not unpleasant to her; Lawson's name hadcreated a new bond between them. Poor, storm-beaten Dosia felt a warmthrob of friendship for George. He sympathized with Lawson; _he_prized her highly, if nobody else did, and he was not ashamed to showit. He went on now with genuine emotion: "I know one thing; if--if Ihad a wife, she'd never have to wish twice for anything I could giveher, Miss Dosia. "

"She ought to care a good deal for you, then, " suggested Dosia, picking her way daintily along the steeply sloping path, her littleblack ties finding a foothold between the stones, with Mr. Sutton'shand ever on the watch to interpose supportingly at her elbow. 

"No, I wouldn't ask that; I'd only ask her to let me care for _her_. Ithink most men expect too much from their wives, " said George. "Idon't think they've got the right to ask it. And I don't think a manhas any right to marry until he can give the lady all she ought tohave--that's my idea! If any beautiful young lady, as sweet as she wasbeautiful, did me the honor of accepting my hand, "--Mr. Sutton's voicefaltered with honest emotion, --"I'd spend my life trying to make herhappy; I would indeed, Miss Dosia. I'd take her wherever she wanted togo, as far as my means would afford; she should have anything I couldget for her. "

"I think you are the very kindest man I have ever known, " said Dosia, with sincerity, touched by his earnestness, though with a far-off, outside sort of feeling that the whole thing was happening in a book. Her vivid imagination was alluringly at work. In many novels which shehad read the real hero was the other man, whom no one noticed atfirst, and who seemed to be prosaic, even uncouth and stupid, whenconfronted with his fascinating rival, yet who turned out to bepermanently true and unselfish and omnisciently kind--the possessor, in spite of his uninspiring exterior, of all the sterling qualities oflove; in short, "John, " the honest, patient, constant "John" offiction. His affection for the maiden might be of so high a naturethat he would not even claim her as a wife after marriage until shehad learned truly to love him, which of course she always did. If Mr. Sutton were really "John"--Dosia half-freakishly cast a swiftinventorial side-glance at the gentleman. 

The next moment they turned into the highroad, and a rippling smileoverspread her face. 

"Here's the very lady for you now, " she remarked flippantly, as AdaSnow, prayer-book in hand, came into view at the crossing against adust-cloud in the background, on her way to a friend's house fromservice at the little mission chapel on the hill. Ada's cheeks took ona not unbecoming flush, her eyes drooped modestly beneath Mr. Sutton'sglance, --a maidenly tribute to masculine superiority, --before she wentdown the side-road. 

Mr. Sutton's face reddened also. "Now, Miss Dosia! Miss Ada may bevery charming, but I wouldn't marry Miss Ada if she were the only girlleft in the world. I give you my word I wouldn't. _You_ ought toknow----"

"We'll have to hurry, or we'll be caught in the rain, " interruptedDosia, rushing ahead with a rapidity that made further conversation anaffair of ineffective jerks, though she dreaded to get back to thehouse and be left alone to the numb dreariness of her thoughts. Justinand Lois were gathering up the rugs and sofa-pillows, as they reachedthe piazza, to take them in from the blackly advancing storm. Loisgreeted Mr. Sutton with unusual cordiality; perhaps she also dreadedthe accustomed dead level. 

"Do come in; you'll be caught in the rain if you go on. Can't you stayto a Sunday night's tea with us?"

"Oh, do, " urged Dosia, disregarding the delighted fervor of his gaze. Lois' hospitality, never her strong point, had been much in abeyancelately; to have a fourth at the table would be a blessed relief. Shefelt a new tie with Mr. Sutton: they both sympathized with Lawson, believed in him!

She ran up-stairs to change her walking-suit for a soft littleround-necked summer gown of pinkish tint, made at Mrs. Leverich's, which somehow made her pale little face and fair, curling hair looklike a cameo. When she came down again, she ensconced herself in onecorner of the small spindle sofa, to which Zaidee instantlygravitated, her red lips parted over her little white teeth in a smileof comfort as she cuddled within Dosia's half-bare round white arm, while Mr. Sutton, drawing his chair up very close, leaned over Dosiawith eyes for nobody else, his round face getting brick-red at timeswith suppressed emotion, though he tried to keep up his part in anamiable if desultory conversation. Lois reclined languidly in aneasy-chair, and Justin alternately played with and scolded theirrepressible Redge, in the intervals of discourse. 

Through the long open windows they watched the sky, which seemed todarken or grow light as fitfully, in the progress of the oncomingstorm, the wind lifted the vines on the piazza and flapped them downagain; the trees bent in straightly slanting lines, with foam-tossingof green and white from the maples; still it did not rain. Presentlyfrom where Dosia sat she caught sight of a passer-by on the other sideof the street--a tall, straight, well-set-up figure with the easy, erect carriage of a soldier. He stopped suddenly when he was oppositethe house, looked over at it, and seemed to hesitate; then he movedon hastily, only to stop the next instant and hesitate once more. Thistime he crossed over with a quick, decided step. 

"Why, here's Girard!" cried Justin, rising with alacrity. His voicecame back from the hall. "Awfully glad you took us on your way. Leverich told you where I lived? You'll have to stay now until thestorm is over. Lois, this is Mr. Girard. You know Sutton, of course. Dosia----"

"I have already met Mr. Girard, " said Dosia, turning very white, butspeaking in a clear voice. This time it was she who did not see thehalf-extended hand, which immediately dropped to his side, though hebowed with politely murmured assent. Stepping back to a chair halfacross the room, he seated himself by Justin. 

A wave of resentment, greater than anything that she had ever feltbefore, had surged over Dosia at the sight of him, as his eyes, with asort of quick, veiled questioning in them, had for an instant methers--resentment as for some deep, irremediable wrong. Her cheeks andlips grew scarlet with the proudly surging blood, she held her headhigh, while Mr. Sutton looked at her as if bewitched--though he turnedfrom her a moment to say:

"Weren't you up on the Sunset Drive this afternoon, Girard?"

"Yes; I thought you didn't see me, " said the other lightly, himselfturning to respond to a question of Justin's, which left the othergroup out of the conversation, an exclusion of which George availedhimself with ardor. 

There is an atmosphere in the presence of those who have lived throughlarge experiences which is hard to describe. As Girard sat theretalking to Justin in courteous ease, his elbow on the arm of hischair, his chin leaning on the fingers of his hand, he had adistinction possessed by no one else in the room. Even Justin, withall his engaging personality, seemed somehow a little narrow, a littleprovincial, by the side of Girard. 

Lois, who had been going backward and forward from thedining-room, --with black-eyed Redge, sturdy and turbulent, followingafter her astride a stick, until the nurse was called to take himaway, --came and sat down quite naturally beside this new visitor as ifhe had been an old friend, and was evidently interested and pleased. As a matter of fact, though all women as a rule liked Girard at sight, he much preferred the society of those who were married, when he wentin women's society at all. Girls gave him a strange inner feeling ofshyness, of deficiency--perhaps partly caused by the consciousdisadvantages of a youth other than that to which he had been born;but it was a feeling that he would have been the last to be creditedwith, and which he certainly need have been the last to possess. Likemany very attractive people, he had no satisfying sense ofattractiveness himself. 

It was raining now, but very softly, after all the wild preparation, with a hint of sunshine through the rain that sent a pale-green lightover the little drawing-room, with its spindle-legged furniture andthe water-colors on its walls, though the gloom of the dining-roombeyond was relieved only by the silver and the white napkins on theround mahogany table with a glass bowl of green-stemmed, white-belledlilies-of-the-valley in the center. 

The people in the two separate groups in the drawing-room took on anodd, pearly distinctness, with the flesh-tints subdued. In thiscommonplace little gathering on a Sunday afternoon the material seemedto be only a veil for the things of the spirit--subtlecross-communications of thought-touch or repulsion, impressionstinglingly felt. Something seemed to be curiously happening, thoughone knew not what. To Dosia's swift observation, Girard had lost someof the brightness that had shone upon her vision the night of theball; he looked as if he had been under some harassing strain. Herfirst impression that he had come into the house reluctantly wasreinforced now by an equal impression that he stayed with reluctance. Why, then, had he come at all? Was it only to escape the rain? Herrescuer, the hero of her dreams, still held his statued place in theshrine of her memory, as proudly, defiantly opposed to this stranger. Had he known? He must have known, just as she had. It was not Lawsonwho had hurt her the most! She could not hear what he said, though theroom was small; he and Justin and Lois were absorbed together. It wasevident that he frankly admired Lois, who was smiling at him. Yet, ashe talked, Dosia became curiously aware that from his positiondirectly across the room he was covertly watching her as she satconsentingly listening to George Sutton, whose round face was bendingover very near, his thick coat sleeve pinning down the filmy rufflesof hers as it rested on the carved arm of the little sofa. 

She still held Zaidee cuddled close to her, the light head with itsbig blue bow lying against her breast, as the child played with thesimple rings on the soft fingers of the hand she held. 

Mr. Sutton got up, at Dosia's bidding, to alter the shade, and shemoved a little, drawing Zaidee up to her to kiss her; Girard the nextinstant moved slightly also, so that her face was still within hisrange of vision, the intent gray eyes shaded by his hand. It was nother imagining--she felt the strong play of unknown forces: the gaze ofthose two men never left her, one covertly observant, the other mostobviously so. George came back from his errand only to sit a littlecloser to Dosia, his eyes in their most suffused state. He was, indeed, in that stage of infatuation which can no longer brook anyconcealment, and for which other men feel a shamefaced contempt, though a woman even while she derides, holds it in a certain respectas a foolish manifestation of something inherently great, and atribute to her power. To Dosia's indifference, in this strange dualsense of another and resented excitement, --an excitement like thatproduced on the brain by some intolerably high altitude, --Mr. Sutton'sattentions seemed to breathe only of a grateful warmth; she felt thathe was being very, very kind. She could ask him to do anything forher, and he would do it, no matter what it was, just because she askedhim. He was planning now a day on somebody's yacht, with Lois, ofcourse; and "What do you say, Miss Dosia--can't we make it a familyparty, and take the children too?" he asked, with eager divination ofwhat would please this lovely thing. 

"Yes, oh, why can't you take _us_?" cried Zaidee, trembling withdelight. 

The rain had ceased, but the sunlight had vanished, too; the wholeplace was growing dark. There was a sudden silence, in which Dosia'svoice was heard saying:

"I'll get my photograph now, if you want it. " She rose and left theroom, --she could not have stayed in it a moment longer, --and Zaideeran over to her father, her white frock crumpled and the cheek thathad lain against Dosia rosy warm. 

"You had better light the lamp, Justin, " said Lois, and then, "Oh, you're not going?" as Girard stood up. 

He turned his bright, gentle regard upon her. "I'm afraid I'll haveto. "

"I expected you to stay to tea; I've had a place set for you. "

"I'd like to very much--it's kind of you to ask me--but I'm afraid notto-night. I'll see you to-morrow, Sutton, I suppose. Good evening, Mrs. Alexander. " His hand-touch seemed to give an intimacy to thewords. 

"Your stick is out here in the hall somewhere, " said Justin, investigating the corners for it, while Zaidee, who had followed thetwo, stood in the doorway. 

"I wonder if this little girl will kiss me good-by?" asked Girardtentatively. 

"Will you, Zaidee?" asked her father, in his turn. 

For all answer, Zaidee raised her little face trustfully. Girarddropped on one knee, a very gallant figure of a gentleman, as he putboth arms around the small, light form of the child and held hertightly to him for one brief instant while his lips pressed that warmcheek. When he strode lightly away, waving his hand behind him infarewell, it was with an odd, somber effect of having said good-by toa great deal. 

For the second time that day, it seemed that Zaidee had been therecipient of an emotion called forth by some one else. 

XVII

"Lois?"

"Yes?"

Dosia had come into the nursery, where Lois sat sewing, a canaryoverhead swinging with shrill velocity in a stream of sunshine. Herlook gave no invitation to Dosia. She did not want to talk; she wasbusy, as ever, with--no matter what she was doing--the self-fulness ofher thoughts, which chained her like a slave. She had been longing tomove into the other house, where, amid new surroundings, she couldescape from the familiar walls and outlook that each brought itssuggestion of pain, with the wearying iterancy of habit, no matter howshe wanted to be happy. 

Dosia dropped half-unwillingly into a chair as she said:

"I've something to tell you, Lois. "

"Well?"

"I'm engaged to George Sutton. "

"Dosia!"

Lois' work fell from her hand as she stared at the girl. 

"I'm sure I don't see that you need be surprised, " said Dosia. Shelooked pale and expressionless, as one who did not expect eithersympathy or interest. 

"No, I suppose not, " said Lois. "Of course, I know he has been payingyou a great deal of attention, but then, he has paid other girlsalmost as much. " She stopped, with her eyes fixed on Dosia. In asense, she had rather hoped for this; the marriage would certainlysolve many difficulties, and be a very fine thing for Dosia--if Dosiacould----! Yet now the idea revolted Lois. To marry a man withoutloving him would have been to her, at any time or under any stress, aphysical impossibility. Marriage for friendship or suitability orsupport were outside her scheme of comprehension. She spoke now withcold disapproval:

"Dosia, you don't know what you are doing. You don't love GeorgeSutton. "

Dosia's face took on the well-known obstinate expression. 

"He loves me, anyhow, and he is satisfied with me as I am. If he issatisfied, I don't see why any one else need object! He likes me justas I am, whether I care for him or not. "

She clasped both hands over her knee as she went on with thatunexplainable freakishness to which girlhood is sometimes maddeninglysubject, when all feeling as well as reason seems in abeyance, thoughher voice was tremulous. "And I _do_ care for him. I like him betterthan any one I know. We are sympathetic on a great many points. Noone--_no one_ has been so kind to me as he! He doesn't want anythingbut to make me happy. "

Lois made a gesture of despair. "Oh, _kind_! As if a man like GeorgeSutton, who has done nothing but have his own way for forty years, isgoing to give up wanting it now! Marriage is very different from whatgirls imagine, Dosia. "

"I suppose so, " said Dosia indifferently. She rose and came over toLois. "Would you like to see my ring?" She turned the circle around onher finger, displaying a diamond like a search-light. "He gave it tome last night. "

"It is very handsome, " said Lois. "I suppose you will have to bethinking of clothes soon, " she added, with a glimmer of the naturalfeminine interest in all that pertains to a wedding, since furtherprotest seemed futile. "I will write to Aunt Theodosia. "

"Thank you, " said Dosia dutifully. 

A hamper of fruit came for her at luncheon, almost unimaginablybeautiful in its arrangement of white hothouse grapes and peaches andstrawberries as large as the peaches; and the contents of a box offlowers filled every available vase and jug and bowl in the house, asDosia arranged them, with the help of Zaidee and Redge--the formerwinningly helpful, and the latter elfishly agile, his bare kneesnut-brown from the sun of the springtime, jumping on her back whenevershe stooped over, to be seized in her arms and hugged when sherecovered herself. Flowers and children, children and flowers! Nothingcould be sweeter than these. 

In the afternoon, in a renewed capacity for social duties, she put onher hat with the roses and went to make a call, long deferred andhitherto impossible of accomplishment, on a certain Mrs. Wayne, abride of a few months, who, as Alice Lee, had been one of the girls ofher outer circle. Dosia did not mean to announce her engagement, butshe felt that Alice Wayne's state of mind would be more sympathetic, even if unconsciously so, than Lois'. 

As she walked along now, she thought of George with a deeply gratefulaffection. How good he was to her! He had been unexpectedly nice whenhe had asked her to marry him; the very force of his feeling had givenhim an unusual dignity. His voice had broken almost with a groan onthe words:

"I have never known any one with such a beautiful nature as yours, Miss Dosia! I just worship you! I only want to live to make youhappy. "

He did not himself care for motoring--being, truth to tell, afraid ofit; but she was to choose a car next week. She had told him about herfather and her mother and the children. She was to have the lattercome up to stay with her after she was married--do anything for themthat she would. In imagination now she was taking them through all theshops in town, buying them toy horses and soldiers and balls, anddressing them in darling little light-blue sailor-suits. She couldhardly wait for the time to come! She thought with a little awe thatshe hadn't known that Mr. Sutton was as well off as he seemed to be. And the way he had spoken of Lawson--Ah, Lawson! That name tugged ather heart. This suddenly became one of those anguished moments whenshe yearned over him as over a beloved lost child, to be wept over, succored only through her efforts. She must never forget! "Lawson, Ibelieve in you. " She stopped in the shaded, quiet street with itsgarden-surrounded houses, and said the words aloud with a solemn senseof immortal infinite power, before coming back to the eager surfaceplanning of her own life, with an intermediate throb of a new anddeeper loneliness. The Dosia who had so upliftingly faced truth hadonly strength enough left now to evade it. Perhaps some of thatexquisite inner perception of her nature had been jarred confusinglyout of touch. 

Mrs. Wayne was in, although, the maid announced, she had but justreturned from town. A moment later Dosia heard herself called fromabove:

"Dosia Linden! Won't you come up-stairs? You don't mind, do you?"

"No, indeed, " answered Dosia, obeying the summons with alacrity, andpleased that she should be considered so intimate. This was more thanshe had expected--an informal reception and talk. With Dosia's ownresponsive warmth, she felt that she really must always have wanted tosee more of Alice, who, in her lacy pink-and-white negligée, might bepardoned for wishing to show off this ornament of her trousseau. 

"I hope you won't mind the appearance of this room, " she announced, after a hospitable violet-perfumed embrace. "I went to town so earlythis morning that I didn't have time to really set things to rights, and I don't like the new maid to touch them. "

"You have so many pretty things, " said Dosia admiringly. 

"Yes, haven't I? Take that seat by the window; it's cooler. _Please_don't look at that dressing-table; Harry leaves his necktieseverywhere, though he has his own chiffonnier in the other room--he'ssuch a _bad_ boy! He seems to think I have nothing to do but put awayhis things for him. "

Mrs. Wayne paused with a bridal air of important matronlyresponsibility. She was a tall, thin, black-haired, dashing girl, notat all pretty, who was always spoken of compensatingly as having agreat deal of "style"; but she seemed to have gained some new andgentle charm of attraction because she was so happy. 

"Have this fan, won't you?" she went on talking. "Harry and I saw youand George Sutton out walking yesterday. We were in the motor, and hadstopped up on the Drive to speak to Mr. Girard. He _is_ just theloveliest thing! What a pity he won't go where there are girls! Harryis quite jealous, though I tell him he needn't be. " Mrs. Wayne pausedwith a lovely flush before going on. "You didn't see us, though westopped quite near you. My dear, it's _very_ evident that--" Shepaused once more, this time with arch significance. "Oh, you needn'tbe afraid. I never know anything until I'm told. But George is such agood fellow! I'm sure I ought to know--he was perfectly devoted to me. Not the kind girls are apt to take a fancy to, perhaps, --girls are sofoolish and romantic, --but he'd be awfully nice to his wife. Harrysays he's a lot richer than anybody knows. And people are so muchhappier married--the right people, of course. "

"Did you have a pleasant time while you were away?" asked Dosia, asshe lay back in her low, wide, prettily chintz-covered arm-chair. Ifshe had had some half-defined impulse to confide in Alice Wayne, itwas gone, melted away in this too fervid sunshine of approval. Shehad, instead, one of her accessions of dainty shyness; the ring on herfinger, underneath her glove, seemed to burn into her flesh. Her eyesroved warily around the room as Mrs. Wayne talked about herwedding-trip and her husband, folding up her Harry's neckties as shechattered, her fingers lingering over them with little secret pats. She brought out some of her pretty dresses afterward for Dosia'sinspection. From the open door of a closet beyond, a pair of shoeswas distinctly visible--Harry's shoes, which the wife laughingly putback into place as she went and closed the door. It was impossible notto see that even those clumsy, monstrously thick-soled things weretouched with sentiment for her because the feet of her dearest hadworn them. 

In Dosia's world so far it was a matter of course that some peoplewere married--their household life went unnoticed; the fact had norelation to her own intangible dreams or hopes; it was a conditioninherent to these elders, and not of any particular interest to her. But Alice Wayne had been a girl like herself until now. Thismatter-of-fact community of living forced itself upon her notice, asif for the first time, as an absolutely new thing. The blood surged upsuddenly through the ice of her indifference; the room choked her. George Sutton's neckties, not to speak of his shoes----!

"I'll have to be going, " she interrupted precipitately, rising as shespoke. 

"Why, "--Alice Wayne stopped in the middle of a sentence, looking ather in surprise, --"what's the matter? Aren't you well?"

"Yes, yes, but I have an appointment, " affirmed Dosia desperately. "I've been enjoying it all so much, but I'd forgotten I must go--atonce! Good-by. "

She almost ran on the way home. There was no appointment, but it wasimperative that she should be alone, away from all suggestion of thenewly married. She hoped that there would be no visitors. But as sheneared the house she saw that there was some one on the piazza--GeorgeSutton, frock-coated and high-hatted, with a rose above his whitewaistcoat and a beaming face that rivaled the rose in color as he cameto meet her. 

"Why, I thought you were not coming until this evening, " said Dosiademandingly, --"not until you could see Justin. "

"Did you think I could stay away as long as that?" asked George. Hismanner the night before had been almost reverential in the depth ofhis honest emotion; the kiss he had imprinted on her forehead hadseemed of an impersonal nature, and she a princess who regally allowedit. She was conscious now of a change. 

"Where is Lois?" she asked, as they went up the steps together. 

"The maid said she had stepped out for a moment. "

"Then we'll sit out here on the piazza and wait for her, " said Dosia, without looking at her lover. Taking the hat-pins out of her hat, shedeposited it on a chair with a quick decision of movement, and thenseated herself by a wicker table, while Mr. Sutton, lookingdisappointed, was left perforce to the rocker on the other side. 

The piazza was rather a long one, and, except for a rambling vine, open toward the street; but around the corner of the house Japanesescreens walled it off from passers-by into a cozy arbored nook, sweetwith big bowls of roses. 

"Come around to the other end of the porch, " said George appealingly. 

"No, " said Dosia, with her obstinate expression; "I like it here. "

She stripped the long gloves from her arms, and spread out her hands, palms upward, in her lap. The diamond, which had been turned inward, caught the sunshine gloriously. His gaze fell upon it, and he smiled. Dosia saw the smile and reddened. 

"I wish you wouldn't sit there looking at me, " she said in a tonewhich she tried to make neutral. 

"Come down to the other end of the piazza--just for a moment. "

"No!" said Dosia again. She gave a sudden movement and changed hertone sharply: "Oh, there's a spider on the table there, crawlingtoward me! Please take it away. " Her voice rose uncontrollably. "Ihate spiders--oh, I _hate_ spiders! I'm afraid of them. Make it goaway! Please! There--now you've got it; throw it off the piazza, quick! Don't bring it near me!"

"The little spider won't hurt you, " said George enjoyingly. 

Dosia, flushing and paling alternately, carried entirely out of herdeterring placidity, her blue eyes dilatingly raised to his, her redlips quivering, was distractingly lovely. Fear gave to her quick, uncalculated movements the grace of a wild thing. George, in spite ofhis solid good qualities, possessed the mistaken playfulness of theinnately vulgar. He advanced, the spider now held between his thumband forefinger, a little nearer to her--a little nearer yet. There isa type of bucolic mind to which the causeless, palpitating fear of awoman is an exquisitely funny joke. 

"Don't, " said Dosia again, in a strangled voice, ready to fly from thechair. The spider touched her sleeve, with George's fatuously smilingface behind it. The next instant she had fled wildly down to thescreened corner of the veranda, with George after her, only to bestopped by the screens at the end. His following arms closed tightlyaround her as he kissed her in happy triumph. 

After one wild, instinctive effort at struggle, Dosia stood perfectlystill, with that peculiarly defensive self-possession that came intoplay at such times. She seemed to yield entirely now to the rightfulcaresses of an accepted lover as she said in a perfectly even andcasual tone of voice:

"Let me go for a moment, George! I must get my handkerchief up-stairs. I'll be right back again. "

"Don't be gone long, " said George fondly, releasing herhalf-unconsciously at the accent of custom. 

"No, " said Dosia, very pale, and smiling back at him coquettishly asshe went off with unhurried step--to dart up two pairs of stairs likea flying, hunted thing, and into her room, to lock the door fast andbolt it as if from the thoughts that pursued her. 

Lois, coming up the stairs half an hour later, rattled the door-knobineffectually before she knocked. 

"Dosia, what's the matter? To whom are you talking? Let me in! Katysaid, when she came up, you would not answer. She said Mr. Sutton hadbeen walking up and down the piazza for a long time. Dosia, let me in;let me in this minute!"

The key clicked in the lock, the bolt slipped back, and the door flewopen. Dosia, in her blue muslin frock, her hair in wild disorder, wasstanding in the center of the room, fiercely rubbing her alreadyscarlet cheeks with a rough towel. Every trace of assumed listlessnesshad vanished; she was frantically alive, with blazing, defiant eyes, and talking half-disconnectedly. 

"Never let him come here again--never, never!" she appealed to Lois. 

"Whom do you mean?"

"George Sutton!"

A contraction passed over her face; she began rubbing again withrenewed fury. 

"Don't do that, Dosia! You'll take the skin off. Stop it!"

Lois, alarmed, put her arm around the girl, trying to push the towelaway from her. "Dosia, sit down by me here on the bed--how you'retrembling! What on earth is the matter? Dosia, you must not; you'lltake the skin off your face. "

"I want to take it off, " whispered Dosia intensely. "I hate him, Ihate him! I never want to see him again. I can't see him again. Ithrew the ring out in the hall somewhere; you'll have to find it. Icouldn't have it in the room with me! Lois, you must tell him I can'tsee him again; promise me that I'll never see him again--promise, _promise_!" She clung to Lois as if her life depended on thatprotection. 

"Yes, yes, dear, I promise, " said Lois, with a sudden warmth ofsympathy such as she had never before felt for the girl. Thissituation, this feeling, she could comprehend--it might have been herown in similar case. She had known girls before who had been engagedfor but a day or a week, and then revolted--it was not so new acircumstance as the world fancies. 

She drew the towel now from Dosia's relaxed fingers, and held hercloser as she said:

"There, be quiet, Dosia, and don't make yourself ill. I don't see whatthat poor man is going to do--of course he'll feel dreadfully; but youcan't help that now--it's a great deal better than finding out themistake later. I'll tell him not to come again; I promise you. Ofcourse, I'll have to speak to Justin--I don't know what he will say!"Lois broke into a rueful smile. "Dosia, Dosia! What scrape will youget into next?"

"Isn't it dreadful!" gasped poor Dosia. She sat up straight and lookedat Lois with tragic eyes. 

"Now two men have kissed me. I can never get over that in this world. I can never be nice again--no one can ever think I'm nice again! Noone can ever--_love_ me in this world!" She buried her hot face inLois' bosom, sobbing tearlessly against that new shelter, in spite ofthe other's incoherent words of comfort, so unalterably, so inherentlya woman made to be loved that the loss of the dream of it was like theloss of existence. After a moment Dosia went on brokenly:

"It seems so strange. Things begin, and you think they are going toturn out to be something you want very much, and then all of a suddenthey end--and there is nothing more. Everything is all beginning--andthen it ends--there is nothing more. And now I can never be reallynice again!"

"Nonsense! You'll feel very differently about it all after a while, "said Lois sensibly. 

"I don't want to go down-stairs again. " Dosia began to shakeviolently. "If he were to come back----"

"Well, stay up here. Zaidee shall bring you your dinner, " said Loishumoringly. "I must go down now; I hear Justin. Only, you'll have topromise me to be quiet, Dosia, and not begin going wild again themoment I'm out of the room. "

"No, I'll be good, " murmured Dosia submissively. "Oh, Lois, you're sokind to me! I love you so much!"

Her head ached so hard that it was easy to be quiet now. She could noteat the meal which Zaidee, assisted to the door by the maid, broughtin to her. It seemed, oddly enough, like a reversion back to thatfirst night of her arrival--oh, so long ago!--after tempest anddisaster. Yet then the white, enhancing light of the future had shonedown through everything, and now there was no future, only a murkypast, and she a poor girl who had dropped so far out of the way ofhappiness that she could never get back to it, never be nice again. That hand that had once held hers so firmly, so steadily, that shecould sleep secure with just the comfort of its remembered touch, thethought of it had become only pain, like everything else. Oh, back ofall this shaming hurt with Lawson and George Sutton was another shame, that went deeper and deeper still. Since that visit of BaileyGirard's, she had known that he had thought of her as she had thoughtof him, with a knowledge that could not be controverted. It isastonishing that we, who feel ourselves to be so dependent on speechas a means of communication, have our intensest, our most revealingmoments without it. He had thought of her as she had of him, and, withthe thought of her in his heart, had been content easily that itshould be no more. 

Oh, if this stranger had been indeed the hero of her dreams, --lover, protector, dearest friend, --to have sought her mightily with theprivilege and the prerogative of a man, so that she might have had noexperience to live through but that white experience with him!

"Dosia! Open the door quickly. "

It was the voice of Lois once more, with a strange note in it. Shestood, hurried and breathless, under the gas she turned on as she heldout a telegram--for the second time the transmitter of bad news fromthe South. The message read: "Your father is ill. Come at once. "

XVIII

There are times and seasons which seem to be full of happenings, followed by long stretches that have only the character of transitionfrom the former stage to something that is to come. Weeks and monthsfly by us; we do not realize that they are here before they are gone, there is so little to mark any day from its fellow. Yet we lay toomuch stress on the power of separate and peculiar events to shape thecurrent of our lives, and do not take into account that drama whichnever ceases to be acted, which knows no pause nor interim, and whichtakes place within ourselves. 

It was April once more before Dosia Linden came North again, afterextending months, in no day of which had her stay seemed anything buttemporary--a condition to be ended next week or the week after atfarthest. Her father's illness turned out to be a lingering one, taking every last ounce of strength from his wife and his daughter;and after his death the little stepmother had collapsed for a while, with only Dosia to take the helm. Dosia had worked early and late, nursing, looking after the children, cooking, sewing, and later on, when sickness and death had taken nearly all the means of livelihood, trying to earn money for the immediate needs by teaching the scales tosome of the temporary tribe at the hotel--an existence in which selfwas submerged in loving care for those who clung to her; and to clingto Dosia was always to receive from her. Sleep was the goal of theday, and too much of a luxury to have any of its precious momentswasted in wakeful dreaming; besides, there was nothing to dream aboutany more. As she crept into her low bed, she turned away from themoonlight, because there are times, when one is young, when moonlightis very hard to bear. 

The little family, bewildered and exhausted, had come to the end ofits resources, when Mrs. Linden's brother in San Francisco offered herand her children a home with him--an offer which, naturally, did notinclude Dosia. She was very glad for them, but, after all, though shehad worked so hard for them, they were not to belong to her for hervery own. The aunt whose generosity had given her the money for hermusical education had also died, leaving a small sum in trust for thegirl. It was that which furnished her with means when she went oncemore to stay at the Alexanders'. Justin himself had written to see ifshe could come. 

There was another baby now, a couple of months old, and Lois neededher. No fairy-story maiden this, going out to seek her fortune, whotook an uneventful train journey this time--only a very tired girl, worn with work and worn with the sorrow of parting, yet thankful tolean her head against the back of the car-seat and feel the burden ofanxiety and care slip from her for a little while. 

Hard work alone is not ennobling, but drudgery for those whom we lovemay have its uplifting trend. Dosia was pale and thin; the blue veinson her temples showed more plainly. Her face was no longer the typicalwhite page, unwritten upon; that first freshness of youth andinexperience had gone. Dosia had lived. Young as she was, she hadtasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; she had knownsuffering; she had faced shame and disappointment and--truth; yes, through everything she had faced that--taken herself to account, probed, condemned, renounced. What she had lost in youthfulness shehad gained in character. She had an innocent nobility of expressionthat came from a light within, as of one ready to answer unwaveringlywherever she might be called. Yet something in her soft eyes at timestrembled into being, indescribably gentle, intolerably sweet--the soulof that Dosia who was made to be loved. 

[Illustration: "MRS. LEVERICH BOWED INCIDENTALLY"]

If she had changed since that first journeying a year and a half ago, so had the conditions changed in the household to which she went. Justin had had the not unusual experience of the business man who hasachieved what he has set out to achieve without the expected result;in the silting-pan which holds success some of the gold mysteriouslydrops through. The Typometer Company was doing a very large business, quadrupled since the day of its inception. The building was hardly bigenough now to hold the offices and manufacturing plant; the force hadbeen greatly increased, and an additional floor for storage had beenhired next door. The typometer had absorbed the output of two smallrival companies, one out West and one in a neighboring town--bothglad, in view of a losing game, to make terms with the successfularbiter. Where one person used a typometer three years ago, it was inrequest by fifty people now, for many things--for many more, indeed, than had been thought of at first; every week plans in specialadjustments were made to fit the machine for different purposes. Itwas undoubtedly not only a success in itself, but was destined to fitinto more and more of the needs of the working world as a standardproduct. 

Orders came in from all parts of the globe. Justin, as he hurried overto his office or held important consultations with the men who wantedto see him, was awarded the respect given to the head of a large andsuccessful concern. He was marked as a rising man. Yet, in spite ofall this real accomplishment of the Typometer Company, the net profitshad always fallen short of the mark set for them; the company was inconstant and growing need of money. 

Prices of everything to do with manufacturing had increased--prices ofcopper and steel, of machinery, of wages, in addition to the largernumber of hands employed, and the rent of the additional floor. It wasalways necessary for one's peace of mind to go back to the value ofthe material stock and the assets to be counted on in the future. Thesteady branching out of the business in every direction was proof ofthe fact that if it did not it must retrench; and to retrench meantfewer orders, fewer opportunities--financial suicide. 

It was the powerful shibboleth of the world of trade that one must beseen to be doing business; only so could the doors of credit beopened. If Cater came in with him now, as seemed at last to beexpected, the doors must open farther. No matter how one tries to seeall around the consequences of any change, any undertaking, therealways arise minor consequences which from their very nature must beunforeseen, and yet which may turn out to be the really powerfulfactors in the main issue; unimportant genii that, let out of theirbottle, swell immeasurably. The consequences of the fire, small as itwas, seemed never-ending. The defective bars had proved a disastroussupply for the machine, in more ways than one. 

Left by the Leverich-Martin combination to work his own retrieval, hehad borrowed the ten thousand from Lewiston, and had used part of themoney to pay the interest to the others; and later, in the flush ofreinstatement, he had borrowed another ten thousand from Leverich, aloan to be called by him at any time. Lewiston's loan had seemed easyof repayment at six months. Justin knew when the money was coming in, but he had been obliged, after all, to anticipate, and get his billsdiscounted before they came due for other purposes, often paying hugetribute for the service. Lewiston had renewed the note for sixty days, and then for sixty more, but with the proviso that this was the lastextension. 

In short, the whole process of competently keeping afloat had beengone through, with a definite aim of accomplishment. Cater'scooperation, about which he had been so slow, would infuse new bloodinto the business. It was maddening at times to have so many good usesfor money, and to be unable to command it at the crucial moment. Hehad approached Eugene Larue on that past Sunday afternoon, only tofind him cautiously negative where once he had seemed friendlilysuggesting. 

Such a process, to be successful, depends on the power of the manbehind it, which must not only comprehend and direct the largerissues, but must be able to carry along smoothly all the easilyentangling threads of detail; he must not only have a capable brain, but he must have the untiring nervous energy that can "hold out"through any crisis. Such men may go to pieces after incredible effort, but they are on the way to success first. Danger only quickens thesure leap to safety. 

[Illustration: "WITH EYES FOR NOBODY ELSE"]

Justin, preëminently clear-headed, had been conscious lately of twophases--one an almost preternatural illumination of intellect, and theother a sort of brain-inertia, more soul-and body-fatiguing than anypain. There were seasons when he was obliged to think when he couldinstead of when he would. He looked grave, alert, competent, butunderneath this demeanor there went an unceasing effort of computationand reckoning to which the computation and reckoning on the firstnight of his agreement with Leverich was as a child's play with toybricks is to the building of an edifice of stone. 

[Illustration: "FLOWERS AND CHILDREN--CHILDREN AND FLOWERS!"]

The large business responsibilities now incurred clashed grotesquelywith the daily need of money at home for petty uses, a condition ofaffairs which often happens at the birth of a child, when thehousehold is at loose ends, and the expenses are necessarily greaterin every direction, at the time when it seems most imperative to limitthem. He seemed never to have enough "change" in his pockets, nomatter how much he brought home. 

[Illustration: "'THE LITTLE SPIDER WON'T HURT YOU'"]

In some men the business faculties become more and more self-sufficingwhen there is no other passion to divide them--the nature grows allone way; and there are others who seem independent, yet who are alwaysas dependent as children on the unnoticed, sustaining help ofaffectionate love that makes the home a refuge from the provoking ofall men; that unreasonably, and at all times, hotly champions thecause of the beloved against the world. No help-giving virtue had goneout from this household in the last year; it had all been a dead lift. 

Justin had never spoken of his affairs to Lois since that Sunday whenshe had said that she hated them. When she had asked for money, shehad always added the proviso, "if he could afford it, " and acceptedthe fact either way without comment. He was, as time went on, more andmore affectionately solicitous for her welfare, even if he was, as shekeenly felt, less personally loving. 

If she went to bed early in the evening, he took that opportunity togo out; and if she stayed up, he remained at home and went to sleep onthe lounge, and the little touch that binds divergence with the innerthread of sympathy was lacking. 

Yet, strange as it might seem, while she consciously suffered far themost, his loss was mysteriously the greater; the fire of love of whichshe was by right high priestess still burned secretly for her tendingas she covered over the embers on the hearthstone, though he was coldand chill for lack of that vital warmth. 

There were moments when she felt that she could die gladly for him, but always for that glory of self-triumphing in the end. Then thatwhich seemed as if it could never change began to change. 

Before the child was born, and now since that, there was a difference. Men and women who suffer most from imaginary wrongs may become saneand heroic in times of real danger. Lois, noble, sweet, and brave, thoughtful for Zaidee and Redge and Justin even while she trembled, excited reverence and a deep and anxious tenderness in her husband. 

Then, afterward, he was proud of his second son. When Justin came inat the end of each day and sat down by her bedside, holding herblue-veined hand while she smiled peacefully at him, there was asweet, sufficing pleasure about those few minutes, singularlysoothing, though the interim had no relation to actual living, exceptin the fact that one anxiety had been lifted. While the expectantbirth of the child had been to her, as it is to almost every woman, aseparate and distinct calamitous illness to which she looked forwardas one might look forward to being taken with typhoid or diphtheria, he considered it as a manifestation of nature, not in itselfdangerous, and her fear that of a child, to be soothed by reason. 

Still, he had had his moments of a reluctant, twinging fear. One causefor disquieting thought was removed. Now the helplessness of thislittle family, for whom he was the provider, tugged at a swellingheart. 

As he walked toward his office to-day somewhat later than was hiswont, he diverged from his usual custom: instead of entering his owndoorway, he went across the street to Cater's after a moment'shesitation. Now that Cater's coöperation was at the consummatingpoint, it was wiser not to run the risk of its sagging back. Leverichand Martin were keenly for its success. Justin's credit would riseimmeasurably with it. The Typometer Company had absorbed the minormachines with so little trouble that the unabsorbability of thetimoscript had seemed an unnecessary stumbling-block. Time and timeagain Justin had sought Cater with tabulated figures and unanswerablearguments. The combination, he firmly believed, would be highlybeneficial for both. The field was, in its way, too narrow to bedivided with the highest profit; together they could command thetrade. 

[Illustration: "'NEVER LET HIM COME HERE AGAIN--NEVER, NEVER!'"]

Cater was opposed to all combinations as trusts, --a word against whichhe was principled, --with obstinate refusal to differentiate as tokind, quality, or intent. Like many men who are given to a far-seeingphilosophy in words, he was narrow-mindedly cautious when it came toaction, apt to be suspicious in the wrong place, and requiring to becontinually reassured about conditions which seemed the very a-b-c ofcommerce. The rivalry between the two firms had been apparentlygood-natured, yet a little of the sharp edge of competition had shownsigns of cutting through the bond. 

The typometer had put its prices down, and the timoscript had cutunder; then the typometer had gone as low as was wise, and thetimoscript had begun to weaken in its defenses. 

Cater was already at work at a big desk as Justin entered, but rose toshake hands. There was a look of melancholy in his eyes, in spite ofhis smile of greeting. 

"Anything wrong with you?" asked Justin, instinctively noticing thelook rather than the smile. 

"No, " said Cater. He hooked his legs under his chair, and leaned back, the light from the high unshaded window striking full on his leanyellow countenance. "No, there's nothing wrong. Got some things off mymind, things that have been bothering me for a long time, and I reckonI don't feel quite easy without 'em. "

"I think you're very lucky, " said Justin. The light from the highwindow fell on his face, too--on his brown hair, turning a little grayat the temples, on the set lines of his face, in which his eyes, keenand blue, looked intently at his friend. He was well dressed; the footthat was crossed over his knee was excellently shod. 

Cater shifted a little in his seat. "Well, I don't know. My experienceis some different from the usual run, I reckon. I never had any bigstreak of luck that it didn't get back at me afterwards. There was mymarriage--I know it ain't the thing to talk about your marriage, butyou do sometimes. My wife's a fine woman, --yes, sir, I was mightylucky to get her, --but I didn't know how to live up to her family. It's been that-a-way all my life. Sure's I get to ringin' the bells, the floorin' caves in under me. "

"We'll see that the flooring holds, now that you're coming in withus, " said Justin good-naturedly. "I've got some propositions to put upto you to-day. "

Cater shook his head. "There's no use of your putting up anypropositions. I've been drawin' on my well of thought so hard latelythat I reckon you could hear the pumps workin' plumb across thestreet. I've been cipherin' down to the fact that I can't go it alone, any more'n you, --there we agree; hold on, now!--but I can't combine. "

"You can't!" cried Justin, with unusual violence. "Why not?"

"Well, you know my feelin's about trusts, and--I like you, Mr. Alexander, you know that, mighty well, but I balk at your backin'. Idon't believe in it. It'll fail when you count on it most. It'll crampon you merciless if you come short of its expectations. Leverich isn'tso bad, but Martin cramps a hold of him, and I can't stand Martinhavin' a finger in any concern _I_ have a hold of. "

"He's clever enough to make what he touches pay, " said Justin. 

Cater's eyebrows contracted. "You say he's clever; because he'stricky--because he's sharp. He isn't clever enough to make moneyhonestly; he isn't big enough. You and me, we're honest, or try to be;but we haven't the brain to give every man his just due, and getahead, too. It's the greatest game there is, but you got to be agenius to play it. You and me, we can't do it; we ain't got the brainand we ain't got the nerve. _I_ haven't. You've just everlastingly gotto do the best for yourself if you've got a family; the best _as_ yousee it. "

"What's all this leading up to? What change have you been making, Cater?" asked Justin, with stern abruptness. 

"I've given the agency of the machine to Hardanger. "

"Hardanger!" Justin's face flushed momentarily, then became set andexpressionless. To stand out on abstract questions of honor, and thentacitly break all faith by going in with Hardanger!

"I shut down on part of my plant when I began figuring on thischange, " continued Cater. "I've been getting the steel fittin's oncontract from Beuschoten again, as I did at first; it'll come cheaperin the end. Gives us a pretty big stock to start off with. I wassorry--I was sorry to have to turn off a dozen men, but what you goingto do? I've got to cut down on the manufacturing as close as I cannow. "

"I suppose so. "

"I wanted to tell you the first one, " said Cater. 

"Well, I congratulate you, " said Justin formally, rising. 

"This isn't going to make any difference in the friendship between meand you, Mr. Alexander? I've thought a powerful lot of yourfriendship. If I'd 'a' seen any way to have come in with you, I'd 'a'done it. But business ain't going to interfere between two such goodfriends as we are!"

"Why, no, " said Justin, with the conventional answer to an appealwhich still pitifully claims for truth that which it has made false. The handshake that followed was one in which all their friendshipseemed to dissolve and change its character, hardening into ice. 

_Hardanger!_

Hardanger & Company represented one of the greatest factors in thetrade of two hemispheres. To say that a thing was taken up byHardanger meant its success. They took nothing that was not likely tosucceed; they _made_ it succeed--for them. Their agents in all partsof the known world had easy access to firms and to opportunities hardto be reached by those of lesser credit. Their reputation wasunassailed; they kept scrupulously to the terms agreed upon. The onlybar to putting an article into their hands was the fact that theirterms--except in the case of certain standard articles which they wereobliged to have--embraced nearly all the profits, only the verynarrowest margins coming to the original owners. Everything had to befigured down, and still further and further down, by those owners, tomake that margin possible. It was cutthroat all the way through--apolicy that made for the rottenness of trade. 

Justin and Leverich had once made tentative investigations as toHardanger, with the conclusion that there was far more money outside, even if one must go a little more slowly. It was better to go a littlemore slowly, for the sake of getting so much more out of it in theend. Hardanger was to be kept as a last resort, if everything elsefailed. Cater had expressed himself as feeling the same way; that wasthe understanding between them. But now? Backed by this powerfulagency, the timoscript assumed disquieting proportions. In thedistance, a time not so very far distant either, Justin could seehimself squeezed to the wall, the output of his factory bought up byHardanger for the price of old iron--forced into it, whether he wouldor no. Why had he been so short-sighted? Why hadn't he made termshimself sooner? But Cater had been a fool to give in to those termswhen, by combining, they could have swung trade between them to theirown measure. Then Hardanger might have been obliged to seek _them_, totake their price!--Hardanger, who could afford to laugh at hispretensions now!

He thought of Cater without malice--with, instead, a shrewd, kindphilosophy, a sad, clear-visioned impulse of pity mixed with hiswonder. So that was the way a man was caught stumbling between themeshes, blinded, dulled, unconsciously maimed of honor, while stillfeeling himself erect and honest-eyed! There had been no writtenagreement between them that either should consult the other beforeseeking Hardanger; but some promises should be all the stronger fornot being written. 

This thing _couldn't_ happen; in some way, he must get his foot insidethe door, so that it couldn't shut on him. There was that note ofLewiston's, due in thirty days--no, twenty-five now. What about that?

Later in the day, after he had been seeing drayful after drayful ofboxes leave the factory opposite, Bullen, the foreman, came into theoffice with some estimates, pointing out the figures with a smallstrip of steel tubing held absently in his fingers. 

While the clerks were all deferential, and those of foreign birthobsequious, Bullen had an air that was more than sturdilyindependent--the air and the eye of the skilled mechanic. On his ownground he was master, and Justin, with a smile, deferred to him. ButJustin broke into Bullen's calculations abruptly, after a while, toask:

"What's that you've got there? It looks like one of those bars thatnearly smashed us. "

"You've got a good eye, sir, " said Bullen approvingly. "A year and ahalf ago you'd not have seen any difference between one bit of steeland another. But there's one thing I didn't see about it myself untilVenly--he's a new man we've taken on--pointed it out to me. He cameacross a case of these to-day we'd thrown out in the waste-heap. Wethought our machine had jarred them out of shape, because they were afraction off size; well, so they were. But Venly he spotted them in aminute, when he was out there, and he asked me if they weren't fromthe Beuschoten factory--he was turned off from there last week;they're cutting down the force; they always do, come spring. He saidthey looked like part of a bum lot that had flaws in them. He got themagnifying-glass and showed me, and, sure enough, 'twas right he was!He says they've got piles of them they've been workin' off on thetrade at a cut price. Venly he said he didn't have any stomach for askin game like that. "

"That's a pretty ruinous way to do business, isn't it?" asked Justin. 

"Oh, they're going to sell out in July, so they don't care. I pity anyone that's counting on any sort of machine that's got these in 'em. Would you take the glass and look for yourself, sir? Every one of 'emis flawed!"

 TO BE CONTINUED